Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead
2 years ago by umami_wasabi to c/gaming
its not exactly for the positive reason you think. theyre trying to prevent the class action lawsuit going around the (UK?) right now and realized when a certain amount of people take the arbitration, it gets fairly costly, so they reverted on that clause.
regardless fuck arbitration, its like paying off judges but even more transparent about it.
its basically doing the right thing for the wrong reason (reverting arbitration cause not for thr consumer, but for their wallets)
Still, the effects benefits the consumer, so I would consider this a good thing.
Also, I wonder if we can do the same to other companies and let them revert course.
I'm pretty wary of corporate propaganda, but from the article this sounds like a pretty clear case of some greedy people taking advantage of Valve offering to cover all arbitration costs. Yes, they're doing this to cover their ass, but it's not a malicious move and I don't see how it could be interpreted as anti-consumer.
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I mostly like Valve, and agree that going too far with Stan-ing over a company is dumb. However I think the majority of people that tend to greatly support Valve comes down to both pushing tech and games forward into better consumer directions, and that they are currently not joining in on the mass enshittification as other companies (but of course all big companies can and will do some level of that given enough time).
With regards to pushing tech, they have done more (in at least the last 10 years) to force Linux to be seen as worth supporting. Their efforts to actually add to projects that were already around has been game changing. And that they kept actually putting time, money, and resources into it even after their initial efforts with Steam Machines and the original SteamOS didn't gain traction on a mainstream level. The Steam Deck keeps outshining the other options even while being technically less powerful specs and they are putting work in to make sure things like drivers are released to help people that choose to install Windows.
But all the positive stuff will only keep happening so long as people don't start feeling locked out or cheated. I forget a lot of the time how bad many users hated them back when the original versions of Steam were released. Many of the issues people had and were concerned about were valid and could have tanked Valve if they didn't do everything they could to address them. If they start pulling shit like EA or really any of the console companies have done. Then it will be their time to see massive losses and get all the hate that is deserved.
I would if it had any lasting power. I mean, can't they just push out another eula update 6 months from now when this change is no longer useful to them?
Fuck arbitration, of course, I'm just not expecting this to really mean anything.
"Specifically, the named Plaintiffs won binding decisions from arbitrators rendering Valve's arbitration provision unenforceable for both lack of notice and because it impermissibly seeks to bar public injunctive relief."
So none of these stupid clauses are valid? FOO FYEAH!
Anyone can ELI5 this thing? I'm pretty lost
Twofold: One, they lost a case in arbitration that basically said arbitration isn't usable.
Two: Lot of companies do arbitration to avoid court, which works fine and is cheaper if you're not getting taken to court much. If 75,000 people that could do a class action suit all go to arbitration though, the benefit is lost. Lawyers threatened that. 3 grand a arbitration case x 75,000 people == 225 million dollars on fees alone.
Thank you, when does steam need to do arbitration?
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