[Three of Seven]

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-sued-by...r-association/

According to a number of news sources, PC Gamer being just one of them, a French consumer group is suing Valve because changes to the refund policy wasn't enough to make it work with French law. Other sources are saying that it doesn't work with EU law either, PC Gamer listed the following from Reddit that are some of the sticking points.

• Steam's Subscriber Agreement explicitly forbids users to sell their games, despite the transfer of ownership of digital products/licenses being legal.
• Valve declines responsibility in the event that users' personal information is stolen.
• Valve claims ownership of the rights of any user-created content uploaded to Steam.
• It is impossible to get the money on your Steam Wallet back if your account is closed/deleted/banned.
• Valve applies Luxembourg's consumer law regardless of the user's country.

If action is successful, could the whole of the EU see changes to Steam? Do you think Steam needs to be fairer when it comes to consumer rights?

[Keenan]

Even if it is not successful, Steam/ Valve should make changes the consumers' want and in the spirit of the law.
They of course won't do that until the suit is settled so they don't admit they are wrong.

I am not versed in EU or international law, though Valve's servers may be in Luxembourg, hence their stance on the law.

[Solace]

Considering its taken Value so long to even implement some kind of refund system, its still severely limited. EU law says that consumers have the right to return ANY product within 14 days of purchase no questions asked (usually with some proof of purchase). Ideally Steam should follow that standard consumer right.

Issues like Steam Greenlight being plagued with substandard titles and half baked products, Steam really should police that aspect of it. The 2 hour restriction for refunds is simply unacceptable and some games have been known to have 1 repeating level that takes over 2 hours to complete!!

I agree that Value needs to be kicked into high gear now.

[Tatchi]

Hope they win this. Valve is like a mind altering drug. They are one of the worst companies out there, but everybody and their dog is fanboying over them while being treated like excrement by the company they so much adore.

Now granted, the sales are pretty nice. But there is no customer support and consumer rights are being laughed away.
I have bought some games that just plain do not work, despite me meeting all the requirements. The forums show it's not working for most people. Well guess what, no help and no refund.

[Three of Seven]

Steam has a bit of a monopoly when it comes to the PC market, people are reluctant to use other services to buy games on top of Steam, all of their games are located in one place and easy to find. So if your game isn't on Steam, you could lose out unless it's a big title. If there was a way to transfer licences or just have the option to boot a game up without Steam or another platform, then it would be much better.

Days gone past, games weren't linked to an online account, those were good days.