Valve opens Euro office, updates Steam terms
Disallows class action lawsuits, improves individual claims.
Before you can use Steam, you must agree to Steam's terms. And those terms - the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Valve's Privacy Policy - have been updated.
Valve has also opened a new office in Luxembourg to better serve its European audience with. Nice place, Luxembourg - has a population of half-a-million and a capital city named Luxembourg.
The most significant change to the Steam terms concerns taking Valve to court over a dispute.
As of now, class action lawsuits - groups of people taking Valve to court - are disallowed. And again, if you want to use Steam, you have to agree to this.
"In far too many cases, however, class actions don't provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims."
Valve
"We considered this change very carefully," insisted Valve on the Steam website.
"It's clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases, however, class actions don't provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims.
"Class actions like these do not benefit us or our communities. We think this new dispute resolution process is faster and better for you and Valve while avoiding unnecessary costs, and that it will therefore benefit the community as a whole."
To counter this, Valve has improved the dispute process for individual claims, and will now reimburse any legal costs under a certain amount - if it gets as far as arbitration or small claims and Judge Judy.
"Reimbursement by Valve is provided regardless of the arbitrator's decision, provided that the arbitrator does not determine the claim to be frivolous or the costs unreasonable," Valve wrote.
Valve has added new terms relating to the Steam Wallet and Steam trading "to accommodate new features and capabilities of Steam", too.
Yes, yes, but where is Half-Life 3?