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[Cthulhu]

I for one have had no problems with steam, although I have heard plenty of horror stories about stolen accounts.

[Jakkarra]

thats odd... when i got my steam acc haxed it was returned to me within a day of me asking for it back.

i believe he was asking for the CD-key of the game or credit card info (not enough to steal it) thats what i did, they required me defacing my CD-key with permanent marker, but thats a small price to pay for over £100 worth of gamage.

my post sounds very "nyaaah nyaaaaah" for some reason

[Soulwynd]

I loved steam until they decided that I should pay double because I live in Europe, with their arbitrary 1€ == 1$ crap. I still play all the games I've bought there and I think steam as a system is quite good, but I haven't bought a steam game since before christmas and won't until their prices are reasonable again.

Yeah that's totally insane. I cannot even understand why this is not considered illegal practice in EU laws, after all they are charging you higher prices with no justification at all.

Uh... Because people are free to charge whatever they want? You're not forced to buy from them, you know. You can buy a cheaper boxed copy in a store then register it with steam.

I for one have had no problems with steam, although I have heard plenty of horror stories about stolen accounts.

Oh yeah. If you check the forum, it's full of those as well. People even post the customer service emails and it's horrifying how useless and non-helpful they are. There's one guy who has been fighting with them for around a year now, he got his account back after 6 months, but since whoever stole his account fucked up his Vac he can't play any online games and the steam people wont fix it at all. They even replied to him saying he shouldn't have used 3rd party programs to cheat in the games more than once while he quoted emails back from the same support about how he got his account stolen and retrieved, so it wasn't him cheating. That's a slap on the face.

They need to increase security, add multiple emails, secondary passwords, the ability to take a photo of one of your IDs and store it with them so you can take another photo and confirm it's you, things like that.

I know things can be stolen physically as well and it's not a store's job to retrieve them or refund you, but since they are online and you -depend- on them to play the games you bought, being better about it would increase their credibility.

thats odd... when i got my steam acc haxed it was returned to me within a day of me asking for it back.

i believe he was asking for the CD-key of the game or credit card info (not enough to steal it) thats what i did, they required me defacing my CD-key with permanent marker, but thats a small price to pay for over £100 worth of gamage.

my post sounds very "nyaaah nyaaaaah" for some reason

Well, you got lucky, it seems. I have no means of proving it's me with them, besides using the email address they have registered in the account. Maybe if they store C/C info, but that would be just as scary as having your account stolen. I have no physical boxes and I'm not aware of any keys of any of the games I bought with them.

[Drakale]

Uh... Because people are free to charge whatever they want? You're not forced to buy from them, you know. You can buy a cheaper boxed copy in a store then register it with steam.

Well the US Antitrust law have many clauses that apply for this kind of behavior, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

I have no idea if the EU has something similar.

[Cthulhu]

They really should implement some hardcore security if VAC is going to ban you forever.

[Sowelu]

Uh... Because people are free to charge whatever they want? You're not forced to buy from them, you know. You can buy a cheaper boxed copy in a store then register it with steam.

Well the US Antitrust law have many clauses that apply for this kind of behavior, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

I have no idea if the EU has something similar.

From your wikipedia article:

In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a felony that applies in some of the United States only during civil emergencies.

It ONLY applies to "essential" goods.  It NEVER, EVER applies to art whatsoever.  Ever.  And people often say 'antitrust' when they mean 'monopoly', and even THAT just means that you have taken over a market and are exerting unfair advantage over it.  Because Valve is somehow preventing all other companies from making and selling games. (Antitrust itself is usually invoked when the government helps a company obtain its monopoly, IE, phone or electric services, and then expects them to play nice)

[Drakale]

Well some games are delivered only through steam, so it is a monopoly...

For the essential good part, that is not a requirement, it has been applied to many non essential things. But yeah, its not a very clear law either, more like we do what we want with it and you shut up :p

Anyway i'm not a lawyer or anything, I just have the gut feeling that this kind of money grabbing is not very kosher.

[Tilla]

Uh... Because people are free to charge whatever they want? You're not forced to buy from them, you know. You can buy a cheaper boxed copy in a store then register it with steam.

Well the US Antitrust law have many clauses that apply for this kind of behavior, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

I have no idea if the EU has something similar.

Did you actually read the wiki article you linked to? It specifically states:
 Price gouging may be charged when a supplier of essential goods or services sharply raises the prices asked in anticipation of or during a civil emergency, or when it cancels or dishonors contracts in order to take advantage of an increase in prices related to such an emergency

[Soulwynd]

It's their product... You know... What you are trying to say is that 5 star restaurants charging 15 grand for a dinner is illegal. It's their product. You're not forced to buy it.

Now if every restaurant did that, you might have an issue.

Give examples of it being applied to non-essential things because honestly, I think you're wrong about it.

[Sowelu]

Well some games are delivered only through steam, so it is a monopoly...

I made a painting.  I think it's worth two thousand dollars!  You disagree, you think it's more like one thousand, but I won't lower my price.

MONOPOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No.  You can't monopolize a brand and you can't monopolize art.  PERIOD.  EVER.  You can monopolize a class of things, but this doesn't even remotely count.

[Drakale]

Wrong, the painting is unique, games are not they are considered individual copies even if they only exist in digital form.

It's their product... You know... What you are trying to say is that 5 star restaurants charging 15 grand for a dinner is illegal. It's their product. You're not forced to buy it.

Now if every restaurant did that, you might have an issue.

Give examples of it being applied to non-essential things because honestly, I think you're wrong about it.

Valve distribute games from other companies through their service, and they are only available through that service because of the DRM. So in short many different company use a single service that is required to use their product. That's a monopoly. I think. Don't hurt me if i'm wrong.

Remember Microsoft Windows, they got a lawsuit for monopoly in europe recently with many millions in damage.

And after rereading it the anti-gouging law might not be applicable after all, sorry to bring it up :/

[Sowelu]

Wrong, the painting is unique, games are not they are considered individual copies even if they only exist in digital form.

Fine, then I'm only going to sell prints of my painting for $100.  Monopoly!!!

Or maybe I make an agreement with a company whereby THEY will sell prints for me.  I sign a contract with them that gives me a cut of whatever profits, and allows them freedom to set their own prices, while letting me choose to sell my own prints if I want to.  They sell my prints in Europe for 200 Euros, and you don't think they are worth that much.  I don't bother selling them in Europe any other way at all.

MONOPOLY?!

No.

[Soulwynd]

Did you read why they were actually sued? *sighs*

Seriously, you can buy any non-valve game outside steam and then register it with steam. It's no monopoly. Even the orange box came in... a box... Which you could and still can buy elsewhere.

[Drakale]

Well the microsoft case is similar in that it give them an unfair advantage that they can capitalize on because of no viable alternative. i.e. Any sale of a large variety of games, if done online, has to go through steam. Valve can then fix prices at will, only losing sales if they go way overboard and retails purchases start to pick up.

But yeah it's not a real monopoly because retail still exist so I'll just shut up now.
It's still wrong, morally if not legally.

[Soulwynd]

Well the microsoft case is similar in that it give them an unfair advantage that they can capitalize on because of no viable alternative. i.e. Any sale of a large variety of games, if done online, has to go through steam. Valve can then fix prices at will, only losing sales if they go way overboard and retails purchases start to pick up.

But yeah it's not a real monopoly because retail still exist so I'll just shut up now.
It's still wrong, morally if not legally.

Uh, no... Microsoft was sued because in it's license, any vendor that was also a microsoft supplier had to pay royalties for any computer sold whether it had windows installed or not. It became a snow ball from there, I think the last one was because windows came with media player and browser, which completely ruined the chances of any competition in that area.

Seriously, steam isn't monopoly. You don't require it to play non-valve games unless they were bought through steam. Which is something they should fix. A way to deattach a game from steam and play it without having steam.