Mario Bautista
Valve has changed its Steam subscriber agreement (SSA) to remove forced arbitration, meaning gamers can sue Steam over disputes instead of having an arbiter handle it.
“We’ve eliminated the requirement that disputes be resolved by individual arbitration,” Steam said in a community news update. “As always, we encourage you to contact Steam Support when you have any issues, as that will nearly always be the best way to reach a solution.
“But if that doesn’t work, the updated SSA now provides that any disputes are to go forward in court instead of arbitration,” Steam adds. “We’ve also removed the class-action waiver, as well as the cost and fee-shifting provisions, that were in prior versions of the SSA.”
(Credit: Steam)
If any disputes arise, the agreement says people will work things out in court in King County, Washington, which is Steam’s home turf. Steam users will be prompted to read and agree to the new SSA the next time they log in if they haven’t already done so. Steam notes that the updated SSA will be effective immediately when making most purchases or funding your Steam wallet but will otherwise become effective on Nov. 1, 2024.
For some customers, the arbitration clause never applied, including people living in the EU and UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Quebec, so they won’t notice any change.
Steam didn’t give a reason for the change, but as The Verge points out, forced arbitration can be faster for a company but doesn’t always work out in the consumer’s favor.
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Steam is also dealing with a class-action lawsuit in Washington state for “allegedly maintaining an unlawful monopoly in the PC gaming market by restricting price competition,” according to Hagens Berman, the law firm that filed the suit. Per 404 Media, the plaintiffs in that case started with arbitration, but convinced the arbitrator to let them sue. (Valve faces a similar suit in the UK.)
In December, Valve also sued Zaiger, a small law firm, for attempting to “extort” a settlement from Steam by threatening mass arbitration. Hagens Berman has also filed a number of suits against high-profile companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Google.
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