Earlier this month, Valve updated Steam`s subscription agreement in a language that prevents customers in dispute from suing the company and requires them to accept the decisions of an “independent” arbitrator paid by Valve. Unfortunately, this type of arbitration decision imposed in agreements with end-users is not new. Last year, after the hacking of PSN, Sony amended the agreement of terms of use of PSN to include similar statements. However, they also contained a clause in the agreement that allowed their customers to retain their right to sue if they wrote a letter to the company stating that they wanted to unsubscribe. No matter how it works in the end, it`s a good example of why gamers shouldn`t be excited about the all-digital distribution revolution that video game publishers are rushing to. Often you don`t buy a game, but just a license to play a game. The problem (as evidenced by Steam`s new subscription agreement) is that the license can be withdrawn from you at any time, for any reason and without compensation. Update: Valve has since posted on its forum that the account has been reactivated. What happens if you violate the Steam subscription contract and have a library with games worth close to $2000? As one user has learned, you lose access to all these games.

Your account games are no longer available for future use. It is impossible to make your games available once your account has been deactivated and your information deleted or archived. Once we have permanently deactivated the account, we will no longer be able to reactivate the account to a future request. The user in question, who has a total of 1,794.52 games $US on his Steam account, decided to ask how much another person could pay for such an account. “Of course, I don`t want anyone to pay $1,800 on my behalf,” the player wrote on Reddit. “I look at the money of course, not the full price, since I bought most of them for sale, but maybe we can come up with some kind of deal… Of course, if someone registers me, I will remove my credit card information from the account, along with my friends list. In a subsequent Reddit article, the user states that he or she simply asked “how much someone would pay for a profile-like profile” and that the account was never actually sold or exchanged.