9mo ago

New Steam Agreement gets rid of forced arbitration and waivers for class action lawsuits

Noticed this update got pushed just now.

Edit: Seems they’re doing this to prevent costs from arbitration. Read comment below.

Steam @lemmy.ml

abobla @lemm.ee

9mo ago

New Steam Agreement gets rid of forced arbitration and waivers for class action lawsuits

41 comments

They're only doing this because of the class action being brought against them. It's cheaper to let this go to court than to try and settle tens of thousands of individual arbitrations. In fact, there are plenty of companies now reversing course and realizing how badly forcing arbitration can backfire.
Edit: For those unaware: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/video-game-giant-valve-hit-with-consumer-class-action-over-pricing-2024-08-12/
- It's a little hard to square "steam is over charging for games" with "look at all these games I bought for 80% off ($5) off", but I guess there's more to it.
  
  After a short read, the case is specifically "Steam is prohibiting developers from selling their games to other platforms, at a price lower than that of steam, and then pockets the 30% platform cost, due to effective monopoly power".
  Which, if true, is super bullshit.
  
  I think part of the issue is steam allows publishers to set region specific prices and lock users into a region.
  You pay $89 for an annual subscription package, somebody in brazil pays equivalent to $32.58.
  By definition it is discriminatory.
- Ah that makes sense, it’s oddly suspicious they’d do this out of the blue. Though I am curious at the arbitration. Can they not include a clause that just says that the forced arbitration can be waived by them when they so choose? I feel like they would make carve outs for these big cases if they could to where they can still arbitrate on smaller cases which costs them less.
  (Also updating my post text, thanks!)
Seems like a good thing?
I was wondering if it was related to anything passed recently, because another service had to change privacy rules to opt in over a rule change in Cali. I just assume if it sounds like a good thing for consumers, it probably wasn't their choice, lol, but I guess in this case it's just a cost cutting measure.
I at least appreciate them being pretty clear about what's different now.
- I think there's a bit of a sea change in business generally where arbitration ended up being worse for corporations if too many customers/employees used that option because it meant paying a bunch of money for each case instead of dealing with one class action suit.
  While the arbitration courts themselves are generally biased to corporate interests, it's not enough of a thumb on the scale to make up for the huge downside.
  
  I've seen some arbitration agreements stating that you can't collaborate with other customers who are affected by the same issue, requiring each customer to have a different attorney.
  Some companies really want to make it impossible for you to win any significant damages against them.
  At that point, they are just telling on themselves.
- From what I've read, it can go either way (note: not a lawyer).
  Arbitration is easier for people to seek compensation, but it usually prevents any significant damages and doesn't set a legal precedent that others can use to easily get compensation.
  Court cases are harder to start and generally require a lawyer, but if you win you can get significant damages and it can set a legal precedent.
  So it's usually best for the consumer to have a choice on how to pursue issues. I have seen a lot of companies lately update their terms for arbitration only though, so this is at contrast with how most companies I've seen are handling things.
  
  Having been sued by copyright vultures, I definitely get the difficulty with court. The minimum just to have a lawyer retainer was 2500. The vultures told us to essentially give them 2400 and the problem would go away (a strongly worded email managed to get them off my back, but mostly because they clearly used bots).
  I can see it weed out small cases less than that. I guess it'd help if I knew what people were sueing over.
Honestly really pisses me off how often I see people try to normalize forced arbitration clauses.
It isn't normal, and should never become normal, and in many cases should be outlawed.
So you realise that when a lawsuit has a larger corporate backing, they get to bribe the arbitrator more than you and now you back off from arbitration.
Sad that this cannot be done to companies that already agree with others.

41 comments