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December 2025

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[claws]

The fact that blocking the account is rendering all games unplayable is actually more a byproduct, than an intentional move (Steam provides a service, you don't pay for (a part) of that service, Steam discontinues the service). But of course the leverage that provides is probably quite welcome.

They should clearly use some of that massive pile o' cash they just made to hire some more support people. But there's Steam as a service (game patching, friend lists) and Steam as a platform (buying games, etc). I can understand barring him from the service parts, but from the platform is just ridiculous. To use an analogy, if you are caught cheating on the Xbox 360, you lose your online account, but it doesn't set your Xbox on fire.

Valve are basically abusing the ephemeral nature of digital distribution, where people are somewhat accustomed to not having their normal rights. While we'll never get proper account resale/etc, I hope RPS or someone calls them out on the banning thing. If mine got banned, there is no way in hell I'd be rebuying games as some have.

[egg]

The fact that blocking the account is rendering all games unplayable is actually more a byproduct, than an intentional move (Steam provides a service, you don't pay for (a part) of that service, Steam discontinues the service). But of course the leverage that provides is probably quite welcome.

They should clearly use some of that massive pile o' cash they just made to hire some more support people. But there's Steam as a service (game patching, friend lists) and Steam as a platform (buying games, etc). I can understand barring him from the service parts, but from the platform is just ridiculous. To use an analogy, if you are caught cheating on the Xbox 360, you lose your online account, but it doesn't set your Xbox on fire.

Valve are basically abusing the ephemeral nature of digital distribution, where people are somewhat accustomed to not having their normal rights. While we'll never get proper account resale/etc, I hope RPS or someone calls them out on the banning thing. If mine got banned, there is no way in hell I'd be rebuying games as some have.

Agreed, also in essence the cash you hand over to valve covers two things.. the license to use the software (game) and the commision to valve for using there distribution platform.

Fair enough let them stop you using steam, but you are legally allowed to us the software that you have paid for on the license, especially if it's a third party license, valve have no legal standing to say you cannot play Fifa for example. (if its a valve game then the license may have something in there regarding them allowed to stop you using all of valve software)

[discordance]

Maybe some sexual favours for Teatime could gain an interesting "The Fort" article?

Already thinking about it, but we all know the Fort is not exactly the most public of websites. No, this needs either a bigger site covering this or at least several smaller (yet popular) sites.

I think the main problem in this case is bureaucratic procedures involving not one, but two big companies and some piece of misinformation which fails to get resolved because everybody's just looking on his own computer screen and insisting that this paints the ultimate truth of things.
Simply put the screen at Steam's side says "No Payment", the screen on Deadly's side says "Payment confirmed". I hate to say this, but Steam support is right that only the middleman (PayPal) can resolve the issue.

The fact that blocking the account is rendering all games unplayable is actually more a byproduct, than an intentional move (Steam provides a service, you don't pay for (a part) of that service, Steam discontinues the service). But of course the leverage that provides is probably quite welcome.

Theres plenty of ammo against the steam platform, from the poor security, lousy support staff, shutting down of accounts for non payment/hat scams. Banning of players on VAC from all games including when an account is reported hacked (due to their lousy security). Lack of refunds which is legally contestable in EU courts (although by no means a guaranteed win, however valve provide the steam platform as a free service when you pay for a game this is an additional service on the platform which you do not make use of until you first start to download the game, a judge would have to be convinced that this is the start of service and a sign of consent from the purchaser, valve would try to argue service is begun as soon as access to the game is provided (a weak argument but I'm sure they can afford expensive lawyers)).

[Zarf]

Simply put the screen at Steam's side says "No Payment", the screen on Deadly's side says "Payment confirmed". I hate to say this, but Steam support is right that only the middleman (PayPal) can resolve the issue.

Exactly, which is why Deadly went to Paypal, who looked into the claim and came down in his favour. He has done everything right here but Valve are still refusing to see that they are in the wrong.

[discordance]

The valve support staff appear to feel they can't do anything but hand out canned responses, from past experience they are totally inflexible and refuse to acknowledge anything that exists outside of their response sheet. I might give gabe or robin a try but tbh I'm sure nothing but bad press is going to force them to change their ways, if you email say gabe he might lean on support for you maybe but afterwards he'd probably just bring it up with valves business people who would tell him everything is fine and nothing to worry about and to go back to episode 3 (lol)

[Millicent Bystander]

You might want to put a call into Watchdog, if they take it up then Valve will be in a world of commercial pain

[DeadlyAvenger]

Well I have decided that even if the issue is resolved, I think more people need to be made aware of the issue so I am in the process of writing a complete story/report of what happened. I guess once I've done that I'll distribute it to a few of the computer games websites (RPS, Kotaku etc.) and try someone like Watchdog (good idea btw)

The pain in the ass is writing the report in a coherent manner - but it seems to be coming along well so far (even if it does end up being VERY long).

I'll let you guys see it too - maybe some of the more literary among you will give it a once over before I decide to submit it to a wider audience

[Nineblade]

maybe some of the more literary among you will give it a once over before I decide to submit it to a wider audience

Yeah send it over Sam and I'll correct any mistakes

[Brahms]

Certainly makes me think twice about buying games on steam. There was a time where the premium seemed worth it for the lack of cds etc etc. But considering all this...

[Chaos]

Well I have decided that even if the issue is resolved, I think more people need to be made aware of the issue so I am in the process of writing a complete story/report of what happened. I guess once I've done that I'll distribute it to a few of the computer games websites (RPS, Kotaku etc.) and try someone like Watchdog (good idea btw)

The pain in the ass is writing the report in a coherent manner - but it seems to be coming along well so far (even if it does end up being VERY long).

I'll let you guys see it too - maybe some of the more literary among you will give it a once over before I decide to submit it to a wider audience

feel free to add my story to yours if you feel it'll enhance it.

[Hzza]

feel free to add my story to yours if you feel it'll enhance it.

my nam r chaos i gut haxd and gut band then dint pay fur me stuff an got band 'gain

Something like that right?

[DeadlyAvenger]

Ok...I've written a draft of how things have gone so far - up to this evening and my response to the news from Valve yesterday.

I have tried to write it in such a way that it gives the whole story from start to finish in a way that is at least reasonably interesting and could easily be distributed to news outlets etc.

Unfortunately it is *very* long - 4,200 words - and obviously isn't the complete story either.

Here it is in PDF/online format:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6eGDTDENqRyYWYyZDY2YWYtYzYxZC00ZDYxLThkOTUtZjA4YzU0Mjc1NTRi&hl=en&authkey=COiViJQD

P.S. That only took like an hour and a half to write - I wish I could write 4000 words in that time normally!!

[Lazzars]

Ok...I've written a draft of how things have gone so far - up to this evening and my response to the news from Valve yesterday.

I have tried to write it in such a way that it gives the whole story from start to finish in a way that is at least reasonably interesting and could easily be distributed to news outlets etc.

Unfortunately it is *very* long - 4,200 words - and obviously isn't the complete story either.

Here it is in PDF/online format:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6eGDTDENqRyYWYyZDY2YWYtYzYxZC00ZDYxLThkOTUtZjA4YzU0Mjc1NTRi&hl=en&authkey=COiViJQD

interesting read but it needs some major editing for anyone to go through it. otherwise you'll end up with plenty of tl;dr.

try describing the preamble in 1 paragraph and then get down to what happened, i don't think you going through the reasons you might have been banned and then debunking them would be terribly important, after all if you weren't innocent then you wouldn't be writing the article.

all the back and forth emailing makes it a long read. perhaps shorten it down to an abridged version without emails, just the gist, then upload the longer version for them to link to for full article?

DON'T think i'm just slamming your writing because i don't like it! this does need to be heard, drumming up support through the gaming community and then getting other people who have had the same trouble to voice their concerns would add strength to your argument. your only problem is that if its way long like it now then no site will put it up simply because, on a site with so much content, people don't spend that long on one article.

[Teatime]

Will read it a little later.

I did - out of curiosity - a search on google "steam paypal" and on the first few pages you see numerous links to forums where people apparently had similar problems (didn't follow the links, though). Be aware that "numerous" does tell us very little because we have no means to quantify any of this. The actual interesting part is that I've seen not a single link to an official site which might have covered such an instance or the problem itself.

This might mean that indeed no "journalistic" site is aware of this. (Okay, could just as well mean that no site found this newsworthy - rather unlikely - or has for some reason tackled and dismissed it).
So I would definitely say to try to make this public. Maybe it causes Valve/Steam to make a statement, to explain themselves.

[Teatime]

Okay, read it now.

It was probably a mistake not to involve PayPal earlier, Sam. If I read the timeline correctly the initial purchase happened on September 7th, then there was a long back and forth between Steam and you (regardless the fact Steam advised you to contact PP) before you eventually contacted PP on September 22th (which then resolved the issue). But that's not my main point here.

I wonder how quickly you made the 2nd purchase of Chimes after PP told you they would refund the money. I bring this up because I suspect that the failed purchase never was a problem (Steam itself claimed the purchase never got through), but perhaps the refund of the first purchase "collided" with the second purchase, meaning that PP might have refunded the money for the second purchase.
This is speculation, but perhaps it would be worth to contact PP once more to get a statement that both transactions have been handled correctly on their end. Once they confirm that you also have a (written) statement you can forward to Steam. Additionally the option "PayPal contacts the seller to allow them to respond to the dispute" could be helpful.