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Valve Takes EULA Seriously, Permabans Customer
You know all the fine print you don't read when you sign up for most types of digital accounts? It can cost you over a thousand dollars in games, as one Steam user recently found out the hard way.
Steam user Lowblock posted a message inquiring about possible interest in purchasing the rights to his Steam account on Reddit about a month ago. The account in question had nearly $1800 in games tied to it.
Ten days ago, Lowblock wrote a follow-up post on the site, detailing the incident. Though he didn't manage to sell the account, he posted pictures of an email correspondence seemingly showing Valve customer service confirming that his Steam account is permanently disabled for simply offering the account for sale.
Fair? Bogus? Whatever you think, Valve has the right to do what it likes according to the (unreadable legalese) license agreement you are forced to agree to in order to use the service. Though testing such agreements in court has mixed outcomes, the onus is on the offended party to bring a lawsuit. Something tells me that Valve has a little more spare cash to drop on lawyers than Joe Gamer looking to sell off his games for a quick buck.
Personally I love Steam and use it nearly every day, but the fact that you give up this level of control over the games you purchase is enough to make any gamer nervous.
[via Ars Technica]
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