Valve will be there for you in court. Steam has just updated its subscriber agreements to state that 'all disputes or claims will be handled in court.'

You might have received a helpful pop-up message in your Steam game today if you don't live in the United Kingdom or EU. It informed you that updates to Steam Subscriber Agreement affected your consumer rights.

The notice states that Valve will be removing its forced arbitration clauses and class action waivers for the affected countries. "The updated dispute settlement provisions are in Section 10, and require all claims to be resolved in court, not arbitration."

As the name implies, a forced arbitration clause forces parties to a contract who have agreed to it to arbitrate disputes. Instead of going to court you and the respondent - in this case Valve - would have several meetings with an arbitrator who can then give a legally binding "award".

This clause's ability to handle certain cases depends on the laws of each country. For example, in 2022 the United States Congress stopped forcing arbitration for sexual assault cases. But, generally, they are considered a more efficient way to resolve legal disputes. However, they are often criticized for giving a lot of control to the respondent. Arbitrations are usually devoid of juries. Arbitrators can take into account "apparent fairness", rather than the exact letter or the law. If you lose, it is very difficult to challenge.

Why has Valve changed this? While I've reached out to Valve (and will update this post if I get a response), i'm willing to wager that "arbitration overload" is the reason.

In 2020, companies such as Comcast and AT&T found themselves in a bind when a few enterprising attorneys discovered that people who were subject to forced arbitration could band together and submit their arbitration requests all at once. The New York Times stated: "Many firms, it turns out can't handle caseload." It's like a real DDOS attack.

DoorDash, for example, had to pay millions of dollars after receiving 6,000 claims. DoorDash was forced to pay by federal judge William Alsup who stated (via NYT), "Your law firm and the defense law firms tried for 30 years not to bring plaintiffs to court... suddenly, it's no longer in your interest." You're now wriggling around, trying to find a way to get out of your contract.

turns out thatValve was hit by arbitration zergs recently. Reuters reported that Valve filed a suit against Zaiger late last year after it alleged antitrust violations on behalf more than 50,000 users of Valve's Steam game distribution platform.

In the case, Valve posted a series slides in which it allegedly described the move, as an "investment opportunity". The slides read: "we could begin recruiting claimants for the claims that a federal court has now ruled to be well pleaded and potentially viable, but for which billion customers have been forced to arbitration"--that is their bold and italicisation and not mine.

There's a website that still exists, if you look for it. It claims "you may be entitled to compensation of hundreds or thousands of dollars due to these illegal business practices."

Now, listen. Valve may have changed its policy regarding forced arbitration for a completely different reason. However, I'd bet that the Zaiger case is likely a part of why the company has decided to do away with this clause. Steam's new agreement states that subscribers outside of the UK and EU will be subject to:

"You and Valve agree to have all disputes and claims between Valve and you (including any dispute that arose prior to the existence of this agreement or any previous agreement) brought and maintained exclusively before any state or federal court in King County, Washington that has subject matter jurisdiction."

If you live in a country affected by the ban, Valve will literally be seeing you in court.