There is NO circumstance where a company has a right to take away something you OWN. And Steam markets it's games as being SOLD. Everywhere... on every page... they use the term "Buy" or "Purchase."

And as you can see from THEIR OWN SUPPORT PAGE, they use the term "How to BUY A GAME" and "How to purchase GAMES" and NOT the term "Buy subscription" or "Buy a license" or anything else. Everywhere they market it as though you are BUYING A GAME.

But yeah, I agree with you that s/he was in the wrong here. The right response is to ban him/her from the forums, block his/her ability to contact support anymore, something like that. Not take away something they have bought and paid for and own. I simply can't wait until someone sues their ass for thievery, false marketing, and whatever else they can.

I'm still not convinced to be honest. He did something not very clever but his account was suspended not for abusing the system but for being annoying it seems. Wouldn't be enough to put him on their automated list "you will not receive any further assistance regarding this matter"?

There is a limit to what can be called simply 'annoying', beyond which it starts to become harassment. If they really did send hundreds of support requests, I can see why they would make that threat (it seems drastic but I doubt they thought they'd have to follow through with it).

Let us stop it here, we don't know the whole story for sure. All I can see is maliciousness on both sides, OPs and Steam Support and I'm trying to be objective.. I'm impressed with such a long, not automated responses from SS anyway : )

I agree with you in general, I really really do. Once we went to account-based "ownership" though this kind of thing was inevitable. Valve would argue they certainly shouldn't be forced to serve an obvious shady and harassing character, and I can somewhat see that perspective. I honestly think the problem is more the words on those buttons ("purchase," "own") than anything else.

Note this applies to GOG as well, who I assume could ban you in extreme circumstances and you would only still "own" what you had downloaded and backed up.

You don't own games. You own a license. That is standard everywhere, even here. In this case the licenses are not revoked, however access to them is. It amounts to the same thing. But you've never purchased a game in your life, unless you are a rights holder who has bought the actual rights to a game somewhere. You've always ever only purchased a license.

Even when you bought physical copies of games, you were purchasing a license to use it. You couldn't legally reproduce (except as a backup) or anything. You could transfer your license to a new user by selling or giving your copy to someone because the medium itself was transferrable. But you've never bought and sold the game itself.

BTW, has anyone else noticed how civil the discussion in this thread has been?

Why can't we do this all the time?

Good question. Like the old days eh?

See, this right here is bullshit. They weren't saying "you're a naughty person and we don't want to see you on Steam ever", they were saying "pay up, bitch". If the OP's actions were worth a permanent buttplug, if he were such a *~danger~* to the community, they should've banned him permanently. Instead, by their own rubric, they were selling the peace and security of the Steam community for sweet cash.

FWIW, it looks like he shouldn't have been banned the first time around either. Third-party moderators can and do ban people left and right; OP's crime was banning people who actually consented, aka not being a cockbag.

Too bad, OP. #sfyl. Sometimes cockbags win. Welcome to GOG. If it makes it any better, I signed up here when I lost my apartment and all the stuff in it to an actual criminal gang. Lern 2 english, keep your head, and you'll make a fine career in infosec and show them all (evil laughter optional).

I guess technically it's the 5th Amendment in the U.S. But that's just here.

...said no infosec nerd, ever >.>

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The great thing about being told off by Fairfox is that you're never really sure if she actually told you off.

Uvcos Fairfox tuldz u ofz!

From what I understood, he found a bug in Steam Community's features that allowed him to ban users who never posted on the Discussions (of a sub-forum?). Not even random users, just a small subset of friends he knew. He reported the issue to Valve, and BAM, ban.

Later on, he got another community ban. A month later, he tested the self-locking tool provided by Valve, and noticed that...it *actually removed his community ban.* He reported the issue to Valve, so that the community ban can be reinstated and the bug fixed...and got the hammer. While some things are too vague and ambiguous, I think I understand the gist of it. His bug reports which he found [i]only after running into them[/], were met with...this hell. What makes this worse is Kaby's English. No offense there, but I had a hard time wrapping my head around what you were saying.

Valve really went overboard with this. Support was playing the "this is non-negotiable" card on an issue that was basically "hey there, your tool removed my ban, you should fix this", and then it ended with the loss of everything he owned. And Valve had the gall to suggest him to open a new account. I don't think he's entirely innocent either (I still don't know the details of the 26 week ban), but the whole ordeal is absurd.

Valve still has the power to remove your account and get away with it. And without your account, well, no more playing games for you. It is no surprise that people still care about DRM. The maximum he should have gotten was the timed community ban reinstated and the self-locking tool bug addressed. Why is Valve still getting away with this crap?

Anyways Kaby. Welcome to GOG!