Problems with Steam

[Erenoth02]

Hopefully most of you have heard about steam, a wonderful program that allows you to play your games from an account on any computer you own.

Ne way, over the years I have accumulated over 30 games on my steam account however now I cannot access them, and Steam support will not reply to any of my messages.

heres the problem, with my love of adventure games I purchased Monkey Island 2 SE from steam and couldnt wait to play it, i already beat number 1, so upon starting it up I was immediately crashed to my desktop, I got a message about some DRM error.

Later I found my internet was shut off, when I inquired with my internet provider they forwarded me an email from Lucas Arts, stating that I was under investigation for obtaining a pirated copy of Monkey Island through steam.

The long email entitled the file as Monkey.Island.2.Special.Edition.Steam and requested I delete the game immediately any further playing of the game would result in further consequences. 

I emailed LucasArts and sent them my receipt from Steam, they replied that I would need to have a Steam representative contact them.

So I emailed Steam and explained the problem and they told me I would need to handle the problem with Lucas Arts, they had my purchase in  record but there was nothing more that they could do.

So I deleted the game and signed a waver promising that I would never Pirate again and registered my IP address with the watchlist so my computer could me monotored....

Since I was very irritated with Steam I logged into the Forums and posted a rant under their support section explaining my problem and complaining about not getting any help, I went on to further argue that this is the reason that pirates are created, when gamers get slapped around by the system some of them are prone to become software pirates not wanting to deal with DRM issues I ended the post with a request for Forum users to post their support against DRM and software Piracy. Saying how  can we blame gamers for becoming pirates when the new DRM settings are getting honest gamers into Piracy, please petition with me to make a change.


So... immediately my post was locked and deleted.... and Steam informed me that I was now Banned from logging into steam, and the ban would never be lifted, and the reason? Advocating Piracy.....

now I cannot access my steam account or games.... and after 100s of emails and calls to Steam Support I am getting nowhere.....

any help would be appreciated, am I really going to have to consider involving a lawyer?

[Barbarian]

Trying to get help from Steam Support on the Steam Forums won't work.

The only way to get official Support from them is to open up a Support Ticket with them here:
https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php

More details about how to go about submitting inquires to Steam Support here:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1223-QROC-4460

Explain your situation in detail, proof of purchase, and whatever other details you deem important.
And, then, you'll have to be patient until they reply (which can take a couple days, up to a week or more sometimes depending on how busy / backlogged they are).

If you did nothing wrong, and if they see you got your game for your account legitimately, then they should fix things for you.

Good luck.

[Erenoth02]

The problem is that they could not help me, I had to deal with Lucas Arts myself by deleting the game I purchased with Steam and signing an agreement to never download and install Pirated software again, Steam admitted somewhere the wires got crossed and they were sorry but there wasn't much they could do about the lawsuit poised from Lucas Arts since they were unwilling to take my receipt as proof.

Therefore I posted my Aggravation on Steam Forums in an attempt to draw a petition and support from steam users, but it was deemed that my post was advocating piracy when it really was not.

That being the case Steam placed a BAN on my account since I had, by their standards advocated piracy, and in their User Agreement any user who advocates piracy must realize that their accounts will be Permanently  Banned from any future use.

sorry about the long post....

Apparently Steam takes the stance that if you advocate piracy then your apt to pirating the games you download from them, to avoid lawsuits they strictly adhere to closing suspected Gamers accounts.

[Barbarian]

Major bummer man.
In hindsight, I guess you shouldn't have signed anything admitting guilt to pirating that game if you didn't.

I guess you should count yourself lucky in the sense that you only lost access to around 30 games.
I know that's still a fair chunk of money and games, but some Users (such as myself) have over 100+ games purchased via Steam.

I've never had any account or billing problems with Steam, and I always keep an up-to-date anti-virus running, firewall, never share my account login details with anyone and keep things legit.

They are rather fussy about anyone suggesting they support piracy in any way on their forums, but, I feel your pain, and DRM is a pain-in-the-aaa and doesn't stop piracy at all, (and Steam in itself is a form of DRM, but it's more acceptable than most, such as when compared to something like UbiSoft's horrible "always must be connected to internet while playing, even a single player game, or get dropped from the game", or some games that install some DRM crap that's equivalent to malware), and often times seems to "punish" the legitimate paying customers rather than the Pirates.

When it comes down to it, as you already signed something admitting to "guilt of piracy" on your part, then you might be out of luck in this case. If you still wanted to use Steam, then, you'd probably have to start all over again with a brand-new account, and any games you had bought before are lost and would have to be re-bought for your new account if you wanted to play any of those same games again.

Or, you can look at alternatives such as http://www.gamersgate.com/

If you had tons of money to burn and wanted to pursue the matter with a Lawyer, then good luck with that.. but, chances are you won't have a leg to stand on (especially if you already signed something equivalent that basically admits to "guilt of piracy" on your part), you just end up wasting your time and money, add stress to your life, and if you look at the big picture, it's not worth it. Steam has a team of lawyers on their side, and basically their wall-of-text EULA already preemptively covers their butt against most cases or claims against them.

I still like using Steam, it's convenient, I have easy access to my games Library all in one interface, and about 95+% of the time if I do buy a game I'll wait 'til it's on a good discounted sale price.  But, I've been cutting back on my spending, so I only perhaps get the odd deal once in a while for some game I may have had my eye on for some time that I really wanted.

Anyways, where was I.. I think from the details you've given, you might be fighting a lost-cause if you try to pursue it. So, like I suggested, you might just have to cut your losses and start anew with a fresh account, or use some other method to get games (Such as GamersGate or Retail Stores).

Best regards.

[Stupot]

Are they allowed to just totally shut down youre account with all 30-odd games in it just because they 'suspect' you of pirating one of them?  They must realise how unfair that is.  If you genuinely didn't pirate any of those games then they've basically judged you guilty before giving you a chance to prove your innocence.  And then they tell you to sort it out with LucasArts?

Thats like having someone from HMV coming round your house and burning your entire DVD collection because they suspect you might have pirated The Dark Knight, and then telling you to sort it out with Warner Bros.

When a zero-tolerance sance would be fair, Steam seem to be taking a minus-30-tolerance stance on Piracy.

I hope you sort it out Erenoth

[Anian]

I really don't have any advice for you but to keep trying and if you have a close friend (like you actually know) that uses Steam, ask him/her to access their forums and/or send a ticket and explain the situation in detail and say that you're sorry, but were just angry etc. and ask what you should do.
If Steam offers to unlock your account and maybe give you store credit for the price of the game, I suggest you take it.

Yeah, you should've reacted more subtly (I realise it's unfair, but it usually brings more complications than solutions) and signing the papers also might have been a mistake.

[Igor Hardy]

Erenoth02, I'm afraid your situation is very very common. This is how Steam works nowadays and there's little to do about it. They're simply abusing their dominance on the market and not caring about individual customers having swarms of new people continuously coming in. I keep hearing about accounts being closed just because of people posting somewhere a link to SteamCalculator with the worth of their account - apparently some Steam Alert Bots can easily interpret all kinds of statements accompanying such links as attempts to sell your account. Other times your criticism of DRM is considered confirmation that you pirate games.

The best and only protection/prevention for this is the same as for being arrested in totalitarian countries - do not stand out in any way when discussing Steam, never criticize them, and mention your account id as little as possible.

Your only hope is keep bugging the Steam support. Be aware though that it's very common that Steam doesn't lift such hastily given bans. Try to seek out other people in similar situation (maybe some who recovered their account).

...and signing the papers also might have been a mistake.

As a side note, contrary to popular belief not everything you sign has that much binding power - depends on the document, the deal and the circumstances of signing. Nevertheless, going against LucasArts or Valves lawyers doesn't seem like something a single unhappy customer would have a chance succeeding at, unless there were huge sums of money at stake.

[Anian]

Btw a very important warning - Steam sent a couple of months ago a kind of questionare and a system check sort of probe, I thought about filling it out, but a friend said it found everything he had installed on his pc, not only some pirated stuff he had, but stuff he thought he deleted months ago or only had some files left on the disk. Next day I saw the think pop up and just clicked no.

So if you have (or had) any pirated software, don't fill and send out those, I mean, it's not just being banned from Steam, it's a serious privacy probing...and I for one only like to be probed by aliens.

[Wyz]

Jeez I was quite shocked reading this topic. I knew Steam uses intrusive manners with DRM (the main reason why I decided to never install it again even though I bought some games that use it, I use pirated versions for those games even though I actually bought them) but this is beyond ridiculous and right in the alley of scary totalitarian regimes.

I guess there is noone to protect users from overpowering companies in this world and it truly saddens me. I also was shocked that your provider just shut you down just because some company sent a email, what the hell. You had to sign something that incriminates you even though you did nothing wrong (if I can trust you on that ). And then steam just covers up anyone who gets in their way. You might have said some stupid and harsh things but the claim you advocated piracy gives them all the freedom to cover up anyone who asks the wrong questions.

But let's see it in perspective, you paid for a service and they denied it. Even though they might worked out the legal stuff to put them out of the line of fire, they are still denying paying customers their goods. The only way this is ever going to stop is to make people aware what sticky situations this can get them into. I only talk about paying customers since the people who pirate have no worries. This is the world up side down, and it has to stop. Right now. I think the media should do their job and tell the people that DRM and aggressive anti piracy actions will fuck paying customers over, if people stop buying games in this way then maybe they will learn. Maybe bad publicity is enough, but we must not let them intimidate us.

[blueskirt]

I never fooled myself and knew Steam could pull the plug on my account anytime they wanted but I couldn't be arsed to do anything about it, after reading your story, I think it's about time I start using it as little as possible.

[Kweepa]

I'd be more concerned with LucasArts' and the internet provider's behaviour. Cutting off internet access because they suspected piracy? Ouch.

To play devil's advocate, I can understand Valve cutting you off, since you did the equivalent of walking into their living room and shitting on the carpet. You say you didn't advocate piracy, but you at least condoned it.

Anyhoo, good luck getting things back in shape. Did you get your internet back on line?

P.S. That Steam Calculator is scary. I'm not sure I'd trust it with my id.

[Igor Hardy]

To play devil's advocate, I can understand Valve cutting you off, since you did the equivalent of walking into their living room and shitting on the carpet. You say you didn't advocate piracy, but you at least condoned it.

They could have banned him just from the forums. Taking away the games you legally bought doesn't seem very legal to me.

P.S. That Steam Calculator is scary. I'm not sure I'd trust it with my id.

Anyone can put your id in there. I mean, actually just your Steam name is needed.

[Darth Mandarb]

You paid for those 30+ games.  They have NO right to take them from you.  They bitch about piracy = stealing and then they steal from you.  It's the exact ridiculous hypocrisy that is why I am a peg-legged-eye-patched-and-proud Pirate.  The industry needs to wake the f**k up and realize that the ONLY people their anti-piracy nonsense affects are their legitimate customers.  We pirates don't suffer in the slightest from their gestapo tactics.  In fact what they did is worse.  Because you don't have your games (that you paid for).  Piracy doesn't deprive them of their product, their thievery deprives you of things you've paid for.  And they get away with it.  It's disgusting.

You should NEVER EVER EVER x 10 have signed that bullshit from Lucas Arts/Steam admitting to piracy because now you have no leg to stand on, sadly.

I love the irony that in trying to stamp out piracy all they do is create more pirates.

I'm afraid that now you have no choice.

They have forced you into my world.

The peg-leg takes a little getting used to but the parrots are a hoot.

[Igor Hardy]

You should NEVER EVER EVER x 10 have signed that bullshit from Lucas Arts/Steam admitting to piracy because now you have no leg to stand on, sadly.

I doubt signing that thing could be of much importance in a legal case. The validity of any suspicious written statement can be easily questioned, especially if the person signing it was forced to do it, as it is the case here.

[Calin Leafshade]

I too doubt the validity of that 'contract'. If it's signed under duress and/or without a lawyer present it's simple not valid (at least not in the UK)

[LimpingFish]

I've never had any problem with Steam. Even on a certain occasion when I kept getting an error for a purchase I was trying to make, I sent a support ticket and got a reply later that evening.

Having said that, I've seen lots of threads on the Steam forums with people complaining about DRM and such - there's a thread updating as we speak, with people complaining about Assassin's Creed 2's DRM, and talking about how it doesn't stop piracy, is draconian, and how only pirates get a fair deal - but nobody seems to be locking it. There's another asking specifically how many people would buy the game if it didn't have such DRM, again unlocked. I'm certainly have no love for DRM, but I'd question it's effect on increasing the number of pirated copies being downloaded. Long-term pirates are pirates by choice, and will pirate a game regardless. Very few, I would think, are, for want of a better word, political pirates; or rather, a minor amount compared to the total.

If Steam banned everybody who brought up DRM and piracy on the forums, you'd be seeing dozens, if not hundreds, of accounts disappearing.

As to whether or not Valve is abusing it's power, I can't say the media is alive with stories of over-banning. EA mistakenly locked someone out of their EA account a month or so back, and gaming sites were awash with the story, demanding to know how it happened. If Valve were wantonly banning people left and right, we'd be hearing about it.

And as I've said before, in relation to pirating anything, the best course of action is simply not to buy the offending product. Pirating because you disagree with DRM is a weak argument in my opinion.

As to the Steam survey scanning the programs installed on your computer, yes, this is true. It scanned mine and it knew I was using perfectly legal copies of ZoneAlarm, Avira, Firefox, GiMP, and other innocuous software. I don't think Valve needs to know this information, so I didn't submit it. You aren't under any obligation. But I've never heard a story of Valve spotting a pirated copy of, for instance, Photoshop, and notifying Adobe or banning the users account for endorsing piracy.

So, in short, I don't have a problem with Steam or Valve. They've never prevented me from playing anything I've purchased from them.

Yes, their EULA, like most, might lay down the law a little thick, and I know nobody ever reads an EULA, but you can't really complain when they lay the smack down for violating something in the small print. It sucks, its not really fair (in the grander sense of the word), but they can do it.

What the hell would anyone use the Steam Calculator for anyway? If you want to see how much you spent, look at your receipts. If you want to use it wave your Steam-engorged genitals around, then you are, unfortunately, a prat.

@Erenoth02: The fact that Valve, if that is indeed who it was, got in touch with LucasArts, who in turn got in touch with your ISP, is pretty amazing to me. The fact that you signed a contract is even more amazing. Can I ask what country you are in, and who your ISP is? Was this the first time you've been accused of pirating?

We partially have the shitty "Three Strikes" law here in Ireland, but I've yet to hear of a case of it being enacted.

[Igor Hardy]

As to whether or not Valve is abusing it's power, I can't say the media is alive with stories of over-banning. EA mistakenly locked someone out of their EA account a month or so back, and gaming sites were awash with the story, demanding to know how it happened. If Valve were wantonly banning people left and right, we'd be hearing about it.

There are lots of articles about this. I heard more stories about Valve over-banning than about that EA problem - that one about EA on purpose (not mistakenly) locking out a client of his EA account. To be fair, these Steam bans seem like a relatively new trend and for sure I'd like some more solid and unbiased info about them. I started following news about Steam bans after that famous case of Steam banning all people who said things making them suspect of having a pirated Garry's Mod.

So, in short, I don't have a problem with Steam or Valve. They've never prevented me from playing anything I've purchased from them.

So far.

So far I'm really enjoying Steam as a service too. I also like pretty much everything else about Valve. But I'm not enjoying the possibility of being randomly banned someday. And their banning tactics seem illegal and scary to me - basically they steal legally purchased games from people.

Yes, their EULA, like most, might lay down the law a little thick, and I know nobody ever reads an EULA, but you can't really complain when they lay the smack down for violating something in the small print.

Sure you can make a valid complaint (at least in the EU), especially if that particular EULA violates customer rights, but not only then. Nevertheless, it ultimately doesn't matter because you won't start a legal case like this just for a couple 100$ or less.

[Calin Leafshade]

Sure you can make a valid complain (at least in the EU), especially if that particular EULA violates customer rights, but not only then. Nevertheless, it ultimately doesn't matter because you won't start a legal case like this just for a couple 100$ or less.

The EFF would probably take a case like this if the problem could be shown to be widespread.

[Peder 🚀]

I personally don't use Steam much, but this sounds really unfun.
What I hate these days are the fact we pay big money for unfinished games and big names and then later on end up having to pay for DLC's that really should of been with the game in the first place and that cost us a stupid amount of money, JUST so these companies can get even more money. But still we don't do nothing about this! And still we buy all these games and DLC's.

It is very sad to see all these companies being run today with nothing but money on their minds. Profits, profis and more profis with huge yearly payouts to investors. And people in higher positions having huge wages when those who really do all the hard work making these games get probably paid ALOT less, and in some cases don't recieve what they are supposed to recieve. I also hate the fact that all these larger companies buy in all the other ones. I miss the old days with these smaller companies making their own games, and most of them releasing their own games. Giving great customer support and so on.

I don't want to take this offtopic and maybe it would be interesting to create a new tread about what I am gonna say now, I believe us humans are starting to accept way too much from both companies and in general from people controlling the world and such. We will dislike prices going up, changes being done and so on but what do we do to stop it? Are we getting too lazy or what?

I find it strange that your copy of MI2 SE at all got mistaken for being a pirated version in the first place. If there are bugs in the Steam system that can end up reporting games as pirated when their not then I find this a very serious problem. And that Steam could not contact LucasArts is also strange. Their a part of their "content providers" (or what ever to call them) so sending them an email should not be much of a problem. Then again LucasArts should of been able to resolve this between them and Steam(Valve) in the first place if you ask me.

Also I am also interested in knowing where you live having your internet taken of by your ISP and everything...

I also wish you good luck of getting access to your account again and if there is anything I can do to help let me know and I will gladly help you out!

[LimpingFish]

There are lots of articles about this. I heard more stories about Valve over-banning than about that EA problem - that one about EA on purpose (not mistakenly) locking out a client of his EA account.

So far I'm really enjoying Steam as a service too. I also like pretty much everything else about Valve. But I'm not enjoying the possibility of being randomly banned someday. And their banning tactics seem illegal and scary to me - basically they steal legally purchased games from people.

The EA ban was ultimately claimed by EA to have been a mistake, due to computer error. The story is, though, that it was an over-zealous moderator who decided to ban the user from the forums and somehow managed to also ban him from his account, so who knows? The ban was lifted afterwards. Why the story caused such interest was because the "victim" claimed to have been banned from his EA account due solely to his actions on the EA forums, which is clearly not acceptable. And if Valve banned the OP from all his purchased games, over something he said on the forum, then this is also not acceptable. But since EULAs are, as I alluded to, so encompassing as to cover a company under almost all circumstances, there isn't a lot he can do about it. Although, as Calin said, the EFF might know better.

I wouldn't call Valve bans "random" - it's not like they're sticking a pin in a list of user names, and banning somebody because they might have done something wrong. The Modern Warfare 2 bans were only for that single game, not account-wide, and the innocent caught up in them had their bans lifted and received some form of restitution. As Gabe Newell said:

"The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks)."

So an admittance of guilt, and an explanation, if a little flimsy, were offered.

The Garry's Mod situation was also, as far as I can tell, a ban from that specific game, not an entire account, and a sting operation by the games developer to combat pirates.

As to forum bans resulting in account bans, it's not mentioned in the Steam Forum Guidelines, so if this is indeed why the OP was banned from his account then has grounds for a reversal.

All of which makes me sound like a Valve apologist, which I'm not. But underneath legitimate concerns over DRM and consumer rights, there's a lot of hysteria and demonizing.

EDIT: Steam's EULA actually makes for interesting reading. Particularly the "Term and Termination" section.