Steam-powered Coal From Santa
by madzoombax on Jan.04, 2010, under Steam, Tools
The Scenario: You really love Steam, Valve Software’s online game marketplace, distribution platform, and community tool. You purchase all of your games there and rely on it for nearly all of your gaming needs.
You have even gone so far as to re-purchase many games you already own, just to have them on Steam. You’ve spent thousands and have well over 400 games in your Steam collection.
The Problem: During a sale, you buy a $9.99 game bundle with Click-n-Buy, which is literally as easy as clicking and buying from within Steam. But you spend that $10 before the payment clears, and Valve is then charged back for $9.99 on your account.
Roll ahead a couple of days when you return from Christmas vacation and want to play some games over New Years break. But when you restart Steam, you find out your account has been disabled and you have lost access to all of your precious games.
The Solution: There isn’t one. Pay Click-n-Buy back, who will pay Valve back, who will hopefully enable your account again after they get their money.
This is the problem inherent in digital distribution today. If you want the convenience of having your game library managed by a third party, you need to rely on the to give you access to what you would otherwise own outright. If you get on their bad side, they usually have the right to take it all away with little to no notice to the user at all.
I didn’t mean to charge Valve back $9.99, and that would be stupid to do, given that I have happily given them thousands of dollars for my current Steam-powered game collection. None-the-less, I had no games over New Years break, and am still waiting for my personal Steam account to be enabled again.
I am no hacker. I am no fraud. I am a loyal patron, game developer, and industry fan who has spent thousands on Steam and made one small $9.99 mistake. While it will likely be corrected and all will be back to normal, it is still a scary thought, and it still makes me cherish the few games that I do have boxes and discs for–even in hard financial times, I can always get them out and play them no matter what.
But I still love Steam. And I encourage everyone who likes the idea of digital distribution to utilize the service to its fullest. Just don’t ever mess with the distributor because they truly do have the power.
No related posts.
