Valve Software could be facing legal trouble in Europe thanks to Steam’s End User License Agreement. The Federation of German Consumer Organization (known as the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. in German, or VZBV) has given Valve until October 10th to respond to a claim that its recently-modified user agreement is unfair to consumers. If Valve doesn’t respond, the group will seek to “resolve the dispute in the court.”
The VZBV believes Valve’s agreement coerces users into accepting, as hitting "cancel" when the agreement pops up prevents users from logging into their accounts. The group believes this leads to "disadvantaged" Steam users and that Valve should uphold a recent ruling by the EU Court of Justice that users should be able to resell digital software.
Recently, Valve has been in the news for its Big Picture Mode beta, sweeping changes to Steam’s community and launch of Steam Greenlight. Last week, reports of Valve’s hardware plans continued circulating, including the fact that its first hardware beta could come as soon as next year.
We’ve reached out to Valve for comment about the Federation of German Consumer Organization’s claims and will update with any statement we receive.
Source: CinemaBlend
