STEAM SUBSCRIBER AGREEMENT

The Constitution of an Entertainment Platform

NET303 - Online Policy Primer prepared by Warwick Janetzki,Curtin University of Technology, Australia. October 2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareALike 3.0 Australia License.

What is Steam?American based Valve Corporation advertises their Steam (2013a) software application as “the ultimate entertainment platform.” This enables their user base to “play, connect, create and more.”

However, there is much more to Steam than Valve declares to its potential user base. Steam in actuality is a “digital distribution, digital rights [management] and communications platform” (Giant Bomb, 2013).

Digital Distribution

“Digital Distribution is a distribution method in which content is delivered without the use of physical media, normally by downloading from the internet straight to a consumer’s home” (USLegal).

In their role as a digital distributor, Steam enables users to download software, mostly games, directly from their servers. This eliminates the necessity of owning physical discs. It is important to note that many games have a large download size so the user requires an Internet connection with a substantial bandwidth quota. An advantage of Steam’s digital distribution is that developers can update their software and ensure that users have immediate access

to the latest version.

Digital Rights Management(DRM)

Communications Platform

Why Steam MattersSteam Statistics

What is the Steam Subscriber Agreement?

Importance of the Agreement

“In the world of cyberspace, the selection of an architecture is as important as the choice of a constitution. For in a fundamental sense, the code of cyberspace is its constitution. It sets the terms upon which people get access; it sets its own sovereignty.” (Lessig, 1998)

Thus, we gain an understanding that the Steam Subscriber Agreement serves to support the architecture of Steam’s platform, the Steam client itself. The agreement informs users of their rights and obligations as well as those of Valve. The policy extends so far as to protect Valve Corporation in a number of events including the transmission of computer viruses and fraud.

The Agreement is NOT User Perfect

Steam and Identity Deception

Although creating a Steam account is simple and relatively quick there is a potentially dangerous problem in allowing anybody to create an account.

As accounts are identified by e-mail addresses anyone can create an account linked to a free e-mail account (such as Gmail) and then claim to be somebody they are not. This creates an issue of identity deception in order for criminal gain. Users are free to purchase games from the Steam library and then trade or gift their inventory purchases to another user. Steam (2013b) does not reverse trades that are a consequence of identity deception or scamming.

An Issue of OwnershipDigital Rights Management

For More Information…

Glossary Communications platform: Digital distribution: Digital Rights Management (DRM): Identity deception: Steam: Valve Corporation:

Giant Bomb - http://www.giantbomb.com/steam/3015-718/

Lessig (2nd module)

Steam About Page

Steam Logo

Steam Subscriber Agreement

Steam Trading PolicyUSLegal - http://definitions.uslegal.com/d/digital-distribution/

References