Strangely Valve protect themselfs very well with their ToS. You got no right to argue about their descision the moment you accept the ToS. And they can do a lot of things with your personal information ;)

It's strange that you find that strange, my friend. :)

It's strange that 30mil users signed that ToS without even reading it :)

You will never see any official notice from Steam why any user is banned, because it will be in disclosure of personal information. The person in question do get noticed, they never get banned "without a reason" - they may not like the reason, or find the reason silly, wrong, short etc. but they will always be given a reason. They can then try to rebut this, but the reason is there. However, this will be in a private conversation between the user and Steam, and it is then up to the user if they want to make this public or not. This user did so in the Steam forums, even copying parts of his correspondence with Steam there. However this is a long time ago now, and I really can not be bothered digging through the forums again.

Of course there are reasons. Official and "unofficial" ones. No doubt about that. The reason that user complained was that he never got any response from Valve for his personal request. RPS stressed that issue as well. Perhaps, in the end there was something, but I have not seen it.

If you knew there was a reason then why did you say "Them banning that individual from Russia without any explanation"?

And off course there where correspondence further, as he got his games unlocked again, but with a limited account....

Edit: Anyway - I am going to leave this now, I realise it has derailed this thread long enough....

Because they did not _explain_ that reason, whatever it was? I never anywhere said they banned him without a "reason" - I said "without explanation". I guess you are mixing me up with somebody else, really. And there could be virtually "any" reason. "Pushed the wrong button", for example, is also a reason - as it is a cause that leads to a result (not saying that is the case here - just adducing some fictional sample).

When he got access to his games back, RPS said that "even though the user got his access back, there was still no explanation from Valve". Perhaps, that user was insincere, or RPS. I have no idea. This is the information I have. I thought you might know more on the case, that is why I asked you to share it with me.

Your missing the point. You are no longer an "End User". The EULA doesn't apply to you anymore in those cases. You are "outside" the license agreement and therefore liable.

OK uglys, your attempts to find fault have left me unconvinced.

I begin development tomorrow. I have a couple of questions.

Is there any way to validate that a steam key is for a particular product, without redeeming that key?

Is there any form of electronically transferrable currency (other than bitcoin)? Something like a paypal gift card?
btw, I never thought I'd say it, but it is good to have a lawyer about the place.

I have an ever better idea. Why don't all gamers of the world found a club/association/society/corporation based in some nice country like Switzerland or New Zealand and buy all their games only through this entity as a middlemen. In this way we have only one region left to deal with and withing this entity sharing, exchanging whatever is solely under restrictions of our own.

Only before we will have to break the resistance of the companies to deal in this new way. If we all act together this should be piece of cake. And fully legal and within the economic system. The power is truly with the majority customers, only they don't know it yet.

As long as you don't use the bloody expensive as hell Eurodollar I could go for it...