Valve Modifying Steam's EULA, VZBV Files Complaint With Court Of Berlin

I know it's been a few months since our update on the whole VZBV versus Valve situation, but things have finally come to a head and while Valve will be modifying Steam's EULA on January 31st to grant players more leniency in the terms and conditions, the Federation of German Consumer Association (vzbv) is still not entirely happy with Valve's progress on the matter.

The last we heard about the fallout was back in October, where Valve made a response to the Federation of German Consumer Association after the group made a bid to get Valve to adhere to the new EU law that enables the resell of digital distribution, something that is unavailable on major digital platforms such as Steam and Origin.

According to a VZBV representative, Eva Hoffschulte, I was told that... “now we have submitted complaint against the company to the district court Berlin.”

This follows on a public announcement made on the VZBV website, where the they lay out exactly what's been happening with Valve and how they've been fighting for consumer fairness in the terms and conditions of the EULA, as well as granting users more stability in the long-term ownership of the product(s) purchased through Steam.

According to the VZBV, they are seeking to take this as far as the Supreme Court in order to protect and strengthen the consumer rights within the digital distribution medium on a few conditions 1.) They feel it's unfair that some products launch at full price but the consumer is unable to easily or conveniently refund or resell the product like any other consumer good on the market, such as a board game. 2.) The purposed technical hurdles put in place by digital distributors to prevent or prohibit the resale of digital software works against consumer interest for the long term and sustained growth of digital distribution (think 20 years from now where consumers will be tied by the balls by any and every major corporation who decides to jump into the digital game space with their own set of restrictions and purchasing conditions).

While many fanboys may be up in arms to defend Valve and the Steam platform, I do believe that the VZBV are looking out for the long term effects this sort of restrictive form of consumer services can have when purchasing, selling, reselling or exchanging goods.

This turn of events could also play a pretty big factor in how digital resale works when the Steambox goes live.