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Valve Fined $2.1 Million By Australian Court For Refund Policy

Valve Fined $2.1 Million By Australian Court For Refund Policy

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A Federal Court in Australia has fined Valve $2.1 million for consumer law violations that occurred due to the company’s policy of refunds on Steam. In particular, the punishment is centered on the fact that Steam had no advertised refund system in place between 2011 and 2014. Justice Edelman ruled that Valve “engaged in conduct which was misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive in contravention” by telling its customers that they had no right to refund for any games purchased through the online store. The fine must be paid within 30 days, unless the company plans to appeal the ruling The ruling also states that the following notice must also be displayed to all Australian users of Steam: “On 24 March 2016, the Federal Court of Australia found that Valve Corporation had engaged in misleading conduct contrary to the Australian Consumer Law in representing to Australian consumers via the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Steam Refund Policy that consumers had no entitlement to a refund in any circumstances

Valve Accused of Allowing Gambling in Counter-Strike

Valve Accused of Allowing Gambling in Counter-Strike

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The Washington Gambling Corporation wants Valve to know that it means business. Today, the commission revealed in a press release that the Valve Corporation missed an important deadline to end the transfer of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive items on Steam for the purposes of gambling. Valve apparently had until Friday, October 14 to explain to the state how the company was “in full compliance with Washington’s gambling laws.” Otherwise, Valve could face some serious actions. At the end of the day, the Commission claims that a Valve representative notified the governing body’s staff that Valve was still working on a reply to the previous letter, which will be provided on October 17. Speaking on the announcement, Commissioner Director David Trujillo stated: “I am disappointed that Valve Corporation missed Friday’s deadline, but encouraged that they have committed to responding today. I look forward to reviewing their response in detail.” Valve was said to have been notified it has to stop the transfer of virtual weapon skins for gambling activities on Steam. Otherwise, Valve has

Government Agency Tells Valve To Stop “Facilitating” Gambling

Government Agency Tells Valve To Stop “Facilitating” Gambling

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The Washington State Gambling Commission has told Valve in a statement released earlier in the week that it “stop facilitating gambling” on Steam. The issue seems to be concerned with the use of Steam skins, which a variety of sites have been using to run gambling systems that use the skins as currency to bet with. The main issue with this is that the gambling is completely unregulated. It also potentially allows those who are underage to gamble. While Valve has recently begun to send out cease and desist letters to these types of sites, the state agency thinks they should be doing more to make sure it doesn’t continue to take place. According to a statement released by the Gambling Commission, they first contacted Valve in February but have now want swift action to be taken by the game company to show that they are compliant with all state gambling laws. “Based on the information it has gathered, the Gambling Commission directed Valve Corporation to stop facilitating the use

BT Sues Valve Over Patent Infringement In Steam

BT Sues Valve Over Patent Infringement In Steam

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Telecommunications company BT is taking legal action against Valve, accusing the gaming company of using its patents on its digital distribution platform Steam. According to legal documents filed in the US state of Delaware, BT are filing complaints about four patents that deal with digital distribution services and personalized access to video games and content. BT claims that is has been in contact with Valve multiple times about the unauthorized use of the patents but received no reply, meaning that it had to take legal action to resolve the matter. “BT’s constant investment in innovation has seen it develop a large portfolio of patents which are valuable corporate assets, so it is only right that BT protects its investment,” said a company spokesman. The company has previously been involved in lawsuits against a number of other organizations in the past two decades. Much of the technology included in the patents is used in other digital services and distribution providers and BT has previously sued the likes of prodigy and Google.

JJ Abrams Still Working On Portal And Half-Life Movies

JJ Abrams Still Working On Portal And Half-Life Movies

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In 2013 JJ Abrams, the most prolific director in Hollywood today, announced he was throwing on his pile movies based on Valve’s Half-Life and Portal games. We haven’t heard anything since, and video game movies disappear into the void all the time, as most Hollywood projects tend to. IGN had to ask, are the Valve movies still in development? It’s been 36 months, so presumably the answer is “not,” right? Think again. Abrams confirmed both projects are still active, if a bit stalled. “Not yet, but they’re in development,” he said. “And we’ve got writers, and we’re working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update.” Of course, the obvious should be pointed out: JJ is now making films based on properties that creator Valve hasn’t done anything with in years, Half-Life especially. IGN didn’t bring this up with him, but they probably should have.

Gabe Newell Fires Commentator and Production Company Behind Dota 2

Gabe Newell Fires Commentator and Production Company Behind Dota 2

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Valve and CEO Gabe Newell have released both a commentator and the production company behind one of their popular Dota 2 Tournaments, Shanghai Major. The commentator was James Harding, and Newell stated the following on Reddit, “We won’t be working with him again.” He did give a more detailed account of the firing, stating that this was not Harding’s first offense, but rather the latest in a series of them. “We’ve had issues with James at previous events,” Newell explained. “Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake.” Finally, Newell stated that the production company who had been working the Shangai Major tournament will also be replaced. He added: “As long as we’re firing people, we are also firing the production company that we’ve been working with on the Shanghai Major. They will be replaced, and we hope to get this turned around before the main event.” It was apparently some vulgar language and comments that Harding made in his commentary segments

Half-Life Writer Retires From Valve

Half-Life Writer Retires From Valve

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According to a report by Polygon, it looks like longtime Half-Life video game writer, Marc Laidlaw, has retired from game production and Valve Software. In terms of the popular Half-Life franchise, Laidlaw wrote the story for Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and all its expansions. The revelation after an e-mail from Laidlaw on his departure from Valve was authenticated and posted onto the Half-Life Reddit. Speaking on his retirement, Laidlaw stated, “There are many reasons, most of them personal. An outwardly obvious reason is that I’m old, or anyway oldish.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t grant any hope for fans of the franchise, who have been in suspense on the status of the franchise since Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which was meant to part of a trilogy of episodes. Regarding the franchise’s future, Laidlaw reinforced that the ball is currently in Valve’s court because they are the sole owners of the game series. On the future of Half-Life, he said: “I don’t and can’t entirely know. Half-Life is fully owned by Valve. It came into existence before my

Valve Explains Christmas Day Problems on Steam

Valve Explains Christmas Day Problems on Steam

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While Christmas is a time for celebration for most, there are often things that go wrong on it for some. In the case of Valve, Steam suffered a number of issues on this past Christmas that caused many of its users to scratch their heads. From seeing Steam in a different language, to not seeing their own account, but rather another user, it was all very concerning. Valve has released a statement on what happened, as well as going into detail about how it happened. They state on their Steam page: “On December 25th, a configuration error resulted in some users seeing Steam Store pages generated for other users. Between 11:50 PST and 13:20 PST store page requests for about 34k users, which contained sensitive personal information, may have been returned and seen by other users. The content of these requests varied by page, but some pages included a Steam user’s billing address, the last four digits of their Steam Guard phone number, their purchase history, the last two digits

Steam Making Changes To Trading System

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  With Steam, it’s incredibly easy to both get a game, share a game, and even trade a game or the trading cards you receive for playing games to your friends or family. However, this has always made it so that if an account becomes hackable, games and cards can be stolen, via being traded away, without the users consent. As such, Valve has been researching ways to try and limit the number of trades that are made via the hacked accounts. Though numerous attempts have failed, they are now implementing a “Hold” system to try and ensure all trades are legitimate. Valve released a statement on Steam about this, the highlights of the new system they’re using are below. You can read the full statement here. Anyone losing items in a trade will need to have a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator enabled on their account for at least 7 days and have trade confirmations turned on. Otherwise, items will be held by Steam for up to 3 days before

UK GAME Stores To Get Dedicated Steam Section

UK GAME Stores To Get Dedicated Steam Section

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Valve has announced that it has partnered with the UK based GAME branch to launch a dedicated Steam section in all stores. The move will see the continued sale of pre-paid Steam cards and hardware such as the Steam Controller, Steam Link and Steam Machines. According to Valve, GAME will be the exclusive home of Steam hardware in retail stores, although digital services such as Amazon will also stock the products. The popularity of Steam has grown immensely over the past few years as it becomes the standard storefront for most PC gamers. It has also seen its user base increase thanks to the fact many products now use the service to redeem their own keys, such as Football Manager. GAME began selling pre-paid cards for the service three years ago and the sales of these have increased every year, making the dedicated section a smart business decision. “Creating a ‘store within a store’ across North America and the UK is a significant win for getting the first generation of Steam

Valve Uncertain About an International Counter-Strike Tournament

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In case you didn’t hear the other day, an international Dota 2 championship tournament was held, with the winners getting millions of dollars (the total pot was $18 million). This proved emphatically the level of desire and skill in video game tournaments. Given it’s success, you’d think that more tournaments, especially ones with highly played titles, would be brought up as soon as possible. But for Valve, their second most played game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, is still without a tournament. Valve’s Erik Johnson did note that Counter-Strike could be coming to the Source 2 engine soon, but when asked about when a tournament would happen, he noted to IGN, “I don’t know that it has to be coming.” “We’re pretty comfortable with different projects taking different approaches to solve similar problems,” he explained. “As a company we actually learn more when we do that. If we all point everything in the same direction, we’d have a real blind spot for when we’re screwing up. In some ways, you want to diversify

New Portal Table Set to Arrive on Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball

New Portal Table Set to Arrive on Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball

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Per Polygon, the hit Valve franchise Portal is going to have its own dedicated table for Zen Pinball 2 and Pinball FX2 later this month. You can check out the gameplay overview for the Pinball FX2: Portal game in the player below. The new pinball version of Portal features appearances from many of the franchise’s most favorite characters, including Chell, GLaDOS, Atlus and Peabody. Zen Studios has been outgoing in licensing other franchises and properties for its pinball game series before. My personal favorite was probably the Deadpool Pinball game, which had Nolan North back voicing the Merc with a Mouth yet again. Zen Studios getting to do a pinball game featuring Portal characters and design elements looks like a lot of fun. It may not be Portal 3, which might not ever happen, but getting a Portal pinball spin-off game is quite alright. The virtual pinball table based on Portal will be available on May 25 for $2.99 on consoles and PC and $1.99 for mobile OS. Hopefully, Valve will still consider

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