Also because there are no "regular use of account lockouts". Account lockouts are very rare, in most cases valve first removes certain privileges, such as gifting and activating new games. The user can still access games they have on the account before the restrictions, and the restrictions may or may not be removed after investigations (which can take a lot of time and the user may need to raise hell to get them lifted...).

But the publisher of a book or a movie does not have the power to come into your home and confiscate it, no matter for what nefarious purposes you have used the book, no matter what idiotic ideas of self-entitlement the CEO's of the publisher have, they cannot take it back. There is no physical or legal process by which a book or even a movie which you have purchased (instead of rented or borrowed) can be returned to the publisher without your full acquiescence.

The fact that game publishers have thought up ways of interfering with your ability to use the item you purchased doesn't mean that that is the only morally correct way of going about it. Sure if people want to pay for something that can and will be taken away at a mere whim, it's not up to me or anyone else to stop them. But a free market means we as consumers have a choice. That means that we would all be protected from publishers violating any agreements they offer us. Including the ability to play their games.

You mean not to buy, or which choice?

Actually they do have a way to confiscate your book or movie if you do something wrong with it. Try buying a Harry Potter book and then take it to a copy shop and produce 5000 copies of it and sell it online and see what happens. Hint: All your copies will get impounded by the court along with the original copy and you will face jail time or a huge fine.

That just goes to show there isn't really a very significant difference in "owning" videogames or other media. You are not allowed to make changes to the content, reproduce and/or distribute any of it, whether it's a novel or a game, even though you may feel you own it. Sure, noone talks about EULA's when selling a novel but in the end this "you do not own a game, you own a license" argument is just juridical nitpicking and not relevant in terms of what it actually means for the customer in daily life. A bookshop is not the same as a library and a game shop is not the same as a gaming service.

Nice try, except that no one has claimed that Valve has ever banned most of its users. There, I torched your strawman.

But, the way they have banned people from all their Steam games for minor things (like discussing in public how much one would get from his/her Steam account if he sold it, or Paypal problems with a single game, or gifting games hence circumventing area restrictions (wow, like buying a region-restricted DVD movie for a friend abroad!)) clearly demonstrates how much Valve feels you have "rights" to access your games. You have absolutely none.

Same applies to EA Origin of course, banning people from their games for using (or quoting) a four letter word in EA forums etc.

LOL!

Applying a chargeback to any steam purchase will also get your entire account banned every single time. In theory it's done as a preventative measure, but it can take weeks to get the charges sorted out, during which time you have zero access to your games. Chargebacks are a legitimate form of consumer protection and one of the main reasons credit cards became so ubiquitous... and they're guaranteed by law to boot. A full ban is NOT the correct precaution, especially considering Valve's reluctance to actually lift the bans, especially when the chargebacks were done legitimately.

True. The correct action for Valve would be to remove that particular game from that user's Steam catalog, and possibly prevent the user from "buying" any more games from Steam until they feel it is safe to allow him to do it. But retaliating to that user by denying his access to all the games is just silly.

Same way it was silly for Valve to deny access to one's games for gifting Steam games to others abroad, while the correct action to begin with would have been to simply disable gifting for that particular user.

Too bad DRM gives these content providers means to make utterly stupid actions like this. The worst e.g. GOG could do is to prevent me from downloading my GOG games, those which I've been too lazy to download yet and make a local copy (thank god for those third party downloaders!).

Which begs the question, has GOG banned any users from their games, and for what reasons? Maybe if someone was sharing all his GOG games online, but even then the correct (and more succssful) action would be to send lawyers after the pirate's ash.

Really? Do they promise in their EULA to guarantee access to "one's" games in Origin? What exactly do they say, ie. guaranteed access from here to eternity, or x months or years from the day of purchase?

As far as I've read e.g. the Steam TOS/EULA, they make none such guarantees. Mostly they just state that the service is terminable, and that's that. If it means you can't play your Steam games, tough. (Naturally, as long as they are operational, they would probably mostly avoid that due to bad press (not legality)).

Also I don't quite understand why you make a distinction between multiplayer or single-player games. Frankly, I don't think laws make any kind of distinction between them, if both need some external servers and services to be operational. I'm pretty sure the only thing that binds the "service providers" is that you are guaranteed access for the time you have paid them, e.g. the next month.

Digital games where you pay only once in the beginning are in some kind of legal limbo. Maybe it depends on the court how long they feel you'd be entitled to play a game for which you've paid 50€. How about if you bought it on sale for 5€, is the playing time shorter in court's eyes?
Most of this acceptance seems to be simply a misconception by many Steam users by what they are entitled to in order to access their games. Many haven't realized yet they have none whatsoever, which is partly understandable because the Steam pages talk about "purchasing games on Steam", as if it is the same as buying e.g. a retail console game or a DVD movie.

As long as people realized their (lack of) rights, and if they still are fine with that, fine.

Out of 50 Euro for what exactly? You seem to be using an example but I couldn't find the example itself.

I doubt anyone's account was banned for asking/mentioning if they could sell it. Sure the forum account is very likely to be, however forum accounts aren't linked to Steam accounts. They could mention a random Steam user's ID and there'd be no proof they'd not be them. I doubt anyone complaining about a ban in this case did not actually have their account suddenly being played in some other country or other part of the world or something.

A paypal 'issue' does not generally lead automatically to account locks. Often the game simply isn't available. In case of chargeback however, that's when they tend to lock account, but generally chargebacks are manually initiated, and there'd better be a reason for it else it might as well be fraud (happens a lot). If there's an issue that people feel the need to get their money back for, then they should take it up with Steam, instead of contact their bank.

The region restricted seller thing has become more vague since Steam trading, since in a way it's allowed now, assuming you trade Steam gifts and don't trade for money. The money part is usually where it hinged. These regional trade sellers often traded games in the hundreds, and usually just for money, not for items or something. Trading gifts for money is essentially not allowed (though ironically not acted upon when it sort of benefits them like the TF2 Economy), so if there's indication there might be they will act on it. I know plenty of people who gifted between regions and it's generally perfectly fine. it's the ones that do it en-mass that might get hit with a lockout, probably not in the least because some of those tend to be the ones having 'issues' with payments down the line. (like the recent MW3/Skyrim sellers, bought them by the loads, sold them for cheap for items they then sold for money again, month or few months later the games get revoked due to payment issues)

You're confusing a lack of understanding with a lack of giving a shit.

A majority of time the first one is a direct consequence of the second one.

Yes I love urban legends also - talks about UFO's, aliens, ghosts and vampires. I also love conspiracy-theories such as: the jews caused 9/11, the illuminati and other such nonsense. It's very fun to read but sadly we often lack any kind of evidence for those stories don't we. Similarly I would love to see evidence of all those Steam users that have their account banned for no reason according to you. And yes, if you do something that violates TOS then you risk that Steam bans your account but I fail to see how that should surprise you? Oh and try talking about a bomb in your local airport and see what happens - hint: in most airport you will get arrested by the police even if you just talk about a bomb to a friend.
Am I saying that Steam never make a mistake and never overreacts to something? No I don't but I still fail to see why that is reason enough to boycott Steam when all you need to do is NOT violate their TOS.
Also you just love throwing insults as people don't you? Telling people that they have no rights and that they are ignorant if they still use Steam when we have the TOS to tell us our rights. Our rights are right there for us to read if we take the time to do so. But you can continue to hurl insults at us if that makes you feel superiour just like a muslim suicide bomber do right before he blows up a bus full of women and children but that doesn't make it any more right, does it? In your own blind hate you fail to listen to the other side and THINK that maybe they have valid points to why people use Steam - not because Steam is perfect but because Steam offers benefits that users like and that it's a conscious choice for many of us to use it - it's not because we are stupid like you seem to think.
As someone else said in this thread I really wish you Steam haters would shut the fuck up about your constant Steam bashing because those of us that use Steam don't give a flying fuck about your opinion. We are not gonna change and we understand that the Steam haters are NOT gonna change either and that you don't give a fuck about our opinion either. We have reached a stale mate. But the problem is that the Steam hate creates such a hostile forum where people insults the other side and it kills debate about good old games.