Page:Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Valve Corporation (No 3).pdf/15

 read peer or community group reviews and reviews of games. The consumer can then select games to download, after purchasing the game if it is not free. There is a "Review + Purchase" page where the consumer must accept the SSA before they can click "Purchase". The SSA can be read before being accepted by clicking on the words "Steam Subscriber Agreement". During the purchase the consumer is required to inform Steam of the country in which the consumer is located (ts 120).

20 In addition to credit card and other methods of payment, subscribers can also pay for games using "Steam Wallet". Steam Wallet is an account which a subscriber can use to store value for later use for Steam purchases (ts 120).

21 Once a consumer has purchased a video game, a link to that game will appear in their Library. The game must then be installed. But no further agreement to the SSA is required before installation. During the installation process of a game which has been authored by a third party, the consumer may be required to accept an end-user licence agreement and any separate account registration requirements required by the third party.

22 Once a game is installed on a consumer's computer, the consumer can play it online or, if the publisher of the game has created it in that way, in "offline mode". When the game is run online for the first time, Steam checks to confirm that the user owns a subscription to the game. And after a subscriber quits an online Steam session, on the next online occasion the subscriber must login again to authenticate himself or herself. The Steam Client also checks for, and downloads, any updates to the games on these subsequent online occasions.

23 To access the offline mode, the consumer double clicks on the Steam Client. If the computer has no internet connection, a "Connection Error" message will appear on their screen, which contains a button entitled "START IN OFFLINE MODE". The consumer can see his or her Library offline and can play some games offline. If the consumer is offline then he or she (i) cannot interact with others in multi-user games, (ii) cannot download updates to the game, and (iii) cannot save progress, score or achievements to the Steam Cloud for use on another computer.

The Steam games

24 Steam offers more than 4,000 games. But only around 26 of these games are authored by Valve. Almost all of them are authored by third party developers who receive a royalty from any sales of their game by Valve. Valve does not receive any of the source code of the video