Steam Account Disabled...

I've been an avid support of Steam on these forums but this is an absolute joke. There I am playing FM11 when I get a popup from Steam claiming my account has been disabled. Unable to log back in or anything. Only got Steam recently and spent well over £100 on it in the past couple weeks. Very unhappy. Can't play games I have LEGALLY bought. Submitted a ticket and awaiting response. Anyone else had this?

No, luckily it hasn't happened to me but this is one of the major downfalls with the Steam system. They can at any stage disable your account and you have no access to games you bought. In fact you rent the games, not own them since without your Steam account you have no games.

I don't like Steam, mostly because of this reason but also because not everyone has the internet or wants the world to know what they are or not using and to me, people have a choice to do what they like with their life, like it or not. As long as its legal and morally acceptable of course.

If you emailed Steam, they will get back to you but it will take a few hours, usually 12-24 hours. It could easily be a technical error otherwise you have breached the Steam T&Cs somehow and hence have no account.

That sounds really bad. Hasn't happened to me and I don't really understand what you've done to have your account disabled. Maybe it's a temporary thing?

If you haven't done anything out of the ordinary yourself, it's probably someone else who's gotten hold of your account details. Or, if you're in luck, a false positive in Steam's system. I'd wait for word from Steam on that support ticket; as annoying as this no doubt is, it's to protect Steam and you from fraud.

I was banned for a false positive once for 2 days, that was when I decided not to buy anything on steam anymore. Yeah it was only two days but I wanted to play MY damm games the two days.

I can't have breached their TC's, I've read through them. I had 5 games on the account which I've bought in the past couple weeks. This is a brand new PC so there's no possibly of spyware or any sort of virus. Just going to wait it out I guess but it's annoying as hell.

Happend to me on numerous occasions when i used to play counter strike source and i was ALWAYS given the reply "sorry it was a mistake"...

Cold reminder of who actually controls your gaming on steam, thankfully i saw sense and uninstalled it.

Well looks like I get to play the waiting game. Amazing how steam has absolutely no live support. No phone number or anything.

How did you purchase your games on steam, credit/debit card or paypal?

I know a few people who used paypal and then had major problems afterwards due to paypal taking the payment back or something. Steam then auto disables the account and valve then asked them to get paypal to reverse the payment back.

Thats why you shouldnt use them. Most people dont have problems but if you do have a problem, youre screwed with no right of reply and UK consumer laws dont apply, they can do as they wish.

I will never let another company control my property via DRM.

Imagine if the RIAA could erase your entire music collection because you lent a CD to a mate. Thats the power you let steam have over you.

Thats why you shouldnt use them. Most people dont have problems but if you do have a problem, youre screwed with no right of reply and UK consumer laws dont apply, they can do as they wish.

I will never let another company control my property via DRM.

Imagine if the RIAA could erase your entire music collection because you lent a CD to a mate. Thats the power you let steam have over you.

Stop being a drama queen. Millions of people happily use steam so don't try and make it sound like it's a foolish thing to do

Imagine if the RIAA could erase your entire music collection because you lent a CD to a mate. Thats the power you let steam have over you.

Imagine that you bought $2,000 worth of retail games for around $100?

No offense to the OP, but we dont know the circumstances of his case. If you dont play on-line; or, if you dont play Player v Player its impossible to lose your account.

here's an idea, can't you play fm2011 with steam offline mode ? would it makes a difference that you cant sign in ?

here's an idea, can't you play fm2011 with steam offline mode ? would it makes a difference that you cant sign in ?

Except that you have to sign in and go online before you can use the offline feature. Nice how that works, eh?

Except that you have to sign in and go online before you can use the offline feature. Nice how that works, eh?

Did a google search and found this

Make a text document and write ForceOfflineMode=Enable and then save as steam.cfg (not steam.cfg.txt) in Steam map.

Then it will enter offline mode everytime you start steam, without the need to start steam online and then enter offline from there.

See if that works ANOST

Except that you have to sign in and go online before you can use the offline feature. Nice how that works, eh?

I dont have to sign in. I click on the FM11 shortcut and get a small popup asking if I want to start in offline mode.

Except that you have to sign in and go online before you can use the offline feature. Nice how that works, eh?

If you have your internet connection disabled when you start steam, you get a message asking if you want to run in offline mode. Click Yes and then turn your internet connection back on.

Seems to have worked! Starts in offline mode fine as far as I'm aware, unsure though as this laptop doesn't have any games on so will have to check it once I get back home. Thanks for the advice.

The advice given should work, you should be able to access via offline mode. Steam will eventually reply though.

I agree its not the best way to run a company with no support, if any one of us opened a shop and kept the door always closed and only accepted customers via the telephone we would eventually receive negative press so its amazing that in this day and age, Steam are allowed to get away with this. Also the majority of posters are right, drama queens or not. You dont own your game on Steam, you loan it. Without your account you lose your game and you can never resell it which is another sign that you don't own it. Luckily for FM, SI have kept the cd option and that is a credit to them as a company.

The advice given should work, you should be able to access via offline mode. Steam will eventually reply though.

I agree its not the best way to run a company with no support, if any one of us opened a shop and kept the door always closed and only accepted customers via the telephone we would eventually receive negative press so its amazing that in this day and age, Steam are allowed to get away with this. Also the majority of posters are right, drama queens or not. You dont own your game on Steam, you loan it. Without your account you lose your game and you can never resell it which is another sign that you don't own it. Luckily for FM, SI have kept the cd option and that is a credit to them as a company.

You are allowed to backup your Steam games on disc (or external hard drive). Steam management has also said that they will unlock all bought games should they go out of business. If you always play in offline mode then there is no way that Steam can ever deactivate your games as far as I can tell.

Also, just because you own a disc doesnt mean that you can play the game. Many games limit the number of computers you can load it on. With Steam, you can have your games on an unlimited number of computers.

Imagine that you bought $2,000 worth of retail games for around $100?

No offense to the OP, but we dont know the circumstances of his case. If you dont play on-line; or, if you dont play Player v Player its impossible to lose your account.

Wrong, you can still get hacked and lose your account through no fault of your own, paying £10, £100 or £10,000 is no good if they take all of the games away, is it?

steam sucks

you can always lose your account and the support is just awful

Wrong, you can still get hacked and lose your account through no fault of your own, paying £10, £100 or £10,000 is no good if they take all of the games away, is it?

You are absolutely incorrect.

You cant get hacked unless you put yourself in a position to be hacked. Stay offline. Dont play PvP games on your FM Steam account. You cant get hacked because no one knows you are there.

You cannot lose your Steam account through no fault of your own. That is a baldfaced lie. People lose their accounts through cheating. Or through trying to transfer their games to their friends. By using Steam the way it was meant to be used you cannot lose your account.

I think we're done here.