Just gotten banned from the Steam Forums? WTF?

[RikuoAmero]

Hey guys,

As the title says, I've been banned from the Steam forums. Here's the lowdown on what happened.

On Steam, I noticed a new game was released, a visual novel called "Analogue: A Hate Story". I looked at it, thought about it, and then went to the forums there. I created a post, basically listing why I wouldn't pay for the game. I made sure to be as articulate and polite as I could. I listed a few questions I ask myself before I purchase digital media (such as do I get value for money, can I get it for free elsewhere etc). In my post, I made sure not to actually advocate piracy, instead saying why I pay for some media and not others.

I also directly wrote the word piratebay. Once I posted, I reread it and noticed the word was replaced with lovehearts. I included an Edit footnote, asking Valve why they censor the word at all. Censoring links and foul language, that I can sorta understand, but censoring the word itself?

Anyway, a few minutes later, I reloaded the page, only to be greeted with a message saying my account had been banned, reason: Piracy (that was it). I was not advocating going to the Piratebay. I didn't link to it. I didn't offer any games. All I did was talk about why I wouldn't pay for the game and mention the site.

I left a complaint. Does anyone know if getting banned on the forums means being banned from my games too? If so, that's illegal. Anyone else have a similar story?

[Koby]

That sounds kind of retarded, although places like that, it's pretty typical. They're scared shitless of piracy and do everything they can to fight it.

I've never posted on Steam forums. Heck I've only had a Steam account for like a week. I don't even know if the account is linked to their forum or not. So I'm not any help in this at all. I'd suggest attempting to play some of your games and see what happens. I'd also try to politely dispute the ban and mention it was not your intention to promote piracy and just for good measure lie and say you've never pirated a game before and have no actual plans to ever do so.