So now that this so called law passed when can I start selling my steam games ?

C64 · 16 Jul 2012 at 02:51

Sorry but this is just a farce really whats the point of laws if nobody obeys them ? does anyone think anything will ever come of this european law saying were allowed to sell our games ? how comes steam have done nothing and said nothing about the law then ? will steam ignore the law ?

I just cant see this happening at all I think were all stuck with our unplayed steam games forever quite frankly.

I know theres a thread for it but that seems dead what are your thoughts on this whole thing and why are steam etc allowed to disobey this law ?

just Scott · 16 Jul 2012 at 03:09

A complete guess, but Steam are probably developing some way to allow you to sell your games. It's probably going to take weeks if not months to develop such a huge feature like that. Look how long it took them to put Steam trading in.

Daichin · 16 Jul 2012 at 03:11

Obviously I know nothing about law, but I don't think it's a law at all, simply a court order against a specific company at this point. Steam have no requirement to immediately start following it, especially since I assume it requires quite a bit of further stuff to get it as a proper law anyway. These things don't happen quickly. You can't just turn around and let people start selling their games immediately. Valve couldn't implement that system immediately even if they wanted to. That just wouldn't be fair.

As far as un played steam games go then well, they're digital products and you knew what you were getting yourself into when you bought them. As much as we might want to get rid of those games, we just can't at the moment and we never could have before.

Besides, I was pretty sure this was a definite case of "We don't know". It'll be many months or maybe even years before Steam has to start following this law.

Overslop · 16 Jul 2012 at 03:14

I remember them toying with the idea of trading games tied to libraries before, so I expect them to play along with the ruling. No idea how soon that will be though.

dreigns · 16 Jul 2012 at 05:27

it was a ruling on software licence that a company was buying lifetime ones and reselling them with zero to say they could not do this and that was the why the judge said they could keep doing it
Doesn't mean you can start trading games and I don't think you will ever be able to steam isn't as stupid as the company which didn't have a good term and conditions

Aloreth · 16 Jul 2012 at 06:29

Lol companies spend years developing online infrastructure and sales platforms, even with an existing platform in place it will still cost well into the £'000ks and take a long time even assuming they have started.

I would assume that steam will only do it when they have to, personally I am 100% against it.

Utnac · 16 Jul 2012 at 07:30

I'm no lawyer but as I understand it:

-it was a preliminary ruling and doesn't mean squat until its upheld.

-even then it won't mean much until we see it used it court

-it was talking about a completely different situation to steam, oracle were selling a single permanent license, where as steam give us a subscription to the game and they are VERY clear that's it's a subscription. So again this would most likely have to go to court to tell steam that it's not a loophole they can exploit.

-even if they are planning to obey the law which I doubt, wasn't this thing announced 2 weeks ago? It would take a lot longer than that to fully test and a release a feature as big as this.

Destination · 16 Jul 2012 at 08:20

Interestingly I think for this steam sale, althought i have been buying my games in pounds it appears to be routing all transactions through the us, with an altered tos.
If i buy in the us, digitally, am i still under eu law?
Steam might be trying to work their way around things now this ruling has come into force.
It may not be applicable to purchases prior to the ruling.

Tune · 16 Jul 2012 at 08:46

Valve Has “No Plans To Change” Following Court Ruling On Digital Games

SeraphX · 16 Jul 2012 at 09:37

I really do hope Steam ignore this stupid stupid law!

Yet another case of the sodding EU in well over it's brainless naive head!

AH.Tempest · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:32

I honestly expect nothing at all to come of this, and im honestly ok with that, i was always under the impression that it was the case that you don't actually buy a game from steam so much as a license to play that game until such time as steam decides otherwise? in that case you don't actually own anything...

Utnac · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:35

Hikari Kisugi said:
Interestingly I think for this steam sale, althought i have been buying my games in pounds it appears to be routing all transactions through the us, with an altered tos.
If i buy in the us, digitally, am i still under eu law?
Steam might be trying to work their way around things now this ruling has come into force.
It may not be applicable to purchases prior to the ruling.

Well since Steam operates in the UK and throughout Europe they are obliged to abide by our laws, if a law were to be passed that meant they had to allow us to sell games purchased on steam, they would have to, else they'd be fined by the EU and open themselves up to other lawsuits. The only other option would be to drastically alter their business model or pull out of Europe completely, neither of which are very practical.

InKursion · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:45

Just because you legally can, doesn't mean the games industry is going to now set-up an infrastructure and content-delivery system to resell your game CD-keys and let other people download them. This law makes little to no actual difference in the current games industry. Most people download their games from online stores or content-distribution clouds like Steam, and of course Valve are obviously never going to spend their time and money developing a system that will lose them loads of sales money.

Komedy · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:47

It will require a case ruling against one of the main players like Steam etc which will become case law.

Once this has been completed Steam and all others will have to comply.

kiel367 · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:48

i think its a decent idea tbh

Utnac · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:53

Komedy said:
It will require a case ruling against one of the main players like Steam etc which will become case law.

Once this has been completed Steam and all others will have to comply.

Summed up much better than me.

Issue is - I don't think this will ever actually happen.

enigma27 · 16 Jul 2012 at 13:03

Utnac said:
Summed up much better than me.

Issue is - I don't think this will ever actually happen.

Problem is the grey area with Steam is your not 'buying' a game from them so how can the court ruling be upheld without it going back to court to change the wording.

With steam you sign up to a subscription agreement everytime you pay for a game so your not 'buying' the game you are sigining up to say you can play as many times as you want while its on your account but you dont own it.

Daichin · 16 Jul 2012 at 13:05

Utnac said:
Summed up much better than me.

Issue is - I don't think this will ever actually happen.

No, I very much doubt it will, and, as far as I'm concerned, thats a good thing. The effects of this would be disastrous. Remember that a preowned digital game is the same as new one.

Martini1991 · 16 Jul 2012 at 13:20

Never hopefully.

SB118 · 16 Jul 2012 at 13:26

enigma27 said:
Problem is the grey area with Steam is your not 'buying' a game from them so how can the court ruling be upheld without it going back to court to change the wording.

With steam you sign up to a subscription agreement everytime you pay for a game so your not 'buying' the game you are sigining up to say you can play as many times as you want while its on your account but you dont own it.

I'm sure i saw something in the ruling that over-ruled their "subscription" argument. If you pay to play the game, it's your game, or something like that.