Valve sued (in Germany) for not allowing Steam users to resell games

[Mockingbird]

The main issue I can see with the 'just disassociate it from your account and gift it" idea is that, compared to (for example) just loaning a friend your console games, this can be done instantly, worldwide. It makes sharing a game rather than each buying it significantly more convenient and workable, and for that reason discourages purchases (unless you have day-1-DLC or a multiplayer aspect, of course). Next time there's a rush of AAA single-player titles, groups of friends will just each buy 1 game, and circulate them around the group.

I'd be in favour of the trade-in-for-store-credit idea on Steam/Origin/whatever. I think the main issue will be how the pricing is set, and TBH I can see Steam at least investing in that as an idea - if they can charge an additional 20% for the same code from the publishers and give 5% to the developers then it's probably worth the investment in the infrastructure - it's just how to handle the activations etc that will be the issue, for non-fully-steam-integrated games.

 

[Gimpymoo]

More games will become Free to play... with £30 of DLC to make it playable.

 

[Omaeka]

Who is going to pay to administer all this cluster ****?

For example, when you sell your WOW key, who is going to dis associate that key from the account?

Activision will charge you £20 for the privilage.

A computer?

I'm just saying, if this crap gets enforced, at least have it done in a way which doesn't rip the market apart too much. Full price preowned keys, play time effecting recompense etc.

 

[Gimpymoo]

I think too many people want this gaming utopia with it being their way or the highway and the truth is, we have to compromise with what works within a capitalistic environment.

Without capitolism, we will have much fewer games to chose from. It is possible quality may improve and we switch to a more crowd sourced model perhaps.

Also however, I have said this before, it is not fair that the Indie guy selling his game for £2 has to put up with some **** giving it to his mate for free.

What is the goal here, create a rampant second hand market with loads of cheap games? Long term, that is very short sighted for the PC platform.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

But sales aren't gonna plummet, its very likely these are games people wouldn't be buying anyway. I've got a loada old games my mates would probably like a bash thru but have no intention of paying for. Were back to the whole 1 pirate DL is 1 lost sale it's simply not.

If someone purchases a brand new game then removed it from their account the next day who's to blame? the publisher for makin g a **** short game and still expecting full price?

 

[Gimpymoo]

But sales aren't gonna plummet

The second hand console market says otherwise. It is BIG business. With everyone making money selling games other people have made.

If a pirated game is not a lost sale, is a second hand copy also not a lost sale? I think it is.

Just go into any porn shop and see how many games are on sale for £20+.

As a fan of the industry, I personally do not think it is right.

I say again though, who is going to pay to administer all this?

Not the cheapo middle class pirates for sure.

I know many of us have varying thoughts on this but I personally will not support such a system as I think the industry will suffer in the scrum for those wanting to get one over on E.A/Activision etc at the cost of everyone else in the industry.

How is the Indie game dev going to facilitate such a system without incurring costs?

This is compareable to watching a film at the cinema, then giving the ticket to your mate. Why can you not do that, what is the difference?

If you watch a bad Film at the cinema, whose fault is that? Bad or not, you cannot give the ticket to a mate so they can go and see it. If they want to see it, they have to buy their own ticket.

 

[[TW]Fox]

The second hand console market says otherwise. It is BIG business. With everyone making money selling games other people have made.

Welcome to retail. Thats kinda the point, right? Last time I checked Currys were making money selling fridges other people have made, too.

If a pirated game is not a lost sale, is a second hand copy also not a lost sale? I think it is.

Why is that relevent? Is a used Focus a lost sale of a new Focus? Perhaps. Should that result in the inability to buy or sell used cars? No.

I say again though, who is going to pay to administer all this?

The only reason it would cost money to administer is because of the great lengths publishers have gone to attempt to stamp out piracy to the detriment of law abiding paying customers.

There are no admin costs associated with buying and selling used console games for example..

This is compareable to watching a film at the cinema, then giving the ticket to your mate. Why can you not do that, what is the difference?

It's not comparable to that, at all because your ticket is for a single showing at a set time - a game on Steam isn't to play at 4pm for 1 hour only.

The problem goes away if you produce quality titles with replay value that people do not want to part with. I have numerous games in my collection I would never, ever sell. They are too good, they provide me with too much enjoyment.

 

[ZombieFan]

I honestly don't mind not being able to trade games in because as above, it's really the only thing that's keeping developers in our market. Quite frankly it isn't fair either, as for example; I've put 250+ hours into Civilization V, is it fair that I can now demand for a chunk of my money back?

Yes? I've got CDs which I've listened to for several hundred hours, and DVDs which I've watched several times, and even CD-based games such as Civ 3 which I've also spent hundreds of hours on. This doesn't prevent me from selling them on ebay if I want to.

Going back to the car analogy, you think that people shouldn't be selling their cars since the've got 250+ hours of driving out of them?

I was going to stay out of this since this subject has been done to death on here, but the above quote just took me as odd.

 

[Macro]

Stuff....

I make my living at least in part from software so generally speaking i'm of the opinion that hanging is far too good for people that feel they can rip off my hard work. Having said that in this case I completely agree with Fox, trying to restrict second hand sales of games is ludicrous. Valve are really starting to concern me with steam, they have near monopoly and whilst I use them all the time to buy games there's increasingly little things coming up that I don't think we'd see if there was real global competition for digital gaming distribution globally. Presumably one of the reason Gabe rants about the Store in Windows 8 as it's about the only potential competition Valve has in the near future.

 

[Squark]

I also hope they win. You should be able to resell crap you don't play and don't want sitting in your steam account any more when others can have it.

But the fact that you own a game in no way at all stops someone else from owing it too.

 

[Omaeka]

Yes? I've got CDs which I've listened to for several hundred hours, and DVDs which I've watched several times, and even CD-based games such as Civ 3 which I've also spent hundreds of hours on. This doesn't prevent me from selling them on ebay if I want to.

Going back to the car analogy, you think that people shouldn't be selling their cars since the've got 250+ hours of driving out of them?

I was going to stay out of this since this subject has been done to death on here, but the above quote just took me as odd.

Digital content vs car analogy is dumb. Very dumb.

1. the price of both are completely incomparable.
2. digital doesn't degrade. there is zero difference between new and 'second hand'
3. everyone can afford digital brand new, especially with sales.
4. not everyone can afford brand new cars, people only buy second hand because they cant afford new.
5. cars are rarely sold on, maybe after 4-5 years of use and for a tiny fraction of original price.
6. games would be sold every week for most people, once they are finished.
7. the price of a game being developed isnt far off new cars being designed and made, games like COD (somehow) cost 100's of millions to develop and market
8. second hand cars have higher breakdown/fault rates. what would a digital game do? crash more? LOL

So much more that I cba to bring up. Literally as logical as comparing a pebble to a planet.

 

[G J]

snipped rant about demos

Why give people demo's when people are more then willing to jump through loads of hoops signing up to site's/likeing on social media and entering competetions etc just for a chance at getting into a beta. What even more hillarious that some people are willing to pay up to £60 for a game that also gives you access to a beta/demo for an upcoming game

 

[Omaeka]

Why give people demo's when people are more then willing to jump through loads of hoops signing up to site's/likeing on social media and entering competetions etc for a chace at getting into a beta. Some even pay money for another game from that company just to get access to this

-_-

So you propose that publishers make us jump through hoops to play half working betas as a way to see if we want the game or not?

-_-

 

[G J]

-_-

So you propose that publishers make us jump through hoops to play half working betas as a way to see if we want the game or not?

-_-

Ahh nonono i don't think I was clear enough I loved the older days of when you used to be able to go onto a site and click to download a demo without all this bs nowadays and yeah it wasn't 100% of what the retail game was like but it generally left you with more then enough info wether the game was worth buying or not.

I remember reading old PC magazines about how the future of the Internet was going to make things so much better and in ways all it's done is made it more hassle to evaluate if a games worth a purchase, allow companies to chuck games out the door in a beta state, cut content that should've been in the full game from the start and repackage it as dlc and release games that really should be expansions but are full price games.

I also remember reading how we be able to buy and download full games online and how it would be so much better and cheeper as they're would be no distribution costs etc and surprise surprise games are getting released at full reatil price online that one would find in a shop and they cite bs reasons to justify it like the ones games companies do when they cut content off a game later to sell as dlc.

 

[Omaeka]

Ahh nonono i don't think I was clear enough I loved the older days of when you used to be able to go onto a site and click to download a demo without all this bs nowadays and yeah it wasn't 100% of what the retail game was like but it generally left you with more then enough info wether the game was worth buying or not.

I remember reading old PC magazines about how the future of the Internet was going to make things so much better and in ways all it's done is made it more hassle to evaluate if a games worth a purchase, allow companies to chuck games out the door in a beta state, cut content that should've been in the full game from the start and repackage it as dlc and release games that really should be expansions but are full price games.

I also remember reading how we be able to buy and download full games online and how it would be so much better and cheeper as they're would be no distribution costs etc and surprise surprise games are getting released at full reatil price online that one would find in a shop and they cite bs reasons to justify it like the ones games companies do when they cut content off a game later to sell as dlc.

You had me worried there for a moment.

Completely agree though. Not really bothered about game prices as they can always be found cheaper else where (EVEN EA GAMES !!) and some are just flat out worth loads more.

We do get great digital bonuses though such as sales, retail stores rarely have sales to the likes of Steam and Origin and for good reason. Heck I can remember though that once GAME did have a crazy deal on the go with buy x get x free and reduced prices and 4 for 2 etc and I walked out with about 20 X360 games I never even got to play.

The great thing about digital is that, all my games are there whenever I want them but they aren't if that makes sense? Best thing.

EA are the only ones who need to sort their prices out, hell Skyrim just dropped to £19.99 full digital on Steam, that is amazing value and only just a year afterwards. Tell you what needs fixing though; Call of Duty. They are exactly what you are referring to as full retail expansions, back the day, a game like Modern Warfare 2 would have been a free/very cheap expansion to the first, but in this day and age, 6 CoD's later and they are all being charged at £39.99 on PC (there is no licence fee to pay either, so wtf?). The worst part is just that <... they charge 33% more than the average full retail/digital PC price, and for what? It is an expansion pack, nothing more. I'd understand it if games like The Elder Scrolls or even The Witcher came out at £40 with their sequels as they are radically changed and innovated each time, but Call of Duty being £40 each release... absolute JOKE!

I'm glad I aint stupid enough to feed Activision, World at War and Modern Warfare were the last good CoD games.

 

[ZombieFan]

Digital content vs car analogy is dumb. Very dumb.

1. the price of both are completely incomparable.
2. digital doesn't degrade. there is zero difference between new and 'second hand'
3. everyone can afford digital brand new, especially with sales.
4. not everyone can afford brand new cars, people only buy second hand because they cant afford new.
5. cars are rarely sold on, maybe after 4-5 years of use and for a tiny fraction of original price.
6. games would be sold every week for most people, once they are finished.
7. the price of a game being developed isnt far off new cars being designed and made, games like COD (somehow) cost 100's of millions to develop and market
8. second hand cars have higher breakdown/fault rates. what would a digital game do? crash more? LOL

So much more that I cba to bring up. Literally as logical as comparing a pebble to a planet.

Just out of curiosity. I have some DVDs at home which I haven't watched. Some are still in their plastic shrink-wrap. Should I not be allowed to sell these DVDs because they are exactly the same as what you get from the shop?

 

[FredFlint]

If someone sells one of their games on steam, valve should get a fixed price transfer fee as they are providing a service of downloading it to the new owner. The developer should get nothing after the first sale. All products have a second hand market why should Software Company’s get special treatment?

 

[Gimpymoo]

The developer should get nothing after the first sale.

Why?

You begrudge the small dev team making money to buy food and clothes and make more games?

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

The second hand console market says otherwise. It is BIG business. With everyone making money selling games other people have made.

If a pirated game is not a lost sale, is a second hand copy also not a lost sale? I think it is.

Just go into any porn shop and see how many games are on sale for £20+.

As a fan of the industry, I personally do not think it is right.

I say again though, who is going to pay to administer all this?

Not the cheapo middle class pirates for sure.

I know many of us have varying thoughts on this but I personally will not support such a system as I think the industry will suffer in the scrum for those wanting to get one over on E.A/Activision etc at the cost of everyone else in the industry.

How is the Indie game dev going to facilitate such a system without incurring costs?

This is compareable to watching a film at the cinema, then giving the ticket to your mate. Why can you not do that, what is the difference?

If you watch a bad Film at the cinema, whose fault is that? Bad or not, you cannot give the ticket to a mate so they can go and see it. If they want to see it, they have to buy their own ticket.

Second hand console market? Of course it's a big business, there's only a nominal few publishers that penalize people for purchasing second hand, those games with the multiplayer access keys or w/e they are. As for making money selling things others have made, isn't that how most retail ventures work?

A second hand copy sale, may not have even been a sale at all was it not for the price. Was that person set to go out and splash the cash on a brand new copy, or were they just browsing and thought "ah that's a decent price" and decided to grab it? Would they have bought if not for the second hand aspect?

The last *porn* shop I went into only had mags and DVDs unfortunately

Yes but your forgetting wasn't it only the recent changes to valves T+C's that implied we didn't actually own the game but instead paid for a license to play it at their discretion? And we had no way of accessing the games we previously "owned" without accepting their new T+C's?

It's not comparable to your cinema situation at all, a cinema ticket is for access for a screening for a set time for x amount of people. People don't goto the cinema expecting to purchase a movie to watch whenever they feel like now do they?

 

[Woden]

Why?

You begrudge the small dev team making money to buy food and clothes and make more games?

This^

Its why we can't sell our books, DVDs, cars, fridges, ovens. Why should video games be the only thing it's ok to sell on?