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

[Martini1991]

But I'd imagine the majority of the half of your Steam library you'd sell is all old and virtually worthless anyway....

Doubt it.
I bought DMC the new one for 11 quid, I could complete it and probably shift it on for the exact amount/more quite easily.

And with the sales, you'll likely sell your "old worthless" games for near the price you bought them, as without a sale, the product has a higher base price, whereas you can undercut quite easily with the exact same product.
Lets say I paid 4 quid for Darksiders 1, I could quite easily shift that for say 3 quid/2.50

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

I'm not really big on getting involved in this argument, but..

That's not degradation, that's loss of appeal. The product is still exactly the same as it was when it had full appeal, and a second hand copy is identical (in the case of digital..) ten years later to a new copy the day it was released. There's no damage and it's not worn out at all.

Not necessarily, multiplayer servers may have gone, leaderboards may have gone, content may no longer be available.

 

[Martini1991]

Not necessarily, multiplayer servers may have gone, leaderboards may have gone, content may no longer be available.

But that wouldn't be specific to a sold on digital copy, it'd be the same regardless of how it's purchased (Even if it was a brand new retail disc, or a brand new digital copy)

 

[chris-82]

I think it is different enough that it will have an effect.

Currently, at least in console terms, the buying choice you have is between a brand new sealed game at £35 or a second hand, slightly tatty game more than likely with a scratched disc at £30.

For the vast majority of people, saving that fiver isn't worth the trade off and so the new market doesn't suffer particularly drastically.

Move to digital only and suddenly you're looking at £35 for a 'brand new' digital license, which is in effect, immaculate versus £30 for a 'second hand' digital license which is in effect, also immaculate. Who in their right mind would pay £35 for something they can get for £30 and is absolutely identical in every single respect possible except for where your £35 or £30 goes?

It's a situation we can only speculate on because we've never before seen a market operate where a new market and second hand market offer identical items for differing prices. Simple economic logic dictates that the cheaper product will be more attractive, thus attract more demand and so have a much larger effect than we've seen before.

Plus, you can sell a key by sending an email, vastly easier than selling a physical item and so you don't end up in the situation where your selling price is more like £10 to the local GAME store because selling yourself is more hassle than it's worth. Suddenly you can easily attain £30 for your second hand game, not £10 or £15, so the supply of available second hand games will be much higher than ever before too.

There has been a point already brought up that would stop this entirely and that is they get sold back to steam at set prices and steam sell them as new keys if you look back through the pages in the discussion you will see it in more detail.

 

[Jokester]

There has been a point already brought up that would stop this entirely and that is they get sold back to steam at set prices and steam sell them as new keys if you look back through the pages in the discussion you will see it in more detail.

If the EU ruling goes through, the games will have to be freely traded like anyother product. What will happen is some enterprising individual will code a site that buys and sells the keys automatically taking a cut for themselves and I would imagine establish itself as a monopoly in similar manner to Ebay, eventually a big company will buy the site and build into their own trading site, presumably Ebay or Amazon or someone along that lines.

The idea that the EU will say to Steam that they must allow 2nd hand trades, and then hand over a monopoly to them is a complete non-starter.

 

[Kenai]

There has been a point already brought up that would stop this entirely and that is they get sold back to steam at set prices and steam sell them as new keys if you look back through the pages in the discussion you will see it in more detail.

That is a point I have made myself many times on the boards, but isn't especially relevant to discussing how an open second hand market would actually work.

As Jokester says, sounds more like the EU rules would prevent such a restricted buy back scheme anyway.

 

[Woden]

But trade ins of existing games are inherently 2nd hand product, not only that you have a restricted market place in the sense that if I trade in a game in Aberdeen and someone wants it in another town it doesn't happen. Fully digital trades don't have that issue they can be traded worldwide, instantly. They don't have the used issue, they can always undercut the orginal supplier as they don't have to care about making a profit on the sale, just minimising their loss. It's effortless and completely hassle free.

Fundamentally in a digital 2nd hand market there is no reason to buy it from the originator. Yes, people need to initially buy the game to get copies into the 2nd hand market, but once there the originator will never get a look in again.

You are wilfully ignoring the increasingly common practice of including free DLC or online passes with the initial purchase, that are non-transferable even on physically owned games.
A second hand copy of BF3 does not have everything a new copy does.

 

[Glaucus]

Markets changing any way. I expect more and more games to be crowd funded. We've already seen two massive titles crowd funded and hundreds of smaller ones. Publishers bring more issues than its often worth these days with free easy Internet delivery and easy Internet crowd funding.

Couldn't care less what publishers think, or do. There games have become boring, last 6 games I've purchased 4 have been indie made and two off them from kickstarter.
And things like fallout they've destroyed into a mediocre game
Let the craters do exactly what they want, it might not appeal to everyone, but it be a damn site better game.

The times are a changing.

 

[bluDawg]

I don't see how it would work without destroying the sales that they have on games, also how can you sell the game to someone else when you don't even own it. That is what they need to target before going after the used games sales.

 

[Evilsod]

Not necessarily, multiplayer servers may have gone, leaderboards may have gone, content may no longer be available.

Multiplayer servers? Matchmaking, turn it off when you think its sold enough and call it 'degradation'. Content? Yeah giving DLC an expiry date so you don't have to bother supplying it anymore? Where do I sign up?

That really isn't degradation.

 

[Jokester]

You are wilfully ignoring the increasingly common practice of including free DLC or online passes with the initial purchase, that are non-transferable even on physically owned games.
A second hand copy of BF3 does not have everything a new copy does.

Legally they wouldn't be able to prevent you transferring those items, that's the whole point of this ruling.

 

[Woden]

Legally they wouldn't be able to prevent you transferring those items, that's the whole point of this ruling.

The free DLC I can understand, but the online pass? I don't see that as any different to my Netflix account, which I can't transfer.

 

[Glaucus]

The free DLC I can understand, but the online pass? I don't see that as any different to my Netflix account, which I can't transfer.

Netflix you aren't buying.
Steam and other such services you are, that was the other part of the ruling, invalidating there T&Cs however they try to hide it, you are buying the games, not renting them.


If they want to chnage to a £20 (or whatever) a month renting service, then that's fine, but as it stands, legally you own the games, you've purchased them.

 

[Woden]

Netflix you aren't buying.
Steam and other such services you are, that was the other part of the ruling, invalidating there T&Cs however they try to hide it, you are buying the games, not renting them.


If they want to chnage to a £20 (or whatever) a month renting service, then that's fine, but as it stands, legally you own the games, you've purchased them.

The game yes, but not the online service.

 

[Jokester]

The game yes, but not the online service.

And that's why I said that this is the way developers will tend to go, towards online games where you're paying for a continued service. As it is, you can sell on your accounts in most online games if you're discreet about it.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

Multiplayer servers? Matchmaking, turn it off when you think its sold enough and call it 'degradation'. Content? Yeah giving DLC an expiry date so you don't have to bother supplying it anymore? Where do I sign up?

That really isn't degradation.

How else would you classify degradation of a game?
A tear in the manual?
A smashed box?
A scratched Disc?

Would they prevent you from playing the game?
No all you need to do is put the serial key into steam, you know the serial key/license that you purchased and may like to have the ability to sell.

Things missing from a game after its been released, then its certainly not the same as when it was new is it? someone may still fancy playing the single player part of the game

Oh hang on lets sell the physical game we bought....
er no thats not allowed, steam has the license linked to your account.

The whole Physical V digital doesn't really work at times as even if you buy a physical game it's steamworks. So not only are steam restricting you from selling a digital license they are also restricting you from selling on physical good also. I quite like steam and would class myself as a fan but I really don't understand some of the "defend steam to the hilt" comments.

There are multiple games available from many places that you can purchase that would be of absolutely no use because the servers were shut down.

 

[wolvers]

Great discussion. All of the arguments here are really valid and interesting.

For me this is great news. I'd buy way more games on Steam if this went through, and if it forces more games into the FTP model then that's fine by me too. I'm having a blast on PS2 and it hasn't cost me a penny! That does make me wonder though, would SOE be forced into allowing people to sell any in game content that people buy? I would have thought so.

 

[linktoinsanity]

So what? The product at that point belongs to the retailer. If I sell you my graphics card should I send NVIDIA a cut? Don't be so silly.

It isn't 100% profit either, they have to actually buy the used game in the first place to sell it on, you know.

Many car dealers sell exclusively used cars, and those that sell both often get better margins on used because they are far more in control of the price they buy in for and sell for.

Think about it Fox, Why would someone buy a new copy of Farcry 3, when they can buy a used one for cheaper? Therefore that's £30 (for example) gone from the publisher.

A digital copy of a game does not degrade over time, unlike your favourite example: Cars, so there is no reason to sell them much cheaper, just need to undercut the retailer by a fiver and that's it, sold.

With regards to graphics cards, they get surpassed by newer models and this leads to a new arguement in my favour, Nvidia, Ford and Intel for example are always churning out new versions of their products far more often and getting a constant income from the new products, game developers don't release new games as often and (as with most entertainment) once an idea is done, it's done, not the same as tecnhology where new technology will almost always be better than the old one.

Also shall we move on to reselling MP3s we don't use now? How are companies going to trust that we deleted it from our own devices and not just kept it (therefore increasing piracy) and yes this is also a valid point for computer games too.

Your arguement is flawed from every angle. Try again, and I know you love them, but don't use cars as an example.

 

[Omaeka]

Wait if this happens, then there is absolutely nothing stopping retailers like Steam simply charging full price for pre owned keys, and nobody could do anything about it because I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen pre owned games that haven't been out long matching the price of the brand new counterparts. Steam could easily resell your Skyrim key for £19.99 for example.

The damage may not be as catastrophic afterall, if this goes through that is.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

Think about it Fox, Why would someone buy a new copy of Farcry 3, when they can buy a used one for cheaper? Therefore that's £30 (for example) gone from the publisher.

Nooooo the person may never have had any intention to play it at the full price might have only been the cheaper price they decided to give it a bash.

This is exactly the same as the huge Pirate DL=1 lost sale discussion that the industry is oh so fond of bleeting about.

And no its not £30 gone from the publisher

Also shall we move on to reselling MP3s we don't use now? How are companies going to trust that we deleted it from our own devices and not just kept it (therefore increasing piracy) and yes this is also a valid point for computer games too.

No it's not

A Simple popup from steam "Sorry key already in use" much akin to the old retail games we used to get before steam would do. Game can only ever be in use in one place at a time.