European court: You are allowed to resell your steam games

EU causing problems, just like the Microsoft Internet Explorer mess and stupid Windows N versions that they made them make.

PC gaming is a pretty exclusive market as it is, the last thing it needs is lost sales
 
Good a step in the right direction. I'm sick of companies (mainly video game publishers) telling me what I can and can't do with products I have bought.

It's like buying a car but then Ford tells you that you are not allowed to sell it ever again and that people must always buy new. The logic is the same!!

I have bought a few games via retail that require a one time activation, didn't like the game, don't play it and can't get rid of it. Obviously digital downloads are a little different but a revoke license for games bought at retail should be available to un-link serials from your account. Steam should have a transfer service so you can transfer purchases to someone else's account.

Edit: oh yeah this on-line pass **** can sod off as well!
 
The exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence is exhausted on its first sale.

And that is that. After a company has their first sale, they can’t do anything else about it. This step is huge in the digital distribution sense. You are now officially allowed to sell your Steam / Origin / GoG games and whatever…if you live in Europe.

I'm only going on what has been said in this thread, but you keep referring to a sale and the steam agreement effectively means there is no sale, which is why it is called the subscriber agreement. One for the lawyers, but it's not as clear cut as you seem to make out.
 
The only thing I'd like steam to do is when you buy a game bundle, those games you already have a copy of it would be nice if it gave you a giftable copy of that game.
 
Good a step in the right direction. I'm sick of companies (mainly video game publishers) telling me what I can and can't do with products I have bought.

It's like buying a car but then Ford tells you that you are not allowed to sell it ever again and that people must always buy new. The logic is the same!!

I have bought a few games via retail that require a one time activation, didn't like the game, don't play it and can't get rid of it. Obviously digital downloads are a little different but a revoke license for games bought at retail should be available to un-link serials from your account. Steam should have a transfer service so you can transfer purchases to someone else's account.

Edit: oh yeah this on-line pass **** can sod off as well!

Agree with all this except the online pass bit, you pay for a full game you shoudl get the full game not just the right to play it on your one PC.

The online pass is a good work around knowing many console gamers who have flashed consoles they all pay for the pass so it's a great way to earn some money back from a lost sale.
 
This is only going to hurt the developers hard. People will be passing games to and fro all the time and there will be much less money actually going to the developers.

Sure, its nice to get a cheap game 2nd hand, but think of the bigger picture :(
 
this is the piece of the ruling that WILL make it happen

Not to ignore the elephant in the room, this obviously flies in the face of EULAs signed by end-users on their part agreeing that they would not take part in exactly this. However, repeated precedent has shown that EULAs hold no water against actual laws. For if you agree to an EULA that is contradictory to European law, that point of the EULA is void.

Effectively every EULA out there is nul and void

If people like Steam want to continue to trade in the EU they will have to change. So the ability for us to transfer previous purchases must be accommodated.

Oh and bye bye limited install DRMs :D

Infact if you think about it this could herald the end of DRM totally :eek:
 
This will be a disaster to implement as much as I would love to see a fully integrated way of transferring licences and so on for games on PC its going to be a nightmare.
 
Its bad enough we can buy games for rediculously cheap prices, but now we can sell them on to poor unsuspecting people and make a profit from them? lol.

If this goes through, say bye bye to sales.
 
Infact if you think about it this could herald the end of DRM totally :eek:

Or the end of pc games! if developers cannot control a market they will leave it, and concentrate on games consoles. Remember the next gen consoles from microsoft and sony are only a couple of years away now.


I wonder if this can be turned to effect games like World of Warcraft? if anyone can win i would think it would be blizzards team of legal people lol
 
This is only going to hurt the developers hard. People will be passing games to and fro all the time and there will be much less money actually going to the developers.

Sure, its nice to get a cheap game 2nd hand, but think of the bigger picture :(

True but what happened back in the 80's, 90's and 00's. Devs had to test a game properly before release because post release patching wasn't so easy - the product had to be finished. Games could then be sold on because there wasn't any on-line activations. Now the technology exists developers are just getting greedy and are running gaming. Day one DLC, DLC costumes, DLC weapons....... :mad:

Now we are getting unfinished games that we can't get rid off if they are sub par.

Because of the relative low cost of a video game they are getting away with it, can you imagine the **** storm if your laptop, ipod, phone etc had a one time activation and the hardware was locked so you couldn't re-sell it, what if you could not sell your graphics card on when the next shiny model came out? You you upgrade as hastily?

In X years time when you want to dust off the old PS3 or try some old school PC games out you won't be able to since the activations are all used and perhaps the servers/services they were bought on no longer exist.

Companies then can recycle old games over and over via their online services, have you seen how much Sony charge for PS1 games on PSN - £8.00 in some cases for a game that has earned its money well back in the day.
 
A part of me thinks it should be a basic right but the PC scene needs this like a hole in the head.

The used market on consoles is a massive business that takes money right out of the developers pockets, a lost sale indeed. At least piracy can lead to buying a legitimate copy. Who in the world gets a used copy of a game from Cex and thinks "I liked this so much I'll buy it new".

I'm guilty of taking advantage of used games on the consoles, but I make the effort for a game or developer that really deserves it but it's few and far between.
 
This is a good thing,The amount of games i have on the shelf but unable to sell them is just stupid..i hope they do the same for the console games too with the online pass thing.

Games devs and company's are just getting too greedy these days,imo we have the right to do what we want with the games we purchase.

This is only going to hurt the developers hard. People will be passing games to and fro all the time and there will be much less money actually going to the developers.
Who cares about them...do you think they really care about us the buyers when they sell you a crappy,bug ridden,unfinished game and don't bother fixing it?...all they want is your money.

But in all seriousness,does anyone actually think this will go ahead?...i hope it does.
how reliable this source is?
 
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A great way to kill a system which is still in its infancy.

Digital distribution needs something to accommodate this, but MUCH further down the line once it has matured.

For once, I am on the side of the publishers, at this moment in time, this stinks.
 
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I don't see why the video game industry thinks its above the re-sale of its own product. I can re-sell my DVDs, music CDs, clothes, electronics, watches, jewellery (we not mine own but you get the idea), cars - basically everything apart from used underwear!

Companies always lose out potentially from new sales due to second hand buyers but sometimes they don't because not everyone has the ca$h to buy things new in the first place. Video games are no different from the design and manufacture of many other products. I bet Sony spend a fair load designing new TVs, Apple on new shiny devices and they don't bitch and moan they people buy second hand macs and TVs from eBay!

As you can tell the whole DRM activation thing really bugs me and has been putting me off gaming for a while.
 
Games devs and company's are just getting too greedy these days,imo we have the right to do what we want with the games we purchase.


Who cares about them...do you think they really care about us the buyers when they sell you a crappy,bug ridden,unfinished game and don't bother fixing it?...all they want is your money.

I was going to edit my post to clarify but here will do. I don't particularly care what happens to Ubisoft, EA or Activision. I'm more concerned about the effect it will have on the smaller guys, the startups, the people making the new and interesting games with a bit of vision and love for the art. I don't think developers like Minimax and the like are trying to bleed us dry, or CDProjekt Red.
 
Or the end of pc games! if developers cannot control a market they will leave it, and concentrate on games consoles. Remember the next gen consoles from microsoft and sony are only a couple of years away now.


I wonder if this can be turned to effect games like World of Warcraft? if anyone can win i would think it would be blizzards team of legal people lol

Developers cant control the user console game market anyway as with console games you mostly have the physical game you dont need an internet connection to play console games ?
 
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