where to trade in digital games?

Old Man · 17 Mar 2011 at 11:16

Edited as I made an error about being able to trade in my Steam games:

I have quite a few games bought through Steam "which I can't do anything about" , but games sold by another company does offer a trade in on games owned through them and I am looking for others that offer this too.

Looking for more that might offer a better deal.

TY

ewarwoowar · 17 Mar 2011 at 11:27

You can't sell a game off your steam account AFAIK?

You have to sell the whole account.

Kosmiche · 17 Mar 2011 at 11:38

Not exactly a answer to your question but there is a digital distributor called green man gaming where you can trade in digital games you bought from them.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/

Old Man · 17 Mar 2011 at 14:02

Eames said:
Not exactly a answer to your question but there is a digital distributor called green man gaming where you can trade in digital games you bought from them.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/

Yes found that one already, but TY.

I think it's a shame that you can't trade in games bought from Steam at some point, but maybe there are too few who feel this way for anything to really change.

FlukeRogi · 17 Mar 2011 at 14:14

Old Man said:
Yes found that one already, but TY.

I think it's a shame that you can't trade in games bought from Steam at some point, but maybe there are too few who feel this way for anything to really change.

It's probably less that people aren't bothered about it, and more that it's been that way since Steam started, and people who use it generally know that they can't sell off individual games. Since Steam is now so massive and popular, there's no reason really why they would enable a feature like that.

On the plus side, you often get deals that are so good if you wait for them, that they probably cost less than the amount that you would lose from a trade in.

ewarwoowar · 17 Mar 2011 at 14:42

I like having a big steam game collection

SiriusB · 17 Mar 2011 at 14:50

FlukeRogi said:
On the plus side, you often get deals that are so good if you wait for them, that they probably cost less than the amount that you would lose from a trade in.

That's the thing really. With Steam sales being so awesome and so regular, why would anyone buy a "second hand" key? There is no way someone would pay full price or even close to it if they know it could be had for much cheaper if they waited.

It would be an absolutely massive headache for Valve too, I expect. Imagine the amount of customer services calls they would have to wade through with people selling off another person's games, or being being scammed etc etc etc yadda yadda forget it.

Old Man · 17 Mar 2011 at 15:50

True...

I'll just have one more thing to hand over to my future grandson in the coming years then.

Cycrow · 17 Mar 2011 at 17:06

ewarwoowar said:
I like having a big steam game collection

+1

but then, i've never sold off my games anyways, i still have piles of n64/gamecube/wii games

uv · 17 Mar 2011 at 17:33

ewarwoowar said:
You can't sell a game off your steam account AFAIK?

You have to sell the whole account.

You can't sell the account either. Trading, swapping or selling accounts is against Steams ToC, and they have banned accounts that have been sold.

You don't actually buy the games on Steam, you pay for a license that allows you access to play the game - and this license cannot be transferred to anyone else.

Surfer · 17 Mar 2011 at 17:59

uv said:
You can't sell the account either. Trading, swapping or selling accounts is against Steams ToC, and they have banned accounts that have been sold.

You don't actually buy the games on Steam, you pay for a license that allows you access to play the game - and this license cannot be transferred to anyone else.

Indeed...for me it seems that the consumer in that situation has less rights than a consumer who actually purchased the product. I dont know of anyone who has legally challenged Valve/Steam (or similar) on this aspect of digital content though.

Its one of the reasons why i dont want to install Steam...though i will reluctantly for Shogun 2. I pay the same price for the item but my rights and control is soo so much less :/

MeMeMeMe · 18 Mar 2011 at 07:48

uv said:
You don't actually buy the games on Steam, you pay for a license that allows you access to play the game - and this license cannot be transferred to anyone else.

The bold part is the case with all software. Check your EULAs.
Edit: plus, non-gaming software companies are also trying to lock software down to a single user and stop reselling. This is just the way things are at the moment. Sad, but true. It's not a steam issue, it;s a software industry issue.

mame · 18 Mar 2011 at 08:43

It wouldn't really work. If you could sell a Steam game yourself then why would anyone pay full price for a new one? It's just the right to download the game so a 2nd hand version is going to be exactly the same as new. Even if you could trade in your game back to Steam, why would they then sell that 2nd hand game for less money than a new version?

linktoinsanity · 18 Mar 2011 at 09:25

It would be really hard to implement tbh and as others have already posted there wouldn't be much in it for Valve. The only way I can see it working is if you can disattach a game you don't want from your account and send it to a friend.

Still, I am happy if they don't implement it, if you don't want a game showing up on your list anymore uninstall it and set to view installed games only. Sorted.

orderoftheflame · 18 Mar 2011 at 11:03

It would be a very bad business move for Steam.

Its not just a case of disabling a game for someone and sending them some money. They don't just print their own keys for games, they still have to buy them from publishers.

Where does the money paid back to people come from? Steam can't just resell a key for a game like bricks and mortar stores sell on a disk.

Old Man · 18 Mar 2011 at 11:35

No money would be paid back, but rather it would be money one could deduct from future purchases.

westbroma · 18 Mar 2011 at 12:09

Yeah, there would be no reason for steam to sell cheaper, and although it would give people the chance to get a bit of money for something that they're not using, I don't think it would really work. Plus, the amount of sales on steam would probably ruin lower prices anyway.

orderoftheflame · 18 Mar 2011 at 12:56

Old Man said:
No money would be paid back, but rather it would be money one could deduct from future purchases.

But where is the money coming from still?

Valve still have to pay the publisher the same amount, and gain nothing from it. They can't resell games that they've deactivated. Why would they just give a discount to new games when it would cost them?

When the majority of games have some form of licensing that Valve have no involvement in other than distribution, any thought of buying back games would just be a money black hole to them.