Knowing VALVe, they're either going to avoid this like the plague or jump on it.
EDIT: I think it would be good, because of more satisfied customers and at least some profit (aka- buy a $15 game, trade in for $12)
but the issues are that this is very, very abusable, as you can get a $10 game from a $1 bundle and get a very large profit.
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I think it will not be for retail games since they didnt bought it on steam
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How would this fulfil the legal requirements? At the very least, Valve would need to enable deregistration of retail keys from users' accounts in order that the physical game could be re-sold with a usable key.
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you can deregister retil key when you ask support to do it
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Really? And it can be activated again by the purchaser of your game?
If true, that's surprising, but very useful information. Thanks :)
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afaik, it cant be activated again but it might if this success. once I tried to deactivate key so I can give it away and they said they cant do that because of ToS
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You shouldn't say that, If the suit goes through, you can pretty much kiss the steam sales goodbye.
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Precisely this. The only reason we get ridiculous 80+% off sales is because developers/publishers can still profit from those sales. If you allow resales, it will ONLY hurt the consumer.
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Yeah, I don't understand why people think that $1-$10 games will still be a thing if trading becomes a factor, it's not sustainable for the developers at all.
The only games that should be able to be traded are the ones that are no longer for sale on Steam.
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That is another thing I wonder about, how can you take a gigantic company to court just because you think not having a feature is unfair?
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It's the recently updated European law, not 'because you think it's unfair'. According to EU law you are able to resell anything you own, even digital software. Valve updated their TOS last summer exactly to cover this, it basically said you either accept we are braking your law or you don't use us. No idea how this will work on actual law scale, though.
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But you don't own anything on Steam, you're subscribing to games.
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You still own a license. That you should be able to resell.
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You don't own anything.
Think of it this way, if you rent a movie from Netflix, do you own the movie? Do you own the Netflix library since you're paying? If you subscribe to Google Play music, do you own the music?
Nope.
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You are correct, you don't own the video/game/etc. You do, however, own a license, as the guy said. You own a license saying you have the right to play the game, and according to EU law you are legally allowed to transfer this license.
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I do own something. I just said it. I own a license. This is a fact. And according to EU law, I can transfer that license if I wish to do so.
Edit:
Also, I was not aware that I paid a fixed subscription price in steam, that allows me access to ALL the games on steam.
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Okay, I'm sure you understood the point, but I guess a better way to look at it, digital video rentals on Amazon Prime? You pay X dollars to access X movie for X amount of time.
Of course the only variable that is different is that the Steam games will presumably only "expire" when Valve goes out of business.
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You own a subscription to those games, not a license, as stated in the ToS. A subscription is non-transferrable and able to be cancelled at any time without warning or compensation.
Users could complain by refusing to use Steam, but we all know they won't do that. They need the consumer protection agencies to come save them from themselves. CPAs should just stick to pointing out injustice and let the people decide if they care that they're being screwed with a telephone pole.
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You paid for something? You own it. No matter how you call it, the game is YOURS. There are CD-Keys for the majority of the games, and Valve has no right to use them however they want. You can resell them and you should have any right for that. But I don't really support reselling. If you buy a game, then have it for yourself.
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+1. I still find it sad the amount of people who the companies sold on the idea they have no rights to the things they payed for.
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Its like how I can't refuse to sell my home to some random guy I don't like who meets my asking price because of how the laws work. that store who refused to sell that hitler kid a birthday cake violated laws(well court decisions, but whether the supreme court is allowed to legislate from the bench is another discussion, since it hasn't been challenged in that case that laws basically stands) that prevent you from banning blacks from a diner. Some things override your right to run your shop how you want and a tos doesn't beat law.
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If I wanted to set up a roadside kiosk selling marijuana, I could presumably just get customers to sign a waiver saying that they wouldn't consider what I was doing to be in any way illegal (despite national laws suggesting otherwise) and that I would be exempted from all legislation that would normally affect my chosen area of business?
Sadly, where I live, there doesn't seem to be any provision for opting out of laws that are inconvenient simply by getting customers to sign pieces of papers (physical or digital). Perhaps that's different elsewhere...
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Yeah, you don't own anything on Steam. You just license it.
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Terms of service are superceded by consumer protection legislation.
This could be interesting...
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Valve can state that as a company based in a foreign country, they are not bound by the laws of other countries, and that the costumer agrees to abide by the laws of Valve's home country. This is what they've done in the ToS, stating that what Valve does with Steam could be illegal in the customer's country, but the customer is unable to sue Valve for it.
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Trade in digital games? It works for physical copies where people know the difference between new/old but this does not apply here, therefor there is no reason for potential buyers to buy directly from the Steam/and others. This would hurt digital sales on PC, where they are already low and so developers don't even want to port games from consoles to PC due to low sales compared to consoles sales.
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amount of use to allow for "trade in" is actually more easily tracked here than physical. it already knows how long you've played.
selling/buying 2nd hand condition is just going to be good no matter what since you can't really destroy it. as for why people would buy from steam rather than just pass around a single copy? Well for one to buy used somebody must sell used, there are finite copies not duplicates so that means the seller no longer has it...just like real world. Just like real world buying from a store may be considered safer than buying from somebody else. just like real world buying from store will almost certainly be easier than buying from somebody else.
Just because quality isn't degraded? You can easily find used real world items that are indistinguishable from mint, people still buy from stores. I buy used all the time and have never had an issue with damage, but I'm also suspicious of scams and lazy enough not to bother finding sellers so I also buy things from the stores. that and people tend to want as close to what they paid as they can get for it anyway, more so if theirs was indistinguishable from new like a steam game would be
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Can't compare digital vs physical; there is no difference between new and old, there is no "mint" quality, there is no "never used", etc. Yes, I am aware that someone must first buy from Steam/etc. to be able to sell. But at the end of the day it would significantly lower the sales and even more developers would give up porting games to PC.
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Their lawsuit, which is still only a press release, not an actual lawsuit, is over the inability to sell/trade our Steam accounts. They first announced their intention in February 2013, and still have not taken any action. Valve has not received anything from the group.
If this is about the inability to sell games, which it isn't according to their press release, Valve could offer a refund of 10% of the game's current value and still be less of a dick than Gamestop. But due to the Terms of Service that every Steam user agrees to before making their first purchase, Valve has no requirement to do so. It is perfectly legal to ask a customer to give up some of their rights in order to use a service.
Thing is, there is no such thing as a used digital game. A used game disc risks damage from use. A used digital game is identical to the day it was launched ten years ago.
There is also a potential risk to consumers if used game sales are successful. Imagine if it causes all games from now on to include 100% lockdown DRM. We haven't seen this yet. Origin complainers are pussies compared to the DRM that is possible to produce, which isn't produced yet. But eventually, I could see this causing consoles to die since they would rise in price even faster, while performance and customer service stay the same, causing more devs to look toward PC for greater relative profits. Still a loss for the consumer, however.
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"But due to the Terms of Service that every Steam user agrees to before making their first purchase, Valve has no requirement to do so. It is perfectly legal to ask a customer to give up some of their rights in order to use a service."
In 'Murica yeh, reminds me of that Humancentipad episode from South Park :D
Anyhow long story short, I don't know shit about this :x
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If the customer later asks for those rights back, Valve cannot deny them, and neither side can enforce the contract after that point. What they can do, however, is nullify the contract, removing all benefits enjoyed by the customer while they willingly gave up some of their rights.
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As mentioned elsewhere, in many places (although perhaps not in the homeland of democracy and freedom) customer's rights, as enshrined in consumer protection legislation, trump any crap firms care to add into their EULAs.
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The Terms of Service for Steam states that the contract is assumed to have been signed in the state of Washington, King County, in the United States.
If you're in the European Union, all sales fall under the laws of Luxembourg.
When it comes to EU users, if the country the user is in has laws that provide greater consumer protection, the laws of the user's country take precedent. No such provision exists for users outside of the EU.
As all sales stem from this contract, all purchases through Steam have taken place in Washington or Luxembourg.
If your local laws prohibit Valve's ability to keep you from joining a class action lawsuit, only that part of the contract is inapplicable. The rest of the ToS remain in effect. Yes, we have all agreed to never join a class action lawsuit.
If your local laws prohibit something in the ToS, that part of the ToS is still enforced as strongly as possible within your country of residence. It is not voided unless that is the only possibility.
Valve really could be forced to allow users to sell their digital copies, if that is permitted within the user's country. There is one problem, which comes down to the language used. Valve and all customers have agreed to call their registered products Subscriptions, which means that they cannot be treated the same as a game. You have permission to use the software, but you do not own a digital copy of the software. Your country would need to have a law in place that treats subscriptions as permanently owned property, even after expiration of the subscription. There is nothing in the ToS that requires Valve to provide a means to download the game you have a subscription to either, so Valve can still say that you own your games, but deny you the ability to use Steam. It would be up to the customer to find a way to download the games they supposedly own but are essentially renting for a one-time fee. Valve might be required to send the user a physical copy of the game at this point, I don't know. Nothing in the ToS says anything regarding a non-Steam source for accessing purchased content.
Allowing digital resale would be handled on a per-country basis, but I am fairly certain that Valve would enable it for most or all of its users if it were forced to do so, or if they just chose to do so. The other option is to disable the accounts of users within those countries, something which I cannot find anything within the ToS preventing such action, but Valve wouldn't take the negative press for it.
I believe that Valve will eventually allow game reselling, but how would this affect game sales?
I can imagine a greater emphasis on online passes and DLC, which are considered extras that are not included with the game sale.
I also predict a greater amount of region locked games and region locked content. Keep in mind that no law prevents Valve from cancelling your account if you use a proxy to appear to be in another region to save money or gain access to content not normally permitted to be sold to you, and they would not be required to pay you back.
What about the idea of game producers selling games as a service, like Valve provides to devs with Steam? Valve can still allow you to play all of your games, but you'd have to find your own copies to download from now on.
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If Steam ever allows game reselling I could see this happen: People selling their library, Buuying new games. Playing then, Resell, Buy new, Etc.
A big example is Bioshock. You can simply sell a game, Buy Bioshock, Finish it and resell it. Theres nothing else to do in a Bioshock game after Youve finished it, So theres no point in keeping it. Same with Half Life games, And all Linear Story SP games. Why keep em?
I know that if they ever allow reselling, Im selling 90% of my library.
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I'd love if you could resell atleast the SP games. Or just trade them.
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This is just ridiculous... they cannot take a company to court just because they don't do as they want them to.
They are the ones leading the PC market with their features but they want to take them to court instead of uPlay (for example), which only lets you download the games you OWN twice a month after the first month?
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You don't OWN anything, why is it so hard for people to understand you're simply a subscriber to the licence. Look up higher in the thread for further explaination.
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So they are not happy with the kind of deals you get on steam already? If you could resell the games I don't think we would get these kind of deals
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Yes, but you would be getting most of the money and hardly any to the developers or valve
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That is the case when any item is sold second hand. If I sold my car, why should Toyota get a cut. If I sell my book, Stephen King sees no money from the transaction. If I sell my collection of Beatles LPs, Sir Paul gets zip.
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My apologies.
Many people in the past have presented this as an objection to being able to re-sell games, whereas in the "real world", most goods, when resold, yield absolutely no payback to anyone involved in their design or manufacture.
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Sorry, it's very late. What do they present as an objection to reselling games?
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The original designers not getting a cut.
It's an argument that has only gathered any serious momentum since the advent of digital distribution (whether games, music or other products).
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With this, I'm guessing it will likely go through the steam market, or at least through the client, so there's a pretty good chance that Valve and the devs will take that same 15 percent market cut. I'm willing to bet that if this goes to court and Valve loses, they won't lose completely. They'll say something like 'okay, you can sell your games, but you have to deactivate them and then you get a gift copy to your inventory that you then sell through the market.'
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Indeed, although even that could conceivably be subject to a legal challenge, since Valve would be charging a fee for resale of their games, whicle essentially operating a monopoly on this service.
If you could only transfer your Mazda by filling in a transfer form at your local Mazda dealership, and paying a commission fee, this would (in most countries) be outlawed immediately, and Mazda would be shaken down with a monumental fine for sharp business practices.
I guess we will have to wait and see how this one pans out.
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Pros to reselling: profit, get rid of already beaten games from library
Cons: Might increase price of steam games, less profit for devs, people abusing it by reselling bundled/sale games
Honestly reselling only makes sense to me for a physical copy of something. For a digital download it's easy to get your own for very cheap.
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Game bought as Steam gifts could technically be sold through the community market.
For retails games entered as a key, they would probably just take the game off your account and make the key valid again. You'd end up with game keys, same as the people who buy extra bundles.
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Games on your account could conceivably be converted back to giftable/tradable copies, and sold on the community market. The mechanisms are already in place for this. It's almost as if Valve have a contingency plan in place, allowing them to quickly comply with regional legislation rather than having to cease trading there until they are able to build a system which allows them to do so legally.
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I can't see them turning a retail key into a tradable game. Technically, the key you bought is for a retail game for which you should own the disc so at best they would reset the key for the next user.
Although, if they use the market for used games sale and they take a cut and give one to the developer, like with the card, that could be inventive for them to allow keys to be turned into gifts. But then, how do you keep track of the keys that came with retail products?
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I can if they are legally obligated to, which may end up being the case, at least in Europe.
After all, Steam is the one factor which makes these games non-transferrable (potentially illegally). Valve may not have any choice in the matter, if they wish to continue trading in these markets.
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I wouldn't trade in my games, anyway. I suppose it would be nice to be able to pass my games to my friends or something if I were to die (or kids, if I ever have any) but that would probably require showing some sort of death certificate to valve or something, which sounds a bit odd.
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Not that odd. In order to sell past a certain number of items on the Steam Market, U.S. users have to provide info for tax purposes, which consists of name, address, and SSN.
I can easily see Valve asking for proof of a death certificate in certain situations.
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Well, I meant the whole 'sending a video game company a death certificate' in itself would be odd not that it would be odd for that to be the requirement. :)
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How is that racist? You can say that about any country... E.g.; Ah, ze evil britains
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I was, jokingly, referring to famous 'Allo 'Allo (British) TV Series where titular character often referred to Germans as "ze (evil) Germans" (he was French hence the 'ze' pronunciation of the article "the"). I was joking about how "evil" Germans are for suing Valve. My comment was not, in any way, meant to express hatred or any sort of negative feelings towards Germans. It seems, unfortunately, that not many forum members have watched 'Allo 'Allo (your loss, honestly).
Cheerios.
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Hello super cheap second hand market games.
I'm not sure what to think about this. Not being able to sell the games I bought was one of the biggest problems I had with Steam before I finally joined as it's basically like renting games for the full price. It's simply not right. On the other hand it's true, games are incredibly cheap on Steam and there is really no need to buy or sell them on the second hand market. And if people could resell games I'm sure what you say is true - you could forget about getting 75%+ off sales.
Apart from the moral aspect it wouldn't mean much to the average customer (who only cares about getting as many good games as possible for the lowest price possible) anyway I guess. Instead of buying a game on Steam while it's 75% off you'd buy it on Ebay for the same price instead.
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I guess they could sue those companies as well if they were successful in that case since it would be more or less the same thing. But you never know as it's quite complicated and it would only mean a lot of trouble for everyone. The more I think about it, the more I want the current system to stay in place.
My Steam account is worth ~2000$ according to Steam calculator and I paid less than 100 Euros for all the games on it. I like that, especially when I think about how it used to be a few years ago when I thought an old game that cost 20 Euros was cheap.
They have good intentions, but the outcome will most likely be worse for the customer.
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Seeing how poor this steam sale was, we probably wouldn't notice.
And cheap second-hand actually might reduce prices, since people would stop buying -50% games looking for some cheap -75% "used" one, which would force Valve/publishers to give us better deals.
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What fraud? The Market is a pretty straightforward thing and I don't see too much fraud occurring with the goods already supported. I can't imagine how used games would change that, but I don't keep a very close eye on such things so maybe I've missed the fraud potential you speak of?
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There is quite a bit of fraud in the background of the market, but because they are all strictly digital none permanent items, IE keys/ dota items/ tf2 items/ cards, it cost's valve nothing to recreate or giveaway said item back to the victim if there is one.
Hmm.. originally I had thought to make a paragraph about how fraud would run rampant with stolen cc's used to purchase games and such, but thats not really true since valve keeps the money within the market as credits. So the best way to scam would be to buy games and scam using paypal...
Although, allowing users to toss their activated games onto the market or trade to other accounts would leave things open for fraud if an account becomes compromised, even if the original owner regains control of the account, their games might have been sold off. Youd also have devs thinking about "lost sales" just as they applauded ms for trying to get rid of the console's used game market...
So idk, will be interesting to see what, if anything, valve does.
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Fair points, but the same safeguards that protect against fraudulent trades or market activity now would also apply to resales. Purchases can be refunded and games/inventory/etc. returned to the original owner(s). There could even be a mandatory wait period after a purchase before a game can be resold to cut down on that specific kind of abuse. I suppose there will always be some risk, but as long as it's mitigated by protective measures for both buyers and sellers I don't really see a significant downside.
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I actually think this could be less of an issue than people make it out to be. Sure, Valve can pretty safely ignore it for now because there's been so little pressure to address it, but it could easily be fixed by using a similar model to trading cards--a portion of every resale goes to both Valve and the developer. Consumer flexibility + continued revenue = everyone wins.
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why is this "developers don't get a cut on resale" argument even a thing? I sell my car toyota gets jack for it. I sell a halo disk bungee and microsoft don't even hear about it. but steam games suddenly thats a new and confusing problem? Once an item is sold the seller is done with it. they've gotten their money in what they have valued at a fair exchange for their product, what happens next is of no concern to them(with the small caveat of "you don't get to reverse engineer the product or software or make copies)
Besides I don't think that half measure will work. You aren't allowed to force sales through you alone, or only let people sell something used in exchange for store credit that can't be used anywhere else, or demand a cut when they do either.
People have tried those things in the past and courts have slapped it down. Same with when people tried to make a permanent claim on something they sold and wanted a cut of 2nd hand sales, it just doesn't work like that.
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ever heard of mom and pop, some guy who carves adarandic chairs in his basement, that subsistence farmer guy who trades produce at the farmers markets, some artist doing hand carvings from a roadside stand, indie musicians selling tapes, an indie game dev who distributes his games on flashdrives or any other far better example of a physical product you don't give half a shit about sending the producers $ for 2ndhand sales of that take at least as much work and live at least as much on a razor's edge profit wise(with the only difference being indie devs lack the materials cost that gets sunk into each product in meatspace)?
there are tons of indie dev equivalents in physical goods. why are the digital ones with lower overhead and risk special and deserving of extra protections?
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No pressure whatsoever.
Other than the legal challenge with potentially far-reaching implications mentioned at the very top of this thread.
multiplefacepalm.jpg
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Yeah, that announcement that someone plans to file suit in the future to see if Valve can legally be required to offer a service that no one else has tried to coerce them to institute previously?
Yep, that pressure. The pressure that is hypothetically forthcoming but hasn't arrived yet. I think I'd be comfortable labeling it in a diminutive fashion in the present tense.
irony.jpg
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This nice concept just doesn't work in a digital realm, especially with what the laws that are backing them specify. First of all, the cost of creating a serial key for a game is obviously not what the studios budget goes into, the cost is in developing a game. There's a reason why not many companies have complained about the resale of physical objects, its because the cost of the developing and creating that product is put into what is being traded or resold, rather than the proof of purchase. Something like trading cards would cost little to no money to implement, and it only would provide for profit after every sale of a trading card. On top of that, the problem with the law, which is described above, is that the sale or trade of the game doesn't necessarily have to go through Valve, meaning Valve and the developers wouldn't be entitled to a portion of the sale if it to be able to be done through a 3rd party service. Also, Valve wouldn't be entitled to give to the developer anyways if it was to be done through a system similar to how the trading cards work.
While this feature may still be implemented correctly, achieving what you stated above, I'd find it very unlikely.
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what? I don't even.....so many confused.
"There's a reason why not many companies have complained about the resale of physical objects, its because the cost of the developing and creating that product is put into what is being traded or resold, rather than the proof of purchase. Something like trading cards would cost little to no money to implement, and it only would provide for profit after every sale of a trading card"
wat? so you're saying that the more it costs to make an item the greater the profit when sold 2nd hand or something valve would make more money sinking money into the production of each key than they do now generating keys from air?
you make it sound like digital products are the only place the majority of costs are in developing a product.
some game company spends "x" on game production and "y" putting it on disk. sell it for "z" I can sell that 2nd hand and nobody thinks it would be a bad thing.
another game company spends the same "x" on game production and doesn't put it on disk which saves them "y", I buy it for the same value of "z", but I can't resell that without sending "w" money to the company, that would be disaster.
doesn't make sense.
or do you mean they're happy about 2nd hand sales because it saves them the cost of producing another copy of the product? it isn't as though these things get sold at a loss and the company is better off not making more of it. lol
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The objective of my statement is to point out that that the cost to produce, after development and designing a product, is very different when you talk about digital games and physical products such as cars and consumer electronics. When you buy a car or even something like a blender, you are paying for the physical components that make up that single device. When you pay for a digital product, you are paying for a subscription which gives you the opportunity to download something, which costs valve very little money.
Based on this, I just don't believe that we should be able to sell steam games as though they were cars, because the cost to produce what would be traded or resold (the subscription) is a small fraction of the price that the physical components of a car or other physical product out there cost.
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Umm... did you argument just boil down to "it won't work because the cost is different"? What does it matter how much it costs? Are you saying that goods valued below a certain threshold can't be resold because they cost too little? How does that apply to trading cards, which cost mere pennies per transaction? They are clearly a small fraction of the value of the physical components of a car...
I'm sorry, I just don't understand the point you're trying to make.
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I'm not comparing the price of a car to the price of a video game, I'm comparing what goes into the creation of a single product e.g. a Prius as compared to one digital copy of Half-Life 2. Once Toyota has developed the new Prius, Toyota has to gather its materials and manufacture the car, which costs money, and that car then has to be shipped to a dealership. With a digital copy of Half-Life 2, once the game has been developed, all Valve has to do is allow a person who bought it to download it, which is essentially free.
On a used sale, people would be buying the used Toyota because that is a price that best matches the quality of the cars parts. If digital games were allowed to be sold as used, the same principal of why used objects are sold for cheaper than newer products wouldn't exist. A used digital game is in no way different to a new digital game, and all it would amount to is publishers and developers seeing less and less money from games that they create.
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So, then, a potential solution to that particular problem would be to allow users the option of selling the game back to Steam rather than to other users via the Market. The user would get some percentage amount of the price paid for the item (or perhaps some other mechanism in the case of bundle games) and Steam gets that item's product key back for resale at regular price. While not what I'd call an ideal solution, it nets users the freedom they covet to liquidate unwanted games and would still benefit both Steam and the developer (assuming again that a portion of the resale goes to the developer, akin to trading card sales).
Personally, though, I think if you're going so far as to create the above system, the institution of inter-user sales is a logical addition. While technically used after the first owner, you're right that the game remains--unlike the used car example--in precisely the condition it was in at the time of purchase. In fact, it will remain in that state potentially forever (barring software updates and the like). The question of how to determine value for such a "used" good and how exactly resales can be made beneficial to developers--who would necessarily see a smaller contribution from a secondary sale than "new" purchases--becomes an intriguing one.
Then again, "new" prices eventually fall. If those players that would normally have waited for a sale or discount before purchasing had a "used" market to buy from at similar prices, they might adopt earlier. Granted, the developer/publisher/Steam will only see similar revenue to a sale price purchase, but in that case it would get those players invested earlier and wouldn't affect overall revenues.
So what if--and I'm spitballing here--each game had a limited number of resales, with each one netting the seller less and Steam and the developer/publisher a larger portion of each sale price (40% of current price & 5% to Steam/dev, then 20%/10%, 10%/15%, etc.). After the fourth or fifth resale, perhaps it simply can't be resold again (of course each sale would clearly denote how many resales are remaining for that particular product key).
The point I'm making--if it's not obvious--is that there are ways to make it work. It might not be easy and the first iteration might not be perfect, but the fact that it's an uncharted market does not suggest it shouldn't be explored.
The dragons at the edge of the map are not to be feared.
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"I'm not comparing the price of a car to the price of a video game, I'm comparing what goes into the creation of a single product e.g. a Prius as compared to one digital copy of Half-Life 2. Once Toyota has developed the new Prius, Toyota has to gather its materials and manufacture the car, which costs money, and that car then has to be shipped to a dealership. With a digital copy of Half-Life 2, once the game has been developed, all Valve has to do is allow a person who bought it to download it, which is essentially free. "
right...its this part that makes no sense. If anything you're arguing against your point with this. this says if anything on the subject that digital should have no problem with resale but physical world would be the ones who need a cut to make it worth while due to their higher costs. not the other way around.lol "making more copies is when compared to physical goods nearly free for steam therefore steam needs money every time that copy is transferred if that were to become possible, while physical goods cost money for each and every copy produced and so the manufactures are ok with resale"
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2: based on the fact that we're talking about EU law, not a German law
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I don't see that happening. If the precedent is set, the same legislation is likely to filter across most, if not all, EU member states in a short space of time. Gaben loves Euros too much to consider giving up an entire continent of eager, lubed up consumers.
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Ppl will buy games from steam in Russia and trade-in it back to steam in Europe. Profit.
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Unless they were marked as (RUS),
Limited to (RUS) market region users,
Not allowed to be activated on non (RUS) accounts.
It really wouldnt be that hard to implement some sort of account check seeing as valve already collects user data/ip logs, store regional settings, currency use, as well as has the RUS games marked/separated into its own category.
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I think Valve will implement some sort of digital trade-in system in the near future. It could follow the trading card transaction fee model since that seems to be a suitable method. Trade/sell amount and account security are probably 2 of the major areas of concern though.
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So, what, they want to turn Steam into a complete business program for video gamers? Come on, we already have that damn market.
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Tell those self righteous moralist to piss off and go hug a tree.
Moreover, this lawsuit is filed in Germany. At the worst case scenario it's only the Germans who are affected.
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Some people don't like to look at the bright side of things.
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You would still be free to bluntly refuse any offers made on your account, with a jaunty two-fingered salute, even if this functionality was added :)
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"I like the fact that you can't trade your account. I just love it."
Why? Unless you are being sarcastic?
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It's a casual tongue-in-cheek remark.
Or course I want to trade in my games. I have too many junk like Bad Rats and Magic Crystal which I want to offload to some unfortunate fool.
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If enacted, there is every chance that this law would become EU-wide within a very short space of time. That tends to be the way these things work in Europe.
As for being self-righteous moralists, I wouldn't say that consumers standing up for their rights in the face of large corporations operating illegal business practices was anything other than the right thing to do.
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Any new law in one country is extremely likely to be imported to friends of that country. It's why the world pays so much attention to the laws the USA keeps trying to enact that would affect the internet.
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My friend had an idea, basically it would work like this:
Trade in game to steam, they take the CD-Key.
They give you lets say 20-60% of the retail cost.
Steam resells the game at full value.
Everyone wins.
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Retail on Steam at the time.
Like if the game you have is 30 bucks in the steam store, steam gives you 20-60% of that code, then they resell it for 100% full.
I am sure something will eventually happen.
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People already do this with Gamestop and their kind.
At least with the Steam resale, a portion of the resale can be easily sent to the developer. I would support this plan. I would support any plan that benefits creators (NOT THIRD-PARTY PRODUCERS/DISTRIBUTORS LIKE EA) before any plan that provides no benefit to the people who created the game.
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What if you got the game from a bundle or from 85% off sale?
I think pulling the game back into inventory and making it marketable but NOT TRADABLE, and Steam takes 20% off transaction might mabye work with some other prerequisitions (can sell only after certain amount of months, let's say 3) etc
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Steam knows how much you bought the game for if you bought it from Steam. I could see game resales reducing the severity of sales, however.
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True but maybe something can be worked out.
Idk I am not into law really, no clue...
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Sigh. People really need to stop living in the past and modernize. Trading in copies is basically treating the games as if they're still on consoles, with disks, really expensive and hardly ever go on sales. PC is nearly completely digital at this points and it's a good thing... but NOOOOOO, it's different so they don't like it!
Personally, I think being able to trade in games is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe if the whole Steam Market rumor turns out to be true, at a stretch... But I'd still rather the PC stays PC and doesn't try being like the consoles. Take steps forth, not steps backwards.
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Perhaps if they allowed users to trade their used games, rather than sell them. Although, people would just find something else to use as currency, like the keys.
I suppose they could try adding some kind of trading tax...
I suppose they could just charge a fee to deactivate your key, and then you could trade the copy freely. Although, I had no clue how they could fairly assess the fee. Percentage of lowest price in the past 90 days? And I don't how they could assess the value of keys from bundles vs. keys from retail copies.
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How is more consumer choice a step in the wrong direction? I have games on my account that I'll never play and would be happy to sell for as little as a few cents. Because they're digital I shouldn't have that capability? Because it would be "like the consoles"--or similar to any other product that can be sold--it's somehow bad?
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So... not being able to trade these in to make a profit is making people mad because... except the games they wanted from the bundles they got extras? Wait, wait, I lost the logic somewhere.
Ok, ok, I'll stop playing dumb.
If they bought games they'll never play, they didn't bother doing any research on those games.
Similarly, when buying a bundle they're basically paying it's price for the games they wanted in that bundle. If they feel like the bundle's price is too much, then said bundle just wasn't cheap enough for them to begin with. It's just like with buying bundles on Steam when they already own part of said bundles only in this case they get a bonus they don't want.
My main problem with being able to sell the games is the fact that that could be manipulated by outside organizations who take the profits from the resells to themselves and in turn cause games to get more expensive due to less profit to the actual developers. Naturally this means said developers wouldn't be able to "afford" making sales. See GameStop for example on how this is happening with the consoles.
Steam's possible solution of limiting it to the market may be a good way of countering this, but personally I think the risks are much greater than the benefits. It may still be possible to manipulate it and the loss of profit could still be too great for developers. And if the devs can't make enough out of all of this, we get overpriced, lower budget games as a result.
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I'll ignore that curiously random bundle tangent because we're discussing the broader implications of having the freedom to sell digital goods and getting pissy at people for buying bundles (or not?) isn't really relevant.
Your "main problem" with the concept is that companies like GameStop, who purchases and resells physical goods and denies publishers and developers any part of those secondary sales, could take advantage of it. So you don't think one person should be able to sell a used Steam game to his friend because... GameStop?
There are comments littered throughout this thread that pose the possibility of contributing a portion of each sale to the developers, circumventing any such revenue-denying GameStoppian conspiracy. If developers got a reasonable cut of GameStop's used games sales do you think they'd have a problem with it? Somehow I doubt it.
You also seem to be operating on the assumption that any mechanism that permits the resale of used Steam games would allow those games to be resold to a company like GameStop. It seems more likely to me that it would merely allow Steam users to sell games to each other (or perhaps back to Steam itself). These are, after all, Steam games. I'm not sure that digital interoperability between retailers is necessary or even advisable.
Do give me your thoughts.
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Well, I'm not good at arguments and stuff, but I'll take your bait, since I don't have anything better to do. ^_^
First of all, I only gave GameStop as an example... Gee, don't need to go all out about it.
Like I already said, Steam's solution might be able to counter any attempts at manipulation, but we don't know if it will. It doesn't need to be a company that resells the games and manipulates the market, the players themselves have shown to be more than capable of doing it. With all the possible ways of obtaining Steam games from different places at different prices as it is now there are just too many factors to be taken into consideration (in my opinion).
If it really does get limited to the Steam Market and a big enough cut from resells goes to Valve and the devs it might deter people from trying to make a profit out of it, but the whole idea is still just a rumor and we don't know how exactly it'll work. If Valve fuck it up, Steam sales everywhere could take a big hit.
PS: Damn, that took me 30+ minutes to write and I'm still not sure if I got my point across very well. I really am horrible at arguments, aren't I? :/
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theres no reason to think steam wouldn't be able to differentiate between bundle keys and real keys anyway. or at least if this became a thing no reason steam wouldn't make it easy enough to do so. like the copy of portal i signed up to steam for saying "complimentary" or how the metro key from facebook is technically for a different but identical product than when bought through steam.
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All true, I'm not sure how it's related to the above comment. Unless you're suggesting that because Steam can identify which games came from bundles, Facebook, etc. and therefor would be able to limit their resale value or deny resale outright as a result. That would be a fair point and true as well, as well as essential for limiting abuse of the system.
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Since Valve and the user have agreed to call the user's purchases 'subscriptions', their entire library could legally be treated the same as the games they have access to through Gamefly or Netflix. The only difference being that Steam subscriptions are a one-time-only fee. The courts will have to decide if this wording is legal. Currently, as the ToS states in legal terms, no games have been sold through Steam.
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SOURCE
So, what do you think?
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