You seem to be under the impression that you own the games. Read the EULA, it may be eye opening.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ya I'm sure some companies would defiantly hate this idea, and even EULA a statement declaring it illegal.
But I'm also sure some companies would be all for this.
Comment has been collapsed.
Same reason they give games away for free, to help promote their product and future products.
The more people play their games, the better.
Comment has been collapsed.
You could always add restrictions on the number of games that could be lent out at a time, limit how long they could be lent to prevent permanent lending... I'm totally not saying just add a lending feature with no restrictions as your all right, people would abuse that to no end.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, and we can all all predict how Valve would think about an idea like that... Valve's reaction
Comment has been collapsed.
Digital lending is a good idea. There have been implementations of it for music and e-books. However, companies take a lot of time to warm up to this. Kind of like the second hand market, they're under the mistaken impression that it hurts business.
Comment has been collapsed.
I wouldn't think this cant work at all, but your right in the similarity of guest passes. Unfortunately guest passes seem to be pretty rare with a few exceptions like Killing Floor and Nuclear Dawn (who sometimes gives free copies to be gifted.)
Comment has been collapsed.
The idea of allowing someone to play a full game for free doesn't make any sense at all. You have to consider why the consumers would want that feature, and the only reason I can find is that they don't want to pay any money :P So instead they can just borrow the game and not contribute anything back. That's a great idea! Steam will be all for that lol. Their counter argument would be that they just want to try out the game. Well there are game demos out there (not very many which means I doubt their popularity). But the reason for their few numbers is probably because people can see what a game is like from gameplay videos and hundreds of other sources of information lol.
Comment has been collapsed.
quote "The idea of allowing someone to play a full game for free doesn't make any sense at all."
Yet more and more companies have been giving away free copies left and right. Look at faerie solitaire right now, its free to own forever just by installing it now.
Comment has been collapsed.
True, more expensive games probably wouldn't benefit from giving away free copies left and right. But a rented/borrowed copy? They do this now for consoles.
Comment has been collapsed.
I bet companies like gamefly get permission from developers/publishers to rent their games.
Comment has been collapsed.
If you can point me in the direction of a free game on Steam with a budget over $5,000 I'd love to hear it :) What does Pkeod have to gain from giving away his game for free? Popularity. Everyone on this site now knows Fairie Solitaire and most people have got the chance to play it, some even love it! I just don't see Assassin's Creed 3 doing the same thing though...
Comment has been collapsed.
dota as an example, I bet valve put over 5k into that game and its gonna be f2p.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, but you do not have to spend any money on that game if you do not wish too and can still play the game unrestricted.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, for multiplayer games, i would LOVE for the original Starcraft System to come back.
The host had a full copy, all working and stuff.
But you could install up to 7 "Splinter Copies" with the same Key, which would have no access to the campaign, and could only JOIN(not host) multiplayer battles hosted by the Original Full Copy.
That is, give you a "copy" to pass on to friends that only allows them to play WITH YOU. If they want to play with someone else, by themselves, or content that is not exclusively MP, then they have to buy it themselves.
Comment has been collapsed.
This would basically be a type of piracy... How is this different from someone simply putting a game up in torrents and letting others play it, because he bought it once... However cruel this may be, people have to buy their own copies of games. Also, if you have not noticed, physical DVDs / console games are much more expensive and don't go on sales that often. So if you used to be able to lend a $40 DVD, and now an online copy of the same game costs $20, might as well buy two of them and gift one to the friend.
Comment has been collapsed.
The difference is when you put your copy you own on a torrent, you can still play yours and an unlimited number of people can play the copy you provided. If you lend someone your physical copy, you can no longer play it till you get it back and only the one person with the copy can use it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I see your point, but for single-player games that you have already completed, you wouldn't really care that you can't play it while one of your friends is playing it. Therefore, this would mean that the friend beat the game without paying for it, which in my eyes is basically piracy... There was a similar topic a while back, about buying pre-owned, where most people also saw it as a type of piracy.
Comment has been collapsed.
Really? I never would have guessed buying a pre-owned copy is a type of piracy. I always thought of piracy as theft. You taking something without paying for it. If people really feel that way, maybe buying pre-owned cars should be looked at as grand theft auto :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, look at it this way - some guy buys a game, completes it and then returns it to the store in exchange for another game (so he technically got 1 game free, the developers didn't get anything out of this), then another guy comes along, buy his pre-owned game, completes it and again, exchanges it for something else. If this continues then using that 1 game, many people got multiple games for free.
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess where we differ is I don't see ownership simply cause I've played or even beaten a game. Once that game goes back to the store, its no longer mine, I can't play it anymore.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well yes, it's no longer yours, however you've got another game for it - for FREE, as you only paid for that first game, and only its developers got something out of it. Well there are multiple ways to look at this, but that's how I see it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Stores really let you return an open product for a full refund? Usually they don't give full buyback price and most that I know of will only let you exchange for the same title if its defective. Last time I remember this happening for me was Quake 4, the 3rd disc if I remember correctly was bad and stores were doing even exchanges, even if you didn't buy the game from their store.
Comment has been collapsed.
This function would be too exploitable for it to be beneficial for game devs in any way.
Comment has been collapsed.
11 Comments - Last post 2 minutes ago by Wasari
15,387 Comments - Last post 9 minutes ago by duville
7 Comments - Last post 17 minutes ago by devotee
386 Comments - Last post 20 minutes ago by akfas
1,380 Comments - Last post 21 minutes ago by WaxWorm
4 Comments - Last post 22 minutes ago by Carenard
132 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by VahidSlayerOfAll
15,127 Comments - Last post 4 minutes ago by FruitCober
76 Comments - Last post 5 minutes ago by Esotilin
334 Comments - Last post 9 minutes ago by damianea103
18 Comments - Last post 15 minutes ago by Shurraxxo
5,722 Comments - Last post 16 minutes ago by Esotilin
126 Comments - Last post 36 minutes ago by UnbakedBacon
71 Comments - Last post 53 minutes ago by battlesxr
Was thinking about how you used to be able to share games with your friends which you can't really do on steam.
But what if they implemented that option? For example... lets say I'm done playing Assassins Creed, its sitting in my inventory and I would like to let a friend play it. I could click 'lend game', select the friend and then he would have the option of installing and playing the game as if he borrowed a physical copy. At anytime I could click to 'reclaim game' and get it back.
Maybe even an option to set how long the game will be lent for and have it automatically be reclaimed. I don't really see a downside to this but I'm sure some of you can so....what do you think?
Comment has been collapsed.