The software industry isn't going to pull out of Europe, don't be ridiculous. And if this does get pushed through, it won't just be Steam that will have to institute software resale, every digital platform is going to have to or face their own massive fines if they want to keep doing business.
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Steam forced to authorize the sale of second-hand games in France
The software industry isn't going to pull out of Europe, don't be ridiculous. And if this does get pushed through, it won't just be Steam that will have to institute software resale, every digital platform is going to have to or face their own massive fines if they want to keep doing business.
Zog
Banned
Some people believe that if these companies can't keep making these massive profits they will just close up shop.
The Cockatrice
Member
Just Steam? Why not Uplay/Epic/Origin?
Holammer
Member
They picked Valve because they're the market leader, once the precedent is set all the others will have to comply.
After reading this I was excited at the implications this court ruling would have. I would actually own the games in my steam library, and I would be able to sell the games I don’t play. But then I started to read the comments and think about the implications of being able to sell a nondegradable digital game. Now I don’t really like the idea of being able to resell digital games…
As other people have mentioned I also think this will be extremely harmful for single player games. Most people would sell their single player games once they finished them (think Bioshock or Half-life, I’ve finished both but I don’t intend on playing them again anytime soon), and anyone looking to buy these games would simply buy them ‘second hand’ for cheaper instead of buying them new, decreasing the revenue of game publishers indefinitely.
If publishers and game developers are getting less money they will, and make no mistake, they WILL utilise more aggressive monetisation tactics like Loot boxes and ‘games as a service’.
This court case reminds me of the ACCC case against valve which resulted in Steam allowing refunds for all steam users not just Australians.
Although the idea of being able to re-sell digital games excites me the implications and possible retaliations from game publishers scare me more.
As other people have mentioned I also think this will be extremely harmful for single player games. Most people would sell their single player games once they finished them (think Bioshock or Half-life, I’ve finished both but I don’t intend on playing them again anytime soon), and anyone looking to buy these games would simply buy them ‘second hand’ for cheaper instead of buying them new, decreasing the revenue of game publishers indefinitely.
If publishers and game developers are getting less money they will, and make no mistake, they WILL utilise more aggressive monetisation tactics like Loot boxes and ‘games as a service’.
This court case reminds me of the ACCC case against valve which resulted in Steam allowing refunds for all steam users not just Australians.
Although the idea of being able to re-sell digital games excites me the implications and possible retaliations from game publishers scare me more.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
People are making this out to be more complex than it actually is.
Whats the difference between buying a digital game and downloading it, and getting the same game as part of a service like GamePass, PS+, whatever?
In the latter case, unless you continue to pay for the service the game will be remotely disabled via online license verification.
The underlined bit is the requirement, because without that you cannot transfer ownership, unless the original is removed from your possession, you are just duplicating ("pirating") the work.
In a market supporting digital resales every game will need this functionality in order to protect the copyright holder's rights, which I don't think will serve people's interests.
The interesting part is that the process of transferral of ownership is a service in itself, its not an intrinsic function of the product as an entity, so it basically imposes a duty on the distributor to manage this in perpetuity. Which lays out all sorts of weird possibilities should that vendor decide to charge for that action in order to cover their own costs, or unto whom the responsibility for overseeing transferral falls should the original seller leave/go out of business!
Whats the difference between buying a digital game and downloading it, and getting the same game as part of a service like GamePass, PS+, whatever?
In the latter case, unless you continue to pay for the service the game will be remotely disabled via online license verification.
The underlined bit is the requirement, because without that you cannot transfer ownership, unless the original is removed from your possession, you are just duplicating ("pirating") the work.
In a market supporting digital resales every game will need this functionality in order to protect the copyright holder's rights, which I don't think will serve people's interests.
The interesting part is that the process of transferral of ownership is a service in itself, its not an intrinsic function of the product as an entity, so it basically imposes a duty on the distributor to manage this in perpetuity. Which lays out all sorts of weird possibilities should that vendor decide to charge for that action in order to cover their own costs, or unto whom the responsibility for overseeing transferral falls should the original seller leave/go out of business!
Lord Thunderbear
Neo Member
To be honest, i find quite absurd seeing all these people pointing out how digital media is different from the physical ones. Well, of course they are.
But companies never bothered acknowledging it so far, since they could profit more than before from the digital distribution.
For years we had anti-piracy campaigns that equiparated piracy with stealing physical items. Since digital storefront became popular, companies had no issues selling physical and digital products at the same prices, even if digital medias have far lesser overhead costs and, due to their virtual nature, have an essentially infinite supply. You don't have to craft discs, packaging, send it to a physical storefront...it's just about sending those data you've sold to a lot of other people to a new customer, with a new licence (and sometimes, if they have no DRM, even without that). Basically, a mere digital copy.
But now that consumers are in the position to ask for them to be treated like physical medias, oh, now them being digital is an issue. Them being mere copies - and thus equal to a freshly bought one - it's problematic. Digital transfers make reselling easy and that's bad for companies...even if it was fine as long as they were the only ones able to do it.
Sure, the digital market may be based upon an outdated legislation, one that doesn't properly takes account of the possibilities given by the world wide web. But it's quite hypocritical to take advantage of it for profit and complain only when those profits are affected (not that i expect companies to be intellectually honest to begin with - their goal is getting a profit, and the largest one possible at that).
I see people talking about circumventing the sentence with several escamotages - making the "base game" free and the actual game as DLC, a major reliancy of DLC, leasing games for tens of years...i doubt they would work, and things that blatantly go versus the spirit of the law would be annihilated in a court case (besides, DLC would likely be subject to the same treatment of the games themselves).
But companies would do well to tread carefully, if they now want for digital and physical goods to be treated differently, else they end up with ulterior, unintended consequences. Things like loot boxes would easily go to the chopping block if courts do so - all it is needed is for courts to recognize that the outcome of such digital purchases is still owned by the customers, and thus resellable by them; thus with an actual monetary value, making loot boxes recognized as gambling - and i'm quite sure that's not an outcome companies would like.
Digital medias need a proper legislation, one that takes in account their particular nature. But who actually wants such a legislation? Companies were fine as long as the lines were blurred and they could take advantage by that, picking just whatever was profitable for them. And customers mostly didn't care about their rights - as many replies around the internet about this court case shown - as people seem more concerned about companies than themselves. For fear of seeing companies finding worse loopholes, they're fine with the loopholes that have been used so far. There is so much fear about a solution, that even the status quo is preferable.
And yet, we need it. If physical goods and digital goods are different, then customers of digital goods need to know what exactly they own, and what they are their rights. And only when the law properly ponders over it we can come to a conclusion. And see the consequences that come with it.
But companies never bothered acknowledging it so far, since they could profit more than before from the digital distribution.
For years we had anti-piracy campaigns that equiparated piracy with stealing physical items. Since digital storefront became popular, companies had no issues selling physical and digital products at the same prices, even if digital medias have far lesser overhead costs and, due to their virtual nature, have an essentially infinite supply. You don't have to craft discs, packaging, send it to a physical storefront...it's just about sending those data you've sold to a lot of other people to a new customer, with a new licence (and sometimes, if they have no DRM, even without that). Basically, a mere digital copy.
But now that consumers are in the position to ask for them to be treated like physical medias, oh, now them being digital is an issue. Them being mere copies - and thus equal to a freshly bought one - it's problematic. Digital transfers make reselling easy and that's bad for companies...even if it was fine as long as they were the only ones able to do it.
Sure, the digital market may be based upon an outdated legislation, one that doesn't properly takes account of the possibilities given by the world wide web. But it's quite hypocritical to take advantage of it for profit and complain only when those profits are affected (not that i expect companies to be intellectually honest to begin with - their goal is getting a profit, and the largest one possible at that).
I see people talking about circumventing the sentence with several escamotages - making the "base game" free and the actual game as DLC, a major reliancy of DLC, leasing games for tens of years...i doubt they would work, and things that blatantly go versus the spirit of the law would be annihilated in a court case (besides, DLC would likely be subject to the same treatment of the games themselves).
But companies would do well to tread carefully, if they now want for digital and physical goods to be treated differently, else they end up with ulterior, unintended consequences. Things like loot boxes would easily go to the chopping block if courts do so - all it is needed is for courts to recognize that the outcome of such digital purchases is still owned by the customers, and thus resellable by them; thus with an actual monetary value, making loot boxes recognized as gambling - and i'm quite sure that's not an outcome companies would like.
Digital medias need a proper legislation, one that takes in account their particular nature. But who actually wants such a legislation? Companies were fine as long as the lines were blurred and they could take advantage by that, picking just whatever was profitable for them. And customers mostly didn't care about their rights - as many replies around the internet about this court case shown - as people seem more concerned about companies than themselves. For fear of seeing companies finding worse loopholes, they're fine with the loopholes that have been used so far. There is so much fear about a solution, that even the status quo is preferable.
And yet, we need it. If physical goods and digital goods are different, then customers of digital goods need to know what exactly they own, and what they are their rights. And only when the law properly ponders over it we can come to a conclusion. And see the consequences that come with it.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Actually that's not at all true. Digital reselling as I've pointed out puts the onus on the supplier to ensure that the original copy is properly deactivated. Whereas this is implicit in physical goods (I give to you, therefore I no longer have it) it needs to be externally administered by digital retailers.
Thats a service, and potentially a very busy and demanding one, that will need significant manopwer and investment to run. I mean, its like account administration but for potentially dozens of transactions per customer. Its no joke.
Sentenza
Member
This keeps being repeated across the thread in one form or another, but just to be clear: we aren't.
The corporations aren't the ones risking something here.
Developers are, the users are, certain economic models and types of games are.
"The corporations" will find a way to land on their feet and make us pay for it.
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Zog
Banned
Right, you're doing it for the poor indie devs eh? They should be protected from the First Sale Doctrine and those mean consumers who think they should be able to resell the things they buy.
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Lord Thunderbear
Neo Member
Uh, nobody forces suppliers to embark in such an endeavour. It's just a way they may use to better insure that the previous user isn't still using the product he sold (and it doesn't even necessarily work). But again, nobody forces them to do it.
As far as consumers go, all they would need is a way to transfer the licence. On Steam, even a button that deinstalls your game, removes said game from the library and gives back an activation code would work. Sure, you could say that an user may just use steam offline in another pc and still play that game. It would be a matter of trusting the customers. And customers have to trust developers all the time, hoping that they won't change a game they've been bought months before, well outside the refundable period, only to push toward microtransactions (and sometimes, those microtransactions aren't even known of during the launch period, so customers cannot even be aware of them). So it's not like companies can complain either.
If anything, you should ask why suppliers have to deal with licences of goods they've sold. After all, once bought, they're owned by the customers. So what's the issue with digital goods?
Well, as i said before, legislation hasn't kept up with the times - as companies were fine with digital goods being in a nebulous area.
We don't have a proper concept of property of digital goods. So we don't have a way to work about it.
It would be different if some national or supranational entity put up a register of digital properties and the digital market is modified to work with it, software is configured to work with it, and people can manage their digital licences from there, gift them if they want, even give them to their descendants if they die. But we have nothing like that so far. Mostly because there wasn't the need to - after all, there was no proper management of digital licences, you bought something from a storefront and that's it. Maybe, once there is the need, things will change.
Sentenza
Member
Zog
Banned
Do you not know what the First Sale Doctrine is?
Its not a good thing when the justice decides to overrule what has been clearly stated in the EULA. Also, even physical PC copies use Steamworks, so basically its a moot thing on that platform except for GOG versions.
The very reason why valve got big with steam its over the constant sales that killed piracy and... used games on PC.
The very reason why valve got big with steam its over the constant sales that killed piracy and... used games on PC.
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
The Steam terms and conditions already say that.
Dontero
Banned
So many retarded arguments in this thread.
"THING ABOUT INDIES !"
Only reason indies even exist is because there was piracy and used games. Without both games market wouldn't be even 1/20 of today gaming market. Indies can sell their games because of amount of people who play games not because copies sold are 1time thing.
"BUT THIS WILL KILL GAMING!"
This whole subject is especially retarded when we talk about PC. Because every game can be pirated in seconds. So the idea that used game market will sink sales or something is as stupid as idea that piracy will sink sales.
"USED GAMES ARE WRONG FOR CURRENT MARKET !"
Used game market existed on PC and STILL exist. It never made PC platform worse or hurt anyone. Like i said in first point it only allowed market to grow. Consoles up till today enjoy used market sales and it is so important that when MS announced they won't support it it sunk their sales and managed to kill platfrom coming out of X360 success. And here we are PC players are absolutely cucked thinking that used games market will sink gaming or something. No it won't. In fact many pirates will start to buy used games which means more money will go into system not less.
"PHYSICAL USED COPIES ARE DIFFERENT!"
No the are not. All physical copies currently sold are literally exact same licenses you buy on steam or everywhere else. If your physical copy is destroyed as long as you have proof of purchase you can request duplicate disc or if you live in EU you can make it yourself. Secondly games on those disc also do not detoriate.
It is amazing what Steam fanboys come up with in defense of their favorite platform.
Console players laugh at you on how cucked you are. When Xbox tried to stop used games sales those people sink completely sink any power behind MS console and created so much stink that they managed to put XboxOne as failture after success of x360.
And yet here we are Steawfanboys spreading their asscheeks for good fuck.
"THING ABOUT INDIES !"
Only reason indies even exist is because there was piracy and used games. Without both games market wouldn't be even 1/20 of today gaming market. Indies can sell their games because of amount of people who play games not because copies sold are 1time thing.
"BUT THIS WILL KILL GAMING!"
This whole subject is especially retarded when we talk about PC. Because every game can be pirated in seconds. So the idea that used game market will sink sales or something is as stupid as idea that piracy will sink sales.
"USED GAMES ARE WRONG FOR CURRENT MARKET !"
Used game market existed on PC and STILL exist. It never made PC platform worse or hurt anyone. Like i said in first point it only allowed market to grow. Consoles up till today enjoy used market sales and it is so important that when MS announced they won't support it it sunk their sales and managed to kill platfrom coming out of X360 success. And here we are PC players are absolutely cucked thinking that used games market will sink gaming or something. No it won't. In fact many pirates will start to buy used games which means more money will go into system not less.
"PHYSICAL USED COPIES ARE DIFFERENT!"
No the are not. All physical copies currently sold are literally exact same licenses you buy on steam or everywhere else. If your physical copy is destroyed as long as you have proof of purchase you can request duplicate disc or if you live in EU you can make it yourself. Secondly games on those disc also do not detoriate.
It is amazing what Steam fanboys come up with in defense of their favorite platform.
Console players laugh at you on how cucked you are. When Xbox tried to stop used games sales those people sink completely sink any power behind MS console and created so much stink that they managed to put XboxOne as failture after success of x360.
And yet here we are Steawfanboys spreading their asscheeks for good fuck.
Dontero
Banned
Said someone spreading buttcheeks providing solid arguments.
Since 2000 every single game out there was cracked on release day up until denuvo started to work.
In that time PC market grew multiple times over like piracy never existed in first place.
It was also the same time when used games existed.
Sentenza
Member
Look, I'm not sure what gave you the delusion that you were authorized to talk to me with that degree of confidence.
And I'm not "spreading the buttcheeks" for anyone, whiny bitch.
P.S. Your "historical memory" of the PC market is complete garbage as well.
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Dontero
Banned
Again answering providing a lot of good arguments. Two posts 0 substance.
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Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
For one thing, its absolutely in the interest of anyone supplying product to an online storefront like Steam to ensure that their rights are being protected. Because if they aren't why should they expose themselves to the risk? Most suppliers don't offer DRM-free product for this reason, and what's worse this would legal. They'd literally be cutting their own throats for no good reason. At the very least they'd be better off selling their product directly as the presence of a middleman like Steam suddenly loses most of its value to them.
Suddenly the prospect of not actually selling directly, but instead offering solely through streaming services and other "rental" type arrangements becomes MUCH more appealing.
As to "trusting the consumer", well, there are two major drawbacks.
First of all, its not just about the customer. Its about suppliers protecting themselves from other businesses that would exploit customer freedoms to enrich themselves at their expense. I'm talking about services that harvest large numbers of "used" keys and codes, often from dubious sources, and then sell them on for a profit. This is the major point that most people seem to miss when talking about the negatives of DRM and copy-protection, its not just about the consumer, its about defending against large-scale enterprises exploiting the situation. Entities that add nothing to the scene, but simply see it as an opportunity to make money.
Secondly, it massively encourages digital theft. Suddenly getting access to somebody's Steam account is a potential windfall. Deactivate, sell-on, delete the account. Boom. How are you going to prove that this wasn't you? You expect Steam to chase up the reseller and find out to whom the funds were sent (good luck getting them to turn over this info without a court order) in order to validate that it wasn't fraud? Nope. Its gone.
There's a bunch of other stuff to be considered too. Why offer trial periods allowing refunding when the product can be sold on at will? I'd question the assumption also that this would have no effect on pricing, as effectively this will require additional investment to setup, and spending to handle the potentially large numbers of digital transactions, complaint handling, and general servicing required.
Again though, I keep coming back to the thought that the crux of the matter is that unlike selling on something you've bought physically, digital resales require the product to be manipulated by an outside party in order to be sold on. That in itself is a service, and services are never unconditional and always cost money for somebody. Expecting a free, no-strings-attached solution is to my mind, extremely improbable.
Its a Pandora's box of horrors frankly.
Lord Thunderbear
Neo Member
Sure, but it's their choice to do so. As i said before, nobody forces them to do so if the benefits aren't good enough for the costs. DRM-free storefronts exist too, after all.
Besides, digital storefronts would still give an increased visibility to the products, and buying from it would still be considered more secure than doing it from some half-baked website of some unknown developer. As far as big companies go, then sure, they may think it can be more profitable selling their products directly...and as a matter of fact, that's why we've got a ton of them making their stores/launchers so that they can do it as well.
Good luck making streaming services work all over the world. Besides, any other arrangement would still come under scrutiny of the law.
As long as they come from legally clean sources, so be it. Customers would profit more from selling their keys/codes directly, but if they want to use a middleman or sell those keys/codes for peanuts...well, it's their loss. Not so different from how it used to work so far for used physical games, anyway.
And that would happen because we don't have a proper legislation about property of digital goods. And we don't have it because companies did whatever they want and most customers were - and still are - fine with it.
Because, as far as Europe goes at least, we have customers rights.
In normal circumstances, as a customer you can also examine the product and refund it back, as long as you don't use it. That happens because using it would cause a depreciation, so it would incur in a compensation.
But as many people already said, there is no different between an used software and a new one, so there would be no reason for a depreciation either. Seeing as the only way to see if a software works is, well, using it, it's not like there is any other way for it to work.
Steam refunds work like they do because if they weren't "customer-friendly" enough to make things good for both customers and themselves, someone would already have gone straight to the court to make them fix it.
You're conflating the issues. As far as customers go, to sell a DRM-free game a private transaction and transferring the data would be enough. No outside party involved. But it works because the concept of property of digital goods is a grey area.
The issue you have is not about selling digital goods.
Your issue is that you want for companies and storefronts to still have control over something they've sold, well after they've sold it.
Well, they're not the police or something, so why should they be able to? Because it worked like that until now? Eh, things may change once a proper legislation gets done.
With physical items, it works with a proof of ownership (the receipt) and the item itself. With digital items being considered resellable there may be changes - but there can be only if proper legislation gets done. And sure, it will likely end up requiring an outside party, but it wouldn't end up being the companies themselves, but rather something appointed by a state, or some supranational entity. As companies have no say upon the property of something they've sold. But states do (and a supranational entity would work better, in that regard, so that the legislation is already unified from the start).
I agree that it will cause issues. But it couldn't be otherwise - it should have been done far before. Companies spent tens of years profiting from a nebulous legislation, cherrypicking only what was deemed profitable from those laws. Once a proper legislation is done, it is no surprise that it may end up less profitable for the single actors (not necessarily for the whole market, though). Either we open that box now, or we keep piling issues in it and wait for it to explode.
Ravielsk
Neo Member
One thing I noticed in this thread is that anyone arguing how this is a great move for the consumer seems to have no understanding of how the market works. The reason why reselling physical copies is a thing protected by the law is because once a physical product is purchased its handling/maintenance is fully handled by the one who purchased it. Meaning that the distributor, developer or publisher are completely left out of the equation and are no longer spending any amount of resources on said physical product.
With digital goods however once the product is sold its still being handled/maintained by the distributor. Meaning that the distributor, developer or publisher are still forced to actively spend money to maintain said product, even if its intended as a single use product(single player). If nothing else there is need to maintain a server where a copy is stored and from which you download said copy, this generates perpetual expenses that need to be somehow covered.
What all this means is that digital distributors cannot function with used sales as a option as they would be effectively burning money on maintnance of products for which they never received any or very little payment. If anything this would only encourage platforms like steam to switch to a subscription based model to cover the additional overhead of re-sold copies. I hope I do not need to explain why that is bad for the consumer.
With digital goods however once the product is sold its still being handled/maintained by the distributor. Meaning that the distributor, developer or publisher are still forced to actively spend money to maintain said product, even if its intended as a single use product(single player). If nothing else there is need to maintain a server where a copy is stored and from which you download said copy, this generates perpetual expenses that need to be somehow covered.
What all this means is that digital distributors cannot function with used sales as a option as they would be effectively burning money on maintnance of products for which they never received any or very little payment. If anything this would only encourage platforms like steam to switch to a subscription based model to cover the additional overhead of re-sold copies. I hope I do not need to explain why that is bad for the consumer.
Dontero
Banned
Bollocks. Stores could easily create backup tool or giving people installation files like GOG does.
Secondly if we go by your argument then even physical copies can't be sold because they feature parts of game that needs servers to run like multuplayer.
Finally going with your argument then your games should be switched off after purchase since they were bought once and now they generate supposed costs.
There is no difference for Steam if your copy of game is sold or not.
Finally we are talking her about law. So no one gives literally as shit what some store or developer wants. They should bend over and do as told because otherwise they will have to pay huge fines.
Ravielsk
Neo Member
Oh and as many have already mentioned this would create a whole new shit storm of security issues. Currently stealing a steam account is pointless simply because aside from cards(which are worth whole 3-5 cents each) there is no point in hacking an account. However with re-selling account theft is suddenly a very profitable business. Imagine hacking an account of someone with just 100 games and selling them even for just 1 dollar each, thats 100 dollars for basically nothing.
Worse yet steam would be more or less powerless to do anything about it. Because how would anyone prove they didn't sell those game themselves? And what even if you could? Would steam just delete those games from every account that bought them? What about refunds? Is anyone even thinking that about how much it would cost just in transaction fees to refund a 100 random people who bought games from stole accounts?
If anything steam would have an explicit motivation to never acknowledge that a account was stolen as dealing with it would always cost them more that its worth it. And if account theft were to become common enough it could destroy digital distribution platforms as a whole.
Worse yet steam would be more or less powerless to do anything about it. Because how would anyone prove they didn't sell those game themselves? And what even if you could? Would steam just delete those games from every account that bought them? What about refunds? Is anyone even thinking that about how much it would cost just in transaction fees to refund a 100 random people who bought games from stole accounts?
If anything steam would have an explicit motivation to never acknowledge that a account was stolen as dealing with it would always cost them more that its worth it. And if account theft were to become common enough it could destroy digital distribution platforms as a whole.
Dontero
Banned
Imagine caring more about potential theft of account than giving ability people to sell those accounts.
How about stop caring what corporations will do ? They have 100s of employees and they are paid to figure this out like any other business. I don't see a reason why games should be treated differently than any other business.
And again we are not talking about would be, if or should. We are talking here about law as done deal. Law is already in place and Steam contests it in court and they just lost battle and probably war. Oracle lost it in 2012 since then business software licenses can be sold and world didn't end for them. In fact nothing changed and all grows.
Steam will do what law requires it to do. Secondly it is very easy to prove if something is stolen or not. Receipts and police report. Once you do that Steam can easily cut off stolen copies from use and bring those back to their customers.
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AntiCap
Member
If the platform for buying and selling is provided by Valve, wouldn't everything be traceable? I mean, if you hack an account, there's still no way you can acquire actual money without providing your personal banking details.
Of course, this doesn't negate fraud 100%, but it's not like this is unprecedented. There are protocols in place for these things.
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Woo-Fu
Banned
Whenever somebody says, "...it is very easy..." about something they've never done and have no responsibility to do one can safely assume they don't know wtf they're talking about.
Regardless of how easy you think something is that something presumably will still requires some effort greater than zero. Multiply that non-zero number millions of times.
This isn't simply about protecting the consumer from big bad corporations. Regardless of whether or not you think the consumer has a right to resell software licenses there are going to be costs associated with implementing, operating, and policing such a system. You can assume that that is "easy" but since you're not going to be doing any of the work, your assumption is worth exactly the amount of effort you put into making it. You will be paying for it though.
Lastly, when arguing about how easy it is to police marketplaces like this one might spend a moment asking themselves why cdkeys.com's parent company is headquartered in Dubai and why G2A is headquartered in Hong Kong.
Regardless of how easy you think something is that something presumably will still requires some effort greater than zero. Multiply that non-zero number millions of times.
This isn't simply about protecting the consumer from big bad corporations. Regardless of whether or not you think the consumer has a right to resell software licenses there are going to be costs associated with implementing, operating, and policing such a system. You can assume that that is "easy" but since you're not going to be doing any of the work, your assumption is worth exactly the amount of effort you put into making it. You will be paying for it though.
Lastly, when arguing about how easy it is to police marketplaces like this one might spend a moment asking themselves why cdkeys.com's parent company is headquartered in Dubai and why G2A is headquartered in Hong Kong.
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Ravielsk
Neo Member
Yep, this is what I was talking about. Complete ignorance about how digital distribution works as a business and as a operation. So let me break this down for you.
For one that would mean people could sell their games while still being able to play them. But even then what exactly are thinking here? The game files need to be downloaded from some server and maintaining a server that is meant to store and distribute terabytes of data on a daily basis is costly no matter which way you slice it.
The ability to download games from your library costs something regardless of whether you download it once or 30 times. A offline Gog installer is not wiping that cost nor is it making any more economically viable as you are effectively asking all digital distributors to burn money on downloads for which they will never receive a single cent.
Complete nonsense and irrelevant. The point here is not that any software that connects to a server is automatically unresalable but that the ability to access and transfer ownership of it costs nothing(for whoever sold it to you) with physical products. With digital this does not apply, even maintaining the ability to download something costs money on the part of the original seller and with repeated re-sales these costs only go higher.
No genius, there is a difference between enabling one ""slot" on the server for one paying costumer to download copies of purchased games. and opening one "slot" from which an unlimited number of other non-paying individual can download copies of said games. The difference is costs there can be astronomic. That is the problem here.
Except for the tiny detail that for a new copy steam gets paid and for a used copy they only bill they get is a server bill.
Read up on a little something called the "Prohibition" and the maybe even the history of USSR. That should clear up why this is a incredibly stupid sentiment.
Ravielsk
Neo Member
The problem is with proving it. For example in one case a person can have their account stole and legitimately "cleaned" but in another case a smart-ass can sell all his games and then report it to steam as having that account stolen. The problem is telling these two apart.
AntiCap
Member
Well, again, my response would be, this is a problem for hundreds of other companies, yet they still operate to this day, seemingly fine.
Would aforementioned smart-ass be okay with his bank account being reported for fraud? I don't understand why he would report this to Valve, when he would be the one implicated.
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Dontero
Banned
You just described issue which store itself is itself responsible for. No customer asks for their games to be tied to any launcher. They just want to download game and be done with it. So they created their own bed. Let them sleep in it. They can always provide installations if they don't like it.
Finally no. I nor Law cares about their DRM mechanisms. They are only logical and reasonable in your own mind of publisher/developer whatever you are shilling for.
Also go away with your prohibition claims. Makes no sense to bring it. We are talking here about consumer rights to sell licenses they own and Steam breaking already established law.
Let me repeat it to you. Consumers have right to sell licenses they own.
What Steam or anyone else does in that case has absolutely no care from me or anyone.
If they don't like it they can always close their stores or go out of business, there will be plenty more stores or developers who will quickly do what they don't and take over.
We can't provide you ability to sell your car because what if it gets stolen.
This is your argument. I think it doesn't need any more comment on how bad this argument is.
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sid2vicious
Banned
People should make a big deal about this, because it is a big deal! Wasn't there a similar case to this with the refund system? Steam was getting away with it for the longest time, then finally they had to submit and implement it. Steam is a monopoly and has been getting away with murder. Even their customer support is crap, most of it is automated, their mods don't do shit, no phones, no emails, unforgivable! But the laws are finally catching up to them. We need to put pressure on them as well to make this happen, remember set the example with steam and surely other digital stores will follow suit. This is our given rights people, make yourself heard! 🗣
Torrent of Pork
Banned
I hope you people like Games as a Service, because that's all you'll ever get with this nonsense.
Helios
Member
It surprises you that people get tired of your bullshit every time "Steam" pops into the title of a thread?
theclaw135
Banned
This precedent will kill it. Companies will have to let players sell their unwanted gacha items, MMO subscription time, and DLC.
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Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
The game itself doesn't process and validate the license you idiot. The license is for a particular storefront or repository where the data is stored and the thing that facilitates downloads to take place.
The simplest analogy is that its a key, but the lock it fits is somebody else's property.
Its like buying a storage unit and selling the key to it. Its not suddenly going to become skeleton key that fits any lock, its always tied to the same provider. And if that storage company goes out of business... you're left with a key to nothing. And because you have no direct contractual relationship with the manufacturer of the items stored within your old unit, they have no obligation to do anything to help you out.
Sure, publishers can bypass the middleman if they want, but most won't want too because its a whole lot of extra work, responsibility and risk for them. Why do you think they happily hand over 30% of their revenue per unit if they didn't get something advantageous out of the relationship?
Zog
Banned
So back to physical copies and license keys on the box? Sounds great.
Dontero
Banned
Oh right, apperently i don't have right to participate in such thread.
Not according to ruling. Steam sales game and license. Meaning that Steam does not have license to "rent"
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Ravielsk
Neo Member
No one ever said that. Its just that you keep constantly misconstruing the whole issue. You talk about steam and its servers as if it was a spell with 0 mana cost that the evil greedy wizard Gab'e Newell refuses to cast for free. And you do this while everyone is trying to explain to you that no its not for free and that forcing resale of digital goods is seriously threatening stability of all digital store fronts.
You need to think about this in a scope beyond yourself and your wallet. Just as a simple example: Say that 1 GB of downloaded data costs steam 5 cents. So if you buy a indie game of that size for 10$ steam gets 3$(but since they cover the transaction fee its more like 2,25$ but whatever). For a single user that downloads that game about once or thrice its a very manageable 5-15 cent expense. But with reselling you enter a territory where that expense absolutely looses that cap and can go to infinity. So for those 3$ steam got for the initial sale it would take only 60 downloads to burn through that, so about 20-60 people need to buy and resell said game which for a 1gb indie game(so about 5-8 hours in length) is not exactly hard to achieve. So after those 20-60 people re-bought said game steam is effectively loosing money on it. Multiply this sort of behavior a few thousand times per month and you are effectively forcing steam into bankrupcy. Notice that I did not even consider the casts of maintaining workshop forums or a potential market place, those would only accelerate the process.
See? This is the problem with re-selling digital goods. Not your BS about "steam making its bed".
Look I cannot exactly give you a step by step guide on how to do it but there are a myriad of ways in which you can shift money around without it ever being traceable(atleast not without a amount of effort and authority Valve will never have). Similar deal with hacking accounts.
AntiCap
Member
I don't want a step-by-step. I also don't understand why you went back and quoted my initial response to you, when we had moved past that point.
Of course there are myriad ways to commit fraud. Where did I dispute that? What you have yet to make a convincing case for is the idea that it's going to be on such a scale that it's a colossal problem.
Zog
Banned
Yep, Steam specifically.