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[Generic]

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.

Yeah man I'm also upset that Valve will lose money.

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".

And how exactly is this my problem?

 

[RealGassy]

Indie games were born out of digital distribution and they rely on non-transferable licences to exist.

I was reading the other day how Nintendo used to own the patent for the "good design" of Dpad, now that patent has expired.
The hardware patents last for 20 years (!!!).

Lets have a compromise, lets have copyright for videogames last 20-25 years, I think this is very reasonable.
It gives enough time for a game to be released on a home console, then two generations (say 10years) later rereleased on a phone or a handheld.
And then finally after a total of 20-25 years have passed it enters the public domain.

Non-transferable licences for digitally purchased games are crucial for continued existence of single player games (and indies).

 

[Zog]

Indie games were born out of digital distribution and they rely on non-transferable licences to exist.

If they can't exist in tandem with the consumer right to resell then they can't exist. This issue isn't going away.

 

[Fuz]

Its not a good thing when the justice decides to overrule what has been clearly stated in the EULA.

AHAHAHAHAH

Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

 

[Kadayi]

And how exactly is this my problem?

When you think the world revolves around you

If they can't exist in tandem with the consumer right to resell then they can't exist. This issue isn't going away.

You honestly sound like a complete luddite at this fucking juncture Zog. I've gotta ask do you even game? Because your adversion to the whole digital thing is frankly hilarious at this juncture.

 

[Zog]

When you think the world revolves around you

You honestly sound like a complete luddite at this fucking juncture Zog. I've gotta ask do you even game? Because your adversion to the whole digital thing is frankly hilarious at this juncture.

Supporting consumer rights makes you wonder if I game? Can you explain that leap of logic?

 

[Kadayi]

Supporting consumer rights makes you wonder if I game? Can you explain that leap of logic?

I'll take that as a hard no then.

 

[Zog]

I'll take that as a hard no then.

You aren't going to explain your leap of logic?

 

[Helios]

Yeah man I'm also upset that Valve will lose money.

Alongside developers. I thought you epic shills cared about the developers and their percentage.

 

[Skyfox]

I saw this coming about 10 or more years ago and was not surprised at the consequent rise in “service” based gaming.

Ultimately these trends come and go (like arcade gaming which was more like a service).

Watch for gamepass exclusives lol. Ah capitalism and creativity are funny bedfellows

 

[Domisto]

Not read the whole thread, my take... if this gathers momemtum the response from the industry will likely be more streaming, subscriptions (aka rental), GaaS, and more DRM. Definitely two sides to how this might shake out.

 

[Sentenza]

This was never an issue till PC basically killed the physical option....

If physical was an option, this case would not exist!

Yep, Steam specifically.

You guys have it backward.
AS USUAL, I'd love to add.

The digital market on PC didn't "kill physical distribution". it's the death of the physical distribution of PC games gave digital delivery a chance to bloom.

I don't know if most of you are either young, last minute PC gamers or just completely clueless, but maybe you actually can't remember that PC boxes were disappearing basically anywhere, retailers never reserved them any shelf space, sales got worse and worse each year in a some sort of vicious circle, entire publishers were leaving the platform behind and openly speaking against its poor viability as a market, physically browsing gaming stores was a pain for many of us, with chances to actually find the games we were looking for getting slimmer and slimmer over time... And for most of the few games that were still getting a physical release, the boxes were getting poorer and poorer in content and quality and the discs almost always came with some hideous draconian restrictions ("You need to have the disc in your optic driver to play even if the game is fully installed," "You need to answer a questionary about your copy from your manual", "you need to insert a code every few hours", or garbage like TAGES, Securom and Starforce with their "Oh, and let us check if you installed any software that we judge unsavory, like some disc burner: we'll stop the game from working for you").

As the same time Digital Delivery started to emerge. And at first it was complete garbage. It was "Electronic Arts Download Manager" with its brilliant "You can just download the game X time and inside a time window of six moths". Unsurprisingly no one wanted to use it.
And the came Steam. At first just as a DRM for HL2 (not great, for sure, and no one myself included liked the idea of an online account, but I personally I didn't hate it even back then, since I remember how before it there was the time of the Sierra InUtilities and of hunting down dozens of updates on FIleplanet) and as a reference point for every Valve title, then third party after third party it slowly turned into an actual store, and it was around 2007-2008 that being able to buy pretty much any major release on PC from there started to become more or less the norm.

And guess what? It completely revitalized the PC market in a decade. It didn't kill it, it basically saved him from committing ritual suicide.

 

[Kadayi]

You aren't going to explain your leap of logic?

There is no leap. Earlier on in the thread, you were wistfully dreaming about this signalling a return to discs for everything (as if that's ever going to happen). That's some blinkered Luddite fanfic right there. Which raises the question as to your apparent lack of comprehension as to just how goddamn complex games are these days, and how much post-release support needs to go into them. I noticed with all of you types that there seems to be this complete disconnect from the 'now' if not the last ten years or so in terms technological advances never took place. What next? Do you want game patches on Gaming mag CDs? Broadband and cable are a thing. I know it's hard to accept.

Also, it's fucking hilarious that you think this ruling will stand. It won't because it's not in the interest of any of the big digital players far beyond Valve. You think Ubisoft (Frances biggest gaming company) is going to OK with me selling my Uplay games and they have to cover the server and download costs of whomever I sell the key to? Or whoever they sell the key to? Ad infinitum? The reality is all this ruling does is highlight that the law needs to catch up with realities of digital distribution when it comes to entertainment media versus productivity software.

 

[Zog]

Not read the whole thread, my take... if this gathers momemtum the response from the industry will likely be more streaming, subscriptions (aka rental), GaaS, and more DRM. Definitely two sides to how this might shake out.

We're getting that anyway.

 

[NickFire]

I'm gonna think on this. On the one hand, I really like the idea of owning what I buy because the license thing just seems nonsense to me. But on the other hand, I worry about government overreach, especially legislating from the bench. A couple unknowns are whether this is a reasonable interpretation of the applicable legislative law or not. And whether this action would devastate the industry for real, as opposed to just making games slightly less lucrative for predatory pubs / devs.

It's definitely something I would like to enjoy the benefits of. I just don't know if this is the right way to get there.

 

[Zog]

There is no leap. Earlier on in the thread, you were wistfully dreaming about this signalling a return to discs for everything (as if that's ever going to happen). That's some blinkered Luddite fanfic right there. Which raises the question as to your apparent lack of comprehension as to just how goddamn complex games are these days, and how much post-release support needs to go into them. I noticed with all of you types that there seems to be this complete disconnect from the 'now' if not the last ten years or so in terms technological advances never took place. What next? Do you want game patches on Gaming mag CDs? Broadband and cable are a thing. I know it's hard to accept.

Also, it's fucking hilarious that you think this ruling will stand. It won't because it's not in the interest of any of the big digital players far beyond Valve. You think Ubisoft (Frances biggest gaming company) is going to OK with me selling my Uplay games and they have to cover the server and download costs of whomever I sell the key to? Or whoever they sell the key to? Ad infinitum? The reality is all this ruling does is highlight that the law needs to catch up with realities of digital distribution when it comes to entertainment media versus productivity software.

Ok, because I prefer physical you think I don't game? Patches exist with physical games too.

Used physical copies also aren't in the of any of the big publishers but they haven't been able to ban that.

I think you are so upset because you know that this issue isn't going away.

 

[Sentenza]

When GreenMan Gaming launched (yes, here's another one, just to remember once again that Epic didn't invent the "competition" to Valve) its defining feature was giving customers the options to sell back to the store games they didn't want anymore.
Awesome, right? Except it turned out no one gave a shit in the long run, not even the people who made a big deal of it at first.

A lot of publishers weren't fans, obviously, but it turned out their concern was mostly misplaced. Why? Because these games devalued so fast, most people after a while couldn't even be bothered to sell them back.
Why sell something you may want to play once again in the future for PENNIES? What was the point? Unless it was a game everyone hated, which incidentally sold for less to begin with and devalued even faster than the good ones.

This could be very different, though. This would be a market saturated of games selling for a couple of bucks or even for pennies merely HOURS after the initial launch, the "used copies" easily available to all the other customers and served to them directly on the same store that sell you the "original copy"... And what's even more bizarre, the provider of the original license would have to take charge of most of the costs (repeated downloads, updates, etc) while a single license keeps passing from user to user.

It's not like I can't understand why some people would find the idea vaguely appealing and would be tempted to cheer for it screaming "FREEDOM AND CONSUMER RIGHTS" on the top of their lungs, but I wonder... Is *actually* that hard to foresee why this could turn out to be fairly disruptive for the market?
I'm not even saying this because I'm concerned for the well being of indie devs (especially since a lot of them turned out to be massive pricks these days). I'm literally saying that I'm not even sure this would allow any profitable market to exist at all.

 

[Kadayi]

You guys have it backward.
AS USUAL, I'd love to add.

The digital market on PC didn't "kill physical distribution". it's the death of the physical distribution of PC games gave digital delivery a chance to bloom.

I don't know if most of you are either young, last minute PC gamers or just completely clueless, but maybe you actually can't remember that PC boxes were disappearing basically anywhere, retailers never reserved them any shelf space, sales got worse and worse each year in a some sort of vicious circle, entire publishers were leaving the platform behind and openly speaking against its poor viability as a market, physically browsing gaming stores was a pain for many of us, with chances to actually find the games we were looking for getting slimmer and slimmer over time... And for most of the few games that were still getting a physical release, the boxes were getting poorer and poorer in content and quality and the discs almost always came with some hideous draconian restrictions ("You need to have the disc in your optic driver to play even if the game is fully installed," "You need to answer a questionary about your copy from your manual", "you need to insert a code every few hours", or garbage like TAGES, Securom and Starforce with their "Oh, and let us check if you installed any software that we judge unsavory, like some disc burner: we'll stop the game from working for you").

As the same time Digital Delivery started to emerge. And at first it was complete garbage. It was "Electronic Arts Download Manager" with its brilliant "You can just download the game X time and inside a time window of six moths". Unsurprisingly no one wanted to use it.
And the came Steam. At first just as a DRM for HL2 (not great, for sure, and no one myself included liked the idea of an online account, but I personally I didn't hate it even back then, since I remember how before it there was the time of the Sierra InUtilities and of hunting down dozens of updates on FIleplanet) and as a reference point for every Valve title, then third party after third party it slowly turned into an actual store, and it was around 2007-2008 that being able to buy pretty much any major release on PC from there started to become more or less the norm.

And guess what? It completely revitalized the PC market in a decade. It didn't kill it, it basically saved him from committing ritual suicide.

Dude. I'm pretty sure none of these fuckers was even allowed near a PC back then They don't seem to have any comprehension as to how PC gaming got absolutely squeezed out of the retail space by the agressive promotion of the consoles coupled with rampant piracy making PC as a platform extremely unappealing for the big publishers in the early 2000s. The entire nature of modern PC gaming from AAA to indies has been built off of Digitial distribution over the last 15 years, and yet this reality is somehow an anathema to them and one that they want to see dismantled because they cannot wrap their fragile little minds around it. It's legitimately painful to read some of the sheer idiocy that they spout, even more so when they out themselves as little more than drive-by console jockeys versus seasoned PC gamers with actual skin in the game.

Ok, because I prefer physical you think I don't game?

Not PC at any rate. Which given the nature of the discussion here is kind of an amusing admission.

I'm going to enjoy bringing up this particular acknowledgement in future threads going forward.

 

[Zog]

This could be very different, though. This would be a market saturated of games selling for a couple of bucks or even for pennies merely HOURS after the initial launch, the "used copies" easily available to all the other customers and served to them directly on the same store that sell you the "original copy"

There can only be as many used copies as those that were sold new. They aren't infinite, just like with used physical copies.

And what's even more bizarre, the provider of the original license would have to take charge of most of the costs (repeated downloads, updates, etc) while a single license keeps passing from user to user.

Currently updates are given to those who purchase used physical games and the number of downloads isn't restricted. Obviously these things aren't a big concern to publishers and platform owners.

but I wonder... Is *actually* that hard to foresee why this could turn out to be fairly disruptive for the market?

A market that disrespects consumer rights is disruptive. The digital market needs to adapt to include the consumer right to resell, if it can't then why protect it?

I'm literally saying that I'm not even sure this would allow any profitable market to exist at all.

If you have to throw the First Sale Doctrine out the window to make a profit, then you shouldn't exist.

 

[thanosg]

Oh good if I can sell my digital game back I totally would do that now

 

[Zog]

Dude. I'm pretty sure none of these fuckers was even allowed near a PC back then They don't seem to have any comprehension as to how PC gaming got absolutely squeezed out of the retail space by the agressive promotion of the consoles coupled with rampant piracy making PC as a platform extremely unappealing for the big publishers in the early 2000s. The entire nature of modern PC gaming from AAA to indies has been built off of Digitial distribution over the last 15 years, and yet this reality is somehow an anathema to them and one that they want to see dismantled because they cannot wrap their fragile little minds around it. It's legitimately painful to read some of the sheer idiocy that thry spout, even more so when they out themselves as little more than drive-by console jockeys versus seasoned PC gamers with actual skin in the game.



Not PC at any rate. Which given the nature of the discussion here is kind of an amusing admission.

I'm going to enjoy bringing up this particular acknowledgement in future threads going forward.

I don't play many PC games but why are you limiting this to PC games? Digital stores exist on consoles too.

 

[Kadayi]

I don't play many PC games but why are you limiting this to PC games? Digital stores exist on consoles too.

That's it Zog, keep doubling down. I'm sure it will pay dividends in the end.

 

[Bryank75]

You guys have it backward.
AS USUAL, I'd love to add.

The digital market on PC didn't "kill physical distribution". it's the death of the physical distribution of PC games gave digital delivery a chance to bloom.

I don't know if most of you are either young, last minute PC gamers or just completely clueless, but maybe you actually can't remember that PC boxes were disappearing basically anywhere, retailers never reserved them any shelf space, sales got worse and worse each year in a some sort of vicious circle, entire publishers were leaving the platform behind and openly speaking against its poor viability as a market, physically browsing gaming stores was a pain for many of us, with chances to actually find the games we were looking for getting slimmer and slimmer over time... And for most of the few games that were still getting a physical release, the boxes were getting poorer and poorer in content and quality and the discs almost always came with some hideous draconian restrictions ("You need to have the disc in your optic driver to play even if the game is fully installed," "You need to answer a questionary about your copy from your manual", "you need to insert a code every few hours", or garbage like TAGES, Securom and Starforce with their "Oh, and let us check if you installed any software that we judge unsavory, like some disc burner: we'll stop the game from working for you").

As the same time Digital Delivery started to emerge. And at first it was complete garbage. It was "Electronic Arts Download Manager" with its brilliant "You can just download the game X time and inside a time window of six moths". Unsurprisingly no one wanted to use it.
And the came Steam. At first just as a DRM for HL2 (not great, for sure, and no one myself included liked the idea of an online account, but I personally I didn't hate it even back then, since I remember how before it there was the time of the Sierra InUtilities and of hunting down dozens of updates on FIleplanet) and as a reference point for every Valve title, then third party after third party it slowly turned into an actual store, and it was around 2007-2008 that being able to buy pretty much any major release on PC from there started to become more or less the norm.

And guess what? It completely revitalized the PC market in a decade. It didn't kill it, it basically saved him from committing ritual suicide.

I stopped gaming on PC around 2004/5, physical was still the main way I got my games back then. So I missed the whole story about how steam came to be the way for PC.

I just wonder what the answer will be now?
Ideally they would work together to provide a physical option but I don't think PC gamers will embrace that and therefor it would be a huge waste of money.

 

[Zog]

That's it Zog, keep doubling down. I'm sure it will pay dividends in the end.

Did you think this was ONLY about Steam and PC gaming? This is about all digital stores.

 

[Kadayi]

Did you think this was ONLY about Steam and PC gaming? This is about all digital stores.

So let me get this right. Now having outed yourself as a console drive-by, you're also all about taking down the man on your own platforms of choice?

 

[Zog]

So let me get this right. Now having outed yourself as a console drive-by, you're also all about taking down the man on your own platforms of choice?

What are you talking about?

 

[Kadayi]

What are you talking about?

 

[Zog]

Why are you trying to turn this into console vs PC?

 

[Clear]

Did you think this was ONLY about Steam and PC gaming? This is about all digital stores.

In the sense that it sets a precedent for all digital sales, sure.

But once again, the key thing is that transferral of ownership requires intervention on the part of the vendor. Which instantly changes things compared to resale of physical goods where the onus is entirely upon the owner of the product to be resold.

I suspect that in the end all that's going to change is the ability of vendors like Steam to categorically state that you cannot resell as part of their TOS. However they will still be under no obligation to facilitate transferral of ownership, certainly not without charging a fee for said service.

 

[Zog]

In the sense that it sets a precedent for all digital sales, sure.

But once again, the key thing is that transferral of ownership requires intervention on the part of the vendor. Which instantly changes things compared to resale of physical goods where the onus is entirely upon the owner of the product to be resold.

I suspect that in the end all that's going to change is the ability of vendors like Steam to categorically state that you cannot resell as part of their TOS. However they will still be under no obligation to facilitate transferral of ownership, certainly not without charging a fee for said service.

They could just release the key so you can sell it elsewhere.

 

[Kadayi]

Why are you trying to turn this into console vs PC?

Please. I could give a damn. At this juncture I'm just into mocking you because you showed your ass with a little bit of light goading. No amount of johnny come lately earnest hand wringing on your part of 'it's all about Digital' makes up for the fact that you abjectly demonstrated that you really don't have any skin in the game. versus being nothing more than a console drive by with some fanciful Luddite ideas as to how the world should be. You're managed to rack up around 20+ posts in this thread and yet it seems you don't even have a Scooby about the PC digital space in terms of scope, scale, market, operation or complexity or any sense of the unrealistic nature of this ruling, because not only is implementation on any level largely impossible, but it isn't in the interest of a whole host of businesses whose mainstay is in the digital realm to allow it to stand. Still continue to 'Fight the power!!!'

 

[RealGassy]

It's pointless to split hairs over this, because:
a) it's not going to pass; and
b) if it does, congratulations on your new-found consumer rights for digitally made purchases,

Enjoy those rights by reselling your old humble-bundle copy of WHATEVER for a grand total of 5 cents (3 of which goes to Valve for transaction costs, 0 to devs).
Realistically this is the only time you will ever be able to exercise those rights, because no new single player games will be made to be bought or resold.

There are bigger fish to fry - such as reforming and reducing duration of copyright down to something more reasonable, say 20-25 years.
Coincidentally, this move doesn't destroy the indie games or mutilate games industry in general.
Just stops big old companies from infinitely selling and rereleasing their stinky old roms for 5-10 dollars a pop. (games which should be in the public domain years ago)

There are other meaningful hills to die on, such as fighting for rights to be able to seamlessly transfer games between devices you own.

 

[Zog]

There are bigger fish to fry

This fish is on the grill right now. Why not fry it?

There are other meaningful hills to die on, such as fighting for rights to be able to seamlessly transfer games between devices you own.

I wasn't planning on dying.

 

[Clear]

They could just release the key so you can sell it elsewhere.

That's work to (re-)generate and send it after validating the original copy is deactivated and detached from the original owners account. Then to re-validate the new key when the new owner tries to use it, allowing them to utilize their repository bandwidth and download that item again.

You think they're going to do that in perpetuity, potentially multiple times per each individual sale, for no money?

Get real.

 

[Zog]

That's work to (re-)generate and send it after validating the original copy is deactivated and detached from the original owners account. Then to re-validate the new key when the new owner tries to use it, allowing them to utilize their repository bandwidth and download that item again.

You think they're going to do that in perpetuity, potentially multiple times per each individual sale, for no money?

Get real.

They don't seem to have a problem with bandwidth or they would have a limit on how many times you can download games now. Pretty sure they can have their servers do the work of invalidating keys just as they have servers do the work of validating them now. The cost of doing business to write the code shouldn't be an issue. You seem to be forgetting that they will simply have no choice if it becomes the law sort of like how they have to provide insurance to full time employees too.

 

[Kadayi]

They don't seem to have a problem with bandwidth or they would have a limit on how many times you can download games now. Pretty sure they can have their servers do the work of invalidating keys just as they have servers do the work of validating them now. The cost of doing business to write the code shouldn't be an issue. You seem to be forgetting that they will simply have no choice if it becomes the law sort of like how they have to provide insurance to full time employees too.

Wow you really are clueless about digital, aren't you Zog ? You legitimately think the whole enterprise just runs on fairy dust and wishful thinking. The reason they can afford the bandwidth and run the servers is because of a little thing known as "Ongoing Revenue Stream" An alien concept I understand, but an important one to wrap your head around.

 

[AstroRhino]

Likelihood is the consumer will end up paying.

If this is enforced, games will be simply be more expensive to buy in France digitally.

 

[Kenpachii]

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.

Uh, when u sell a physical copy u sell the whole copy towards another person. When that person drops that copy into there console it has to download patches and update tools and needs online servers to check if the copy is legit. Which basically means nothing changes on that department vs digital.

The download part would also be a non issue if they opt for p2p solutions which basically absorbs this problem entirely something that blizzard tends to use, now everybody can download there games from each other. This is used already for ages.

Also licenses are far cheaper to produce then through the physical solution which can absorb any license transfer costs on the client anyway. I am sure the 30% cut of steam will cover this incredible easy solution that they can push a automatic system for.

But even then why would steam have to provide this? they lock the games in there platform to create more money out of there consumers, so it really isn't much of a issue of price at this point anymore.
Because why do i need to use there platform to start with? I just buy it on steam website and done, i don't need the game to run in there client even remotely. They could make it so i can request my key and just download the game from a p2p website and lock me into that so there is no involvement.

Hell i could run that website for complete free tomorrow if they wanted too.

Then about accounts being hacked, they can create insurance solutions or whatever happens with physical solutions also. Ur copy of warcraft 3 gets jonkt out of your house well it's gone the end, work with insurance. They could easily cover this. If steam however cares for trojan horsing there shop into your games and requirements they can cover it.

U are trying real hard here to make a point against it while there is non.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I really hope this does not gain any traction.
It would be the death sentence for any developer not relying on online services and in-game revenues (anything from DLC to cosmetics to all the real bullshit messing up games).

There wouldn't be any downside to buying "used" digital games compared to buying them "new". And it would be cheaper, potentially a lot.
And the developer would only get money from the people who buy the game "new" when it comes out. Long-term sales would mostly be lost on the reselling market.
It would also make region locking basically mandatory, so people wouldn't be able to buy "used" games from Russia, etc.

I really don't see how a small developer could still make a decent living developing single-player only games or online games without any microtransaction stuff, if this caught on.
Or game prices would increase drastically, so that the few people who'd still buy the games from the actual developer would have to make up for the money lost. Which would naturally reduce the number of people buying to begin with. Vicious circle.
It's already very hard to make a living developing games as a small developer, I don't see the need to make it even harder just because France doesn't understand how digital economy works.

It would be so weird to see great single-player games that still require you to be constantly online or require a monthly subscription fee to pay, just because developers had to become creative to earn a living.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

I actually see this as a positive to Microsoft, and a detriment to Playstation.
Currently, PS4 is "locking" consumers with digital games that couldn't be sold. Games that would be lost if the customer change sides. But if it becomes a legal requirement for digital games to be resold, then the barrier is gone. A PS4 owner could theoretically sell all his or her digital games and move to Scarlet, if they so wished.

Now, I don't actually expect this to go anywhere; right now the entire digital store market must be horrified at the prospect of 2nd hand games returning with a vengeance. This is not about pro or anti Steam; it is about how all digital stores are suppose to operate. I am expecting enough pushback from everyone, including Microsoft, to get this law crushed.

Odds of this lasting is about 5%?

 

[Airola]

This will end up in ever harsher DRM.

They have to check and double check and triple check that the files are locked only to one system at a time and that files can't be copied and if someone copies the files, they won't ever work except in the system the new owner has.

If people hate current DRM systems they are going to be furious when mandatory resell rights for digital goods is applied.

 

[RealGassy]

How many copies a single player game would sell - if digital transfers were a thing?
A first order approximation would be - peak concurrent players.

Let's take indie-mega-hit dearling Cuphead.
It's peak concurrent players were in October 2017 at 19076 (avg concurrent for the month was ~8000).
In November 2017 peak players were only 7608 (avg concurrent ~3400).
Right now game has 902 peak players (avg concurrent ~500).

Meaning - after the game has sold "peak_concurrent_players" number of copies, no NEW additional copies of game would ever need to be sold.
And if developer wants to see any money after that, he has no other choice, but to compete with the price of resold games in the most brutal race to the bottom fashion.

Am I saying that Cuphead would have sold only 19076 copies (in place of 1mil+ copies it sold on Steam)?
No, of course not. Peak concurrent players is the lower-bound. It would sell more.

It would be "peak_concurrent_players times K", where K is a coefficient which depends on length of the game, addictiveness and replayability.
Shorter game would have lower K, and a lengthy game with lots of replayability will have higher K.

Lets be generous, and say that K in case of Cuphead would be 5, and 10% of the players would become hardcore fans of the game (meaning they would never ever re-sell the game).
Assuming this is true, Cuphead would have sold = 20k * 5 + 100k = 200k. Which is a fraction of what it sold.

To be fair, I'm pulling the numbers out of my ass, but no matter how generous I am, the number of sales are at best halved.
Which is maybe fine for an indie mega-hit like Cuphead, but for anyone else? Uhhhhhh...