Lawsuit Demands The Right To Resell Steam Games

The thing is, if people can play then resell their games, then how can steam have a business? How can game developers have a business?
 
If you don't have a physical copy, then all you're buying is a license. With some companies like EA or Ubisoft, I might have enough angst to spew some venom, but this doesn't exist with Steam. I hope this lawsuit fails.
 
I don't see the point of this.

If you want cheap games, there are sales. If you want to get rid of a game that doesn't work, you can get a refund on Steam now. If you just want to get rid of a game, Steam now allows you to permanently remove a game as well. Steam even have a family sharing feature if you want to do that.

If someone is looking to play games for free, then that's an unreasonable expectation, IMO.
 
Stiletto said:
If you don't have a physical copy, then all you're buying is a license.
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Wow, another person that doesn't get it. By all means, tell me what physical copies of PC games can you buy nowadays that aren't tied to a license?
 
Why would I want to get rid of games I never play in first place, just grab for collection's sake and steam holiday sales... errr.... :)

I probably have 50-70% I yet haven't even played and some of which I likely never will play, big deal if you can't get your money's worth of the purchases...
 
Stiletto said:
Wow, another person who can't hear themselves.
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You're the 4th person in this thread who thinks that buying a physical copy of a PC game amounts to having a game you can resell. Sure, if you never play it once, but that sort of defeats the purpose of buying in the first place. Where is this notion coming from that physical copies of PC games are this magical protection against having a single-use license?
 
You haven't been able to resale pc games (even physical ones) for a LONG time now.

Hell I remember back in the 90's, the majority of games came with cd keys or other things and no stores would take any pc games that were opened because of this.

I think it'd be nice to be able to resell digital games, if they could find a way to make it fair in terms of being able to actually remove a game once it's sold to someone else.

I think steam would be able to develop that kind of system, just allow you to de-activate a game on your account an dit's put into your inventory, then you can list it up for sale via steam marketplace or make a trade with someone for steam wallet money.

Valve could even stand to make money from this, have a small fee for sales and things.

i think there should be a limit on this though. I mean what's the stop people from simply doing group buys? Where say like 4 friends decide to buy a game, then they just trade it to each other after one of them has beaten it over and over.

They have to figure out how to stop it from being abused.

I could see having a limited number of sales, like if you buy the game brand new, you can resale it.

If you buy it used then you can't resale it.
 
Stiler said:
You haven't been able to resale pc games (even physical ones) for a LONG time now.

Hell I remember back in the 90's, the majority of games came with cd keys or other things and no stores would take any pc games that were opened because of this.

I think it'd be nice to be able to resell digital games, if they could find a way to make it fair in terms of being able to actually remove a game once it's sold to someone else.

I think steam would be able to develop that kind of system, just allow you to de-activate a game on your account an dit's put into your inventory, then you can list it up for sale via steam marketplace or make a trade with someone for steam wallet money.

Valve could even stand to make money from this, have a small fee for sales and things.

i think there should be a limit on this though. I mean what's the stop people from simply doing group buys? Where say like 4 friends decide to buy a game, then they just trade it to each other after one of them has beaten it over and over.

They have to figure out how to stop it from being abused.

I could see having a limited number of sales, like if you buy the game brand new, you can resale it.

If you buy it used then you can't resale it.
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Well the CD key ones still had (and do have) some value, just not through a place like Gamestop. On Ebay or Amazon, there are still plenty of used copies that you could sell or buy from since they weren't intrinsically tied to an account. But stuff within the past 5 years, yeah. Play once and the physical copy is a toaster, no resale value at all.
 
Back in the 90s, the CD key was just an install key. You could reinstall on different machines as many times as you wanted. You just needed the CD to actually have the game run. Most of us got sick of that and just used No-CD cracks.

If Valve allowed the sale of games, I see Valve losing money. Your game publishers would not like this at all. So they'd probably beef up their own online systems and just sell their own games or move to another system. EA already did it. Blizzard has their own. Hell, maybe MS will push their XBL on PC again and get other developers to jump onto it.

As for game swaps, it's already happening. Except in the case of Steam, you're account swapping. Valve also has Steam Family Sharing, although only one person gets to play the game list at a time when you share it, at least during it's beta phase. I have no idea how it works.
 
tetris42 said:
You're the 4th person in this thread who thinks that buying a physical copy of a PC game amounts to having a game you can resell. Sure, if you never play it once, but that sort of defeats the purpose of buying in the first place.
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Nonetheless, you can, and it's less uncommon than you'd think. You think dormant games are isolated to PC? I've still got PS3 and XBox 360 games I've never gotten around to unwrapping. Consumerism is sloppy.

Regardless, you have the option with the physical copy, and no option with the Steam copy. So your high horse is due back at the rental shop.
 
Koolthulu said:
Not having a resale value is one of the reasons I refuse to buy digital games at full price. When I bought physical copies I always knew I could get at least $20 used for it. So a $60 game really only cost me $40 by the time I was done. Now, I just don't pay more than $40 for a digital copy.
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Why did you get $20 for selling a used copy. Key word=USED. Physical discs degrade over time so makes sense that they sell used for cheaper. Digital goods can't really be "used". Besides when you can get games on sale with steam for 75% off who needs used games.

Entertainment industry has taken a lot of heat over the years for not adapting to the internet fast enough, trying to sell us the same thing multiple times for each device so that pirates end up providing the better service. This is just the reverse. Used games shouldn't exist in the digital world.
 
jiminator said:
The thing is, if people can play then resell their games, then how can steam have a business? How can game developers have a business?
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Even if you could resell physical copies, the CD would scratch, documentation gets lost, the box gets pizza stains on it. It can only be passed around so much. A digital copy could be resold indefinitely, one person buys a copy and 99 other people buy and resell. You couldn't make money selling digital and it would end digital distribution. Then it would be used to end digital music sales, too.

Some people are out to break a thing and the unrealistic promise of rainbows and ponies give them an endless supply of supporters.
 
Stiletto said:
Nonetheless, you can, and it's less uncommon than you'd think. You think dormant games are isolated to PC? I've still got PS3 and XBox 360 games I've never gotten around to unwrapping. Consumerism is sloppy.

Regardless, you have the option with the physical copy, and no option with the Steam copy. So your high horse is due back at the rental shop.
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No, you can do the exact same thing with a Steam game you've that you haven't activated and is in your inventory instead. You can buy digital copies on ebay right now. Entire sites are based around this concept. What do you think a site like G2A.com does?

Again, for PC GAMES, the physical copy is now meaningless. If you never play it, you can sell it new. You play the game once, it has no resale value at all, exactly the same as Steam. As for the high horse, I just get annoyed by people acting like it still means something. On the contrary, I wish there WERE more protections for a game you bought. But acting like if it's physical copy, everything is okay is delusional in the PC space. You may as well be talking about VHS sales of new movies for how much relevance it has today in PC gaming. Again, it's not 2005 anymore.
 
They are going after the wrong company.

They should be trying to sue Microsoft and Sony. Digital Editions of games sold by them are the same price as the physical media in most cases, and you can't resell it.

They create an unfair system where they promote and push people to buy from the dashboard, giving up all rights of ownership for the same cost.
 
GoodBoy said:
If this happens it would ruin steam. Say goodbye to $5 games when they do the sales. And it would be bad for developers too. We get cheaper games on steam because they cannot be resold.

And on top of all that, if someone's account got hacked and someone sold your games... very bad.
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Damn good point. Didn't even consider that. And I agree on the sales price points too. Honestly don't see this going well if it succeeds. I got over 100 games and don't ever plan on selling a single one even if able. I still have every game from every console I ever owned.
 
LordCalin said:
They are going after the wrong company.

They should be trying to sue Microsoft and Sony. Digital Editions of games sold by them are the same price as the physical media in most cases, and you can't resell it.

They create an unfair system where they promote and push people to buy from the dashboard, giving up all rights of ownership for the same cost.
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You are licensing the program and not the physical media ... the price, in theory, should be based on the value of the IP ... game prices have stayed artificially low for many years (only console prices increased after the expansion of the used market) ... PC games (IAP and DLC aside) have stayed almost the same as they were in the early 2000's ... companies that want to attempt charging the same for digital as for physical succeed or fail based on the value of their IP

As to the ownership question, think of software as renting a car with an indefinite contract and a one time fixed fee ... you might have a physical item (car) but it is still owned by the contract holder (rental company) but you have a license to use it ... even physical media based software works essentially the same way
 
Of course we should be able to resell it. If businesses can make money off selling digital "copies" of something, then we can recoup some of our spent $$ selling them off when we're done using them.
 
JustReason said:
Damn good point. Didn't even consider that. And I agree on the sales price points too. Honestly don't see this going well if it succeeds. I got over 100 games and don't ever plan on selling a single one even if able. I still have every game from every console I ever owned.
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How is that any different than saying someone could break into your house and steal your gold, therefore you shouldn't be able to sell said gold? Use your brain.
 
But you don't own the license to the gold, you just own it >_>
 
Lawsuit get a life and a job

Hey why not make every game FREE on steam so it gets shut down and bankrupt.
 
My immediate thought is, if you legalize the reselling of digital games, what is stop the formation of video game co-ops? Something like a time-share for video games. Sales could take a serious crap and, regardless of how you feel about game pricing or the quality of games we've received as of late, poor sales is bad for the future of any industry. Only two things can come out of low sales, cost cutting and higher prices.
 
spugm1r3 said:
My immediate thought is, if you legalize the reselling of digital games, what is stop the formation of video game co-ops? Something like a time-share for video games. Sales could take a serious crap and, regardless of how you feel about game pricing or the quality of games we've received as of late, poor sales is bad for the future of any industry. Only two things can come out of low sales, cost cutting and higher prices.
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So something like a public library? As I recall those were the death of the book publishing industry...
 
kbrickley said:
You are licensing the program and not the physical media ... the price, in theory, should be based on the value of the IP ... game prices have stayed artificially low for many years (only console prices increased after the expansion of the used market) ... PC games (IAP and DLC aside) have stayed almost the same as they were in the early 2000's ... companies that want to attempt charging the same for digital as for physical succeed or fail based on the value of their IP
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You say they're artificially low, but not really, the market has changed. Traditional game prices haven't kept up with inflation, but there are bigger and easier-to-reach markets than in the past, plus there are more games than EVER before. If companies were to push game prices higher, they might make less profits because they would sell less copies, especially in light of so much competition. I mean the whole point of a free market is to determine fair pricing, so whatever price you can get games for, that's likely what their maximum profitability pricing is. Either that, or titans like EA, Ubisoft, Acitvision, etc. don't realize that their prices are artificially low.
 
Are you all living in a cave?

Today it is no different to buy a physical or digital copy from the game because both require Steam, or Origin, or UBI-crap to work... meaning NEITHER have any resell value beacause you can't reuse it.
 
I'd like to make Xbox Live still let you download games that are no longer sold if you've previously bought them. The live system is still being a gatekeeper for if I can play it. Heck make me store it in my onedrive storage bin if I have to.
 
pothb said:
^Yea... pretty much that. Not sure on my feelings on it... but I think in terms of download only stuff, the license stuff works. What annoys me though, is if you get banned, for any reason, you lose access to it.
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I agree. It's a license to use the software. It's not necessarily the same as a physical product. Also, are other digital gaming platforms forced to do this? (I honestly don't know, I don't have an XB/PS just a WiiU where it's definitely not allowed.) They'd need to completely revamp digital licensing laws, and probably fairly globally unless they just want to see things removed from France.

Also, agree on the banning thing. There should be multiple severity/repeat offense levels to banning. Starting with very temporary, on up to permanent.
 
Comixbooks said:
Lawsuit get a life and a job

Hey why not make every game FREE on steam so it gets shut down and bankrupt.
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But this is French lawmakers creating their own job, and making a life for themselves. :p
 
prava said:
Are you all living in a cave?

Today it is no different to buy a physical or digital copy from the game because both require Steam, or Origin, or UBI-crap to work... meaning NEITHER have any resell value beacause you can't reuse it.
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Wrong, seeing as how my copy of borderlands 2 on vita is for sale on my ebay store right now. You have no idea what you are talking about.
 
So what's next? Go to the theater and watch a movie and demand the Blu Ray copy because I paid for it?
 
tetris42 said:
Guys, jesus. This is about Steam games, not Xbox. Physical media copies on PC have had as much value as coasters for years now. While there are maybe a few small exceptions, it's all tied to the account now. So great, you bought a physical copy, now you have to install Steam/Origin/Uplay in order to activate it. Now your physical copy is worthless, because no one else can play the game from your disc now. So it's the same situation as trying to sell your Steam copy. Why do so many people still think physical media means you can replay the game on another PC? It's not 2005 anymore!
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I get where you are coming from, and I never said that because you bought physical you can re-sell it. What I am saying is that if steam allows this, that should be the only way if They allow it. Definitely not digital only.
 
PurduEE said:
So something like a public library? As I recall those were the death of the book publishing industry...
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For books, the more technical books are priced for institutions such as libraries and universities anyway. They are not meant to be purchased by every students individually when you consider the price. So it doesn't affect them when students do not purchase these technical books because they were not marketed towards individual students anyway.

For the more accessible books, library don't kill their business because it's impractical or inconvenient for most people to rely on public libraries only for stuff like magazines or novels. The physical limitation means that for the more accessible stuff, we'll purchase our own.

As for video games, they are priced for individual ownership, this is why we see games being priced as they are, the price coming down after awhile, and they go on sale too. If people can easily trade them online with a few clicks, it will affect the market because we'll be in a situation where a large portion of users obtain their games through used market, due to how easy and accessible online reselling is.

As a result, the industry will be forced to react. We may see games moving towards online F2P, cloud gaming, we'll no longer see games going on sale, the industry may even be discouraged to make their games available on PC platform.
 
This will go absolutely nowhere. Before you join Steam and BEFORE you play the games you purchase on steam you have to agree to a licencing agreement. You give up your "digital rights" at that moment.
 
krotch said:
Back in the 90s, the CD key was just an install key. You could reinstall on different machines as many times as you wanted. You just needed the CD to actually have the game run. Most of us got sick of that and just used No-CD cracks.

If Valve allowed the sale of games, I see Valve losing money. Your game publishers would not like this at all. So they'd probably beef up their own online systems and just sell their own games or move to another system. EA already did it. Blizzard has their own. Hell, maybe MS will push their XBL on PC again and get other developers to jump onto it.

As for game swaps, it's already happening. Except in the case of Steam, you're account swapping. Valve also has Steam Family Sharing, although only one person gets to play the game list at a time when you share it, at least during it's beta phase. I have no idea how it works.
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Many game that had a cd key (even back in the 90's) that had any sort of multiplayer it used the cd key to tie it to that and check it.

So if you bought a game like say, Half life for instance, you used the cd key to go online and things.

If you then sold it to someone else and they used the same cd key you had used, it wouldn't work.

At least that's how I remember them working.

ONe of the reasons stores like gamestop/babbages wouldn't take them back, because they had no way of knowing if you had used the key or "copied" it down and thus if they resold it to someone else they might not even be able to use it because you used it.
 
ZodaEX said:
How is that any different than saying someone could break into your house and steal your gold, therefore you shouldn't be able to sell said gold? Use your brain.
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Maybe you should use yours. Seriously personal attacks are unnecessary. And to your point, someone breaking into your house is far easier to prove and apprehend. And has precious little to do with what I was commenting on. I was just stating that I hadn't even thought about people getting in your account and selling your games.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I go in with the expectations that I won't be able to resell the game. Whether it's right or not, I don't care. This is just one thing that's "just how it's done" and we accept it.

I guess I just don't care either way.
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Agreed. Back in the day I thought differently when media was more physical. And cost more too. Now, meh, it seems like a non-issue

On the flip side, I have one hell of a collection of games. I'm not interested in selling, but if I were to die, I would like to pass the collection on as an inheritance or something
 
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