Steam due in court over used game sales!

[WYP]

Most of us here are familiar with steams inability to trade/sell or return games.
Many of us do not mind this, others think we as consumers deserve to be able to sell or lend our purchased content.

The EU seems to be part of the latter, last year making it a legal requirement to allow costumers to resell digital software.

With it now being a year since this decision passed, with valve not addressing this issue, a German consumer group called Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband has decided to go after Valve for its refusal to recognize this resolution.

they say "Our chance to win the process is very good and that will be really an improvement for consumers: then they can sell their games to others,”

No trial dates have been set as of yet.

What do you guys think of this situation?
Do you believe Valve should change its ways!

 

[d3rrial]

I don't think its Valve thats causing the problem, they would still make their profit if they created a marketplace for used games, I believe its rather publishers like EA, Ubisoft, Activision, 2K etc. stonewalling. So I believe this lawsuit tries to shoot the messenger.

 

[Feronix]

I like Steam and I guess you're naturally against it when something that you like gets dragged to court, but I do like the reason.

I have a lot of unused games in my library that I could sell, and there are also a lot of games that I want but can't afford at the moment. It is kind of our right, we own what we buy.

I'll just sit back and see what they make of it

 

[WYP]

If steam is forced to make a market-space for used games it could work something like the trading card system.

content is sold, buyer gets his price, valve+developer gets some of a added on cost from whomever buys it.

 

[d3rrial]

[...]

Yes, and Valve WOULD make a fair share of that money, but Developers / Publishers wouldn't, thats why they are stonewalling. Imagine on a normal game sale the price would be split 50:50 (thats unrealistic, I know) between Valve and the Publisher of this game, say the game cost 15 GBP, means 7.5 GBP go to Valve, 7.5 GBP go to Publisher XYZ, all is well. Now Joe wants to sell his copy of game ZYX, he sell it for 10 GBP, he obviously will want most of the money, so lets say he gets 90%, the 1GBP will have to be split among Valve and the Publisher, since the publisher didn't create anything valuable in this transaction Valve would be reluctant to pay them a lot, so lets say Valve keeps 90% of that, valve has .9 GBP from this purchase and the Publisher has .1 GBP from a transactional value of 100 times that. Thats where (typically profit oriented) publishers say "NOPE"... As they could've gotten 7.5GBP if this game were to be purchased "new"

 

[WYP]

I don't think this will amount to anything, I hope it doesn't honestly.

Steam already does a lot to help us consumers (sales anyone!), stuff like this has great potential to harm both steam and developers.

I believe Valve shouldn't need to fix a system which is not broken!

 

[jamesriley94]

Valve would lose a lot of money if this was passed.

People would just resell everything, and buy everything again second hand (which could actually be branded as new...) in a couple of weeks.

As a consumer - yeah I would like it. But I think the long term effects would be terrible for Valve - and them losing an incredibly large percentage of their profits can never be good for consumers in the long run.

 

[WYP]

Valve would lose a lot of money if this was passed.

People would just resell everything, and buy everything again second hand (which could actually be branded as new...) in a couple of weeks.

As a consumer - yeah I would like it. But I think the long term effects would be terrible for Valve - and them losing an incredibly large percentage of their profits can never be good for consumers in the long run.

Exactly, who would buy a new game if the second hand digital version is exactly the same?

 

[jamesriley94]

Exactly, who would buy a new game if the second hand digital version is exactly the same?

Well it wouldn't even be second hand really.

It'll just lead to people buying going through every game out there, and then reselling them again at the same price they paid for them - meaning consumers would get every game for free, and the publishers not getting anything back from each resale.

 

[WYP]

I have added a poll

I would really like to get the forums Opinion of this issue!

 

[NeverBackDown]

I think we need an international (or at least each country) process on how used selling games should be handled. It's a issue here in the US and UK so mine as well set a standard way to do things to allow as many people as possible to benefit. A tax on the sale for example that would take away money from the consumer that will allow publishers and places like steam to be able to earn money. And set a limited amount of games you could sell each month. Just throwing out ideas. Valve should not be getting a court case because they can't do anything about it.

 

[remember300]

I think we need an international (or at least each country) process on how used selling games should be handled. It's a issue here in the US and UK so mine as well set a standard way to do things to allow as many people as possible to benefit. A tax on the sale for example that would take away money from the consumer that will allow publishers and places like steam to be able to earn money. And set a limited amount of games you could sell each month. Just throwing out ideas. Valve should not be getting a court case because they can't do anything about it.

I think if they did this all games on pc would have to then have like an activation code that you only get one copy of and then even if you get it second hand at a steal ... the publisher will want you to pay them to play your game. all the steam sales would go. and then everyone will stop buying pc games and our market for the good games will be gone

 

[NeverBackDown]

They do that now...

 

[loglog]

honestly i have no issue not being able to resell or lend games on my PC. They give the convenience of keeping your key history, essentially, allowing you to redownload to an authorized PC. You have the ability to directly purchase a gift for a friend. I also no longer have to keep track of my discs or worry about them being broken or scratched as i did with consoles. On top of that they have games at ridiculously low prices on their sales, cheaper than any console would at any time.

Also how would you determin if it was a used serial key or not? This also doesnt provide any funds to the original producer. Without that its harder for them to put time into the next game, thus making it worse than it could be.

 

[remember300]

They do that now...

yeah but what i mean is they will make it on every game. and it will be even worse pricing

 

[NeverBackDown]

Meh we never know and it will never get fixed the way things are going anyway so who knows

 

[Carbon20]

It's not like digital copies wear out or degrade over time. So what's the point of calling them "second hand" or "used"


You cant wear out 1's and 0's, a digital copy of anything will essentially always be 'new' and will always be worth the original price you paid for it. So If someone wanted to resell a digital copy of a game it would be stupid to sell it for any less then the price you paid for it, right?

So steam is in court because they don't want to let consumers actively redistribute their products for individual profit and gain? Ultimately at the financial loss of Steam

I have a bunch of games on Steam I don't play any more. If I could sell them for the same price I paid for it, I would have essentially gotten them for free.

It's not like console games which get scratched, manuals go missing, cases get damaged and because of that no one would ever pay full retail for a second hand console game. It's simply not the same story with digital copies.

I don't get the problem.

 

[demonking]

and how would you even know....
who said they have to offer second hand games for sale?
they could offer you 50% value for that CDkey and then use that key on a brand new sale and would you know?
how do you know that all of the keys you have right now are not keys that have been refunded? surely that is selling second hand or nearly new goods?

the only way this could work is the above or else you can kiss good bye to PC gaming. publishers already hate PC's due to pirating, this would be the final in the coffin.

 

[WYP]

as it stands i believe nothing will change, the resale of content on steam would damage the company severely.

although the EU has made a requirement to be able to resell digital content, the affects on the industry would be terrible for both developers and consumers.

Likely this case will not change anything!

 

[Greenback]

I could see this stopping the steam sales, simply because people would buy games during the sale at -75% and then after the sale they could sale them at -25% making a nice profit.
Honestly I get all my games on steam during sales or daily deals, and would hate to see pc games going for console prices on steam.
Also consider that the sites that sale cd-keys could buy those 2nd hand games and sale them as new under cutting steam, Eventually in theory (at a stretch) it could put steam out of business, I know there are people that would like this I'm not 1 of them