consumer rights Steam Users Have the Right to Resell Their Digital Games Rules French Court

[Humbug]

7 hours ago, yolosnail said:

When I spend money on a phone I would rather that money goes to Apple than the last owner... I'm worried about Apple losing revenue because of a second hand market

 

See how silly that sounds when we change one little thing? What we have to remember is game Devs are just businesses too. They aren't there to be your friend, they're there to take your money.

But you did change one thing. I don't particularly care about Apple... I do care about game developers.

Not saying this line of thought applies to everyone, it was a personal thing.. I was not making a general statement saying that 2nd hand should not be a thing.

 

Also I know game devs want to make money, but I am not a person who is overly cynical and thinks that all businesses are equally evil etc... Of course they take my money, they get something they want (my money), I get something I want (fun games to play), that's how this works...
 

[suicidalfranco]

8 hours ago, Mr Prince said:

where neither is making money only consumers

this is the only thing that doesn't make sense

8 hours ago, Mr Prince said:

and i honestly do not wanna life in a world of streaming services or subscription services where exclusivity forces us to take multiple subscriptions for the very same thing except having something uniqueu at each service

we are already there without the ability to resell our digital licenses 

8 hours ago, Mr Prince said:

French court should protect consumers where it matters and ban exclusivity

one step at a time, this case is a massive win for consumer protection

 

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

If people can just sell used digital copies (they don't have a drawback, so they would go easily), developers would see a SIGNIFICANT drop in income

dev been doing fine when gamestop came along

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Another EU french ruling that just ignores the current state of the world and how stuff works.

 

fify

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Well, because life does not work that way. Developer can't just make less money. Some simply can't break even, others have investors that won't accept that.

did ebay killed EA when people sold their discs on the used market?

 

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

So basically we would lose some indie games and see increased prices for AAA games.

They would have to find a way to offset the possibly huge hit to sales

nothing will change, increasing price would be publisher shooting themselves in the foot and indies wont be affected just like when people where whining that refund policies would kill small games that require less than 2 hours to complete

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Games are priced to match the current state of how stuff works. If I could just pay 50% of the price for a "used" digital game, why would I not do that?

cause some people just cant wait, just like we used to do back in the physical days: some will preorder for fomo and camp all night in front of a gamestop, others will gladly wait to grab it a garage sale for cheap

 

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

At the loss of the developer of course. And people would likely sell for even less than 50%, since even 1 buck is more than nothing.

frankly: what loss? they already made their money from the initial sale

 

8 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

This just can not work at all. No way. Not without major suffering (150 bucks a game anyone?) for gamers upfront

ebay, gamestop, blah blah blah

 

7 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

How does this even work? There's unlimited supply and no physical depreciation?

 

something like: 

1. have the option to revoke a game from your library

2. receive product key

3. sell it to steam a la gamestop, through third parties, privately or gift it

 

should be enough imo

[suicidalfranco]

2 hours ago, Humbug said:

But you did change one thing. I don't particularly care about Apple... I do care about game developers.

then you don't have a valid argument

2 hours ago, Humbug said:

Of course they take my money, they get something they want (my money), I get something I want (fun games to play), that's how this works.

then explain me why, if you ever decide to get rid of something you own, you should give a share of what you gain back to the devs?

They already made their money through the initial sale that happened with you. By reselling your are not generating a copy, your are not giving away different product code and you are not making a profit out of it.

Why should the devs be involved it a second hand sale that might happen between you and someone else?

[vanished]

Just to add some more food for thought to the pile, one funny example of reselling seemingly not hurting a company - or in the very least, the company not caring about the existence of, nor trying to shut down, a second hand market - that I just recalled which has always baffled me is how Nintendo, by intentionally having grossly insufficient supply relative to demand for many of their products, actively goes out of their way to create a thriving, even fanatical second hand market in which their goods trade between people on a regular basis for often well over retail price, and from which they see no profit.

[Froody129]

Noooo, this is a terrible idea. It's one thing for physical games to be sold used; it's a lot more effort and they do have wear and tear. For digital games all this will mean is that people buy the game new, then sell it a week later when they're done with it for 90% of the purchase price. That means that the devs will sell a first wave of copies, and thereafter their customers are going to just keep selling it on. Saying that they can police this is like saying that movie producers can just police illegal streaming.

 

What this will encourage are practices that are terrible for the end-consumer: subscription models, a boatload of DLC to get the "complete" game (imagine even worse than it is now...) and likely higher initial purchase price.

 

This is a terrible solution to a problem that doesn't exist. If you want cheap games you just wait a year or two and then buy it for scraps somewhere. If you don't want to wait then you're welcome to pay the purchase price at launch.

[Tech Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

 

ebay, gamestop, blah blah blah

 

 

So, you claim that people are just as willing to buy really USED and physical goods, that may or may not have physical damage, wear, missing stuff or additional germs,.... as they are willing to buy a game code that would show zero sign of being used?

 

If I can get the latest Assassins Creed or GTA for 5 bucks, legally... just by waiting a week before the first people are tired of the game, developers WILL make less money.

And they WILL have to offset that somehow.

 

Claiming it is the same as gamestop and used physical stuff, is just crazytalk. You are ignoring that people are less willing to bring their stuff to a physical store and hope to sell it, then just putting their code up for sale just by clicking a button. Also people are less willing to buy used goods then brand new. I know for myself, that i NEVER buy used. I would rather pay 3x as much. But digital "used" is not used at all. It is just like new.

 

Sorry to be this honest here, but you sound a little delusional and compare apples to oranges.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

So, you claim that people are just as willing to buy really USED and physical goods, that may or may not have physical damage, wear, missing stuff or additional germs,.... as they are willing to buy a game code that would show zero sign of being used?

 

yes or else a used market would have never existed

 

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

If I can get the latest Assassins Creed or GTA for 5 bucks, legally... just by waiting a week before the first people are tired of the game, developers WILL make less money.

And they WILL have to offset that somehow.

 

Offset what exactly?

Is the game being stolen? Is the game being copied to infinity? Are we reaching a point where second hand needs to be classified as piracy to please the faceless, soulless corporation?

And if some people want to get rid of their game then it's up to them. Publisher A or Developer B are none of the consumers concerns in that regard just as they don't give a fuck about the consumer when they screw them with no regards. They can try to increase the price as much as they want, let's see how long they'll survive afterwards.

 

 

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

 

Claiming it is the same as gamestop and used physical stuff, is just crazytalk. You are ignoring that people are less willing to bring their stuff to a physical store and hope to sell it, then just putting their code up for sale just by clicking a button. Also people are less willing to buy used goods then brand new. I know for myself, that i NEVER buy used.

your personal case is not the general rule. The used market exist, it as always existed and they is no reason why digital shouldn't be able to be sold or obtained that way.

 

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

But digital "used" is not used at all. It is just like new

it is, the state in which you find it doesn't the condition of the product. 

 

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Sorry to be this honest here, but you sound a little delusional and compare apples to oranges

i'm not the one here making a huge slippery slope out of a normal practice that has always existed been brought to the digital space. It's about time someone finally stepped on it.

[Drak3]

On 9/20/2019 at 12:19 AM, Ryan_Vickers said:

'm surprised so many people are seeing this as a bad thing.  It's more freedom for consumers, and while it must be noted that it's not a new freedom but simply regaining one we used to have in the physical days, it is what it is.  We can expect that this will come to all regions sooner or later.

Returns on downloaded digital goods can only head down two roads:

1. Introduction of authoritarian policy by the market place, such as no offline modes.
2. The system is easily abused by something as simple as backup + offline mode.

[TechyBen]

5 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Just to add some more food for thought to the pile, one funny example of reselling seemingly not hurting a company - or in the very least, the company not caring about the existence of, nor trying to shut down, a second hand market - that I just recalled which has always baffled me is how Nintendo, by intentionally having grossly insufficient supply relative to demand for many of their products, actively goes out of their way to create a thriving, even fanatical second hand market in which their goods trade between people on a regular basis for often well over retail price, and from which they see no profit.

They also use this to their advantage by selling at (roughly) above average prices compared to supply/demand scaling.

[TechyBen]

58 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Returns on downloaded digital goods can only head down two roads:

1. Introduction of authoritarian policy by the market place, such as no offline modes.
2. The system is easily abused by something as simple as backup + offline mode.

I think the selling of the "license" is where you can/do/have a right. If Steam changes it to "this is a download service agreement", then they could sidestep the law here. In all reality, a licensed sale seems unenforceable. A serviced sale, is also unenforceable, but does not require you to allow the user to "resel", they could cancel (and get a refund for that period of time. And as games last forever, what's half of infinity? ).

[Tech Enthusiast]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

yes or else a used market would have never existed

 

Offset what exactly?

Is the game being stolen? Is the game being copied to infinity? Are we reaching a point where second hand needs to be classified as piracy to please the faceless, soulless corporation?

 

Not sure where to start.

I never said used market does not exist. I claimed that selling used stuff has a higher barrier then selling pristine and perfectly new stuff. Both for the seller AND for the buyer.

 

Offset what exactly?!

How about all the missed sales that don't get made? Companies have to calculate their prices based on market research. If they only get 20% less sales, they either have to eat that (some indies won't break even then and not make a game in the first place) while investors won't accept that and just increase the upfront price by 20%.

 

Selling Games sounds nice, if you only look at the selling itself and ignore all the stuff that follows and all the other market participants.

It is nice for the consumer for a few days. After that companies adjust and the consumer has to live with the consequences. And those WILL happen. 

 

Thinking nothing will change in a bad way due to this, is just being delusional. 

And claiming this is the same as the used market for physical products is just wrong on so many fronts, that I won't even start to explain further. Others with more time on their hands can try that.

 

[Delicieuxz]

My view on the right to resell digital games is that I believe I have that right, but whether a digital platform is or should be required to facilitate my ability to exercise that right by designing their platform in a way that lets me easily transfer games from my account to somebody else's could be an entirely separate matter.

 

I've looked at the situation as a digital delivery service provider and a retailer being two distinct functions, with digital retailers typically being also in the business of providing a digital delivery service to provide customers the means to easily use purchased goods, but with the retail and the delivery functions potentially being distinct.

 

When I buy a game, I own that game and am rightfully entitled to exercise all ownership rights over that game instance. However, when I purchased the game I did not also purchase the digital delivery service. And so, I am not necessarily entitled to have the 3rd-party digital delivery client be designed in a way that facilitates my transfer of the tangible record of a game) I own to another account.

 

And so, I think it's possible for both me to own my games on all digital platforms, while those digital platforms don't necessarily offer, as part of their service, application functionality that facilitates my transferring of games to another person and account.

 

 

If Valve or another platform wants to fight being forced to enable people to easily resell their games through the Steam client application, then I think it should be done by arguing that selling someone a game through the Steam store doesn't necessarily make company responsible to mediate any future resale transactions by the new owner of the game. An argument that tries to claim people don't own their purchased games is the wrong way to go about it, and is an approach that will be and should be fiercely opposed, because that approach is wrong in that it isn't a truthful position to be arguing from, and it is an attempt to steal property from others, the owners / purchasers of the games.

 

 

 

Related to this new French court ruling against Valve, since around 2010, it has been ruled by court after court around the world that people own the software they purchase and hold all property rights over their purchased software - including specifically games purchased from Steam. Comprehensive information about that is presented in this post:

 

Understanding software licenses and EULAs: You own the software that you purchase

 

 

I invite and encourage anyone interested in the topic and their rights of ownership over their software to read that post. Because, for many years, the consumer perception of the topic has been deliberately and nefariously manipulated, indoctrinated, and misled by corporate propaganda that is entirely at odds with the reality.

[suicidalfranco]

6 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

How about all the missed sales that don't get made?

Not the consumers problem. He bought the game, he owns that license, he should be free to do whatever he wants with it: keep it, sell it, destroy it

 

6 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

If they only get 20% less sales, they either have to eat that (some indies won't break even then and not make a game in the first place) while investors won't accept that and just increase the upfront price by 20%.

again they can try, i'll just enjoy the view while they sink to the bottom

 

6 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Selling Games sounds nice

it doesn't. It should have been available from the inception of digital goods as a basic consumer right

6 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Thinking nothing will change in a bad way due to this, is just being delusional

nothing will. just like nothing changed when Valve was forced to add refunds to the store. Member' when everyone was like "small indie games will die because of this"? i member.

Slippery slope then, slippery slope now.

6 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

claimed that selling used stuff has a higher barrier...

it doesn't.

[Zodiark1593]

11 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Just to add some more food for thought to the pile, one funny example of reselling seemingly not hurting a company - or in the very least, the company not caring about the existence of, nor trying to shut down, a second hand market - that I just recalled which has always baffled me is how Nintendo, by intentionally having grossly insufficient supply relative to demand for many of their products, actively goes out of their way to create a thriving, even fanatical second hand market in which their goods trade between people on a regular basis for often well over retail price, and from which they see no profit.

I suppose if a digital distributor really wants to go that route, they can keep digital keys/signatures in highly controlled quantities. Outside online activation though, effective copy protection on PC is difficult enough that this probably wouldn't be feasible.

[Donut417]

The one thing I wonder is how will "used" digital games be priced? I guess we could have a steam marketplace where you could sell the games. Will the sellers just pick a price? What would the market look like? Its not like digital good depreciate like physical goods. 

[vanished]

16 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I suppose if a digital distributor really wants to go that route, they can keep digital keys/signatures in highly controlled quantities. Outside online activation though, effective copy protection on PC is difficult enough that this probably wouldn't be feasible.

Well, I wouldn't worry about how well it could be done because it's not something you want to do As a company, it means losing out on profit, and as a consumer, it means having a hard time getting what you want and having to pay more for it.  I meant it more of "even in the worst case, they can survive like this so reselling is not really an issue".

[ARikozuM]

On 9/19/2019 at 8:26 PM, dalekphalm said:

Take for example, buying a game from EGS and "moving" it to Steam. When you bought it from EGS, they took a cut, which goes to fund things like those servers, etc. When you transfer the game to Steam, they never got their cut of the game. So now they are supporting you, including allowing game patches, cloud saves, etc - for free.

Easily debunked. 

 

Xbox and PS4 games may exist on both platforms, but they are not playable on the other without purchasing a new copy for that platform. If you have an EGS key, you must sell the EGS key. If you have a non-DRM key, you must sell it as a non-DRM key.

Spoiler

Though technically non-DRM aren't really keys but just installers.

 

[ARikozuM]

57 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The one thing I wonder is how will "used" digital games be priced? I guess we could have a steam marketplace where you could sell the games. Will the sellers just pick a price? What would the market look like? Its not like digital good depreciate like physical goods. 

They do depreciate. Look at Age of Empires 2 discs. They used to be $30 on release, but went up as high as $40 when there were very few copies. As soon as the Steam version came around, they largely stopped selling for more than $10. Digital games also see price drops as well as frequent sales. There isn't much to differentiate them from physical games. 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Easily debunked. 

 

Xbox and PS4 games may exist on both platforms, but they are not playable on the other without purchasing a new copy for that platform. If you have an EGS key, you must sell the EGS key. If you have a non-DRM key, you must sell it as a non-DRM key.

  Hide contents

Though technically non-DRM aren't really keys but just installers.

 

I'm confused about your comment. What exactly did I say that is "easily debunked"?

 

I'm not talking about straight up selling a EGS key you've redeemed as an EGS key (and having it removed from your account).

 

I'm addressing the OP who said this might lead to "cross pollination" - or in other words, the ability to transfer a game from one platform to another (or perhaps sell a game you bought on one platform, and the buyer redeem it on any platform).

 

Either way, I don't think this will happen (and even if it was on the table, I don't think it would be a good idea).

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm confused about your comment. What exactly did I say that is "easily debunked"?

Selling the key should be allowed as the instance is your property. 

 

I meant the cross-pollination being easily debunked. 

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

They do depreciate. Look at Age of Empires 2 discs. They used to be $30 on release, but went up as high as $40 when there were very few copies. As soon as the Steam version came around, they largely stopped selling for more than $10. Digital games also see price drops as well as frequent sales. There isn't much to differentiate them from physical games. 

I think you misunderstand what he's saying.

 

The argument around depreciation is as follows.

 

Let's take Age of Empires 2, as an example. Three people are selling the physical copy of the game. One person has a sealed box, never used. One person has a mint condition copy, with a pristine rarely used disc with no scratches, and all the packaging from the box. The last person has a scratch up disc, no manual, no box, just the disc in a case.

 

Are all 3 worth the same? No.

 

But if there are 3 people selling a digital copy of Age of Empires 2 - it literally doesn't matter whether they key has been "redeemed" (used) before. There is no wear and tear. The "key" can't get scratched. The is no box or packaging. A key is a key is a key.

 

Used physical products can see both depreciation (as the product becomes worn with use and age), as well as appreciation (becomes a "coveted" collectors item, or is otherwise extremely rare). The physical condition of the product heavily impacts it's price.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

They do depreciate. Look at Age of Empires 2 discs. They used to be $30 on release, but went up as high as $40 when there were very few copies. As soon as the Steam version came around, they largely stopped selling for more than $10. Digital games also see price drops as well as frequent sales. There isn't much to differentiate them from physical games. 

Yes, but you can differentiate the new vs used. Not like with physical games. New a AAA title might go for $60, but 6 months down the road you might get it for $40. How will they treat used keys? Its not the same as physical disks. Used steam keys dont depreciate like used physical copies, that makes it harder to figure out their value. Because even for used, people are still going to want to get the max amount they can get out of the used games. With how steam sales pop up, you might put a game that is normally $15 for sale for $10, just to have Steam have a sale on it for $8. 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

I meant the cross-pollination being easily debunked. 

Sorry - I don't understand what you mean about cross pollination being easily debunked. What exactly are you debunking? We're talking about some hypothetical that the OP just made up.

 

Are you debunking cross pollination as something you can do right now? Well, sure - that's true... but no one claimed that.

 

Are you debunking cross pollination as an outcome of this court outcome? If so, while I agree that it's incredibly unlikely, neither of us can say one way or the other how this will affect the industry and what changes will happen because of it. Therefore you cannot debunk something that hasn't happened yet.

[Andreas Lilja]

12 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Let's take Age of Empires 2, as an example. Three people are selling the physical copy of the game. One person has a sealed box, never used. One person has a mint condition copy, with a pristine rarely used disc with no scratches, and all the packaging from the box. The last person has a scratch up disc, no manual, no box, just the disc in a case.

Yeah but that's because HD is shit. 

 

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Yeah but that's because HD is shit. 

 

Uhm... what?