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

[Jito463]

On 9/20/2019 at 3:57 PM, Ryan_Vickers said:

It's also important to remember that this is nothing new, it's just bringing back what was once normal and commonplace.  Selling used games has been around for as long as games have existed and it didn't completely destroy the market before, so without some solid arguments as to why that precedent is no longer valid, I don't think there's a good reason to assume that it will destroy the market now.

Except that with physical copies, you have physical wear and tear that would reduce the life expectancy of the discs.  There is no wear or tear on digital copies, so nothing to degrade.  A used digital copy is identical to a new digital copy.

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Except that with physical copies, you have physical wear and tear that would reduce the life expectancy of the discs.  There is no wear or tear on digital copies, so nothing to degrade.  A used digital copy is identical to a new digital copy.

One difference that immediately comes to mind is I would not expect Valve to offer refunds on a used purchase.  And although they don't wear out, they still lose value over time.  As games get older, they become subject to deeper and more frequent sales, as well as cuts to even the base price, and so this will obviously push down the used prices as well.  No one will pay $60 for a used copy of a once AAA game when you can get the same thing new for $20

[Donut417]

7 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

push down the used prices as well.

But thats the problem. How far? Whats going to be the going rate for used? Steam runs sales all of the time, so prices change all of the time. 

[Tsuki]

so when i buy 10 games for 5 bucks on humble bundle, i can resell them for profit?

 

sweet

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

But thats the problem. How far? Whats going to be the going rate for used? Steam runs sales all of the time, so prices change all of the time. 

I'd imagine it works the same way as item trades/sales do currently

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I'd imagine it works the same way as item trades/sales do currently

My point is lets say a game sells for $20, so used copies being sold for $15, but what if Steam has a sale and or lowers the price to $8 two days after you set that game for sale. Prices change on steam a lot. So its going to kinda be a game of checking the store prices every day. Again its hard to come up with a proper price on digital goods, as they are all the same. I can see it now, Stardew valley sells for like $15, some guy will sell it used for $14. 

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

My point is lets say a game sells for $20, so used copies being sold for $15, but what if Steam has a sale and or lowers the price to $8 two days after you set that game for sale. Prices change on steam a lot. So its going to kinda be a game of checking the store prices every day. Again its hard to come up with a proper price on digital goods, as they are all the same. I can see it now, Stardew valley sells for like $15, some guy will sell it used for $14. 

In that scenario I'd imagine the offers hoping to sell at $15 would just sit for a while with no interest until a little after the sale is over, then things would go back to normal (they would continue selling at that level).  The bigger question is how much of an issue would there be with people buying it on sale and then reselling for profit after it ends?  A few could do it successfully, but if everyone tries, overall most will fail, unless the demand is sufficiently high for the game at that slightly lower price.  There might have to be some anti-abuse clause included, like what's present for refunds.

[spartaman64]

another thing is how is payment going to work? is it going through steam and you get steam credits probably a lot of people wont like that. is it going to be through paypal? what happens if someone charges back?

[ARikozuM]

43 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

another thing is how is payment going to work? is it going through steam and you get steam credits probably a lot of people wont like that. is it going to be through paypal? what happens if someone charges back?

Best thing would be direct through Steam or EGS. Give the option for credit and a method of cashing out from the balance to the bank.

[suicidalfranco]

10 hours ago, Tsuki said:

so when i buy 10 games for 5 bucks on humble bundle, i can resell them for profit?

 

sweet

you can already do that though

[TechyBen]

15 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Except that with physical copies, you have physical wear and tear that would reduce the life expectancy of the discs.  There is no wear or tear on digital copies, so nothing to degrade.  A used digital copy is identical to a new digital copy.

Physical copies are all digital now anyway. Even CDs are digitally encoded. Sooooo... (It's too murky to find an optimal solution to the data/social/entertainment industry. We have to have an agreement between the creator/artist and the consumer. Where there is an agreement, it works, where there is a conflict it does not. Thus, being human, and having disagreements, there will always be a conflict if you are not pals/friends/assured confidences with the creator and not breaking their terms... or the creator does not also revoke the consumers!)

[YamiYukiSenpai]

If you're not playing the game anymore, you might as well sell them, and earn a few bucks along the way.  This is just a thought, but one way they can make sure this won't affect the devs too much (and maybe make them happy) is by making the game can be transferable once, and the platform can put a max price the user can sell the game for (maybe 5-30% of the current price).

[xAcid9]

Just make only the original owner can re-sell it and half the profit go to Steam because you on Steam platform and half of that Steam cut goes back to the dev or something. 

[Bramimond]

If we get that right, I might finally start using digital stuff. Up till now I just ignored everything digital because I want to own the stuff I pay money for. I don't own things I can't sell. Generally, I'd prefer going back to games being a physical product, like they are on consoles. And make that finished products that don't have the ability to receive patches later on,...

[dalekphalm]

18 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

One difference that immediately comes to mind is I would not expect Valve to offer refunds on a used purchase.  And although they don't wear out, they still lose value over time.  As games get older, they become subject to deeper and more frequent sales, as well as cuts to even the base price, and so this will obviously push down the used prices as well.  No one will pay $60 for a used copy of a once AAA game when you can get the same thing new for $20

That’s already the case with grey market keys (or keys from places like Humble Bundle or even official third party stores like Good Man Gaming). 

 

You only get refunds if you bought direct from Steam. 

[Sakkura]

2 hours ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

If you're not playing the game anymore, you might as well sell them, and earn a few bucks along the way.  This is just a thought, but one way they can make sure this won't affect the devs too much (and maybe make them happy) is by making the game can be transferable once, and the platform can put a max price the user can sell the game for (maybe 5-30% of the current price).

A maximum price doesn't help the publisher. They'd be more interested in setting a minimum price.

 

But if this ruling stands it doesn't matter, because if you're allowed to sell an item, then you're almost always allowed to set the price yourself. I don't see how the courts would allow reselling but also allow publishers to dictate resale prices.

2 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Just make only the original owner can re-sell it and half the profit go to Steam because you on Steam platform and half of that Steam cut goes back to the dev or something. 

That limitation goes against the ownership concept they're basing the ruling on. If you're allowed to resell an item, your buyer is allowed to resell it as well.

1 hour ago, Bramimond said:

If we get that right, I might finally start using digital stuff. Up till now I just ignored everything digital because I want to own the stuff I pay money for. I don't own things I can't sell. Generally, I'd prefer going back to games being a physical product, like they are on consoles. And make that finished products that don't have the ability to receive patches later on,...

Console games are digital licenses too.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

A maximum price doesn't help the publisher. They'd be more interested in setting a minimum price.

 

But if this ruling stands it doesn't matter, because if you're allowed to sell an item, then you're almost always allowed to set the price yourself. I don't see how the courts would allow reselling but also allow publishers to dictate resale prices.

That limitation goes against the ownership concept they're basing the ruling on. If you're allowed to resell an item, your buyer is allowed to resell it as well.

Console games are digital licenses too.

It depends on the game. A physical console game disc is for all intents and purposes a physical good. You can buy sell or trade it without issue. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

On 9/20/2019 at 5:56 AM, 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.

i think it's a given that if you buy a game on steam you should be able to sell your game on steam not elsewhere. atleast you don't have to sell your whole account like people do now. also even if the game were to move over to epic and if epic even has that game, given people are likely to sell the single player game smore than multiplayer, i really don't think it's gonna hurt epic any more than actual people who bought the game on epic and epic has to provide servers for download. think of it, if i were to sell my copy of lets say an old game that epic also has like metro 1, does it really hurt them if like 100 people download that game in a month ? if its already on their server, they have to serve it anyway.

that was too convoluted , what i'm saying is unless there's like a 5,000 people downloading a game that epic didn't sell in a week, it's not gonna matter as i think the numbers are gonna be low, like a needle in a haystack. 

also given what happened with border land 3 when you refund you still had the game files in your PC which you can still play, what if the serving files were up to the individual to send the files to the person who's buying it ? sure it's a hassle sending gigabytes of data to a stranger with your slow internet, which is why it's better to sell the games on the same platform you bought it on 

[Thaldor]

18 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

Best thing would be direct through Steam or EGS. Give the option for credit and a method of cashing out from the balance to the bank.

It's easy to say, but the reason why around 80-90% of global webstores don't offer direct money back refund is that it's a literal nightmare, hell and broken glass mixed with everything liquid and disgusting to make and upkeep. Thanks for that at the year 2019 human populations are still so underdeveloped and stupid that making a simple bank transfer globally working means to fight against 5 million officials, 500 different systems (from which over 50% still run with FORTRAN and BASIC) and probably 20 different postage companies just because sending a electronic-mail saying "move XX amount of money from this account in this bank to that account in that bank" would be too easy (oh, and let's not forget sending a fax, because that's so fucking hip and hop still because the 89 years old bank manager who has problems using calculator with solarcell haven't heard that there is a thing called Internet and it's quite huge and first thing it did was to kill the fax and replace it with email). Not to even dive into credit card companies and whatever shit everybody uses to pay online, giftcards and other shit that are basicly unrefundable and especially fuck those who think that every single thing online tries to spy on them and demand to pay by sending money in a letter or use some fucking crazy contraption which throws their money all over the globe to try to make it untraceable and then that tinfoil eating POS (who someone demands to be called "customer" instead of satan himself who was dropped couple times too many as child and probably still eats glue as lunch) demands a refund through the same payment method (mostly through some ponzi/pyramid scheme like currency that someone still thinks is a viable option for actual currencies because it's "just digital" and "it's value will rise because limited availability").

[kv]

The resistance to this idea reminds me of the outcry that happened when Steam was forced to provide refund. We were all told the world would end for game devs but here we are years later.

 

A seller doesn't have a right to control what I do with the thing I bought.

[ARikozuM]

46 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

It depends on the game. A physical console game disc is for all intents and purposes a physical good. You can buy sell or trade it without issue. 

But you're not buying a disc. You're buying the code that is on the disc. You have every right to sell that disc and key. That one instance of your purchase is yours to do with what you want. What is the inherent difference between discs and keys today? There is no difference. The games largely install to your system today on console and get patched much the same regardless of physical or digital purchase.

 

The world is moving to digital and the world's laws need to keep up. 

[ARikozuM]

15 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

It's easy to say, but the reason why around 80-90% of global webstores don't offer direct money back refund is that it's a literal nightmare, hell and broken glass mixed with everything liquid and disgusting to make and upkeep. Thanks for that at the year 2019 human populations are still so underdeveloped and stupid that making a simple bank transfer globally working means to fight against 5 million officials, 500 different systems (from which over 50% still run with FORTRAN and BASIC) and probably 20 different postage companies just because sending a electronic-mail saying "move XX amount of money from this account in this bank to that account in that bank" would be too easy (oh, and let's not forget sending a fax, because that's so fucking hip and hop still because the 89 years old bank manager who has problems using calculator with solarcell haven't heard that there is a thing called Internet and it's quite huge and first thing it did was to kill the fax and replace it with email). Not to even dive into credit card companies and whatever shit everybody uses to pay online, giftcards and other shit that are basicly unrefundable and especially fuck those who think that every single thing online tries to spy on them and demand to pay by sending money in a letter or use some fucking crazy contraption which throws their money all over the globe to try to make it untraceable and then that tinfoil eating POS (who someone demands to be called "customer" instead of satan himself who was dropped couple times too many as child and probably still eats glue as lunch) demands a refund through the same payment method (mostly through some ponzi/pyramid scheme like currency that someone still thinks is a viable option for actual currencies because it's "just digital" and "it's value will rise because limited availability").

Then just make the transaction store credit only. Doesn't mean that I shouldn't have the ability to sell my keys.

 

G2A? Filled with crooks, so I can't sell there 'cuz reasons.

Steam? They have a right to control their platform, so you can't expect them to allow you to sell on their platform. 

 

What then? We shouldn't be allowed to own items because it puts the onus of labor on the original marketplace? If digital doesn't cost anything or never loses value, then lower the damn price of it over physical goods. Otherwise, let's treat them the same and start allowing ownership to be sold. Otherwise, capitalism isn't working for us.

[TechyBen]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

It depends on the game. A physical console game disc is for all intents and purposes a physical good. You can buy sell or trade it without issue. 

Yes and no. The law can be fuzzy on this aspect. And court cases seem to bump back and forth over which is which (is it a licence, is there ownerships, is the consumer protected or the producer/IP owner).

 

The cost of enforcing it means only a few get prosecuted/given a ruffled collar for doing it.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

also given what happened with border land 3 when you refund you still had the game files in your PC which you can still play, what if the serving files were up to the individual to send the files to the person who's buying it ? sure it's a hassle sending gigabytes of data to a stranger with your slow internet, which is why it's better to sell the games on the same platform you bought it on 

Given how much control the PC gives the user, ensuring the original purchaser can't use a copy that was kept is a significant challenge without some form of online (de)activation/DRM. 

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, kv said:

The resistance to this idea reminds me of the outcry that happened when Steam was forced to provide refund. We were all told the world would end for game devs but here we are years later.

 

A seller doesn't have a right to control what I do with the thing I bought.

finally some common sense