French court rules Steam should allow resale of digital games, Valve will appeal

[Van-d-all]

Reselling keys & accounts is already rampant on pretty much every digital distribution platform, especially Steam, and they pretty much did nothing to stop it. Adding used games to that pool sounds major but I honestly doubt it's something that will seriously change the market. Big distributors will push for service model nevertheless, because they've been doing it for years now. On the other end, I bet most users hoarding titles they never installed won't really go through the hassle of reselling them, because most of the titles are already available for pennies, so the price usually isn't worth the effort. Technically it requires tracking key ownership just like most software licensing does (M$ Windows for instance), so that is only used by single account, it's also nothing new (plus Steam already does this). Effectively I can see it becoming an issue with new titles, that can be completed in 20h and resold at near mint prices, but such practices were also popular with console game discs; of course digital copies globalize the market by order of magnitude, so that's where the problem's at. But again, account reselling is already quite a similar case, and it didn't cause the industry to go down in flames. IMO It pretty much boils down to what extent of legal shitfuckery users themselves will allow distributors to go from here.

 

[Haba]

Maybe Valve just needs to allow account reselling in their ToS

Yeah, that's their obvious way out. Many people wish to sell individual games they bought on a whim, but few really would want to sell their entire account. Odds are this would both cover the court's expectations and Steam's interests.

Yes, the biggest implication for this is that cunts like WG can no longer "prohibit" account sales. Accounts full of $50 pixel tanks.

(now if only someone actually wanted to buy those accounts...)

 

[Dexter]

That was part of the contract you entered with the seller when you purchased their product.

Do you understand how a digital good that inherently cannot be traded is a self-enforcing contract that you enter by purchasing the good, and there is no way to violate said contract?

This is hilarious. You can't "draw up a contract" that violates someone's basic consumer (and/or) human rights or makes them abdicate them, that's why EULA's aren't really legally enforceable or established law (as I said, it's more like a corporate Wishlist, since they can basically write anything they want in there which doesn't make it legally enforceable or lawful).

If it's the right of EU citizens to be able to sell products they have bought (whether physical or digital) you can't "draw up a contract" preventing them from doing that (nor can you do the same in the US if said contract contravenes applicable law, since the contract itself is a violation of said), just as much as you can't draw up a contract selling someone into lifelong slavery or including clauses into $50 game purchase contracts that you sell them your house or are forced to work for 100 hours in the mines when you buy a specific game.

Similarly, if the law of the land is that (Online) retailers have to provide a 14 day right of return for a product, you can't just write up a contract basically saying "We don't do that here".

Yeah, a company would never leave a European country due to overregulation
https://digiday.com/uk/google-news-spain/
Oh, and we can't forget GDPR — when companies simply started flat out blocking EU users because it was cheaper than catering to your laws https://gdpr-shield.io/
TBH I hope Europeans go through with this. I hope you keep overregulating everything to the point where you've made your own equivalent to China's great firewall and we don't have to deal with europeans on the internet anymore.

Google "left" Spain?

Also the fucking irony of this dumbfuck using Google as a great American company being "oppressed" by horrible European laws.

 

[Snorkack]

Skimming through this thread, I'm surprised how badly received that court decision is. There are also a lot of assertions that GaaS is of the devil, but no actual reasons why it is bad. For example, I'm pretty satisfied with how Spotify works. For a reasonable monthly fee I can listen to as much music as I want. If I'm so inclined, I can still buy a CD I really like. Same with Prime/Netflix and DVDs.
Why wouldn't that work with vidya as well? Imo that's preferable over a model where you have to buy the digital product to own it, well except you don't actually own it.
Honest question.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Hey, can't say I disagree with your nihilistic approach, I'm set for life with my current backlog of which 90% is stored on discs or as drm free digital copies.
Approaching my mid thirties with a kid under way, realistically, if I make it through half my backlog before I kick the bucket I'll be happy.

Congratulations mate.

 

[Snorkack]

We're not talking about the same thing here.

 

[Snorkack]

maybe I misused the term GaaS. I was actually talking about a subscription model.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Also the fucking irony of this dumbfuck using Google as a great American company being "oppressed" by horrible European laws.

That's what happens when you live in a country controlled by corporations on all levels, I guess.

Also, by the way, an American company that runs away to European tax havens to escape American-tax.

Because it has already been discussed in other threads for years. There are several reasons, but the main reason is because the company providing the service can remove your access to games you have already bought.

Steam and any other similar service can already do that. Technically they're not GasS, but practically they are.

 

[Eirinjas]

Is this the same France that makes over 250 types of moldy cheese?

And the same France that invented the bidet to avoid showering?

And the same France that farts in their wine to make it bubbly?

I'm shocked. Shocked!

 

[mogwaimon]

Used game market isn't as bad as everyone's making it out to be. If I want a new game for one of my consoles, I can generally hop on eBay a day or two after it comes out and find a deal for 10-20 dollars less than full price. Even if it's still MSRP, eBay also allows me to buy it without paying sales tax so I still save money. Yet, a good portion of those games still sell in the millions. Not only that, for those deals to exist someone still had to buy the original copy anyways. That would be the case here too, these used copies aren't going to spring out of thin air. As for 'physical wear and tear' that simply doesn't apply to modern games anymore to an extent either, Bluray is scratch resistant so you don't have to worry about disc damage so much and cart games have always been sturdy as hell, so unless you get autistic about that new game smell or having a perfect case buying used is already effectively the same as buying new in many cases.

However, the prospect of Steam moving to GaaS worries me to no end. Have any of you guys tried Playstation Now or other similar streaming services? Simply fucking horrifying, the input lag is insane, the graphics are worse....it'll truly be the end if they move to a streaming subscription service. Worse, we'd lose access to all the games we already (((own))), and streaming services arguably have to go through even more rights issues than storefronts so you can bet the amount of legitimate games on Steam will go down the tubes, and unlike now where, say, rights issues just delist a game from the store while original purchasers keep access to the data, everyone will get fucked. So, situations where for example, Duke Nukem Megaton gets delisted in favor of the inferior World Tour package, or the Beamdog Enhanced Editions supplanting the originals would result in people who bought the originals losing access to them altogether and being left with only the Brand New Remastered Definitive Editions to play.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Have any of you guys tried Playstation Now or other similar streaming services? Simply fucking horrifying, the input lag is insane, the graphics are worse....it'll truly be the end if they move to a streaming subscription service.

Streaming services might kill off consoles and in the most dystopian case scenario will also be the main way to go regarding single player games. But it will never take out the PC market completly. And that's because of like you said the input lag, which is something would end Esports. And that's not happening since Esports are one of the biggest markets in gaming and they are here to stay untill the total collapse of the current civilizations.

 

[FeelTheRads]

or the Beamdog Enhanced Editions supplanting the originals would result in people who bought the originals losing access to them altogether and being left with only the Brand New Remastered Definitive Editions to play.

Already happening, see the case with whatever GTA it was and the music rights. It applied to everyone, not only to new buyers.

Actually making it GaaS would just mean they'll call it what it already is. And if now they'd do shittier things to the customers out of fear of scandals and legal repercussions then they won't do them when they admit they're GaaS either.

 

[mogwaimon]

That is pretty bad, in regards to the San Andreas music rights debacle...but at least the core of the game is still the same and those tracks can easily be restored through mods.

Currently one could argue that Steam and other similar digital storefronts are "Games as a Service" because you're just buying the license to play the game and have to have internet access to get your games, etc, etc, but the crux of the matter is, it doesn't operate as a "GaaS" service in the same manner as, say, Google Docs/Office365 is Software as a Service where the actual programs are on the "cloud" and the end user interacts with them through a client connection as opposed to using the local machine's compute power. I don't care, really, what sort of classification Steam falls under because that's just semantics. If they change to a full on GaaS model like PSNow or Netflix because a few people in France wanted to resell their friggin' five dollar shovelware game licenses then it's going to end up hurting everyone far worse in the end because actual GaaS right now are cancer.

 

[Egosphere]

I don't see any upside to this. This is a digital market, so it doesn't have 2nd hand copies. When you resell a console game, you're reselling a used product, so the lower price reflects wear and tear and/or risk of the disc simply not functioning as intended. It also allows people to actually get their hands on the game, which they otherwise wouldn't be able to do, since the supply of physical copies is limited. A 2nd hand market for digital games means you cut into the dev's tail-end sales, and the market is pretty competitive as it is. Should Underrail be sold in the 2nd hand market? Or should Styg get all the money? Easy answer, personally.

I don't get what 'rights' people are demanding, either. Every game that is above mediocre quality that gets released today usually has several LPs on youtube, so you can gauge the quality of every single facet of the whole product for yourself for free. There are countless sites that review the games. You can wait for sales or discounts to get the game for a fraction of the price. You can refund the game. I'm not aware of any other entertainment medium that coddles the buyer to such an extent. There are no free dramatic readings of the latest books, no 'Let's Watch' videos of the latest movies on youtube etc. Yet somehow this isn't enough?

The people who are adamant that this will improve the industry: how so? You think this shit will hurt Bethesda? They ship millions of games on release day. As does every damn triple A studio. They'll be least affected by this nonsense. Some have gone so far as to proclaim that the industry should just 'burn down' because indie devs somehow deserve to get btfo'd out of the market, for whatever reason. Here's a radical thought: if spending a few dollars for a few hours of entertainment triggers you deeply, perhaps it's to time to move on? Until today, I thought that the only people that seriously wanted gaming to die were the dangerhair 'muh toxic white masculinity' crowd. Apparently I was wrong.

 

[garren]

I don't see that much of a problem, just give the player a game key he can resell where he wants, not like the steam marketplace has to provide that functionality. To prevent abuse, disable all the extra marketplace functionality for resold games (trading cards and shit), hell they could disable other stuff too like achievements so if you want full steam features, buy the original, with used games you get just the game without extra features to balance things out.

 

[Efe]

your homework today is to find a way for me to buy every game at 1$ while having devs like styg not go hungry.

 

[J_C]

I don't see that much of a problem, just give the player a game key he can resell where he wants, not like the steam marketplace has to provide that functionality. To prevent abuse, disable all the extra marketplace functionality for resold games (trading cards and shit), hell they could disable other stuff too like achievements so if you want full steam features, buy the original, with used games you get just the game without extra features to balance things out.

They have to gimp the resold game somehow because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to buy a new copy of a game anymore. With physical goods, if you buy a used thing, you bear the risk of the used stuff being faulty. That's why an old stuff is cheaper. But with digital games, there is no such danger. A used game is the same as a new one. So no sane men in the world would buy a new game, when they can buy it much cheaper. But in that case, who would buy new games?

 

[taxalot]

Can't wait for Epic Games Store to jump on this and allow resale in France before Valve.

 

[garren]

Someone has to buy a new game before it can be resold, and not everyone will resell their games. There is a limited supply of second-hand copies, and people like their steam features. Sure, some people will hound used copies so they can snatch them for cheaper, but I don't see it being that big of an issue. Devs will lose some money because of resales, but tough shit. Make a good game so more people will keep their games.

 

[Efe]

and there has to be a marketplace for this or scams are going to be sky high

 

[garren]

There are countless marketplaces on the internet where you can sell almost whatever you want to other people, why not game keys?

 

[Dexter]

I don't see any upside to this. This is a digital market, so it doesn't have 2nd hand copies.

But it does. You're allowed to resell products you bought digitally.

I don't get what 'rights' people are demanding, either.

The right to Ownership of Digital Products and the right of Resale of such.

I'm not aware of any other entertainment medium that coddles the buyer to such an extent. There are no free dramatic readings of the latest books, no 'Let's Watch' videos of the latest movies on youtube etc. Yet somehow this isn't enough?

LOL. Also "Let's Play's" are customers making use of another one of their rights and not something that "the industry" is doing, it's called "Fair Use" and has also been hard-fought and still causes problems with some publishers.

The other parts of your post (and some others) is basically MUH Underrail, MUH poor Indie devs, how will they ever survive if people are allowed their rights?!?

They have to gimp the resold game somehow because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to buy a new copy of a game anymore.

This was basically EA's thought pattern with their "Project $10" back in the day: https://gamerant.com/game-resellers-angry-ea-project-ten-dollar/

So no sane men in the world would buy a new game, when they can buy it much cheaper. But in that case, who would buy new games?

Anyone who bought new games despite being able to get used games to this day on console? Almost anyone that already buys new games? All I'm hearing is another apocalyptic scenario if those pesky consumers get to make use of their rights...

 

[samuraigaiden]

This is the dumbest thing ever. Valve should just pull out of France

 

[Egosphere]

LOL. Also "Let's Play's" are customers making use of another one of their rights and not something that "the industry" is doing, it's called "Fair Use" and has also been hard-fought and still causes problems with some publishers.

When it comes to movies, people like Rob Ager get their videos taken down for 15 minute videos with a voice-over analyzing themes or characters. But yeah, being allowed to post 7 hour vids of games with no commentary is fucking harsh. How will youtuber scum cope?!

The other parts of your post (and some others) is basically MUH Underrail, MUH poor Indie devs, how will they ever survive if people are allowed their rights?!?

I prefer games like Underrail to games like Shitrim, so if this catches on, the industry may be stacked even more against my favourite devs than it already is. So I'm not really keen on the 'rights' of poorfags.

 

[J1M]

Controversial opinion: since Steam has devs that know how to add store features and Epic doesn't, if this becomes a legal requirement the Epic store will have to shut down.

 

[vonAchdorf]

This is wishful thinking and close to retardation and doom-mongering on your part, the legal decisions from back in 2011 didn't appreciably change Microsoft's or Oracle's business models substantially, they just had to live with people being able to resell their licenses.

By now, Microsoft and Oracle's revenue models are mostly subscription based. Resalable products like Windows licenses are just their Steam client to sell their subscription services.