- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
Finally some good news! I’ve been waiting for quite a while for such a ruling.
Edit: Seems this cites an article from 2012, I didn’t notice that (and it’s still news to me). Though there’s still hope that it’ll happen, EU is slow, but usually eventually gets shit done.
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This article is based on an article from Eurogamer in 2012 [1].
There’re more recent similar rulings like in France in 2019 [2], but Valve already appealed. It will take many years until there’s a final decision.
[1] https://www.eurogamer.net/eu-rules-publishers-cannot-stop-you-reselling-your-downloaded-games
[2] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/valve-steam-resell-games-ban-france-eu,40438.html
This is an 11 year old article, so hardly “news”
Published 10:20, 04 December 2023 GMT
???
Click through to the real article, not the reblog
News by Wesley Yin-Poole Contributor
Updated on 3 Jul 2012
Please Valve, be the first to implement a market for the players on Steam, and once again you’ll be the pioneer that everyone tries to copy.
They literally just need to add a way to “repackage” a game from your library into an inventory item and then they could use the Marketplace they already have
It would be cool but they probably wouldn’t pay money directly to your bank on sale. It would still be locked to Steam. Wish valve let you transfer money out.
WELL, good thing for Steam and others they sell “perpetual limited licenses” of games instead of “digital copies”.
The EU doesn’t mess around, their definition of digital purchase is what matters, not the wording in steam EULA
I’m mentioning this because I remember EU going after Valve sometime in 00’ or early 10’ because of this, and remember Valve basically saying “well, we will no longer sell digital goods then, enjoy your licenses”. I know I remember this but I cannot find a source on google…
Yeah consumer retail has implied contracts that override anything you write in a TOS or EULA. You can add certain things with those but there’s still a basic commercial transaction happening that is bound to the rule of law.
If this really happens I’d get to “clean” my steam library
I’d get to sell my PlayStation & Xbox Inventories to purchase more games on Steam <3
Need someone who knows more about EU law to chime in here: does this mean valve et al will be forced to implement a way for users to resell/transfer games to other users?
As others have pointed out, the original article is from 2012, and even with similar rulings in EU countries more recently, it will take years before we see any result of this.
But I think the ultimate answer to your question here is: yes, that would become a thing.
But there is so much to this that makes it hard to predict how good it would be. Who decides the price? What rules will there be on when and how you can resell?
This is pretty stupid considering digital Goods have no physical presence, no scarcity,
Locked credits to steam and they take a big cut.
Better than nothing I suppose…
Interesting! I wonder how/if platforms will implement this, maybe my backlog will finally make me some money 😆
Right??? There’s lots of games I own that I played through once or twice and will probably never play again. I was hoping something like this would come along someday.
I’m not sure how to feel about this, to be honest.
I don’t have any serious plans or anything, but I do want to dabble in a bit of gamedev. Nothing major, just like an RPG or something that I put on Steam for like $5. I imagine there’s a lot of people who take bets on their future by releasing games that cost $10 or $20.
Why would anyone pay full price for games if you could get them from a trading platform for like 75%? I bet there’s a lot of people that would buy my game, play through it once and then sell it for maybe $4. And others who thinks anytime that pays full price for a game is an idiot.
Indie Devs would have to rise prices, perhaps drastically, to cover the lost revenue here. This would also put an end to Steam sales, because the instant you put your game on sale it sets the price for it in third party markets.
What about bigger games like BG3? What’s stopping me from buying it full price, copying the files somewhere and then instantly reselling it? It would probably force them to implement strict DRM restrictions, and probably the nasty rootkit kind.
I’m personally against DRM and don’t want to release a game with it, but the fact that this lowers the bar to piracy so much may force my hand.
I honestly believe this could spell the end of the indie gaming scene.
What about bigger games like BG3? What’s stopping me from buying it full price, copying the files somewhere and then instantly reselling it? It would probably force them to implement strict DRM restrictions, and probably the nasty rootkit kind.
The same thing that’s stopping you from downloading the files now. A combination of ethics and the value legitimately owning the game adds to your purchase.
Yeah, you could already pirate it today. You could even buy it, copy files and refund it, but you probably don’t.
