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French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

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Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#41

Post by plopz »

archi42 wrote: post #22
golergka wrote: post #14

This is absurd. When I buy a game on Steam, I fully understand that it doesn't have any resale value – and I easily agree to this deal, because I choose to forgo resale rights so I can get the game cheaper. But now this court have effectively destroyed my freedom to make this choice as a customer. And to add insult to injury, it's done this under the pretense of defending my rights, as if I'm an idiot who's not capab…

For some titles there is no option to get a "resale allowed version". E.g. I bought a retail version of Borderlands 2 several years ago on DVD (long time post release, was like 20 Euro in a local games store). Well, turned out that DVD basically was a Steam Installer plus key (of course, that's a decision made by the publisher). Also, "so I can get the game cheaper" - do you? When I buy a newly released game on Steam…

If it really is difficult to make money as a developer I would rather see Valve reduce their absurd 30% cut than use it as an excuse to not allow a secondary market.

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#42

Post by zouhair »

chongli wrote: post #9

Personally, I like the fact that Steam games can’t be resold. Why? Because that keeps the prices down since the resale value of a game does not need to be included in the price. If games could be resold then I’d have to go through the trouble of reselling them in order to recoup the difference.

I don't get the logic. How not reselling keeps the price down? Isn't it the other way around?

There are games that are 2 or 4 years old and still have the same price as the release day. If reselling was an option it will force them to lower the price and even offer more for those buying "new".

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#43

Post by umvi »

rat9988 wrote: post #40
umvi wrote: post #39

Sweet, time to create a bunch of steam accounts, stock up on cheap games during steam sales, and then resell after the steam sale, undercutting the the "new" version (it's not like a digital resale is any lower quality than the "brand new" one). Rinse and repeat. Profit.

You can do that with every product on sale. Buy clothes on sale and sell them later at full price or close to it.

Yeah, and as a result, prices are going to be higher for everyone. No more 90% off steam sales like we currently get - that would just encourage profiteers to stock up on as many digital copies as possible in order to resell and undercut later.

And certainly no more "Celeste is free" type promos - that would be a feeding frenzy for profiteers.

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#46

Post by tomatotomato37 »

umvi wrote: post #39

Sweet, time to create a bunch of steam accounts, stock up on cheap games during steam sales, and then resell after the steam sale, undercutting the the "new" version (it's not like a digital resale is any lower quality than the "brand new" one). Rinse and repeat. Profit.

I'd imagine Valve is going to have some sort of market fee to prevent shenanigans like this; they'll probably just slap this feature on their regular community market which already has a 5% transaction fee.

Edit: Or better yet just force sell price equal to at-time purchase price when it is bought off the steam store. The law just says they have to allow users to resell games, it doesn't say anything about allowing users to make a business off of it.

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#47

Post by Noos »

This is incredibly stupid. This is just going to make games even more unprofitable to make for their developers, and push it towards live-service/F2P games over traditional ones, since account selling is prohibited. Its hard enough to survive in that sphere making traditional games now; enabling the Gamestop effect on digital games is probably going to hurt beyond compare.

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#48

Post by _edo »

With laws like this you generally have to ask what's best for the consumer. I'm not sure reselling is.

The current setup gives game developers a somewhat predictable revenue model and on the strength of that model they can encourage investors to put up money to make the games. Changing the revenue model may change how investors look at the market. Maybe for better maybe for worse. Who knows, but it would be a disruption if Steam has to adopt this model worldwide.

The thing that I don't like is if you allow reselling then developers get less long-term revenue but (hopefully) more short-term revenue. This will cause them to focus more on getting a big opening weekend than making a solid game that might have years of appeal.

Portal is still $10 on Steam. Maybe they only sell 100 copies a month at this point but that's still money coming in rewarding them for investing in interesting core game mechanics. I'd rather see them get rewarded for that than for dishonest advertising campaigns because 50% of their money will come from the first few days of sales.

Re: French high court rules that Steam can’t ban users from reselling digital games

#49

Post by on_and_off »

benologist wrote: post #29
sparkpeasy wrote: post #4

"Although its unlikely a policy change this momentous would be made, Valve has a history of making changes based on court rulings it’s involved in." Sooo...Valve has a history of changing its policies to follow the law?

Yes. They were fined over a million dollars in Australia for inventing a refund policy of "go fuck yourself", which it turns out is simply criminal in some jurisdictions. They stole from an estimated 20,000 Australians with that fraud, unfortunately they dodged accountability where the other 95% of their customers are located, but they did implement a more ethical refund policy when they realized how badly they messe…

Nintendo would be another such company .. Impossible to get a refund from them if you buy something in their digital store.
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