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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

#61

Post by shadowgovt »

vonmoltke wrote: post #12
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?

> Sooo...Valve has a history of changing its policies to follow the law? The article isn't well written, but I believe the point is about Valve making the change worldwide, even though their legal obligation is just to do it in France (or possibly the EU).

If they have to build infrastructure to support reselling game use licenses to comply with this law, it's unlikely they'll be able to justify releasing it to France only; there'll be backlash from their users in other countries.

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

#62

Post by Asooka »

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.

People already do that, steam key resellers exist. I think you'll find it pretty hard to compete with professional scalpers as a one man operation. You're also banking on being able to sell the game for a smaller discount than the one on offer, later. It really doesn't strike me as a business that would be profitable.

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

#63

Post by shadowgovt »

roblabla wrote: post #58
criddell wrote: post #2

Could this extend to ebooks as well? Valve's argument that what they sold was a license and not the game feels like a distinction without a difference to me. Say I accept that. Then why can't I sell that license?

A license is a contract between you and valve. You can't transfer that license because the contract says you can't. The court says that the digital game is a good (just like a DVD is), and not a license, so you must be allowed to resell it to somebody else.

So is an ebook not a good?

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

#64

Post by roblabla »

de_watcher wrote: post #33

Another problem is that the court probably means that you can resell games for real currency. Currently you can buy games with the Steam currency, which means that reselling games is a legit method of piping out real currency from Steam.

The same case also says that Steam must reimburse steam wallets when closing an account too.

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

#65

Post by friendlybus »

ElonMuskrat wrote: post #53
_edo wrote: post #48

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 disrupt…

> 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. But this exactly what happens now anyways. Not a cynical view point just a statement of what I believe to be facts. I had some interest in making indie ga…

Warframe, Path of Exile, GTA V, Minecraft, ect all have long tails. I think we need new categories for different kinds of game sales & financial performance. There certainly are still flash in the pan style sales like you describe, but there's more sustained forest fires too.

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

#66

Post by hoffs »

orra wrote: post #44

Sensible but not surprising decision. The right to resell software was made incredibly clear in the CJEU case Oracle v UsedSoft . In fact, how did Steam manage for so long to ignore the pivotal case law?

Steam? How about pretty much every digital storefront? You can't sell prime movies, you can't sell iTunes music and so on. All of these store fronts should ideally allow people to resell all digital content they purchased.

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

#67

Post by _edo »

Barrin92 wrote: post #32
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…

>But now this court have effectively destroyed my freedom to make this choice as a customer To frame the idea that you don't have ownership of something you purchase as a freedom is some truly Orwellian spin on the term. You still have all the freedoms you had before, if you don't want to sell your games don't sell them. Giving customers proper ownership rights over the goods they purchase is not freedom diminishing,…

GP currently has the ability to buy a product in a way they like (not purchasing resale rights that they don't want.)

Somebody wants to take that away from them.

GP is upset they're losing the freedom to do business in the way they like.

You're calling their view Orwellian because French Big Brother knows what ownership rights they really want to purchase?

It's not Orwellian, it's just a complicated issue of how intellectual property law affects consumers.

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

#68

Post by shadowgovt »

strig wrote: post #38
de_watcher wrote: post #33

Another problem is that the court probably means that you can resell games for real currency. Currently you can buy games with the Steam currency, which means that reselling games is a legit method of piping out real currency from Steam.

They wouldn't necessarily need to implement that though, just a way of transferring licences to someone else. People could figure out their own payment.

There's the problem of needing escrow for selling the game in that scenario; if, say, they implement game resale as "You can ask Steam to cut your access and give you a unique code someone else can enter to gain access," there's the problem that if I buy that code from you, I have no knowledge of if it'll actually work when I get home (maybe you sold it twice?).

... and then Steam can offer payment via their in-store currency (with x% shaved off the top) to basically serve as an escrow intermediary. Win-win for everyone except the developers deprived of first-sales by the new resale market.

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

#69

Post by criddell »

roblabla wrote: post #58
criddell wrote: post #2

Could this extend to ebooks as well? Valve's argument that what they sold was a license and not the game feels like a distinction without a difference to me. Say I accept that. Then why can't I sell that license?

A license is a contract between you and valve. You can't transfer that license because the contract says you can't. The court says that the digital game is a good (just like a DVD is), and not a license, so you must be allowed to resell it to somebody else.

So the end result must be that licenses can't take away your resale rights.

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

#70

Post by londons_explore »

shadowgovt wrote: post #61
vonmoltke wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sooo...Valve has a history of changing its policies to follow the law? The article isn't well written, but I believe the point is about Valve making the change worldwide, even though their legal obligation is just to do it in France (or possibly the EU).

If they have to build infrastructure to support reselling game use licenses to comply with this law, it's unlikely they'll be able to justify releasing it to France only; there'll be backlash from their users in other countries.

Companies release features to some regions all the time. For example, in Google Photos, you can search by face in the USA but not Europe (due to differing privacy expectations).
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