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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

#91

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ineedasername wrote: post #71

You can't resell your copy of Windows, I don't see how games are much different. I think at least one likely result would be many fewer deep discount sales. Having them would allow a resell arbitrage as people stocked up at the low price in order to resell when the sale ends.

Is there anything to stop you from reselling your retail Windows key? It's against Microsoft's TOS, but has an EU court ever verified that the restriction is actually enforceable?

As far as I'm aware, the answer is "no".

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

#92

Post by Freak_NL »

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?

At the moment, no, because a ruling in the Court of Justice of the European Union this September concluded that the resale of e-books is illegal.

Interesting to see how these two rulings will affect the notion of reselling digital items.

https://www.trouw.nl/binnenland/doorverkoop-tweedehands-e-bo... (in Dutch)

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

#93

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Noos wrote: post #47

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.

I think it will cut down on those massive Steam sales, which basically work by encouraging people to buy a bunch of games they don't actually want and won't play.

I think that might cut down on the diversity of titles, but also could drive up quality.

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

#94

Post by jandrese »

Freak_NL wrote: post #92
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?

At the moment, no, because a ruling in the Court of Justice of the European Union this September concluded that the resale of e-books is illegal. Interesting to see how these two rulings will affect the notion of reselling digital items. https://www.trouw.nl/binnenland/doorverkoop-tweedehands-e-bo... (in Dutch)

It sounds to me like this is going to be a mess of competing lower court opinions until a high court somewhere comes down on one side or the other.

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

#95

Post by Wowfunhappy »

UserIsUnused wrote: post #88
_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…

Steam would get ts cut on reselling, and it might give devs/pubs a share. Right now, customers are less and less for traditional single player games.

Would that be compliant? I'm not convinced it would be. What would stop Steam from making their cut 99% to basically make reselling pointless?

The logical interpretation, I would think, is that Steam should have to allow customers to turn their games back into keys.

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

#96

Post by jeroenhd »

_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…

Funny how you can make the same comment about physical goods. Should we ban selling second hand furniture?

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 furniture salesmen a somewhat predictable revenue model and on the strength of the model they can encourage investors to put ip money to make furniture. Changing the revenue model may change how investors look at the marker. Maybe for better maybe for worse. Who knows, but it would be a disruption if IKEA has to adopt this model worldwide.

The thing that I don't like is if you allow reselling then carpenters get less long-term revenue. This will cause them to focus more on getting a big opening month than making solid furniture that might have years of appeal.

Antilop is still $20 at IKEA. Maybe they only sell 100 chairs a month at this point but that's still money coming in rewarding them for investing in ergonomic chair design. 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 weeks of sales.

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

#97

Post by C1sc0cat »

Noos wrote: post #47

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.

Its going to increase dark patterns and loot boxes for kids who cant / wont pay £50 for a AAA game

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

#98

Post by _edo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #59
_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…

It probably bites one-and-done adventure-style games more than games with the replay value of, say, a multiplayer competitive system or a Roguelike randomizer. That's a category already bit by the people who just watch the game played on YouTube instead of buying and playing their own copy; decreasing their opportunity for first-sale revenue increases the opportunity cost of making such a game. There will always be d…

I'm pressing F for the golden years of Sierra :(

> decreasing their opportunity for first-sale revenue increases the opportunity cost of making such a game.

I don't understand the use of 'opportunity cost' here but I think it's a good point. It's generally not good to discourage viable business models. My fear is that if we're baking in resale value to the purchase price, now consumers may overvalue both the game AND the resale so they get hit twice in a blockbuster/flop type situation.

Short of offering resale/final-sale options, which I do like, the laws will encourage some sort of business model. I'm thinking encouraging long-term quality through final-sale only purchasing is looking a little better for consumers than what the French court is apparently doing.

Another option is reselling could be done through Steam who takes 30% which they split with the devs. So the consumer gets to resell, Steam gets paid, devs get paid, maybe any lost revenues are offset by consumer wellbeing?

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

#99

Post by jandrese »

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.

Transferring the doctrine of first sale to the digital realm would have massive implications for pretty much every digital distribution service we have today. Streaming services wouldn't be affected, but Kindle, Steam, iTunes, and so many others are built on the assumption that their product has no secondary market.

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

#100

Post by jeroenhd »

ineedasername wrote: post #71

You can't resell your copy of Windows, I don't see how games are much different. I think at least one likely result would be many fewer deep discount sales. Having them would allow a resell arbitrage as people stocked up at the low price in order to resell when the sale ends.

Why not? It's perfectly legal in the EU to sell any digital goods second hand as long as you stop using the software you sold.
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