A French court has ruled that Valve should allow people to re-sell their digital games

Quoting: KlausWith digital sales there is a additionally the aspects of continuous service. Updates, support, downloads... I could see Valve splitting game prices into a service fee and a game price.

That sounds really clever actually, and I’m surprised no one has commented on this idea. Valve could sell game keys for a pittance, say 5$. When you buy them on the store, a key activation fee that makes up the bulk of current game prices (say 25$) is added to your order and lets you download and use the game right away.

You might then be able to resell your key, but the buyer would still need to order a key activation from Valve for the same 25$ to download it and use Steam features for that game. Presumably Valve would pay a cut of those fees to publishers based on the game being unlocked.

There’s something inherently dirty about making the key worthless this way, but it does emphasize the fact that Valve provide several services and commodities that have to be made profitable somehow. Currently Steam is free and they make their money on game sales without disclosing it explicitly on your bills, but going forward there could be an explicit cost on using Steam and that would hardly be a product that can be resold. The effect of such an approach on refunds would also be interesting to say the least.

So a quick question why would anyone by new?

Game New - £10 (+any updates & support and you can sell it 2nd hand?)
Game Second hand - £5 (+any updates & support and you can sell it 3rd hand?)
Game Third hand - £2 (+any updates & support and you can sell it 4rd hand?) or
Game Third hand - £5 (+any updates & support and you can sell it 4th hand?) ?????
Game Third hand (buy 100% like new - £10 (+any updates & support and you can sell it 4th hand?) ?????

In each one of these cases you get the same exact game the sellers will always get a cut, the indy devs only get 1 cut. The AAA will be selling passes, subscriptions, loot-boxes... so they are still making money through worse practices (in my opinion)


So personally don't want to see micro-transaction/loot-box models or rent pre-hour as a solution to second hand selling. (renting is okay if that's your thing)

As such someone pointed out the liberty of selling a game they own. That's one way to look at it but I like to buy a game and play it when I want and for as long as I want and I just get the feeling this will drive the industry in a direction that I do not like as a way to enjoy my game. So I suppose I will be at liberty to no longer play?

The way I see games is; I read reviews (thanks Liam + GOL), watch videos/streams (thanks Samsai), and estimate how long I will play them for and how much enjoyment I will get out of it. Then I will buy when the price matches what I think it's worth, that may be full price or on sale. Also I think I treat games more like food. I'm happy to pay for some tasty food, or if there is a sale I might buy something more extravagant. Also I don't think there is a second hand market for food I have enjoyed!

Reasons to by new for physical items:
Car - cam belt is about to break resulting in a right-off in two weeks (yes this happened to me)
Books - Coffee stains and other people writing in it
DVDs - scratches cause skips

+ a level of risk as you don't necessary know the quality of second hand so you may have to put in more work or shop around finding mint condition is rare.

On the freedom side for me DRM free is more important than second hand games (if I want to pay less for a game I will wait for a sale)

Quoting: EhvisI think people are making far more fuss about this than what is really going on. It appears to me that the ruling is about the passages in the licence agreement that forbid users from reselling their games. I suspect that all that is needed for Valve (and other stores) is to remove those passages and inform the users that this is in fact legal. However, nowhere does it really say that Valve needs to implement a system for people to resell individual games to other users. Which means that all that the net effect maybe that you will be allowed to resell your entire account. How many users will that benefit?

Came here to write the very same thing. The people who have actually read the verdict might chime in and tell us if we are wrong but this all sounds just that a digital store is no longer allowed to forbid people from reselling their bought games in their EULA. How such a thing should be made possible in a technical sense is all up to the user to figure out and no one is forcing Valve to open a second hand market in Steam (nor I assume would Valve want to do such a thing since that would open up that market big time by making it easy).

Quoting: orochi_kyo... why suing Valve specifically when every other virtual store including console ones are doing the same ...

They sued Valve since Valve is the biggest player in the market (to make it a high profile case). The ruling will then apply to every one else that sells digital products.

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: ObsidianBlkAgain, I highly doubt any of this will really happen... But, call me old if you'd like, but I do like physically owning my games.

Hard drive is physical, and can hold a ton of your backed up games, without requiring any individual physical media. Buy the game on GOG, back it up, use it and you are set. No need to sell it on physical disks or cards. They don't offer anything useful if you can download it.

I get this... and I'm not saying I don't have digital games myself, but still... I have CDs I bought in the early 90s that I can still read data off of. How many hard drives can you say the same for? Also, depending on the size of your collection (and the size of the games within your collection), that huge hard drive may still only store about a hundred or so (thinking ~50gb sized games these days). My Linux specific game library on Steam is 157 games. Ok... so let's say you store all of that on a SINGLE hard drive. Great. You didn't really, though. If you're worried about integrity of your data, you'll probably want to put them in RAID... so, at minimum you need two hard drives. Might at well offload those files to a third part data storage service... but that brings us back to controlling the purchases you make because you can't guarantee those services will remain, or that, if they do go under, that give you enough warning they're doing so for you to rescue your files. At least if I backed up my physical game to a hard drive and the same event happens, my physical copy is still in my hands.

Honestly... I get why digital distribution is king. I really do. Its instant gratification, automatic patching, and you can reduce the amount of physical space needed to store your games. Yes... but you give up your actual ownership, and there is no way you can be sure your game won't be simply taken from you because of some IP dispute between two companies that could honestly care less that you put your hard earned money into their product. Does this happen often? Right now, not really, but it ~~*does*~~ happen.

Quoting: ObsidianBlkI get this... and I'm not saying I don't have digital games myself, but still... I have CDs I bought in the early 90s that I can still read data off of. How many hard drives can you say the same for?

Consider yourself lucky, but don't think it's a reliable method of storage. Optical discs deteriorate with time, and are a lot more error prone than hard drives which in contrast are built to last for many years.

Quoting: ObsidianBlkAlso, depending on the size of your collection (and the size of the games within your collection), that huge hard drive may still only store about a hundred or so (thinking ~50gb sized games these days).

Not all games are 50 GB. But let's say they are and let's say you have 8 TB hard drive (around $200 these days). That will fit 160 of such games? If you need more, you can get even bigger hard drives (14 TB for example), or get several. Still a lot easier than managing a whole pile of optical disks to hold the same amount of data. If you need backups, get a NAS.

So no, you don't need to give up on actual ownership. You should just use the right tools for it.


Last edited by Shmerl on 20 September 2019 at 8:18 pm UTC

yea you need to chill out with me dude.if i feel i want to sell anything i will do so.how is this even about me this is about us the users.if we want to sell any of our games it should be our right to do so.people have been selling games for decades,what difference if its a actual copy or digital.

Quoting: orochi_kyoThis is simple, Valve should close doors on France. This is beyond ridiculous, why suing Valve specifically when every other virtual store including console ones are doing the same.
Now imagine the impact for developers, Funny thing Epic shills will celebrate this when they support Epic because "Epic is cool with devs", lol. They are so dumb.

Quoting: linuxcityi would not mind selling games i no longer play or transfer them to another user

Of course you dont!! All of this is about you and only you, the other people who could get involved negatively doesnt matter.

This behavior of not thinking how anything could affect anyone else but me is a cancer.
We have a healthy gaming sector(not in the employee yet) when we have plenty of competition that allows users to get games in nice sales, but with things like this, I see developers raising prices in order to get the revenue lost by the fact people can resell their games for whatever price they like. This is something really stupid, ruled by a court that has no idea of how the gaming industry is working right now!!

This will affect indies really hard.

Quoting: chancho_zombieI think the article needs more clarification some news site are saying that the ruling is forcing to allow to sell games inside steam.Like this one:

https://malditosnerds.com/noticias/La-justicia-francesa-obliga-a-Valve-a-habilitar-la-reventa-de-juegos-en-Steam-20190919-0006.html

Is not the same to force the creation of a marketplace inside steam or outside steam.

My Spanish isn't perfect, but where does that article say that? I don't see it there nor in the French articles that I've read about this ruling. Is it just the headline?

By the way, having read a bit more now, it's interesting to mention that according to the court, contrary to what Valve claim in their terms, they don't sell game subscriptions but actual game copies, on the basis that the "licence" is perpetual, which is contrary to the nature of a subscription service (recurring payment for time-limited service). This, in turn, makes those games subject to normal French laws regarding resale, i.e. Valve cannot prevent it. I wonder if Valve might counter that argument by changing its terms of sale to provide time-limited access instead (perhaps only in France).

Quoting: vinniebottledSo a quick question why would anyone by new?

Lack of supply. There won't be that many used copies for sale. I'm sure not selling my games--they're mine. Lots of people feel the same, while the majority just can't be bothered.
Also, the same reason lots of people buy at release instead of waiting for the sales: They don't want to wait. Even people who sell their games won't do it instantly. They'll want to play the game through, if it doesn't suck they'll want to play it through again, or at least they'll think they might and plan to for a while before finally deciding that nah, they probably won't get back to it. Very few people are going to do really fast turnaround resale.
I don't see this as having nearly as big an impact as a lot of people here do.

Quoting: Salvatos

Quoting: pbThat's it, I'm telling my son right now to stop dreaming of developing games. This basically legalises keyshops and now even allowing you to sell the games you're already played and finished, if it wasn't bad enough before... Piracy killed Amiga gaming, socialism will kill PC gaming?

Can we maybe not be so dramatic? Some of us are old enough to remember that that’s how it was for the majority of video gaming’s existence. And books, DVDs, cars, etc. Sure it would be a disruptive change, but as long as it doesn’t open the door to duplication (piracy), the market can adapt. It might not be pretty for a while, but it won’t just die like that.

Doesn't have anything to do with socialism either. With socialism, developers would get a fair price for their labour, and consumers would be entitled to a copy, but no right to profit from it. If anything, socialism would be better for indie game developers, as it would allow them a stable and dependable income, but obviously much less lucrative for AAA publishers.