Valve and game developers have a bit of a fight on their hands here, with a French court ruling that Valve should allow users to re-sell their digital games.
Reported by the French website Next Inpact, the French consumers group UFC Que Choisir had a victory against Valve as French courts have ruled against them on the topic of reselling digital content. From what I've read and tried to understand, the courts have basically said that when you buy something on Steam it is indeed a proper purchase and not a subscription.
Valve has been ordered to pay damages at €20K plus €10K to cover some costs. On top of that, they will also have to publish the judgement on Steam's home page (presumably only for users in France) and for it to remain visible for three months. If they don't, they will get a fine for each day of €3K. To Valve though, that's likely pocket change. The bigger issue though, is how other countries inside and outside the EU could follow it.
Speaking to PC Gamer who got a statement from Valve, they are going to fight it. Of course they will though, they could stand to lose quite a lot here and it would set a pretty huge precedent for other stores like GOG, Epic, Humble, itch and all the rest.
There's a lot to think about with this situation. Valve could end up changing the way they deal with this, just like they did with the nicer refunds option which came about after legal issues too. Imagine being able to sell and transfer a game over to another Steam user. Valve could take a cut of that most likely too.
Something to think on there is how this could affect game developers too, I'm all for consumer rights but I do try to think about all angles. We could end up looking at higher prices overall, no release day discounts, more micro transactions, more games updated as a constant service, games that require an online account as a service so you're not paying for an actual product and so on as developers try to keep more income when many smaller developers are already struggling.
Interesting times.
Hat tip to Nibelheim.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Also, for those wondering why they're going after Valve only, you can absolutely bet that if this becomes EU legislation, it'll affect all online digital stores. Valve are just the test case here.
Quoting: KimyrielleQuoting: fagnerlnIs hypocrisy that a defensor of freedom want a intervention from state.
Preventing people from abusing their freedoms is one of the most basic reasons for governments (and thus, laws) to exist in the first place. If we wouldn't have laws preventing you, it would be in your "freedom" to murder somebody because you don't like their face. Humans are by nature greedy and egoistic. They one thing that can guarantee a stable society is a strong government that steps in when people abuse their power and makes some laws telling them not to.
*snip by mod, don't be rude to other users*
You don't know what freedom means. Isn't freedom to kill someone, people have natural rights, life is the more important one.
THE STATE KILLS WITHOUT REASON, the "strong government" steal from peoples to turn them slaves, state abuses their power, not the peoples.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 20 September 2019 at 11:17 am UTC
Quoting: subWhy doesn't this automatically affect other digital game stores in France immediately?A precedent needed to be set in France when it comes to digital goods .
Someone hast to go to court against Epic, GOG, ... separately, one by one?
Hard to believe, as the concepts of the stores are basically the same, when it comes to DRM and not being able to resell the purchases made.
In fact whether a game's license was a purchased good or a lease was until that court ruling up in juridical limbo and it was left to customers and sellers to figure themselves out .
What Laurie Liddel did here is argue ( AND convince the judge) that a game digital or not is a good of cultural value and therefore rules of ownership should apply . Also she relied and used previous E.U rulings to substantiate her claims.
Lastly the way she has argued various points are almost preemptively addressing any rebuttal during an appeal. The way she has crafted her argument in court was quite the show ...
I'd be curious to see what Valve will come up with during appeal because really in terms of French law she pretty much slammed every fucking door shut right behind them ...
Last edited by TheSyldat on 19 September 2019 at 10:55 pm UTC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
However not sure if there is a major consensus that it's a good idea.
Last edited by Shmerl on 19 September 2019 at 10:46 pm UTC
Last edited by pb on 19 September 2019 at 10:54 pm UTC
Quoting: pbPiracy killed Amiga gaming, socialism will kill PC gaming?
Dude can you not please ...
Or more precisely , "if you wanna be taken seriously could be please take off the fuckin' tin foil hat for at the very fucking least enough time to let you type a coherent message ?"
Quoting: TheSyldatDude can you not please ...
Or more precisely , "if you wanna be taken seriously could be please take off the fuckin' tin foil hat for at the very fucking least enough time to let you type a coherent message ?"
I was just removing that part the moment you were quoting it. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine#Application_to_digital_copies
QuoteIn Europe, the European Court of Justice ruled, on July 3, 2012, that it is indeed permissible to resell software licenses even if the digital good has been downloaded directly from the Internet, and that the first sale doctrine applied whenever software was originally sold to a customer for an unlimited amount of time, as such sale involves a transfer of ownership, thus prohibiting any software maker from preventing the resale of their software by any of their legitimate owners.[5][6][7] The court requires that the previous owner must no longer be able to use the licensed software after the resale, but finds that the practical difficulties in enforcing this clause should not be an obstacle to authorizing resale, as they are also present for software which can be installed from physical supports, where the first-sale doctrine is in force.[8][9] The ruling applies to the European Union, but could indirectly find its way to North America; moreover the situation could entice publishers to offer platforms for a secondary market.
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.
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