5 ms·

I've always wanted to re-sell my Steam games. I assume Valve has a real business reason why they haven't allowed this, since when sharing your games locally th

I've always wanted to re-sell my Steam games. I assume Valve has a real business reason why they haven't allowed this, since when sharing your games locally they are better than anyone. Clearly they don't have the big company mindset of forcing people to pay for a license on every device. If Valve complies with this ruling I'd guess we'll find out what that reason is. I think loot crates and the item market reveals the problem. Steam licenses will turn into some kind of black market money laundering machine that will be impossible to regulate.

tensor 7y ago
This is all speculation, but I would guess that the main issue is legal agreements with the publishers. The publishers don't want any game resales, they want only new sales. Unless France can equally compel the publishers to allow this, it might end up being that Steam is forced to withdraw from France.
- byron_fast 7y ago
  Maybe, but I don't see that publishers could push Valve around too much these days. You're right everyone wants new sales - but they've learned to be okay with offering 90% off at some point, and smaller discounts along the way.
- adev_ 7y ago
  > I would guess that the main issue is legal agreements with the publishers. The publishers don't want any game resales, they want only new sales. Publishers tolerated reselling for decade when game mediums where physical. Nowadays they complain about it to increase their margin, purely because they can technically lock the medium. This is bullshit of the same level than the DRMs and other lock-in nonsense. I am pretty happy some consumer association finally arrived to say them to fuck off.
opencl 7y ago
There already is sort of a black market money laundering machine around steam licenses. It basically goes like: buy steam keys (not buying the game directly on steam, but a redeemable key from some other vendor) using stolen credit cards, resell the keys on a site like G2A, then when the stolen credit cards inevitably get chargebacks you still have the money from selling the key.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  This is what cryptocurrencies really opened my eyes to: Everything is fungible if it can be traded online. And if it's fungible, it's going to attract scammers and criminals.
beatgammit 7y ago
I wonder if something could be worked out like a rebate for giving up access to a title (e.g. 10% of current retail price or original sale price, whichever is less), or a discounted license transfer to a friend (perhaps the recipient pays 10% to the publisher to transfer the license). That way, publishers still make money, friends can cheaply "give" games to their friends, and everyone else can still feel like they're "selling" old games, which would hopefully increase engagement in the platform. I know I have a ton of games I no longer care about, and if I could "sell" them, I would, which cleans up my library and makes me want to spend the balance. Also, if a game is no longer supported by a publisher, transfers should be free.
- IndrekR 7y ago
  I do not see a good reason why one should not be able to sell the game more expensive than the purchase price. Say when the title becomes unavailable from the original source or was obtained as part of a bundle.
rebuilder 7y ago
The first thing that comes to mind is contracts. Imagine you're signing a contract to let Valve sell your games. That's fairly straightforward - you agree on the terms for any given sale, probably Valve take a fixed percentage of the sale cost, and you sign. (Any lawyers among us, I beg your forgiveness!) Now, imagine the contract gives Valve the right to let third parties resell the games at a price of their choosing. What now? Do you, the publisher, still get a cut? How much? What if it's a used game being resold for the Nth time? There's quite a bit of complexity being introduced here.
- meheleventyone 7y ago
  In the old physical store days distributors and retailers held the power so they cornered the resale market by letting people trade in old games for money off new games. This let them sell the same product twice (or more!) without paying any money from the resale up the chain to the publisher or further to developers. Valve already has a store that allows for resale of digital assets with an attached transaction fee. So naively it’d be an extension of that to games. Whether they think they can cut out the people upstream remains to be seen.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > Valve already has a store that allows for resale of digital assets with an attached transaction fee. So naively it’d be an extension of that to games. Does first sale doctrine apply here? I think this would violate that.
still_grokking 7y ago
My best guess on why Valve doesn't like the idea of a second hand market for content sold on Steam is that it would destroy Valve's internal price structures if such a market would emerge (globally). The prices on Steam vary quite substantial between regions / countries. Depending to which country an account is linked to the price for the same content may be only a small fraction (down to single-digit percentages) of the price called out elsewhere. If there would be a free market for "second hand" Steam licenses, and those licenses could be freely transferred form low price regions to high price regions, Valve couldn't uphold its artificial price structure any longer. I guess they don't like this idea. Even if Valve finds a way to avoid allowing second hand sales between arbitrary counties they might get in some trouble even with this ruling now: I guess they can be forced to allow second hand sales between EU countries with this ruling (because of properties of the trading union). But AFAIK there are also price differences between countries inside the EU. A free second hand market will likely put an end to this.
- user5994461 7y ago
  They could region lock each acquisition. It's not difficult and it probably wouln't cause issue with the law because it's already happening with video DVD.
  - still_grokking 7y ago
    Region locking inside the EU is not an option. The union demands goods being freely tradable within its borders. Just lately this was even extended to explicitly include digital goods. [1] [1] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/new-eu-rules-e-commerce https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/new-eu-rules-e...
    - dogma1138 7y ago
      It is still an option for purchases, the digital content rules have not been formalized yet and currently only aimed and preserving access while traveling within the EU, the current complication is licensing as well as license derived copyright (e.g. translations). As most content is created outside of the EU and then licensed to various entities within the EU on different agreements there isn’t much that can easily be done. Sky for example licenses HBO content for the UK you can’t become a Sky subscriber if you do not reside in the UK and pay a TV license. You can access the streaming VOD service as a subscriber from your tablet if you have traveled to Berlin, but you can’t subscribe to it as a German resident.

tensor 7y ago

This is all speculation, but I would guess that the main issue is legal agreements with the publishers. The publishers don't want any game resales, they want only new sales. Unless France can equally compel the publishers to allow this, it might end up being that Steam is forced to withdraw from France.

byron_fast 7y ago
Maybe, but I don't see that publishers could push Valve around too much these days. You're right everyone wants new sales - but they've learned to be okay with offering 90% off at some point, and smaller discounts along the way.
adev_ 7y ago
> I would guess that the main issue is legal agreements with the publishers. The publishers don't want any game resales, they want only new sales. Publishers tolerated reselling for decade when game mediums where physical. Nowadays they complain about it to increase their margin, purely because they can technically lock the medium. This is bullshit of the same level than the DRMs and other lock-in nonsense. I am pretty happy some consumer association finally arrived to say them to fuck off.

opencl 7y ago

There already is sort of a black market money laundering machine around steam licenses. It basically goes like: buy steam keys (not buying the game directly on steam, but a redeemable key from some other vendor) using stolen credit cards, resell the keys on a site like G2A, then when the stolen credit cards inevitably get chargebacks you still have the money from selling the key.

rebuilder 7y ago
This is what cryptocurrencies really opened my eyes to: Everything is fungible if it can be traded online. And if it's fungible, it's going to attract scammers and criminals.

beatgammit 7y ago

I wonder if something could be worked out like a rebate for giving up access to a title (e.g. 10% of current retail price or original sale price, whichever is less), or a discounted license transfer to a friend (perhaps the recipient pays 10% to the publisher to transfer the license). That way, publishers still make money, friends can cheaply "give" games to their friends, and everyone else can still feel like they're "selling" old games, which would hopefully increase engagement in the platform. I know I have a ton of games I no longer care about, and if I could "sell" them, I would, which cleans up my library and makes me want to spend the balance. Also, if a game is no longer supported by a publisher, transfers should be free.

IndrekR 7y ago
I do not see a good reason why one should not be able to sell the game more expensive than the purchase price. Say when the title becomes unavailable from the original source or was obtained as part of a bundle.

rebuilder 7y ago

The first thing that comes to mind is contracts. Imagine you're signing a contract to let Valve sell your games. That's fairly straightforward - you agree on the terms for any given sale, probably Valve take a fixed percentage of the sale cost, and you sign. (Any lawyers among us, I beg your forgiveness!) Now, imagine the contract gives Valve the right to let third parties resell the games at a price of their choosing. What now? Do you, the publisher, still get a cut? How much? What if it's a used game being resold for the Nth time? There's quite a bit of complexity being introduced here.

meheleventyone 7y ago
In the old physical store days distributors and retailers held the power so they cornered the resale market by letting people trade in old games for money off new games. This let them sell the same product twice (or more!) without paying any money from the resale up the chain to the publisher or further to developers. Valve already has a store that allows for resale of digital assets with an attached transaction fee. So naively it’d be an extension of that to games. Whether they think they can cut out the people upstream remains to be seen.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  > Valve already has a store that allows for resale of digital assets with an attached transaction fee. So naively it’d be an extension of that to games. Does first sale doctrine apply here? I think this would violate that.

still_grokking 7y ago

My best guess on why Valve doesn't like the idea of a second hand market for content sold on Steam is that it would destroy Valve's internal price structures if such a market would emerge (globally). The prices on Steam vary quite substantial between regions / countries. Depending to which country an account is linked to the price for the same content may be only a small fraction (down to single-digit percentages) of the price called out elsewhere. If there would be a free market for "second hand" Steam licenses, and those licenses could be freely transferred form low price regions to high price regions, Valve couldn't uphold its artificial price structure any longer. I guess they don't like this idea. Even if Valve finds a way to avoid allowing second hand sales between arbitrary counties they might get in some trouble even with this ruling now: I guess they can be forced to allow second hand sales between EU countries with this ruling (because of properties of the trading union). But AFAIK there are also price differences between countries inside the EU. A free second hand market will likely put an end to this.

user5994461 7y ago
They could region lock each acquisition. It's not difficult and it probably wouln't cause issue with the law because it's already happening with video DVD.
- still_grokking 7y ago
  Region locking inside the EU is not an option. The union demands goods being freely tradable within its borders. Just lately this was even extended to explicitly include digital goods. [1] [1] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/new-eu-rules-e-commerce https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/new-eu-rules-e...
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    It is still an option for purchases, the digital content rules have not been formalized yet and currently only aimed and preserving access while traveling within the EU, the current complication is licensing as well as license derived copyright (e.g. translations). As most content is created outside of the EU and then licensed to various entities within the EU on different agreements there isn’t much that can easily be done. Sky for example licenses HBO content for the UK you can’t become a Sky subscriber if you do not reside in the UK and pay a TV license. You can access the streaming VOD service as a subscriber from your tablet if you have traveled to Berlin, but you can’t subscribe to it as a German resident.