Yeah, this is what worries me the most. Which is why I'm buying less and less digital titles and I will never support an all digital console.
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German court favours Valve in not allowing digital reselling
- Thread starter AHA-Lambda
- Start date
Yeah, this is what worries me the most. Which is why I'm buying less and less digital titles and I will never support an all digital console.
You should probably read up on first sale doctrine.
Not that the major powers involved haven't tried to change it.
First of all, has this been held up in court? Second, is it for consumers good solution? Clearly not since resale and watching with friends occurs frequently. If it in the end actually doesn't matter for consumers (or if no charges are ever brought up against "misuse"), why not push for change?
Third, the difference in infrastructure enabling pursuing of "misuse" for digital media is anyway one of my personal reasons to push for change as best I can. It matters more now than ever that the question of ownership is properly figured out, as I argued in my previous post.
I'm sure it's in the terms of service somewhere. It's also pretty obivous when that copy only works within the Steam environment, and can't magically be taken off of it to be resold or played elsewhere. You know you are buying into a certain ecosystem. No one is forcing you to do so. We're not talking about car manufacturers huddling in a cigar smoke filled room, dreaming up ways to make it harder for you to sell your car when you want to. We're talking about digital licenses on 1 particular client.
Businesses need to make money in order to survive. They are not charities. They do not magically "take hits" to their profit margins without passing that on to the consumer somehow. You don't get to flood the market with used games you can instantly buy with 1 click for less than what they are selling for in the store and not suffer some consequences. The way Steam is setup now requires 1 sale = 1 copy to 1 person. That's how Valve gets publishers and developers to sign on for sales and creative pricing.
AHA-Lambda
Member
but tos don't hold up in courts if courts want to overturn them.they cab easily do so, they're hardly airtight legally.
Again, just like you are able to sell and transfer ownership of for instance Microsoft Windows licenses (which obviously has not destroyed Microsoft's ability to make money), you should be able to transfer game licenses. There is no difference.
These licenses are a devilishly clever invention designed to undermine the concept of ownership.
These licenses are a devilishly clever invention designed to undermine the concept of ownership.
The problem with digital reselling is that you can do it over the internet. If you didn't have some sort of limits on it, then it'd kill the market. Kill it absolutely dead. Used physical games don't kill the market because there are practical limits on how many people a physical game can go through, and otherwise practical barriers that aren't impossible to get past - but most people don't bother.
Imagine I bought a brand new game for £40 - this one game could potentially go around many, many, many people because of the ease of moving licenses around people on the internet. The only way I could see it working, is if there was a limit - if you for example only had one transferrable license - you can transfer it to one person and then that license can no longer be transferred.
Even then - I do agree with what else has been said in this thread. The idea of reselling digital licenses undermines most of what made Steam great. We get the excellent fluid pricing because they know if they drop their price by 75% they can temporary go for volume and make a decent amount of money because they're personally receiving a decent share of that.
We'd see that fluidity disappear - we'd see games stick at near max price for longer and then gradually drop by much lower percentages. I hate this attitude that because it gives consumer more rights, then it is unequivocally good - ignoring all damage it could do to an industry.
Imagine I bought a brand new game for £40 - this one game could potentially go around many, many, many people because of the ease of moving licenses around people on the internet. The only way I could see it working, is if there was a limit - if you for example only had one transferrable license - you can transfer it to one person and then that license can no longer be transferred.
Even then - I do agree with what else has been said in this thread. The idea of reselling digital licenses undermines most of what made Steam great. We get the excellent fluid pricing because they know if they drop their price by 75% they can temporary go for volume and make a decent amount of money because they're personally receiving a decent share of that.
We'd see that fluidity disappear - we'd see games stick at near max price for longer and then gradually drop by much lower percentages. I hate this attitude that because it gives consumer more rights, then it is unequivocally good - ignoring all damage it could do to an industry.
nephilimdj
Member
Not really true, when you buy a game at retail you own the key, all steam does is assign the key to your account.
key here is the value, its not irrelevant.
Your comparing steam games to dvd and a console game which is silly.
Humble bundle, greenman, local gamestore, dodgy russian credit card fraud key reseller.. its all value due to the key.
Sentenza
Member
They also stick to the current law and don't make up rules according to what their feelings suggest.
This is so obviously blatantly wrong, its almost not mockworthy.
You always owned the product. No matter what, you owned it. What you don't own obviously is the copyright. You are not allowed to reproduce or redistribute it. Thats it. We own every book, every game, every car, every bed we bought. We didn't buy a license to use it.
Nice to hear.
SneakyStephan
Banned
How were they not making money before with disc based games? the guild trip you guys are on is insane
fml at the rest of this page, enjoy your no ownership rentals, you deserve them
Let's call our copy of Windows X. If I have X installed, no one else has X. X has a certain key code attached to it. Only one copy of X can be activated at a time. I have a group of ten friends that I want to share X with. I give X to one friend, and now 9 of us do not have Windows. There is no way around this other than for us to buy more copies of Windows, so that we can all have Windows at the same time.
Let's call our copy of a Game Y. If I have Y "installed", no one else has Y. Y has a certain key code attached to it. Only one copy of Y can be activated at a time. I have a group of ten friends that I want to share Y with. I play Y until I've beaten it or I've used up what value it has to me. I give/sell Y to the first friend for next to nothing. In fact, we have an agreement; we buy AAA titles at release and then pass them around. Because we can resell the game to each other an infinite amount of times, we can make our pool as large as we want. In theory, we could have a pool of 600 people each contributing ten cents. The only real limit there is time. Because the value to the consumer can be used up yet also passed on undamaged or undiminished, you essentially kill the system.
10 of us get to play Y for 1/10th the price of what we would have had to pay under the old Steam system. Great, right? Well, Valve and the developer only get 10% of what they otherwise would have earned. Aww, we killed it. This is essentially the same tumor that is eating away at disc based console games, but there are practical limits. People have to mail/drive/hand over a physical copy, so pools become less and less viable. Not so with fully digital goods. You can also do things like introduce online passes to fight back. We all love those, right?
GOG works because those games are so cheap it doesn't really matter. Call me when AAA titles start releasing on GOG day 1.
Digital resale is a fun idea. It just doesn't work with most goods.
Qassim sums it up nicely:
I will gladly *not* own a game if it means I bought it at an incredible discount with one click. Millions of Steam users seem to agree with that proposition.
You're assuming you can organize such a market so easily and that people are willing to wait until others have finished playing it. This would completely fail in regards to multiplayer games and games that have a lot of hype. You want to wait in line until your friends are all 'done' with Dark Souls 2? Oh, and this problem has existed with physical goods, and you're not talking about piracy, which is an infinite and free supply, contrary to resale markets. Nor do you address the topic of other motivations to buy games, like supporting developers (see how popular Kickstarter and Early Access is). Or the extra money that consumers save, to be used on buying other games and services.
That aside, Steam is actually introduction exactly that with Family Sharing. Let's see how it destroys the market.
That aside, Steam is actually introduction exactly that with Family Sharing. Let's see how it destroys the market.
i'll keep enjoying the competition and low prices.
i'll keep enjoying the competition and low prices.
But you have your low prices and competition from the resale market.
you don't get the same kind of low prices on the console market.
From which the devs sees nothing. See what that did to smaller devs at console retail. - or how they survive in Japan.
That's not a market structure i want on PC
$5 cheaper than what the same license goes for on CDW, just looking at typical MS stuff. In some cases, that site is more expensive. It's still fundamentally 1 license = 1 key, always and forever, right? (I can't read German)
I'm not disputing that. Read through the example. If I have a piece of software and resell it, I don't magically get to keep that software. If I play through and beat a game, then resell it, I can't play the game but I also don't magically lose that experience. That's the difference. In an industry where trading monetary value for what the consumer perceives as gameplay value is a moving target, it means everything.
Comparisons to the past aren't going to work and aren't going to help your argument. Piracy is enough to scare away developers from making PC games. Add a used game market and the ramifications would be severe. Forget all this current thriving indie scene. Gone. Forget having most multiplatform console games being ported over. PC gaming would still exist in some form, but it wouldn't be what it is right now.
Why is it sad?
I think some of us are just able to look at the bigger picture and realize that companies need to make money, too. There's a balance needed. If they don't make money, they don't make products/services. In this case, that means 'people don't make games'(and people lose jobs as well). If PC games were expensive like on the consoles, I'd be a bit more worried, but the current PC games economy seems fantastic right now for both consumers and devs/pubs. I would like to see that continue.
That's a weird and pointless way to undermine ownership. If I buy a movie, drive my car, read a book and than resell them I don't magically lose my experience either.
Are you really defending your interest to give up your rights with " I see the bigger picture"? I can resell my physical goods and digital licenses. Thats the bigger picture. But don't worry, pubs will fight for your interest.
Although we don't have the motivations yet, the law firm cited as the source posted some analysis based on the hearings. The ruling itself wasn't surprising at all to anyone who actually read UsedSoft, but a closer reading of recent CJEU case law suggests that the exhaustion doctrine (as defined in 2009/24/EC) doesn't apply to intangible copies of video games at all due to them being a bundle of different types of copyrighted content, not just "computer programs".
Giant Panda
Member
Fuck this ruling. I'm hoping physical stays around for a long time on consoles, at least I own the games then.
username12
Member
I already get 75% off (or more) on almost all my Steam purchases. I'm not really expecting to not only do that but actually be able to resell them, too.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Yup. I want to do whatever I want with my games.
thehunter01
Banned
That's why i only support gog.com atm.
I buy a game, i can resell it, i can burn it on a dvd, i can store it on a usb stick. I can install it on my laptop again and have two different games running at once, and i can install the game on my friends laptop when he visits so that he can play the game for a few hours without any issue. You have also no resource hog eating up performance on already low profile hardware. No crappy DRM solutions that nail the game into some weird digital platform format.
Steam feels more like
By setting up Swiss financial offices.
I've read more about the subject since apparently i was mistaken. Turns out some publishers claim the ownership of the product ( on top of the copyright of course ) and some don't. ( according to your link, HariKari )
I firmly believed that the latter case was always in application, always been taught that even by industry insiders so did not double checked. But i'm apparently partly wrong.
When the product is licensed to you, wich happens with games, movies and even music, regardless of the mean of delivery, you cannot resale it, and several judgment favored the publishers in this scenario.
It is indeed obvious that theses are exceptions and that resale is largely tolerated, but still, legally speaking, comparing digital to disc release where the product is only licensed to you is not irrelevant at all, since you don't own the game in either case.
So it's fair to ask why we should be okay with license resale when they are delivered on disc, but against if delivered via download.
By the way I don't see how the fact that a key has value ( just like a CD or any medium granting licensing/ownership ) changes anything.
Wasn't getting why they would take this position, but read the article and got it. Thanks!
I firmly believed that the latter case was always in application, always been taught that even by industry insiders so did not double checked. But i'm apparently partly wrong.
When the product is licensed to you, wich happens with games, movies and even music, regardless of the mean of delivery, you cannot resale it, and several judgment favored the publishers in this scenario.
It is indeed obvious that theses are exceptions and that resale is largely tolerated, but still, legally speaking, comparing digital to disc release where the product is only licensed to you is not irrelevant at all, since you don't own the game in either case.
So it's fair to ask why we should be okay with license resale when they are delivered on disc, but against if delivered via download.
By the way I don't see how the fact that a key has value ( just like a CD or any medium granting licensing/ownership ) changes anything.
Wasn't getting why they would take this position, but read the article and got it. Thanks!
Petrae
Member
I used to take it for granted that I could buy a game, play it, store it, loan it to a friend, trade it, or sell it at will. That was before the age of Internet-connected consoles and digital distribution, where games always have extra digital elements and are never complete on disc and where digital items can't be traded or sold when we no longer want them or are done with them.
I see where the industry is headed, and I won't be spending money on new consoles because of it. Thankfully the retro market is alive and well, and I can still buy, trade, and sell just like I did before.
The GoG terms of service make it quite clear that the user is buying a license, and says said license can only be used in ways that are in compliance with the terms, and GoG retains all rights, so no you can not sell your GoG games
Garcia
Member
And this is exactly why I only buy digital when games go below the $5 price tag. Since you're only getting a limited license it is the same a being chained to whatever happens to the content provider.
I'll gladly pay regular retail prices for physical media (especially for collectors editions) since those are tradable objects. I own the discs, cartridges, boxes and extras but I truly have no full control over any of my Steam games. I see digital sales as short-term rentals and until we see the day digital goods are equally treated as physical media I won't change my point of view.
I'll gladly pay regular retail prices for physical media (especially for collectors editions) since those are tradable objects. I own the discs, cartridges, boxes and extras but I truly have no full control over any of my Steam games. I see digital sales as short-term rentals and until we see the day digital goods are equally treated as physical media I won't change my point of view.