It's not a hypothetical to say that DRM is inherently required for digital game reselling. It's in the name: digitally managing your rights.
I got a bunch of used mp3's for sale. Half off. Cloud storage backups? What are those?
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Steam should let users resell games, French court rules
- Thread starter Deleted member 15428
- Start date
I got a bunch of used mp3's for sale. Half off. Cloud storage backups? What are those?
Because when you buy a used game, you're are getting a worse product than a new game (wear and tear). A used digital game is exactly identical to a new digital game.
I wonder if this sticks if it would lead to Valve making their own system. Something like being able to trade back your game to Steam for 5% credit (for example, don't get caught up on the number) of what you paid. That way supply and demand isn't as big of a factor, and people use the credit to get more games anyway.
With digital, a lot of additional worries and hassles are gone. For example, I am super hesitant about a used copy of a certain game I want, cuz, even though I am buying from a reasonbly reliable store, there's always worry that it will be in bad quality or break two weeks later. Sure, a lot of people got over this worry, but still.
That's not counting all the additional hassles of having to physically exchange the good either by trading it in, or having to arrange ameeting with the buyer. With digital, none of these worries exist. a couple of button clicks is all that will be required, and digital copies have no risk of not working or being in poor quality or degarding over time.
If it does stick, I think it will be a priority for valve to come up with a system where reselling only flows within their own personal economy, so something like credit or maybe trade-ins? Or even moving outside of cash and creating their own currency a la many f2p economic systems
But developers enjoy this lack of friction when they sell the game digitally to the consumer. They don't have the burden of working with platform holders to produce physical goods or having to work with retailers to actually stock their games. So frictionless transactions are okay as long as we don't give consumers the same advantages?
Gaming sales haven't been frontloaded in years. A long tail ( and post launch support) are common for a reason. GTA V or minecraft (or most of Nintendos catalog) are still among the best selling titles every year despite being years old. This move would guartantee that there is no revenue for the dev beyond the launch window. Don't forget, people can just "sell" each other games for free if they want to.
This makes things like microtransaction and everything attached to that way more attractive. Or subscription services, where people will need to pay in perpetuity to have access to the games. If 2-3 weeks is all you can get in Sales why sell the game at all?
Nevermind this absolutely kills any indie game that will get popular over time. There will be no revenue for the dev unless, again, he puts in microtransactions and other shit.
Technically not EVERYONE, as there needs to be original buyers to get the ball rolling, but the reality is there will be a plugin with 10 million downloads that just puts the cheapest used key price next to the Steam buy now button. There will be little to no difference in the amount of effort to buy a new key versus a used key. This is not currently how the used game market works at all. It's a whole new level of an obvious choice.
Thanks, I was gonna write that exact same issue with digital trade, but in a worse way :)
That would still violate the law according to the French judge, as the owner of the software should be free to trade it to whomever he wants without paying anyone else.
Still, I dont think this is gonna happen on a wide scale in Europe, as Valve won a similar case in Germany.
Yeah, I jostt realized I missed a word in my last post.
This would result in lower day 1 sales for 1P games since everyone would know that the used price would plummet rapidly as people finish the game and try to undercut the other people trying to sell it. And of course, after the initial few days, nobody would ever buy a new copy of the game again.
Yeah, if countries implemented laws mandating this sort of thing, that's about the only way I could see working without messing up the industry. Get a tiny refund for essentially destroying your digital copy. In some cases, companies might not even lose money if enough players had seller's remorse and decided to rebuy (maybe after a surprise update or expansion).
That's the vast, vast minority of games and isn't even applicable to most Nintendo games.
That's already the case right now when the likes of Ubisoft cut the price of their games in half after a month and when used games also comes in and undercut retail prices in a week or so.
If it can't be done at a digital level than at the very least it would be nice to have the option of physical back again. I remember when the Half Life 2 disc came with a Steam install instead of just letting us run the exe. Meanwhile everyone on console could (and still can) freely resell and trade their discs.
This would be my preferred way to see this implemented. Like having a "Sell" button that sends a digital copy to a marketplace that has a race to the bottom would be a death sentence for many developers, but it doesn't have to be like that either. You could find a middle ground that gives consumers more rights while not creating a game-pocalypse.
We *really* don't need Steam to become a second Gamestop. If anything I'd hope Steam would create a system that allows for resale without skimming off the top. Consider it a service for games that use Steam or something (though it's hard to imagine devs being excited about that, but hey, if they have to anyway)
And consumers enjoy this lack of friction when they buy the game digitally from the developer - it's so much easier to buy a digital game than it is to buy a physical copy. And no, I don't think we should make it easier for consumers to sell someone else's game, at the expense of the developer's ability to make a living off of making & selling games. You're asking for buyers to have the same advantages as sellers.
I heavily doubt any company won't try to make money off of this if they are forced to allow reselling. At the very least I think they would want to at least include "transaction fees" and etc. They already take a cut from GaaS and microtransactions
Reselling digital games is a dumb concept, they lose no value - like what, at some point no one would buy a new game anymore because there's enough used ones in circulation. And saying thats how it goes for physical as well - no. If you buy a physical used copy it's /used/, potentially damaged even. A game license cannot be used in the same way. Buying a new vs. used physical game is always a choice, buying new vs. used digital would not be - because it'd be the exact same product just cheaper. No one would buy new anymore.
You also cannot resell your music on iTunes, or your movies on Amazon - why is Steam getting hit with this? lol
Valve probably wont care so much because they'll get their cut either way - but this'd basically kill SP games forever.
You also cannot resell your music on iTunes, or your movies on Amazon - why is Steam getting hit with this? lol
Valve probably wont care so much because they'll get their cut either way - but this'd basically kill SP games forever.
There's just no way that this wouldn't force a shift on the entire industry to the detriment of consumers.
Games that aren't already "games as a service" will cease to get developed just about entirely.
The vast majority of players (90%+ I'd imagine) who buy singleplayer games would also sell them quickly. The vast majority of consumers (95%+ I'd imagine) are going to buy the cheaper version of the game, even if it's just 10%, 5% or even 1% cheaper. If the resell system's visibility and usability is good, anyway. You get the exact same product, after all. The fewest of customers are actually invested enough in really wanting to support the specific devs and all.
After a year, when millions or many thousands have played your singleplayer game and most of them already resold the game or are still trying to, no one's gonna care for the devs offerings. However low they'll go, some resellers will get below because making 1$ back is better than 0$ and they are 'done' with the game. So yeh, no long legs, tails and what have you. By then the devs have likely sold a negligible amount for several months. Well, i actually think I'm generous with that time frame. I think within a few weeks it's already going to be reduced to nothing.
There's no comparison to physical reselling of games, still. I mean, you can compare it, but to actually argue that reselling your digital game with a few clicks within literally seconds takes anywhere close to the effort of handling the selling and shipping of physical games would be ridiculous. No, the latter is not some "huge" issue. But digital reselling would still be a thousand or million times easier and more comfortable. And easily fully automated!
In reality, forcing the option of digital resales is not consumer-friendly the second you think any further than the direct "oh sweet, I can sell this thing I got back now!" If this were to become reality, then there'd no longer BE this thing to sell back because no one would bother to create it anymore.
That doesn't just apply to gaming, of course, but all software development. Which is why I can't see this getting through in the EU.
Games that aren't already "games as a service" will cease to get developed just about entirely.
The vast majority of players (90%+ I'd imagine) who buy singleplayer games would also sell them quickly. The vast majority of consumers (95%+ I'd imagine) are going to buy the cheaper version of the game, even if it's just 10%, 5% or even 1% cheaper. If the resell system's visibility and usability is good, anyway. You get the exact same product, after all. The fewest of customers are actually invested enough in really wanting to support the specific devs and all.
After a year, when millions or many thousands have played your singleplayer game and most of them already resold the game or are still trying to, no one's gonna care for the devs offerings. However low they'll go, some resellers will get below because making 1$ back is better than 0$ and they are 'done' with the game. So yeh, no long legs, tails and what have you. By then the devs have likely sold a negligible amount for several months. Well, i actually think I'm generous with that time frame. I think within a few weeks it's already going to be reduced to nothing.
There's no comparison to physical reselling of games, still. I mean, you can compare it, but to actually argue that reselling your digital game with a few clicks within literally seconds takes anywhere close to the effort of handling the selling and shipping of physical games would be ridiculous. No, the latter is not some "huge" issue. But digital reselling would still be a thousand or million times easier and more comfortable. And easily fully automated!
In reality, forcing the option of digital resales is not consumer-friendly the second you think any further than the direct "oh sweet, I can sell this thing I got back now!" If this were to become reality, then there'd no longer BE this thing to sell back because no one would bother to create it anymore.
That doesn't just apply to gaming, of course, but all software development. Which is why I can't see this getting through in the EU.
Last edited:
No it's not. Day 1 sales have never been less relevant than they are today.
There's a reason most big publishers have moved away from big single player games and that's because they tend to have fewer long term sales and less opportunity for post launch monetisation.
This here will not only lower Day 1 sales, it'll also mean single player games are even less attractive to make because you'll only earn money for a very short amount of time.
No one will have a dev cycle of 2-4 years for a sales window of a month at most. Which means devs will just make games you can't buy and thus, can't own.
Valve was jsut the first target to get a peredent on the ruling, they will 100% attempt to apply to all other digital media stores.
but first it will probably go to the higher EU court to see if this gets applied to all of the EU or just remains in France.
That's not how this works. If you are allowed to sell your digital liscence, you can sell it to whomever you want. If we keep the comparison to physical media, no one gets a cut if you sell your old books.
Even if you had magical DRM that gave the dev a cut with every transaction, nothing would stop that transaction from being 0$ and the compensation happening another way.
This doesn't mean that they're not the biggest revenue period by far though. They are, just a bit less then before.
So you agree that they're indeed front loaded.
This is already the case, that's why linear single player games are few and far between. The bigger the game is, the more time people will put in the game. They've already moved away from that model and are embracing GAAS even for single player games. It just makes business sense to do so regardless of used digital games.
If everybody waits, then there will not be enough second-hand licences in the market to cause the price to plummet this is basic supply and demand.
The price can only plummet if their is an over saturation of secondhand licences
I mean if you think these aren't bricks in the same wall that all comes down or stays up together, you're not really thinking it through. This will eventually extend to that. They're just talking about Steam right now.
Can't see re-selling and trading of used digital games between consumers themselves becoming a reality without fundamental changes to how the world operates.
Not to mention the abuse and fraud implications (who covers fees/processors? The User?).
Re-selling games back into the ecosystem you're a consumer of for cash/credit however (effectively a long-duration pro-rated refund) I can see becoming more common. That aspect isn't too far out.
Not to mention the abuse and fraud implications (who covers fees/processors? The User?).
Re-selling games back into the ecosystem you're a consumer of for cash/credit however (effectively a long-duration pro-rated refund) I can see becoming more common. That aspect isn't too far out.
Not necessarily. I think there are ways to do it that give consumers more rights while still allowing developers to put food on the table. I also think there are ways to completely fumble this and cripple the digital market exactly like you describe. Implementation of the idea is what makes or breaks this. I'm always going to argue for consumer rights as I feel that too many consumer rights have been taken away in a digital economy.
Sure. But if say 3 million buy it on day 1 instead of 5 million since 2 million figure they can wait a month or two to buy it for 50% off (say a top-rated Nintendo game) or less (most games), that's a huge loss in revenue for the developer, and that's compounded by the fact that they're unlikely to ever make any more money from the game after the launch. Yes, the launch is usually the most profitable period for games, but as a developer myself, I can tell you that you can make good money over time, from a succession of sales. That's destroyed in a digital resale world.
You guys actually think Publishers and storefronts like valve/epic is going to make it easy and or profitable to resell digital licenses?
They are going to make you pay fees for using their server, hosting files and keeping track who or what account owns the license, and lets not forget the nightmare/fee it will be transferring a license from epic game store to steam if you intend to resale.
This is not going to be a win for customers, I imagine almost everybody is going to agree to an agreement that they are buying a non resable license to avoid fees.
They are going to make you pay fees for using their server, hosting files and keeping track who or what account owns the license, and lets not forget the nightmare/fee it will be transferring a license from epic game store to steam if you intend to resale.
This is not going to be a win for customers, I imagine almost everybody is going to agree to an agreement that they are buying a non resable license to avoid fees.
If anything, it's less disruptive since digital sales don't have any associated marginal costs, meaning publishers don't take on the additional risk that would be required to manufacture and ship new physical copies.
This will just ensure that devs will make games that are never finishable and require constant buy-in. Via consumables or a subscription. I mean, if you like that, that's fine.
How exactly that would play out would be kinda interesting to see.
Because there's no need NOT to immediately buy a game you're after if you can resell it quickly for 80-90+% of the value if you're among the first few to finish.
But then, if everyone just bought it immediately, then they'd actually struggle to resell the game because no one's left to buy it...
Rather hypothetical but I guess some balance would find itself. People who don't want any stress certainly can just wait a few weeks and get the games for peanuts.
This would mean that 2/3rd of day one buyers would sell their games a month after buying it. That's not really realistic, especially accounting for the fact that if you want to sell the game quickly, it's probably before it's losing its value, meaning that you'll sell for as much as possible.
The price gap would be way smaller as well as the size of used copies available.
So, the end of the digital era then?
Why would anybody buy new game ever again? Somebody is going to sell the game cheaper 3 days after launch at most.
Why would anybody buy new game ever again? Somebody is going to sell the game cheaper 3 days after launch at most.
youre basically describing pc gaming as it is now - why buy at launch when I can wait for a steam/gog/etc sale? somehow I dont see this as a sky is falling thing like some here.
Why does that matter? If I buy a book and two seconds later I sell you my copy. It's essentially "new" even though I already owned it.
To me this would make the most sense for Valve.
It'd mean they can take a cut and they don't risk consumers leaving the ecosystem.
Devs get the lionshare from every game that gets sold cheaply now. They would get 0$ from any game that gets sold second hand.
