Valve Triumphs Over German Consumer Group

[Fasckira]

Good for valve, bad for us.
Peculiar choice of wording for the headline though.
I thought you were on our side.
Sensationalist and manipulative but kinda on our side.

You know, us, the consumers.
Your audience.

Ssssh, the resistance is not ready to take a public stand yet, comrade!

On another note (and this isn't a dig at Escapist), its a shame to see so many legal based articles around at the moment. In an age when we should be celebrating new tech, getting excited over new games, and oggling shiny graphics we are instead witnessing court battles, patent trolls and cease-and-desists.

We've lost our way, gaming world!

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I'd rather see a rule passed that forces companies to keep their products updated for new OS-Iteration / Hardware as long as the copyright of the product exists.

That's not directly workable, but I could get behind expiring the copyright a few years after the copyright holder stops supporting the product.

which si exactly why it would be a good thing. this means that a lot of old copyrights that are no longer supported will be forcibly dropped instead of sitting in abandonment for 90 years and modders can legally write fixes to work on new OS since they can legaly modify engine once copyright is down.

exactly this

Like 1 to 2 Year after the support dropped because this is usually the official warranty period for products. And any longer would weaken the effect.

 

[Zefar]

How the heck do you get the wrong impression that steam sales are because of the fact your consumer rights have been taken away? Steam does sales because it costs them little to nothing per copy sold, however a sale increases the volume of items sold enough that they make more than the game at full price. They do sales because it's profitable, not because their generous.

Funny that you think that the sales are due to the fact you can't resell your games since last I checked I can get games for 75% off in stores (you know, the things you can walk into, buy a game and then sell the game to your friend if you decided you don't want it). How can they do sales then since you can resell the games? Gosh horror, it's because of the above mentioned volume of sales made earning more total profits than items sold at normal value.

If Valve where to allow resale of games we would have a major problem.
Because this store is visited by 6-7 million people at once.

People have bought up so many games from previous sales that they would be able to sell them for years to come. People would cut ahead of others with their price being better and it would lead to the scenario where games are worth a cent.
People wouldn't bother with sales if it's on the market for a hundred of it's price.

It would be the biggest game crash since that Atari crash. It's like you have no idea on the things that could happen.

Oh and store sales are on generally on copies that are several years old. You won't see a huge sales on games that has recently been released for console.

you do realize that sales are the time they make the most profit right? How about every other sale where you can trade games? you dont see huge sales on console becuase MS and Sony knows they can ask extortionate prices.

How blissfully unaware you are of the consequences of resale of PC games.

I know I've written it down just above that quote of yours but I'll say it again.

People would keep cutting the price to get their game sold before others and this would lead to games being worth a penny.
They would also cut ahead of whatever sale price the game is currently offering or no one would buy it.

Then we have this where a used PC game doesn't exist. It's the same as a original. So there is no loss in buying a used copy.


Like come on, THINK on what could happen.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

This is one of the tradeoffs of digital/virtual/intangible products. It's not perfect but no system is, and I consider steam to be a decent because it's practices are reasonably balanced,remember, things that overwhelmingly benefit the consumer are usually detrimental to the sellers...and vice versa. If you're platform is biased against sellers well guess what... no one is going to sell through you and thusly your business dies.

This.



In short:
Software ownership is complicated.
Valve and Steam do deserve criticism for their faults.
This is not a "win for Valve" or a "loss for consumers."

 

[Strazdas]

really dont get the issue here. Valve is good to us, dont treat us like walking wallets or like brain dead twats. Why does no one go after EA for all the bullshit they pull over the consumer. Like the recent Dungeon Keeper "mobile game" THAT kinda out right shit should be taking to court. But i dont see why ppl are getting all pissy over steam.

wave is not "good" to us. valve is a restricting DRM that some people like simply because they have better sales. You point to EA, but have you forgotten that EA who runs Origin already implemented a full refund policy quite a while ago?
Saying that Valve is good to us because it has sales is like saying that Wallmart is good to us because it has sales.

I sympathise with the 'Verbraucherzentrale Bundesve... [see next page]', but I agree that that kind of ruling can't be enforced without better clarity as to whether or not the consumer owns the 1's and 0's their copy of the game is made of. I;s a complex area. Owning said code is essentially useless for the purpose of reselling it, because you can't transfer content stored digitally, because that would constitute copying said content. It's impossible to "move" data from one place to another, all you can do is delete it in one place and build new, matching data in a new place.
All that aside, I'm not happy either, with the current licensing situation.

In accordance to EU laws the person owns the product. Terms of service agreements and EULAs are void and unless signed in writing BEFORE the buying occurs.There is nothing "complex" about it other than companies pretending that it is service and buying lawyers to argue the case.
You CAN transfer digital content. in fact, you do that every time you copy a file. anything that works in computers is copying. installing steam is copying. running steam is copying. running a game you downloaded on steam is copying the game to your RAM. such semantics are useless when it comes to PC.

GoG? Desura? Origin? Greenman? Battle.net? Humble Bundle?

Yeah, I'm counting a lot of direct competition there sweetie.

if that direct competition gives you steam keys, how is that competition? i am yet to see a humble bundle (granted i dont buy every one) that gives me something other than steam acess.
GOG is probably the best example, as they do not use any DRM.

Okay, no, you cannot use triumph for the friggin' bad guys. This is not a triumph, anymore than Hitler's invasion of Poland was a triumph. It's a gorram travesty.

technically, hitler trumphed over poland. "good guys" depend on whos side your on.

That is incorrect, when you buy a game from steam you are buying a License of that game, but really with this logic, why can i not sell the music i bought on itunes to someone else?

Im so sick of people saying that steam is so good one day, and then the next that steam is super Hitler.

because of the same reaons you cannot sell games you bought on steam - anticonsumer practices. you should be able to sell music you bought on itunes to somone else the same way you can sell album you bought to someone else.

Personally i have been saying steam is bad all the way since 2004, i agree that hipocracy is high with steam users though.

I don't see why people feel entitled to resell their steam library, when you purchase a game on steam, hell, when you install steam, you are presented their terms of use.

i dont see why people feel entitled to resell the car they bought 10 years ago. after all after you bought the car sometime within those 10 years the manufacturer told you that you either sign this agreement or we will not allow you to drive thecar you legally own.

We've always bought licenses when it came to PC games. It's pretty much impossible to return a game after you've bought it, always have. You know why? Because you had a little code you had to tap in to install your game.
Reselling pc games? Sure to your friends maybe, but shops or stuff like that, not likely.

you say it like this was ever actually true.

If Valve where to allow resale of games we would have a major problem.
Because this store is visited by 6-7 million people at once.

just like we have a major problem because people are allwoed to resell their, well, everything but videogames.
except, that, we dont.

People have bought up so many games from previous sales that they would be able to sell them for years to come. People would cut ahead of others with their price being better and it would lead to the scenario where games are worth a cent.
People wouldn't bother with sales if it's on the market for a hundred of it's price.

No they wouldnt. Because people want to keep games they like. and noone will bother selling them for 1 cent either. and if your game is SO BAD that so many people are going to get rid of it at 0,01 usd, then maybe you should make a game.

How blissfully unaware you are of the consequences of resale of PC games.

I know I've written it down just above that quote of yours but I'll say it again.

People would keep cutting the price to get their game sold before others and this would lead to games being worth a penny.
They would also cut ahead of whatever sale price the game is currently offering or no one would buy it.

Then we have this where a used PC game doesn't exist. It's the same as a original. So there is no loss in buying a used copy.

Like come on, THINK on what could happen.

Except reality has proven that this does not happen.

 

[Zefar]

No they wouldnt. Because people want to keep games they like. and noone will bother selling them for 1 cent either. and if your game is SO BAD that so many people are going to get rid of it at 0,01 usd, then maybe you should make a game.

But not everyone likes every game out there. They will also sell off titles they will never play again. I know I won't touch games that I love because I've played them to death.
People might also not be so keen on having a gigantic playlist that takes forever to look through.
Games that are gathered up in large enough numbers will go down in price so much that it will make Steam sales look like extortion rates.

Except reality has proven that this does not happen.

Except that Used game sales made up for 2 billion dollars for Gamestop and they got all of that money for themselves. Money that could have gone to helping game companies instead. Gamestop also doesn't like the notion of losing that part.

Games also can't exactly be compared to other stuff.
You have this item that will never degrade no matter what and always be the same.
Stores that sell used stuff only, can only carry a limited amount of stuff and most of the time they don't even sell the stuff and have to get rid of it.
Steam removes that part. They will be on the store for a life time. They can carry an infinitive amount of items. It'll be super easy to find the cheapest seller too.

You can see things dropping in price the moment there are too many of them. I'm willing to bet Half-Life 2 would be priced less than a dollar on the Steam market if resale was allowed. It has nothing to do with the quality of the game. It's all about how many of it there exist on the market. Too many and the price drops. Simple.

Then we also have VAC banned games or MMORPG games. You can't just sell those.

 

[freaper]

For a company that claims to value the consumer, they sure seem to dislike the idea of us owning video games and doing things people normally do with things they own.

Y'know, like returning a game if it turns out to be shit, which is increasingly becoming the case with new releases on Steam, since the idea of quality control goes completely over their heads, or reselling or giving away a game once you've put enough time into it, which once you've played a game through several times is a pretty damn appealing option.

You don't rent movies directed by Adam Sandler just like you don't buy games that look like obvious turds.

OT: I thought Germany was pretty strict when it came down to consumer rights? At least they're doing something about this wonky classification of videogames.

Funny you should use a comparison to renting movies, because that's exactly what Valve (and the rest of the industry minus GoG, Humble Bundle, and a few other groups on the fringes) is trying to turn "sales" of video games into: a rental. And anything that reinforces the legality of EULAs is one step closer to that being as true in reality as it is on that BS pile of legalese.

The day I won't be able to access the games I bought online will suck. Luckily, that day hasn't come yet. I don't see Steam or Origin or whoever denying access to their customers without yearning for PR suicide, so I'm not really bothered atm.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Never said anything about valve getting a free pass coz of "sales" but thank you for putting words in my mouth. They dont treat us like shit its that simple. No it should not be a case of better fo 2 evils BUT next to everyone else valve is still alot better. Maybe a somepoint they will give us some kinda a system to trade or sell your games, maybe you gotta own said game for x amount of time before you are allowed to sell it i dont know. BUT like somone else has pointed out it'll ruin shit. Have you seen how cheap trading cards and other bullshit go for ? And anyway have we forgot that for a very long time now we've not been able to really sell our old pc gamnes. coz the fucking cd key is already linked to blah blah blah.

 

[Zipa]

I don't see how this is Valve's fault, reselling of PC games has not been allowed since way before Steam or even Valve themselves existed. You couldn't trade in a physical copy in a store because CD keys were a thing.

 

[Strazdas]

But not everyone likes every game out there. They will also sell off titles they will never play again. I know I won't touch games that I love because I've played them to death.
People might also not be so keen on having a gigantic playlist that takes forever to look through.
Games that are gathered up in large enough numbers will go down in price so much that it will make Steam sales look like extortion rates.

Not everyone buys every game out there. whats your point?
People selling off things they dont want to use anymore? the horror? oh, wait, thats happening all over for thousands of years. you say you wont touch games you like, what makes you think others will?
Gigantic playlits are not a problem. make a category, shove it all in, minimize, there you got rid of scroll bar. thats what i do with games i "finished".
The prices will not go down in such for people would not consider it worth selling at such prices. and if it does that means noone wants that game, which is fair enough.

Except that Used game sales made up for 2 billion dollars for Gamestop and they got all of that money for themselves. Money that could have gone to helping game companies instead. Gamestop also doesn't like the notion of losing that part.

Gamestop, know for ripping off its costumers everywhere they can, made profit? you dont say.
Of course a basically monopoly of used games sales dont want to loose being monopoly, DUH.
Besides, used game pay should go to used game owner instead of some corporate middleman anyway.

Games also can't exactly be compared to other stuff.

Neither can cars, neither can trees, neither can buildings, neither can chiars, you get the point. The thing is, they are all PRODUCTS.

You have this item that will never degrade no matter what and always be the same.

Not only that is not true but also irrelevant.

Stores that sell used stuff only, can only carry a limited amount of stuff and most of the time they don't even sell the stuff and have to get rid of it.
Steam removes that part. They will be on the store for a life time. They can carry an infinitive amount of items. It'll be super easy to find the cheapest seller too.

So, better?

You can see things dropping in price the moment there are too many of them. I'm willing to bet Half-Life 2 would be priced less than a dollar on the Steam market if resale was allowed. It has nothing to do with the quality of the game. It's all about how many of it there exist on the market. Too many and the price drops. Simple.

Only as long as the seller is willing to part with it for less than a dollar. And thats how economy works you know, large supply means drop in prices.
Besides, your given example - Half-life 2 is a 10 years old game. if they havent made thier profit on it now then maybe they shouldnt have released it in the first place (i know HL made profit, but my saying apples to all games).

Then we also have VAC banned games or MMORPG games. You can't just sell those.

This can be applied per account instead. MMORPGs run on subscriptions or microtransactions anyway.

 

[viranimus]

Yuu have failed to understand the difference between buying on steam and buying retail. It does not matter how many words you write it will not change the fact that games on steam are only available via steam. You can only access the games via steam's service. Valve is not the rights holder, EULAs are still between the rights holder and the end user, valve has no part in that. Valve set the rules on what you can and cannot do on its service, steam. Valve are fee to set those rules in any way it likes within the law. This court case was not about the fairness or otherwise of steam rules but a foolish waste of money in an attempt to say steam is not a service when it plainly is a service.

Spoiler: Albino Boo

No, I fully understand it the difference and in fact point to the fact there is a difference. Not because there is a real difference but because Steam is trying to manufacture an artificial difference where there is none. A client for distribution do not a service make. (Oh and btw, you are wrong too because there are games that are bought on steam that you CAN access without the client. Off the top of my head Binding of Issac, as if you have the least lil bit of tech savvy you can find the root installation folder and access the game from there)

Steam does not offer a service. They offer distribution. Period. If steam was a service as I stated before It would BE a service. Like Hulu, Netflix, where all content was made available Or like Service based games such as MMOs. Steam does not sell a service. No one pays steam to access steam. They pay steam when they want to purchase an individual product which Steam gladly distributes. Does anyone pay Amazon for the ability to shop on Amazon??? Of course not because distribution and service are NOT the same thing, especially when the products sold on Steam are sold in the same manner as products. In fact, it even has an offline mode. That alone kills any possibility of it being a service.

Let me be clear with this. People do not pay to access steam. There is no Steam access fee. All the content sold on steam is sold individually as products. It does not matter how many times you say it, or how you point to individual motivations in it, Steam is not a service, It never has been a service, it never will be (at least under its current model) a service. Steam sells products, No differently than Walmart, Game, Gamestop, Amazon, ect. They are a form of product distribution. Steam does not sell exclusively proprietary content. They sell all sorts of products that are in fact available elsewhere and in alternative formats.

THAT is why this case and others like it are coming up, because the rules they set are NOT within the law. They are trying to dodge laws. Thats why these cases are filed. You cannot be a retailer selling individual products and pretend you offer a service to try and keep from being governed by laws protecting the products you sell and the consumers who buy them. That is exactly what you are trying to justify on steams behalf and that shows why this is the furthest thing from a waste of money. Because Steams industry dominance comes from many people who would apologize for them and try to obscure what they are doing as perfectly legal commerce when it is trying to undermine the rules of commerce.

They dont treat us like shit its that simple.

Spoiler: AstaresPanda

Uhm, what do you call an organization who agrees to distribute content and accepts terms for the transaction, then decides they want to change the terms of the transaction after the transaction has been completed and hold the content purchased hostage until you agree to the change of those terms?

Yes, its that simple.

The reason Steam is popular is simply because , consumers seem to prefer steam. so everyone wants to get their game on steam. I mean GoG is nice but they do have rather twitchy compatibility and support, Origin... meh, won't even mention origin. So yeah, they are the preferred platform and they are the preferred platform for a reason...


I really do like how being successful automatically makes you the bad guy, I mean let's be frank., success in business requires, good decision, cooperation by the ton and a light sprinkling of ruthlessness..

Spoiler: BigTuk

Three things

A: Steam is the "preferred" distribution platform for no other reason than having the largest library. Which makes them the most lucrative platform for Developers because it is giving their product access to the largest single point of access of customers, which grows their library even larger.


B: LOL @ GOGs compatibility and support being twitchy. ROFL@ suggesting Steam can even hold a candle in comparison.

C: It is not that steam is successful. Its because Steams success is in part because of manipulating the rules of the game against consumers in seemly and unlawful ways.

An old saying

How you win is just as important as IF you win

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

For a company that claims to value the consumer, they sure seem to dislike the idea of us owning video games and doing things people normally do with things they own.

Y'know, like returning a game if it turns out to be shit, which is increasingly becoming the case with new releases on Steam, since the idea of quality control goes completely over their heads, or reselling or giving away a game once you've put enough time into it, which once you've played a game through several times is a pretty damn appealing option.

You don't rent movies directed by Adam Sandler just like you don't buy games that look like obvious turds.

OT: I thought Germany was pretty strict when it came down to consumer rights? At least they're doing something about this wonky classification of videogames.

Funny you should use a comparison to renting movies, because that's exactly what Valve (and the rest of the industry minus GoG, Humble Bundle, and a few other groups on the fringes) is trying to turn "sales" of video games into: a rental. And anything that reinforces the legality of EULAs is one step closer to that being as true in reality as it is on that BS pile of legalese.

The day I won't be able to access the games I bought online will suck. Luckily, that day hasn't come yet. I don't see Steam or Origin or whoever denying access to their customers without yearning for PR suicide, so I'm not really bothered atm.

Question: can you resell your game? If the answer is anything but yes, it's not a sale, it's a rental at best. For that matter, have you ever read those EULAs? They're basically 10 pages of "you are not buying this game, you are renting it." Except they use the legalistic term of "licensing." A rental is just a specific kind of license to use, which EULAs effectively fall under.

 

[Zefar]

Not everyone buys every game out there. whats your point?
People selling off things they dont want to use anymore? the horror? oh, wait, thats happening all over for thousands of years. you say you wont touch games you like, what makes you think others will?
Gigantic playlits are not a problem. make a category, shove it all in, minimize, there you got rid of scroll bar. thats what i do with games i "finished".
The prices will not go down in such for people would not consider it worth selling at such prices. and if it does that means noone wants that game, which is fair enough.

Vast majority of the sales happen because people think it's a good price for the game but only end up buying something they don't like. This is far to common on Steam and there are a lot of people who just haven't touched most of their games.
The difference with selling other stuff is that they wear and tear. PC games do not. You can't keep reselling a car as it'll break down, it'll get worse over time and it'll become a risk to drive. A PC game will be the same after the last patch no matter how long it's passed.
Gigantic playlist is a problem for a lot of people. I read about users whining like little babies about a random free weekend game show up in their play list. If they can trim off the stuff they do not like they will do that.
They will also sell them for lower than what the store offer.

Indie games are specially in for a whole lot of trouble. Humble Bundle will practically kill the income of any Indie developer that joins it because they buy the game for a penny and then sell them for half the current price on Steam store.

As for game dropping to a fraction of it's cost = no one wants it. Not really. If it had gone on a normal sale it would still sell copies. But with users selling it they would push the price to almost nothing.

Gamestop, know for ripping off its costumers everywhere they can, made profit? you dont say.
Of course a basically monopoly of used games sales dont want to loose being monopoly, DUH.
Besides, used game pay should go to used game owner instead of some corporate middleman anyway.

But this is just to show you how much their stores where able to take away from game developers. Now think about Steam with 6-7 million active users doing it in ONE store.

Neither can cars, neither can trees, neither can buildings, neither can chiars, you get the point. The thing is, they are all PRODUCTS.

All of those things can be worn out. They are not in unlimited amount. Costs to ship and so much more. Video games on Steam does not do any of that.

Not only that is not true but also irrelevant.

How can this be irrelevant?

So, better?

If you want to kill the PC gaming market.

Only as long as the seller is willing to part with it for less than a dollar. And thats how economy works you know, large supply means drop in prices.
Besides, your given example - Half-life 2 is a 10 years old game. if they havent made thier profit on it now then maybe they shouldnt have released it in the first place (i know HL made profit, but my saying apples to all games).

But Half-Life 2 still goes on sale from time to time and it will sell copies. If the user market pushed it down to below a dollar Valve would be losing out on a lot of sales for it.

This can be applied per account instead. MMORPGs run on subscriptions or microtransactions anyway.

But if VAC bans are by account you'll have these cheaters buying VAC banned games on a new account and cheat again. It is amazing how you can not think of the problems with this.

But if there is a law that prohibit you to sell MMORPG every developer would build their game so that it acts like a MMORPG and then can't be sold off. Because you'd basically be selling the free account you signed up for.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Games also can't exactly be compared to other stuff.

Actually, they can and they are.
They're an "Information Good", just like all other forms of media, and they have their own economic rules and behaviors.

Which is why I am utterly baffled at the Berliner ruling here.
"Audiovisual components" suddenly render it moot from protection it grants to software? WHAT??? What makes the non-media software any less of software??

That's like saying an MP3 file of music isn't music because the MP3 isn't printed on a sheet.
There must be some very specific criteria for "software" to qualify under consumer protection laws in Europe (or at least Germany), because otherwise this ruling is asinine.

Question: has anybody ever lost less net money from reselling a game than purchasing it at sale value on steam?

Total revenue for the developer/publisher and Steam would plummet, without question, if licenses were resell-able and/or transferable. A Steam sale still gives the developers some revenue, however small, while 2nd hand transactions give nothing, no matter how large. (Steam however, could charge a transferal fee and benefit from this; as it does on everything sold in its user marketplace)
Given Steam's breadth of service, I suspect it would collapse under the cost of running it if this were enforced.

It's a Faustian ordeal.
Steam sales are amazing and promote growth that the consumer DOES benefit from, but it comes at the cost of control.

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

Over the last DECADE???
A decade ago, Steam was brand new; a tiny fraction of its current size. It really didn't start growing like a weed until around 2007.

 

[misg]

Agree or disagree with this decision, the simple fact is being able to trade games on steam would force them to raise prices for longer. Frankly I don't care about selling my games I bought. One thing people don't seem to consider when they rage against Steam here, is even if you could sell them, Valve would have no responsibility in keeping them updated for you if you did sell them and if you wanted to reactivate the game on steam they could charge you for it. is setup is the best system out there. Show me another way of buying games better then Steam, with fairly reasonable DRM, great service in keeping games up to date, and awesome sales. Valve has to work in the laws that are currently in place. I think Valve has done a great job in moving gaming forward for gamers. Without Valve we probably wouldn't have GoG.com or HumbleBundle.com. We would probably still be paying to redownload games from sites like Direct2drive and have to manually download updates.

 

[freaper]

For a company that claims to value the consumer, they sure seem to dislike the idea of us owning video games and doing things people normally do with things they own.

Y'know, like returning a game if it turns out to be shit, which is increasingly becoming the case with new releases on Steam, since the idea of quality control goes completely over their heads, or reselling or giving away a game once you've put enough time into it, which once you've played a game through several times is a pretty damn appealing option.

You don't rent movies directed by Adam Sandler just like you don't buy games that look like obvious turds.

OT: I thought Germany was pretty strict when it came down to consumer rights? At least they're doing something about this wonky classification of videogames.

Funny you should use a comparison to renting movies, because that's exactly what Valve (and the rest of the industry minus GoG, Humble Bundle, and a few other groups on the fringes) is trying to turn "sales" of video games into: a rental. And anything that reinforces the legality of EULAs is one step closer to that being as true in reality as it is on that BS pile of legalese.

The day I won't be able to access the games I bought online will suck. Luckily, that day hasn't come yet. I don't see Steam or Origin or whoever denying access to their customers without yearning for PR suicide, so I'm not really bothered atm.

Question: can you resell your game? If the answer is anything but yes, it's not a sale, it's a rental at best. For that matter, have you ever read those EULAs? They're basically 10 pages of "you are not buying this game, you are renting it." Except they use the legalistic term of "licensing." A rental is just a specific kind of license to use, which EULAs effectively fall under.

I'm a hoarder
I've got plenty of games IRL that I haven't touched in a decennial but that I will (most likely) never sell. I know that others expect other things from their preferred online stores, but as long it doesn't influence me negatively, I don't care. I'm pretty sure that that is also the opinion of the silent majority.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

For a company that claims to value the consumer, they sure seem to dislike the idea of us owning video games and doing things people normally do with things they own.

Y'know, like returning a game if it turns out to be shit, which is increasingly becoming the case with new releases on Steam, since the idea of quality control goes completely over their heads, or reselling or giving away a game once you've put enough time into it, which once you've played a game through several times is a pretty damn appealing option.

You don't rent movies directed by Adam Sandler just like you don't buy games that look like obvious turds.

OT: I thought Germany was pretty strict when it came down to consumer rights? At least they're doing something about this wonky classification of videogames.

Funny you should use a comparison to renting movies, because that's exactly what Valve (and the rest of the industry minus GoG, Humble Bundle, and a few other groups on the fringes) is trying to turn "sales" of video games into: a rental. And anything that reinforces the legality of EULAs is one step closer to that being as true in reality as it is on that BS pile of legalese.

The day I won't be able to access the games I bought online will suck. Luckily, that day hasn't come yet. I don't see Steam or Origin or whoever denying access to their customers without yearning for PR suicide, so I'm not really bothered atm.

Question: can you resell your game? If the answer is anything but yes, it's not a sale, it's a rental at best. For that matter, have you ever read those EULAs? They're basically 10 pages of "you are not buying this game, you are renting it." Except they use the legalistic term of "licensing." A rental is just a specific kind of license to use, which EULAs effectively fall under.

I'm a hoarder
I've got plenty of games IRL that I haven't touched in a decennial but that I will (most likely) never sell. I know that others expect other things from their preferred online stores, but as long it doesn't influence me negatively, I don't care. I'm pretty sure that that is also the opinion of the silent majority.

I don't sell my games either (buy used, yes. Reserve the right to return a non-functioning product? Absolutely.), but civil rights are a zero sum game, and this is an attack on them. It's wrong, and if the silent majority are apathetic, that's nothing new. But they're the first ones to complain when something they actually care about gets taken, even if the first step was the thing they called the rest of us hysterical for saying was wrong, and the current step is a direct result of that one.