Valve Triumphs Over German Consumer Group

[Smooth Operator]

Ya score one for Valve, they just got the "You don't own the shit you buy" steam train rolling in EU as well... great fucking victory right there.

 

[Pyrian]

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.

 

[Lt. Rocky]

Resales I could understand fighting for; selling accounts not so much. Refunds would be a great service on Steam ... It'd certainly be the beginning to curving the criticism going on about Steam's Early Access and Greenlight.

 

[Albino Boo]

That illustrates why this is a problem and a loss for consumers. You have come to an incorrect understanding because when you buy a game on steam you buy it for as long as Valve determines it is yours to access and they have the freedom to take it away or make any sort of unreasonable demands in exchange for your continued access of it at their leisure.



When consumers come to incorrect conclusions that result in incorrect outcomes that keep Steam as the 10 ton gorilla of gaming, with each little loss like this further damages the customer, and the structure of economics and all commerce. You've come to an understanding that not only hurts every consumer of digital content (game and non alike) but hurts you as well by first limiting your protection against corporate practices and again by giving them further tools to take even more protections away from you and every customer. Even if you dont care about being protected or not.

You have demonstrated a false understanding of steam. You do not buy a games on steam you buy access to that game on the steam service. The clue is in the name Terms of Service. If you don't like the the terms then don't buy on steam. Whether you like it or not steam is service. This court case was never more than a cheap publicity stunt by failed SPD politician to raise his profile.

 

[deathjavu]

God! Valve is SOOOOO EVIL! THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER!

Im fine with this, i have come to the understanding of when you buy a game on steam you buy it forever, but everyone cries fowl because you can't play a game on steam and get your money back once you are done, or resell the game to someone else.

That illustrates why this is a problem and a loss for consumers. You have come to an incorrect understanding because when you buy a game on steam you buy it for as long as Valve determines it is yours to access and they have the freedom to take it away or make any sort of unreasonable demands in exchange for your continued access of it at their leisure.



When consumers come to incorrect conclusions that result in incorrect outcomes that keep Steam as the 10 ton gorilla of gaming, with each little loss like this further damages the customer, and the structure of economics and all commerce. You've come to an understanding that not only hurts every consumer of digital content (game and non alike) but hurts you as well by first limiting your protection against corporate practices and again by giving them further tools to take even more protections away from you and every customer. Even if you dont care about being protected or not.

We get huge sales because companies know the copy will only go to one person most of the time and not switch hand with 20 others.

No, you get sales because Valve holds entirely too much industry clout and does not have to compete directly with anyone. They have the freedom to make any demands they like of consumers and developers alike. But most importantly you get sales (which valves prices are not good or competitive values at all when compared objectively) because the value of a non tradable infinitely revokable license that can be removed with or without reason invariably has less value than something that is owned and beyond such revocation. In short Valve HAS to keep their prices lower than things like physical equivlents because they know what they sell is only a shadow of what the actual product is.

I agreed with you until the second part- Steam prices can go so low because there is little to no cost investment for each individual sale. Therefore, a deep discount can capitalize on sales that would not otherwise occur, netting extra dollars for little to no cost/sale.

Steam sales do go so low specifically because Steam does have competition. Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundles, Amazon, piracy, and even Origin. None as big as Steam, but so it goes with offering a convenient, highly functional software before anyone else (see also: Google).

As far as the ruling itself- yes, we should be able to resale games that we should be purchasing. There are technical limitations to this problem, for sure- a whole multitude of them. Valve needs to get their ass working on this and stop stalling in court (where other rulings lead me to believe they will eventually lose).

The idea that games on steam are only so cheap because of the lack of resale is a dirty, demonstrably false lie. This feature (lack of resale) has not reduced game prices on, say, Origin. This feature has not increased game prices on, say, Amazon. It's a line of shit.

 

[Vegosiux]

I honestly hope VZBV brings this up to a higher instance court, this is honestly not good. Alternatively, hope consumer groups in other EU members take it to the circles of legalese as well.

Heck, I've sent a few mails to our own national consumer protection group, but I guess I still need to spam them some more >.>

 

[viranimus]

You have demonstrated a false understanding of steam. You do not buy a games on steam you buy access to that game on the steam service. The clue is in the name Terms of Service. If you don't like the the terms then don't buy on steam. Whether you like it or not steam is service. This court case was never more than a cheap publicity stunt by failed SPD politician to raise his profile.

You cannot seriously be asserting that people flock to steam for its service, and the games are just the benefits of said service.

I dont buy from steam. But Steam is NOT a service. They are a distributor. Pure and simple, Its in the name. Digital distribution. Regardless of the motivation of the politician backing it, it still does not mean this is not a loss for all consumers because it helps Steam try to turn products into services to shirk around things like first sale doctrine.

 

[Albino Boo]

You have demonstrated a false understanding of steam. You do not buy a games on steam you buy access to that game on the steam service. The clue is in the name Terms of Service. If you don't like the the terms then don't buy on steam. Whether you like it or not steam is service. This court case was never more than a cheap publicity stunt by failed SPD politician to raise his profile.

You cannot seriously be asserting that people flock to steam for its service, and the games are just the benefits of said service.

I dont buy from steam. But Steam is NOT a service. They are a distributor. Pure and simple, Its in the name. Digital distribution. Regardless of the motivation of the politician backing it, it still does not mean this is not a loss for all consumers because it helps Steam try to turn products into services to shirk around things like first sale doctrine.

You are entitled to your opinion but the German courts disagree with your opinion and say it is a service. They are trained lawyers and with judicial power. To be blunt, what you think does not matter, what the judges think does. Steam is a service in law. You have failed to understand that this case was never going to be won but was away of gaining publicity for a former Mayor with ambitions to return to the front line of German politics.

 

[WashAran]

You have demonstrated a false understanding of steam. You do not buy a games on steam you buy access to that game on the steam service. The clue is in the name Terms of Service. If you don't like the the terms then don't buy on steam. Whether you like it or not steam is service. This court case was never more than a cheap publicity stunt by failed SPD politician to raise his profile.

You cannot seriously be asserting that people flock to steam for its service, and the games are just the benefits of said service.

I dont buy from steam. But Steam is NOT a service. They are a distributor. Pure and simple, Its in the name. Digital distribution. Regardless of the motivation of the politician backing it, it still does not mean this is not a loss for all consumers because it helps Steam try to turn products into services to shirk around things like first sale doctrine.

You are entitled to your opinion but the German courts disagree with your opinion and say it is a service. They are trained lawyers and with judicial power. To be blunt, what you think does not matter, what the judges think does. Steam is a service in law. You have failed to understand that this case was never going to be won but was away of gaining publicity for a former Mayor with ambitions to return to the front line of German politics.

Yeah german courts are so good at there jobs.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131212/14232225551/redtube-smacks-down-german-copyright-troll-attempting-to-blackmail-its-viewers.shtml

 

[MetalMagpie]

You have demonstrated a false understanding of steam. You do not buy a games on steam you buy access to that game on the steam service. The clue is in the name Terms of Service. If you don't like the the terms then don't buy on steam. Whether you like it or not steam is service. This court case was never more than a cheap publicity stunt by failed SPD politician to raise his profile.

You cannot seriously be asserting that people flock to steam for its service, and the games are just the benefits of said service.

I dont buy from steam. But Steam is NOT a service. They are a distributor. Pure and simple, Its in the name. Digital distribution. Regardless of the motivation of the politician backing it, it still does not mean this is not a loss for all consumers because it helps Steam try to turn products into services to shirk around things like first sale doctrine.

I think he means that Steam offers a service whereby you can pay for unlimited access to a game. The way software is sold is that you purchase a license to use it, rather than purchasing the software itself. Otherwise there would be legally nothing to stop you from copying a video game disc a million times and selling the copies. If you own it, you can do whatever you like with it.

For what it's worth, this is also the way that other digital media such as films and stock images are sold. You buy a license to use it. You don't gain ownership of the content. A license can be a one-off payment, a subscription or even just in exchange for handing over your email address, but it always comes with terms of use. Generally speaking, licenses don't tend to be things you're allowed to "sell".

This was all a bit muddy whilst video games were entirely distributed on physical media. You absolutely own the plastic disc (and thus have a right to resell it) but you don't own the information on it, you've just bought a license to use it (under specified conditions). Bit of a mess for consumers to understand and difficult to game publishers to enforce anyway. But digital distribution (combined with most of the target market having internet access) means that publishers are now in a position to actually enforce one-license-one-user policies.

I'm personally fine with companies selling software using whatever type of license they can dream up, providing they make the terms clear to consumers (something I'm not sure Valve have done as well as they could). The company I work for sells software on the SaaS model (Software as a Service). We run the program on our own hardware and customers pay us a subscription fee.

TLDR: Selling software is not the same as selling cars.

 

[weirdee]

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

 

[P.Tsunami]

Yeah german courts are so good at there jobs.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131212/14232225551/redtube-smacks-down-german-copyright-troll-attempting-to-blackmail-its-viewers.shtml

Yeah, uh.

1. One faulty court case would not prove an entire country's legal system dysfunctional.

2. The article provided says nothing about German courts. At all. It's a German company sending out legal documents with the threat of lawsuit and offer of settlement. The whole point of this company's modus operandi is it relies on none of its victims being willing to go to court.

So, uh. What are you talking about, again?

 

[Magmarock]

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.

What have you done Valve to deserve such loyalty from fans and the industry. it's been over a decade since Steam was started and I don't think it's even fair to call Valve a games company anymore.

 

[A-D.]

Score one for Valve? Really? This ruling actually doesnt restrict resale of a specific digital copy. Same as the old ruling doesnt prevent anyone from selling a physical copy. Its semantics being brought up here. Let me give you an example.

I buy Skyrim, whether i buy a physical copy or a digital one, it is tied to steam, as such i have a code that i have to link to steam, or rather a steam account of my own. So far, its pretty simple, correct? Now who owns that one copy, that one code-activated, account-linked copy? Valve? The Publisher? The Developer? Neither, i own that. This is my product, i paid for it, therefore that one copy is my property and by most EU Laws i am perfectly within my legal rights to resell this one copy. How is it so hard to grasp to people that this "license to play" bullshit is utter semantics circling around a archaic concept of copyright? You do not buy a license, you buy a copy of a product, the moment money changes hands, thats the moment a product is also exchanged. Games are therefore a product, not a service.

Now granted, take WoW for example, or any MMO for that matter, they usually work on a "pay us to play" basis, which is a service, because the moment you stop paying is the moment you stop playing, well when that subscription runs out. A Subscription is a service. If a product is exchanged for a one-time purchase price, for example Skyrim, or Diablo 3, or Sim City, or Adobe Photoshop, that is a product, not a service. You do not pay continuously for the use of the product, you paid once and thats all. You own that one specific copy of the product you purchased, which includes everything in that copy. You cant make copies of it to resell because again that falls under copyright, which you do not own, but that one copy of Skyrim you have purchased? That one you can give away, resell, throw out the window or shred into fine dust and snort. It is your property to do with as you please.

Steam is a Distributor. They are the digital version of GameStop, or EBGames or whatever local equivalent of a brick and mortar store you have. They sell games, why should they be extended special courtesy that brick and mortar stores do not get? Why can you take your game back to GameStop and get a refund, but you cant on Steam? Because people are too dumb to notice that Steam is the fucking same thing.

 

[WashAran]

Yeah german courts are so good at there jobs.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131212/14232225551/redtube-smacks-down-german-copyright-troll-attempting-to-blackmail-its-viewers.shtml

Yeah, uh.

1. One faulty court case would not prove an entire country's legal system dysfunctional.

2. The article provided says nothing about German courts. At all. It's a German company sending out legal documents with the threat of lawsuit and offer of settlement. The whole point of this company's modus operandi is it relies on none of its victims being willing to go to court.

So, uh. What are you talking about, again?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131224/13331825689/german-court-pulls-orders-granted-to-copyright-troll-uc-grants-injunction-against-future-demand-letters.shtml

Maybe this artical explains it better.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131205/01432025460/german-court-says-ceo-open-source-company-liable-illegal-functions-submitted-community.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/11573918587/huh-totally-clueless-german-court-says-contentid-isnt-good-enough-youtube-must-block-infringement-keywords.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111228/08262117213/german-court-decisions-make-everyday-use-internet-increasingly-risky-there.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050118/1210222.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070730/224919.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080912/1527062257.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100520/0258459508.shtml

There is just one case in the germany where the courts fail when it comes to software, internet and other technologys. Also I did not say that it is our system that fails.

 

[AstaresPanda]

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.

 

[Shuu]

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.

 

[viranimus]

I think he means that Steam offers a service whereby you can pay for unlimited access to a game. The way software is sold is that you purchase a license to use it, rather than purchasing the software itself. Otherwise there would be legally nothing to stop you from copying a video game disc a million times and selling the copies. If you own it, you can do whatever you like with it.

For what it's worth, this is also the way that other digital media such as films and stock images are sold. You buy a license to use it. You don't gain ownership of the content. A license can be a one-off payment, a subscription or even just in exchange for handing over your email address, but it always comes with terms of use. Generally speaking, licenses don't tend to be things you're allowed to "sell".

This was all a bit muddy whilst video games were entirely distributed on physical media. You absolutely own the plastic disc (and thus have a right to resell it) but you don't own the information on it, you've just bought a license to use it (under specified conditions). Bit of a mess for consumers to understand and difficult to game publishers to enforce anyway. But digital distribution (combined with most of the target market having internet access) means that publishers are now in a position to actually enforce one-license-one-user policies.

I'm personally fine with companies selling software using whatever type of license they can dream up, providing they make the terms clear to consumers (something I'm not sure Valve have done as well as they could). The company I work for sells software on the SaaS model (Software as a Service). We run the program on our own hardware and customers pay us a subscription fee.

TLDR: Selling software is not the same as selling cars.

And that is a major part of the problem with the understanding of this issue. Buying a copy of a game is not ownership of the intellectual property, it is ownership of something that was produced for mass consumption and distribution where in each copy is functionally identical to every other copy. Owning a copy of something, and owning the intellectual property of something are two completely and very clearly defined things.

For some reason those who defend Steams anti consumerist practices seem to not want to acknowledge and differentiate between the two. Buying a copy of something you are completely free to do with it what you want. However in doing so you are not free to take it, alter it, then try to resell it and claim it was your own creation, under the original name of the creation, and that it is a brand new product of your own design.

Imagine the painting of the Mona Lisa. You buy a canvas print of the painting. When you own that print, thats what you own, the print. Not the original product. You can repaint the whole thing so the colors match the scheme of your living room. You can even resell it (as used of course) as an altered print of the painting, but you cannot try to sell it as "THE" Mona Lisa. You cannot try to expect the same value of your alteration of a reproduction of the original as the original is worth. At the same time, Zombie Da Vinci cannot rise and demand all the money from the sale of your altered copy of the print because the print was produced for mass distribution. Each copy is its own entity and owning that copy is what one owns when they buy it, Not claim on the original work.

Now knowing this difference, which is honestly a clear cut and obvious distinction, Steam has no right to try to claim that what they sell is the service, because there is no service steam provides other than the distribution of the product. The only reason people come to steam is to buy the products they want. Steams service is that of distributing those products in a digital format. The fact it is in a digital format does NOT give them the right to claim they offered a service when none was provided but that is EXACTLY what they are doing and trying to cement because it is obvious, if you can change a product into a service, you are no longer governed by the laws of selling a product which comes with consumer protections, you are governed by the conditional laws of providing a service which can be terminated with or without your consent, with or without recompense for the individual transactions made.

If steam was an "access" Service, it would mean all games in the steam library would have to be accessible. THAT would be steam providing a service. Sort of the way Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu plus offer services of access. However where steam still sells the products as individual products they under no rational law of man or commerce have the right to claim what they sell is a service.

Is steam the only party guilty of this? Not by a long shot, From a corporate perspective its a great idea because it gives you all the control and power over the service, the freedom to stop the service as you see fit and leaves the customer with nothing if it is and no recourse if you do. The problem isnt that companies are trying to do this nearly as much as the real problem is that Steam has found a way to get people to willingly abandon their protections and allowing Steam convert the entire industry into transforming products into services. Thais why attention needs to be focused on Steam. Because they have managed to find that niche that is giving them the financial clout to forcibly transform products into a service and as they prove this business model viable they will continue expanding outward (Productivity software, Music and how long before Video comes into the steam fold) as well as giving other distributors ideas on how to emulate the same tactic.

That is the real problem here. We are honestly on the verge of an economic revolution thanks to digital distribution. The problem is that the rules of this new economic world are being written by corporations, in their favor and being voted into effect by way of financial support by an apathetic audience who simply does not care if everyone's rights are lost, so long as they get what they personally want. Even when want something that will end up not only hurting them, but everyone.

So lets use your TL;DR for a moment. If we let Steam write the rules today on what is the industry standard operating procedure for digital distribution today and run all companies who are doing digital distribution but still respecting that a product is a product off, what happens in 10-20 years as digital 3d printing takes off and we ARE buying cars via digital distribution? We let the rules be written that its a subscription. So just because you paid a boat load of money, your vehicle could be taken away at the distributors discretion because thats what you agreed to it.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

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.

Except EA always does and will get shat on, Valves Steam does not allow you to own your games, sure you buy them but really they are tied to Steam like a service, if I bought a copy at GAME it would be mine and mine alone when money exchanges hands and yet valve don't understand that concept either like many online stores do, we are supposed to own our games not pay a shitty license to play them and have our value in money mean diddly squat.

Valve is not as pristine and clean and you think it is, if it's won a court battle in germany, who is to benefit from this?, the customers?, hell no Valve did a company did, not the customers, a company.

You hate shit like EA when they get away with that kind of crap the same should go for valve, no one gets to be excused, not in any market,not now and not ever.

Time to stop putting companies anyone likes on that golden pedestal.

 

[viranimus]

No, you get sales because Valve holds entirely too much industry clout and does not have to compete directly with anyone.

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

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

Ok, How much of Paradox, 2k, Bethesda, Telltale libraries can you buy from each of those outlets? Thats indirect competition. Now compare how many of the various developers you can buy on those outlets, who you cannot buy on steam, That is industry clout. Need more examples? How many items can you obtain via say Desura or Humble that is nothing more than steam redirection?