Valve Triumphs Over German Consumer Group

[jdogtwodolla]

Score one for Valve.

This sounds like praise. Is this even a good thing that has happened?

 

[Zukabazuka]

Score one for Valve.

This sounds like praise. Is this even a good thing that has happened?

How often do you hear companies praise Second hand market? Never. How would they react when the biggest digital market would be forced to allow resales of games you own? How would you split the money or would they even do that?

So if this came in to place there would be games for less price than the steam price, there would be a lot of them and it would last a long time. Think how much money they actually lose if this is put in.


So why would a company decide to put their game on sale after this? A lot of those games would end up on second hand market after you beaten the game. Which in return would give less profit because people would ALWAYS check that section first. How often would you allow a game to be resold? It never breaks. You bring up that it would be compatible issues with new softwares? Guess you been living under a rock because every time there is a new OS for Windows a lot of companies releases a patch for their game to work on it. Most companies does this.

As for this being done in retail is different, its local only. For steam its International. 5-6million active people per day for steam and increasing too. All those games in a single place. You can bet the income for most companies would go down once this come out.

So yes this is a good thing that happen.

 

[Vigormortis]

Well, there's the DMCA. It only allows backups if you don't have to circumvent any form of DRM to make them, because Hollywood paid some good bribes that year -- er, I mean made some campaign donations.

Except that....the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup as illegal. It's primary purpose is to set down (occasionally vague) rules against circumventing DRM services. And, in a few amendments to the law, has even created a number of exemptions in regards to computer software and video games. Notably: that users have the right to actually circumvent DRM systems in certain situations.

And again, as I'd said prior, many of these DD services have built-in utilities for creating backups. Something they wouldn't have if they didn't want users to make backups nor if creating backups was illegal.

 

[Vigormortis]

Because right now, the banned player will still have to buy a new copy. If used games were allowed, then he could pay himself to get unbanned. There would be literally no down side to getting banned, because you could just keep moving your game to the next account. There might be a chance of Valve taking a cut of the sales if resales were set up, but 15% of the cost of the game is FAR better than 100% of the cost. Hell, he could sell it for $.01 and Valve wouldn't be able to take a percentage of the sale, because it's too small of a number.

Look, I'm all for consumer rights too, but the other guy was right, you're not thinking this through. There's too many problems with allowing resales in a digital world. I hope that one day someone will figure out a way to allow it, but that time isn't now with the current laws, and Valve's current marketplace system isn't the place for it.

Wow. Nice to see a few people who actually appreciate how convoluted a problem this whole affair is.

I've been getting really sick of most people saying either, "The systems fine, let it go." or "Just allow everything, including resales, because that'll fix all the problems."

No. Neither of those will do anything but fuck up an already awkward situation.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Well, there's the DMCA. It only allows backups if you don't have to circumvent any form of DRM to make them, because Hollywood paid some good bribes that year -- er, I mean made some campaign donations.

Except that....the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup as illegal. It's primary purpose is to set down (occasionally vague) rules against circumventing DRM services. And, in a few amendments to the law, has even created a number of exemptions in regards to computer software and video games. Notably: that users have the right to actually circumvent DRM systems in certain situations.

And again, as I'd said prior, many of these DD services have built-in utilities for creating backups. Something they wouldn't have if they didn't want users to make backups nor if creating backups was illegal.

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

 

[Vigormortis]

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

I don't disagree that it is a terrible law. I'm emphatically in agreement with you on that bit.

However, the law does allow for the circumvention of DRM systems, given certain mitigating criteria are in effect.

For example, this amendment that relates to video games:
Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. (A new exemption in 2010.)

Regardless, my previous point was, if people are going to buy games from DD services, then they need to take some amalgam of responsibility for those purchases.

Creating backups is one way of doing this.

Even so, there are still some very serious and convoluted issues facing the video gaming industry, digital distribution, consumer rights, and patent/copyright laws.

Certainly more serious and convoluted than what was being addressed in the lawsuit mentioned in the news item. I think that we can both agree on.

 

[Zefar]

People buying things they dont like or need? And we should all suffer because there steam profits from idiots?

Except you want the gaming market to die and all the sales on Steam. Not too fond of that.

This is meaningless when talking about any product that isnt physical. Like, you know, movie distribution rights, that are being resold on regular basis. and it will become more and more irrelevant as 3D printers get popular.
And its not even true, have you ntoiced all those people complaining about lack of backward compatibility?

People have made fixes to most of those things. But those really old things ain't worth playing anymore.

just checked, free weekend stuff does not appeal on the list, sounds like a bug to me, fair for complaining.
like i siad, categories fix this problem, and if people really dont want thier games anymore they should just get rid of them (as in sell them, donate them, what have you). Oh, wait, they cant.

People don't want to categories stuff, people don't want to just use installed list and people are real picky about these things. I've read plenty of topics about it and people do care. They will sell away stuff they don't play anymore.

Because people buying it on humblebundle certainly does not undercut steam price? for indie games visibility is priority number one, and that would only increase visibility.

The difference is now they got a legit way to sell ALL and I mean ALL of those extra copies on Steam. Indie games will die the moment they are put on Indie Bundle because after that you'd get them dirt cheap from Steam market.

they are not "taking away" from developers. they are taking away from users by underpaying them and then selling the used games at new game price. your point seems to argue that it somehow destroys developers, except that is not true in every other product we create.

Game goes on sale = People buy from the Steam store and Developer gets money.

Used game sale = People buy from other users constantly = No money to Developers.

How is this not obvious to you? :/ Like really?

yes they do. Compatibility issues with new hardware and OS can easily account for degradation (there are games that literally refuse to run on modern hardware, for example Scarface). There are also shipping costs, the costs of holding a server for the transfer. Yes, they are lower, and that is GOOD, because that means the user spends less to trade in the market. I can perfectly understand steam taking a 10% cut of every resale for keeping the marketplace up or something like that. This has worked in the past.

Yea Steam taking the money will surely help the Game developers right? If anything Game Developers should take a cut from it.

you are yet to prove that it would do so. and if PC market providing same legal rights to consumers as every other market would kill it, its not a healthy market now is it.

You're letting gamers decide the price of things. They don't care all that much about the money as it'll only be on Steam.
There is a reason why Dota2 items go down like mad. Because there are a ton of them on the market. The same thing will happen every game in large numbers. EVERY single game. Doesn't matter which one it is.
People already trade certain high ranked games for low priced games because it's seen as a better deal.

Im sure Half-ife 2 has turned a profit now. I dont see a problem with this.

That is not the point. It'll make it worthless to put on sale and it'll show Valve and any other Developer that if they put their game on sale it'll go down to that price on the market.

And they will get VAC banned again.
and how is that different from, say, making new account and buying that game now?

Wow, just wow. You're lacking so much foresight it makes it impossible for you to predict stuff.

foresightnothing prevents me to sell a MMORPG. i can take a disc from WOW and sell it to somone, and he would have WOW.
besides, only 1 MMO managed to get away with pay for the disc and pay for subscription and didnt recieve a massive "why are you robbing us" backlash so far and thats WOW. many others tried and failed. ESO is also trying but its too early to tell yet.[/quote]
He would just have a CD of WoW. He needs an account that has a paid subscription on it in order to play it. He can not re use the same CD key you used. So you've basically scammed the guy out of money. Are you for real with these comments?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

I don't disagree that it is a terrible law. I'm emphatically in agreement with you on that bit.

However, the law does allow for the circumvention of DRM systems, given certain mitigating criteria are in effect.

For example, this amendment that relates to video games:
Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. (A new exemption in 2010.)

Regardless, my previous point was, if people are going to buy games from DD services, then they need to take some amalgam of responsibility for those purchases.

Creating backups is one way of doing this.

Even so, there are still some very serious and convoluted issues facing the video gaming industry, digital distribution, consumer rights, and patent/copyright laws.

Certainly more serious and convoluted than what was being addressed in the lawsuit mentioned in the news item. I think that we can both agree on.

I didn't realize an amendment had been added in 2010. As the law was written and passed in 1998, there was a wholesale ban on cracking DRM of any sort, even to make an otherwise legal copy. Even the exemption you quoted says it's only to check the DRM for security flaws, presumably so they can be fixed. There's also some unwritten exemptions that were put in there by the supreme court when they ruled jailbreaking iPhones to be legal. That entire are of the law is a mess.

 

[Karadalis]

Ah yes... remember when people started reselling their used cars? Totaly crashed the car industry.

And what about people reselling their furniture? Completly ruined IKEA i tell you.

Or how it destroyed pretty much any other industry where people resell what they bought... the whole world is in shambles i tell ya!

All they need to do is put a non trade period for the first three months or so after a games release in place and after that offer a marketplace where they can take a cut of the profits from any transactions and they would still make profits hands over heels.

What do you know? Problem solved. Oh and dont tell me the masses would actually wait for the non trade period to pass... doesnt work that way... if no one buys that game during the non trade time.. there wont be anyone available to sell said game for cheaper.

Also the masses never wait... a dog will store sausages for harder times before gamers wait for their anticipated games.

The mistake people allways make when it comes to reselling games is that somehow a resold game means a lost sale for the Publisher/developer when the person buying a used copy would have never bought the game for the original price anyways. They allready profited once from the original sale, they have no business demanding to profit from every resale. Used sales have not pushed down the sales numbers of Console games in the last 20 years.

Dead space sold 5 million times... you really think used games had a negative impact on that number?

 

[AuronFtw]

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.

1. Not lie to customers.
2. Take customer suggestions and complaints to heart, and work hard to address them (offline mode, and now game/library sharing) showing that their words and their actions are honest and pure (as far as any for-profit company can be).
3. Work with indie developers to catapult that entire style of game production into the limelight, getting many great indie games the publicity and public awareness they would not have otherwise had.
4. Offer massive sales at a time when no other company was doing that. A lot of people try to point out that other sites like GMG and gog exist, but they are newcomers and lightweights compared to valve - especially their sales being anything good. Once valve started the trend of ridiculously good winter and summer sales, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Valve did not do it to "compete" with those companies, since they were relatively meaningless at the time... and most still are.

The list goes on. Compare valve to any other company and you have to be seriously delusional to think they're worse in any way. I mean, you COULD go with EA and their origin "service," but...

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.

I sort of agree with you here. The unique style of company management (ie no set positions, no set team structure) allows for greater creativity when it comes to making games, but it also allows the company to absolutely fail at timely releases. Even back when Valve was "a games company" they had problems releasing shit on time. It was high quality, no doubt about that, but it was often delayed by weeks/months.

I think that mindset has sort of seeped over into their other projects. Steam earns them a lot of cash, so they put a lot of focus on it. That leads to less focus being put on games... and the byproduct of that is they've gone years without a serious release. L4D2 was glorified DLC of L4D1, Portal 2 was probably the only thing they've put actual effort into (aside from ruining hat fortress 2). It's been years since half life 2, so long that I'm not even expecting a sequel anymore. While all that's sad, I honestly think it's a small price to pay given how much trust I have in the company on the whole if they want to dedicate their time to making a DRM/distribution service that's actually good. There are thousands of great games already available; more than most people can get through in a lifetime. If valve stops making games and instead makes the best distribution network for games we've ever had, is that really so bad, on the whole?

 

[Vigormortis]

I didn't realize an amendment had been added in 2010. As the law was written and passed in 1998, there was a wholesale ban on cracking DRM of any sort, even to make an otherwise legal copy. Even the exemption you quoted says it's only to check the DRM for security flaws, presumably so they can be fixed. There's also some unwritten exemptions that were put in there by the supreme court when they ruled jailbreaking iPhones to be legal. That entire are of the law is a mess.

Yep. They add, remove, or reinstate amendments to the law every 3 years. (Coincidentally, that's also the interval in which some amendments require a renewal to stay in effect)

And there are some amendments and certain portions of the law that allow for circumvention of a DRM system in the event that such a system stops working or blocks use of legally procured software.

It's a gray area, in the end, but there is legal precedent for someone not only legally creating backups of their games from DD services, but also legally circumventing these same services should they become inoperable or inaccessible. This could even include, given the vagueness of that particular portion of the law, circumventing the DRM system in the event of an account ban.

Regardless, the law needs either to be repealed or seriously overhauled. Especially in today's digital environment.

 

[SeventhSigil]

What I'm quite curious about hearing from the advocates of game resales on here, is what sort of implementation they had in mind. o.o it's a legitimate question, not intended as some kind of troll statement, because there are a number of aspects to consider.

--When you resell your game liscence, do you directly transfer the game's code to the purchaser's Computer, or do you just give them the permission slip to download it from Steam's own servers?
--If the game data comes directly from YOU, what happens if the new customer deletes the game from his PC?
-- I'm assuming some form of stricter digital regulation, DRM, whatever, would be implemented to ensure, first of all, that nobody is reselling their game while retaining the right to play it, or even worse, selling multiple copies of a digital product. Basically to differentiate between the guy selling his one copy of a game, and the guy selling 20 replicated copies. Sure, we see pirated games floating around, but by creating a legal distribution network for consumer-based digital sales, it strikes me as a system just rife for abuse, at least without strict moderation and enforcement. xP what about DLC? Should Game resale only be applicable to the core product, or every single piece of additional content that it comes with?
--Perhaps the most important part, would this be expected to act like any other resell, where you retain all the money from the transaction? Or with the distributor and/or developer get a piece of it too?



The issue I have with digital resale is it's just full of murky spots for me.
--Technically, it's not used Game sales because the product you are selling is in no way used, technically speaking the item you sell isn't even the same item the new customer receives, just a copy. it is functionally identical, in no way worn or damaged, completely indistinguishable from a 'brand-new' copy.
--If the same law of resale for a digital game should apply to a physical game, what about the pitfalls associated with physical media? If I lose my game disc, I can't show up at GameStop and demand they give me another one because I bought the game six months ago. If you are not buying a license, but buying a product that you can do what you please, then wouldn't that mean that once the product is in your hands, Steam would be under no obligation to provide you with a fresh copy should you ever delete it or lose the data?
--What about games that are, quality wise, excellent for their price, but maybe aren't so impressive in terms of length. I'm thinking of the Stanley Parable in particular, an absolutely fantastic game, on one I completely finished within less than a day. I'm not sure I want to discourage developers from creating smaller, cheaper titles that offer unique and oddball experiences. Mostly because I fear they will follow if the triple a industry and insist everything have multiplayer. x.x

I mean, I've heard people insist that steam needs to figure out a way to do this, but unless they absolutely HAVE to, I somewhat doubt they're going to invest resources in developing ways that customers can resell their identical product at a cheaper price. And this sure as hell is something that needs to be implemented, carefully and perfectly, or else plenty of other anti-consumer practices will spring up to compensate. =P

 

[Strazdas]

In a sane country with sane laws you'd be right. Unfortunately Germany, up to now one of the most sane of all when it comes to that area of the law, just disagreed with you.

Then it is the duty of everyone to set them back straight.

Creating backups is NOT illegal. In fact, many of the DD clients in question; notably Steam; have utilities built into the client that give the users everything they need to make backups.

If you can point me to legitimate laws or legislation that actually, specifically prohibits the creation of backups, then I will stand corrected.

Otherwise, I stand by my earlier post.

In order to create a backup you need to create a copy. this already is forbidden by DCMA and many supplementary copyright laws. It is also illegal in US to break your "license" with DRM like steam, meaning circumventing this DRM is illegal and in order to make backups you need to do that (i havent tried steam backups, however i would assume they make backups that still need steam to run, right? if so, completely useless)
no legislation speak specifically about backups because backups is only small part of copying that is prohibited. what your asking would be akin to asking for a specific law that talks about murdering person X when there are laws that prevent murdering anyone already. laws do not go into every specific case, not even the French ones (french is known to have a very case by case laws)

Okay you got me at the Steam being better now then then, but it's gotten a lot worse since I started using it. Steam used to sell games at $50 now it's $80 and above.

Along with the influx of unfinished games and what will be an influx of Steam machines, I am more convinced then ever the next major crash will happen before 2014 is over. It won't kill the industry no, but it will result in job losses and studio closes.

Thats strange, maybe it is different here on European steam, but we got plenty of new games at bellow 60 dollars and if we count those "weekend sales" they seem to start making a habit of it it goes as cheap as 15 dollars for relatively new games (for example tomb rider). granted i personally mostly play older games, so i dont follow every new games price.
Influx of unfinished games is not limited to steam, but it is our own fault that we pay for them (or rather, you all, since i dont).

The crash will not happen. the gaming industry is too diverse and is no longer held by couple companies. even the previuso taunted crash really only affected US much and the gaming went on as before elsewhere.
Studios closing and going bancrupt is natural. there are business closing and opening in EVERY industry. in fact gaming seems to be a very stable market here. Normally in business it is expected that 10% of new companies will make it for more than 5 years. in gaming however the percentage seems to be much higher. And if studios like Zynga or King is firing people - good, they need to go belly up (the studios) because they werent useful and the talent it hogged can better be used elsewhere.

Because right now, the banned player will still have to buy a new copy. If used games were allowed, then he could pay himself to get unbanned. There would be literally no down side to getting banned, because you could just keep moving your game to the next account. There might be a chance of Valve taking a cut of the sales if resales were set up, but 15% of the cost of the game is FAR better than 100% of the cost. Hell, he could sell it for $.01 and Valve wouldn't be able to take a percentage of the sale, because it's too small of a number.

Look, I'm all for consumer rights too, but the other guy was right, you're not thinking this through. There's too many problems with allowing resales in a digital world. I hope that one day someone will figure out a way to allow it, but that time isn't now with the current laws, and Valve's current marketplace system isn't the place for it.

Thats only true if you can direct trade with yourself and there is no restriction whatsoever.
And games could remain VAC banned. when it is trade it should be marked as such, and only people interested in singleplayer only will buy it. sort of like selling a scratched CD. you can still listen to it but not everyone wants one. Not to mention that things like VAC ban is unique to valve anyway and the rest of the industry somehow survived without it.

Of course there are problems for the companies, im sure the rockfellers had problems they thought unsolvalbe when anti-trust laws were enacted too. it is THEIR need to figure this our. all we want is our consumer RIGHTS.

The current laws need a massive rewrite as far as it comes to digital goods too, so yes they need to change as well.

How often do you hear companies praise Second hand market? Never. How would they react when the biggest digital market would be forced to allow resales of games you own? How would you split the money or would they even do that?

the same way they reacted to everything else that didnt allow them to be greedy assholes.

So if this came in to place there would be games for less price than the steam price, there would be a lot of them and it would last a long time. Think how much money they actually lose if this is put in.

Zero. Potential sales loss is not a real loss.

So why would a company decide to put their game on sale after this?

for the same reason they do now. to sell games to people that dont want to may more for it.

A lot of those games would end up on second hand market after you beaten the game.

Solution: make better games. if i want to sell your game off after 3 hours YOU are doing it wrong.

You bring up that it would be compatible issues with new softwares? Guess you been living under a rock because every time there is a new OS for Windows a lot of companies releases a patch for their game to work on it. Most companies does this.

and by most you mean 3 out of 100?

As for this being done in retail is different, its local only. For steam its International. 5-6million active people per day for steam and increasing too. All those games in a single place. You can bet the income for most companies would go down once this come out.

retail hasnt been local since invention of postal service. and the fact its international is GOOD. we need to get rid of those barriers that are limited by distance anyway.
And jsut because companies income goes down that does not mean its a bad thing for the consumers.

Except you want the gaming market to die and all the sales on Steam. Not too fond of that.

No, i dont, nor would it die if resale was allowed. you are basing your argument on something you dreamed up and claim that im somehow evil because of it.

People have made fixes to most of those things. But those really old things ain't worth playing anymore.

Fans have made fixes to SOME of those things. and after the whole shitstorm of backward compatibility i dont think you really want to say that noone wants to play old games, Well, unless your Pachter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132034-Pachter-PlayStation-Now-Has-No-Prayer-of-Success].

People don't want to categories stuff, people don't want to just use installed list and people are real picky about these things. I've read plenty of topics about it and people do care. They will sell away stuff they don't play anymore.

As is their right. you know, we call it a "right" for a reason. as in, you cannot deny them that.

Game goes on sale = People buy from the Steam store and Developer gets money.

Used game sale = People buy from other users constantly = No money to Developers.

How is this not obvious to you? :/ Like really?

Car goes on sale = people buy form car manufacturer and car manufacturere gets money.
Used car goes on sale = people buy from other people and car manufacturer gets nothing.

why is it ok for every industry but gaming?

Yea Steam taking the money will surely help the Game developers right? If anything Game Developers should take a cut from it.

It is not supposed to help game developers. Steam takes a cut that it needs to keep the servers and maintenance of the marketplace up. The same way a retail would take a cut for storing your game to resell.

Indie games will die

Im sure you are hiding this very good proof of that, because otherwise i call bullshit.
You can get every game, for free, easier than steam most of the time, with no DRM. yet, games have not died. yet, people still buy games.

You're letting gamers decide the price of things.

Oh, the horror, consumers dictate the pricing of the market! how will greedy capitalists survive!

The same thing will happen every game in large numbers. EVERY single game. Doesn't matter which one it is.
People already trade certain high ranked games for low priced games because it's seen as a better deal.

im sure you got plenty of proof of that other than exampels of infinite supply DOTA items that noone wants to buy.

People already trade certain high ranked games for low priced games because it's seen as a better deal.

And this is bad because? what this show is that these mysteriuos "Ranking" (didnt you mean price?) is wrong.

That is not the point. It'll make it worthless to put on sale and it'll show Valve and any other Developer that if they put their game on sale it'll go down to that price on the market.

Its worthless to sell your game. alright.....

What I'm quite curious about hearing from the advocates of game resales on here, is what sort of implementation they had in mind. o.o it's a legitimate question, not intended as some kind of troll statement, because there are a number of aspects to consider.

My idea of how this is implemented is an auction style market where you must bid on the public market and you compete with everyone else (similar to style of eve online market). Valve takes a certain amount of money for upkeep of marketplace because running the server and maintenance costs money. said amount should not be extortionate (like setting a 30 dollar hard-price per sale or something).
Due to long time of illegaly holding games hostage this would open a large influx of games into the market, which can be slowed down by creating templorary limitations. for example at first you are only allowed to sell away 1 game every month until the market stabilizes as people who want to sell 1 or 2 games will not longer be selling and thus more games from other "hoarders" can be allowed. another restriction at first could be reselling a game you bought more than 2 years ago which would limit instant flood of new games. restrictions will be lifted with time as market stabilizes.

--When you resell your game liscence, do you directly transfer the game's code to the purchaser's Computer, or do you just give them the permission slip to download it from Steam's own servers?

you transfer your game rights as they are presented in steam. if you can download it from steam servers now, you loose that game and another person gains it. Steam took it upon themselves to be the host of that game. this changes nothing for steam, as one person gains the ability and 1 person looses it. 0 sum.

-- I'm assuming some form of stricter digital regulation, DRM, whatever, would be implemented to ensure, first of all, that nobody is reselling their game while retaining the right to play it, or even worse, selling multiple copies of a digital product. Basically to differentiate between the guy selling his one copy of a game, and the guy selling 20 replicated copies. Sure, we see pirated games floating around, but by creating a legal distribution network for consumer-based digital sales, it strikes me as a system just rife for abuse, at least without strict moderation and enforcement. xP what about DLC? Should Game resale only be applicable to the core product, or every single piece of additional content that it comes with?

Since at the point of sale you loose your rights to that game on steam (and supposedly steam deletes it from your hard drive/make it not launch) you will not be able to sell again what you dont have, so you loose the thing when you sell it. This changes nothing for pirates since they never needed steam to play the game in the first place.
Considering that game developers renamed patches DLC and are treating it as seperate product, it should also be able to be resold as a seperate product just like the main game is.

--Perhaps the most important part, would this be expected to act like any other resell, where you retain all the money from the transaction? Or with the distributor and/or developer get a piece of it too?

I adressed this above already. Basically steam would get a cut to pay for the services it provides and possibly get a healthy (think: 5-10%) profit on that service for growth possibilities. If we consider that many people would use the service, the costs per transaction would be small.

--Technically, it's not used Game sales because the product you are selling is in no way used, technically speaking the item you sell isn't even the same item the new customer receives, just a copy. it is functionally identical, in no way worn or damaged, completely indistinguishable from a 'brand-new' copy.

If you were to take a car, buy it, do nothing with it but leave i standing at the shop, and sell it in 6 months, it would be a used car, however it would be indistinguishable from new one (cars in shows stand for more than that actually)

--If the same law of resale for a digital game should apply to a physical game, what about the pitfalls associated with physical media? If I lose my game disc, I can't show up at GameStop and demand they give me another one because I bought the game six months ago. If you are not buying a license, but buying a product that you can do what you please, then wouldn't that mean that once the product is in your hands, Steam would be under no obligation to provide you with a fresh copy should you ever delete it or lose the data?

This is true. Steam has no obligation to do that.

--What about games that are, quality wise, excellent for their price, but maybe aren't so impressive in terms of length. I'm thinking of the Stanley Parable in particular, an absolutely fantastic game, on one I completely finished within less than a day. I'm not sure I want to discourage developers from creating smaller, cheaper titles that offer unique and oddball experiences. Mostly because I fear they will follow if the triple a industry and insist everything have multiplayer.

What about them? If you like the game and dont want to get rid of it - dont sell it. People still DO buy games from developers instead of cheaper used sales because they want to support developers even as it is. nothing stopping them from doing that in the future as well.

I mean, I've heard people insist that steam needs to figure out a way to do this, but unless they absolutely HAVE to, I somewhat doubt they're going to invest resources in developing ways that customers can resell their identical product at a cheaper price.

Im sure Enron didnt want to pay his taxes unless it absolutely had to either, but you know what - it had to.

 

[Magmarock]

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.

1. Not lie to customers.
2. Take customer suggestions and complaints to heart, and work hard to address them (offline mode, and now game/library sharing) showing that their words and their actions are honest and pure (as far as any for-profit company can be).
3. Work with indie developers to catapult that entire style of game production into the limelight, getting many great indie games the publicity and public awareness they would not have otherwise had.
4. Offer massive sales at a time when no other company was doing that. A lot of people try to point out that other sites like GMG and gog exist, but they are newcomers and lightweights compared to valve - especially their sales being anything good. Once valve started the trend of ridiculously good winter and summer sales, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Valve did not do it to "compete" with those companies, since they were relatively meaningless at the time... and most still are.

The list goes on. Compare valve to any other company and you have to be seriously delusional to think they're worse in any way. I mean, you COULD go with EA and their origin "service," but...

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.

I sort of agree with you here. The unique style of company management (ie no set positions, no set team structure) allows for greater creativity when it comes to making games, but it also allows the company to absolutely fail at timely releases. Even back when Valve was "a games company" they had problems releasing shit on time. It was high quality, no doubt about that, but it was often delayed by weeks/months.

I think that mindset has sort of seeped over into their other projects. Steam earns them a lot of cash, so they put a lot of focus on it. That leads to less focus being put on games... and the byproduct of that is they've gone years without a serious release. L4D2 was glorified DLC of L4D1, Portal 2 was probably the only thing they've put actual effort into (aside from ruining hat fortress 2). It's been years since half life 2, so long that I'm not even expecting a sequel anymore. While all that's sad, I honestly think it's a small price to pay given how much trust I have in the company on the whole if they want to dedicate their time to making a DRM/distribution service that's actually good. There are thousands of great games already available; more than most people can get through in a lifetime. If valve stops making games and instead makes the best distribution network for games we've ever had, is that really so bad, on the whole?

With your first point I had a horrible experience dealing with Valve customer support. When I complained about the high prices adn berried my post told me to go away and dodged responsibility.

I would never call Steam honest if it wasn't for www.steamprices.com or proxy's I would have never known about the regional price difference.

As for origin I've never used it but I hear they have a refund policy. That alone makes it better then steam.

Steam and Valve get a lot of undeserved love for something they did a long time ago, I can hardly call Vavle a game company any more.


Also there's GOG which as far as I'm concerned has Steam over a barrel. They have massive sales, a library of new and old games all of which work, a money back guarantee and most of all DRM free.

Steam's DRM might not bother you but it bothers me. For one, DRM is bad no matter how you look at it. I bought it I should have control over it that is how I fell. On top of that it's useless DRM. Games released on Steam are hacked with in hours after it's release, It's that fast I tell you.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Damn it Germany. You're meant to be cool.

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.

Please explain. Last I checked it is still a service for buying games that has massive sales occasionally. Any 'loss of quality' is only addition of bad content, but that doesn't take away from the core service.

Well Steam kind of suck for anyone living outside the US and Canada. On top of that, while I'm not expecting every game to be perfect and sure you'll always end up with some stinkers. Steam just seems to have lost all sense of quality control.

Some games they sell don't even work because they haven't been patched which in my opinion should be illegal to sell without some sort of refund policy in place.

finally there's DRM now I have a great internet connection, but it still bothers me that Steam has more control over my games then I do.

How? I'm in Australia and I buy a game, install it, and play it. Even leaving aside the community and chat aspects of it, at the very least it provides the service you'd expect. I'm not sure how good the US and Canada have it, but I'm content.

Greenlight has very little quality control. While this is a problem, and I agree with you about broken or unfinished products, ultimately it's your responsibility to not buy them. Some of the onus is on Valve, but I only buy games I know are polished, so I don't have a problem with it. And I don't buy into early access. Also, I haven't tried it, but under consumer law you might be able to get a refund anyway if the product doesn't function.

Steam has an offline mode, so the internet isn't a problem, but I too dislike the idea that I don't own my games and are only given access to them. I have 2 responses to this. One is that I only buy games that are discounted heavily, so that basically makes up for that small transgression. The second involves something I can't talk about on this forum but feel justified doing once I've bought the game, if you know what I mean.

So yeah, it isn't optimal, but the sales are so good it's worth it, provided you know what you're getting (and thankfully, there are some people on the internet who practically make it their job to expose rip-offs on Steam).

 

[Magmarock]

Damn it Germany. You're meant to be cool.

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.

Please explain. Last I checked it is still a service for buying games that has massive sales occasionally. Any 'loss of quality' is only addition of bad content, but that doesn't take away from the core service.

Well Steam kind of suck for anyone living outside the US and Canada. On top of that, while I'm not expecting every game to be perfect and sure you'll always end up with some stinkers. Steam just seems to have lost all sense of quality control.

Some games they sell don't even work because they haven't been patched which in my opinion should be illegal to sell without some sort of refund policy in place.

finally there's DRM now I have a great internet connection, but it still bothers me that Steam has more control over my games then I do.

How? I'm in Australia and I buy a game, install it, and play it. Even leaving aside the community and chat aspects of it, at the very least it provides the service you'd expect. I'm not sure how good the US and Canada have it, but I'm content.

Greenlight has very little quality control. While this is a problem, and I agree with you about broken or unfinished products, ultimately it's your responsibility to not buy them. Some of the onus is on Valve, but I only buy games I know are polished, so I don't have a problem with it. And I don't buy into early access. Also, I haven't tried it, but under consumer law you might be able to get a refund anyway if the product doesn't function.

Steam has an offline mode, so the internet isn't a problem, but I too dislike the idea that I don't own my games and are only given access to them. I have 2 responses to this. One is that I only buy games that are discounted heavily, so that basically makes up for that small transgression. The second involves something I can't talk about on this forum but feel justified doing once I've bought the game, if you know what I mean.

So yeah, it isn't optimal, but the sales are so good it's worth it, provided you know what you're getting (and thankfully, there are some people on the internet who practically make it their job to expose rip-offs on Steam).

I use gog now. Steam's offline mode is kind of a sad joke and you still need the internet to install. On top of that there's not a lot on Steam that's really that good. Most of the games on steam are multi player focused, which is great if all you wanna play is games like TF or CS, go for it.

as for US and Canada I'd suggest checking out steamprices.com

Steam might not dictate the price but they do dictate the TOS for both publishers and consumer which means are are at least 50% responsible.

Speaking of, while it is the customers responsibility for what they buy it is the store's responsibility for what they sell and Steam needs a refund system. Selling games that don't work and not doing anything to make them work is illegal in almost all western countries Yet Vavle gets away with it.

I dislike Steam and it has only gotten worse, I'm not about to force my thinking on you, but if you are content, and unwilling to take a stance against this sort of thing it will only get worse. Stand up for your rights or lose them.

 

[Vigormortis]

In order to create a backup you need to create a copy. this already is forbidden by DCMA and many supplementary copyright laws. It is also illegal in US to break your "license" with DRM like steam, meaning circumventing this DRM is illegal and in order to make backups you need to do that (i havent tried steam backups, however i would assume they make backups that still need steam to run, right? if so, completely useless)
no legislation speak specifically about backups because backups is only small part of copying that is prohibited. what your asking would be akin to asking for a specific law that talks about murdering person X when there are laws that prevent murdering anyone already. laws do not go into every specific case, not even the French ones (french is known to have a very case by case laws)

I've already addressed the apparent misunderstanding of what it is, exactly, that the DMCA law entails. I've also covered the alterations and amendments added to the bill since it's inception that allow for everything I described prior.

Links to my previous posts -
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.841762-Valve-Triumphs-Over-German-Consumer-Group?page=4#20706539
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.841762-Valve-Triumphs-Over-German-Consumer-Group?page=4#20707259
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.841762-Valve-Triumphs-Over-German-Consumer-Group?page=4#20708598

In short: Backups aren't illegal and you have the right to circumvent DRM systems in certain situations.

And really? Are you honestly implying some of these DD services; like Steam for example; are knowingly letting users break the law with inbuilt utilities for creating backups? Because that's what it sounds like you're implying.

I suggest actually looking up the current form of the DMCA law. It might surprise you.

 

[Vigormortis]

Steam's offline mode is kind of a sad joke

Huh? You've clearly not used it in a long while because it works exquisitely nowadays. In fact, I can speak from experience on this as this winter's been particularly rough on my ability to access the internet. (numerous outages)

Never once had trouble booting Steam into offline mode.

and you still need the internet to install.

So....just like GoG.com then?

On top of that there's not a lot on Steam that's really that good.

So there's nothing good out of the near ten thousand titles on Steam?

My, you're quite the picky gamer.

Most of the games on steam are multi player focused, which is great if all you wanna play is games like TF or CS, go for it.

Ha, yeah, no.

Have you ever even opened Steam? There are thousands of singleplayer titles.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Look, I get that you don't like Steam. I can appreciate the sentiment.

However, don't be fallacious and don't make shit up.

It undermines your position and helps nothing.

 

[Robert Marrs]

As much as I love steam this is no triumph for the consumer. We should have the right to resell the things we pay for even if its digital. By the same token I don't understand the valve haters. Its one thing to be critical of the company and their decisions, certainly in this instance, but some of this hate really seems personal. What did steam really do to piss some people off so much? Did you buy a game that does not work on your pc which is likely not steams fault at all?

 

[Zukabazuka]

How often do you hear companies praise Second hand market? Never. How would they react when the biggest digital market would be forced to allow resales of games you own? How would you split the money or would they even do that?

the same way they reacted to everything else that didnt allow them to be greedy assholes.

The money for a retail sale is already low enough for them, the money is split up among
1. Console owner
2. Publisher
3. Retail store
5. game devs
and you call them greedy when the company that sells their game actively going against them by offering a second hand game. There are reason for online keys on console and the massive amount of DLC and close to zero free content. Because after first day of sale they really don't get that much.

So if this came in to place there would be games for less price than the steam price, there would be a lot of them and it would last a long time. Think how much money they actually lose if this is put in.

Zero. Potential sales loss is not a real loss.

The buyer come in to the store and is full set on buying the game, the seller says they have a used copy for 5? less. Loss in sale because the person was given a used copy that he did not know about.

So why would a company decide to put their game on sale after this?

for the same reason they do now. to sell games to people that dont want to may more for it.

But the game would be cheaper on the second hand market on steam so they would have to break that barrier first before actually getting any kind of sale.

A lot of those games would end up on second hand market after you beaten the game.

Solution: make better games. if i want to sell your game off after 3 hours YOU are doing it wrong.

It doesn't matter how long it is. There are people who will sell games after beaten it. Doesn't matter how much it cost them.

You bring up that it would be compatible issues with new softwares? Guess you been living under a rock because every time there is a new OS for Windows a lot of companies releases a patch for their game to work on it. Most companies does this.

and by most you mean 3 out of 100?

Maybe you haven't been in to the market that long then. There are more companies who do it and when fans still play the game they actually release a patch.

As for this being done in retail is different, its local only. For steam its International. 5-6million active people per day for steam and increasing too. All those games in a single place. You can bet the income for most companies would go down once this come out.

retail hasnt been local since invention of postal service. and the fact its international is GOOD. we need to get rid of those barriers that are limited by distance anyway.
And just because companies income goes down that does not mean its a bad thing for the consumers.

The difference in postal service and digital is about 0-30 days of waiting. Then you have to find the right shop that sell that game too. How many shops do you think you are going to look through before finding it? You might not think its bad but a lot companies would most likely stop selling if they saw a massive loss in sales on PC. It cost to port over games.

People on steam are most often waiting for a sale to come around before buying the game, with second hand they can skip that and get a cheaper copy within few days at most. Then people on steam are greedy, they will wait for a sale or wait until a major holiday before actually buying a game because they know it will be on sale. Companies make more money on sales than first day sale.

Game goes on sale = People buy from the Steam store and Developer gets money.

Used game sale = People buy from other users constantly = No money to Developers.

How is this not obvious to you? :/ Like really?

Car goes on sale = people buy form car manufacturer and car manufacturere gets money.
Used car goes on sale = people buy from other people and car manufacturer gets nothing.

why is it ok for every industry but gaming?

A used Digital sale is in the same condition as it will be in the next 10 years. No matter how many people buy it and play it. A used car is different. The parts on the car are worn out. Its not in mint condition. It goes for anything that is physical. Also these used cars or any other used product show up 2-5year or after that being bought.