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Forums - Gaming Discussion - European Union court: Consumers have the right to re-sell their Digitally Distributed games

Netyaroze on 04 July 2012

Like it. Its just natural that if you buy something its yours and you should be able to resell it. My Snes Cartridges also are perfect for the last 20 years and don't age in a reasonable timeframe. I don't think the durability of Digital copies changes much. 100 year old games should become free for everyone like classical movies or music. Nobody owns them in their original shape atleast.

I think a good way to implement this is an official used game platform where the rights holder gets a transaction fee for every time the game was resold for offering this service.

BTW. The Eu Parliament said no to ACTA. Personal Rights outweigh the benefits of ACTA for now.



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mor2 on 04 July 2012
Netyaroze said:
 I think a good way to implement this is an official used game platform where the rights holder gets a transaction fee for every time the game was resold for offering this service.

As noted before, It wont work, because the rulling states that I am allowed to re-sell my product in anyway I want, so there is no way they can charge a fee, because I'll just use another methode without one, in fact I can buy a game and "sell it for free" pass it away betwen all my friends, my facebook freinds and eventually post ot on some "open gaming" site for everyone to use. 

Bottom line, the developer and disterbutors will go bankrupt, but dont worry you'll get this sort of thing, when they move to cloud gaming, they will just call it renting...



Kasz216 on 04 July 2012

I mean... cool, but do they know how downloads work?

This essentially is going to mean that digital download game sales will be forced to be made through systems like Steam that will be able to track that kind of shit.  Well and all software.

 

Cause steam like usernames are the only way that they'd be able to stop people from sharing and well, still using what they sell.

 

This should be an.... interesting development.



Kasz216 on 04 July 2012
Rhonin the wizard said:
mor2 said:

the whole point of this ruling that steam will have to make due for a way to allow me to resale my game, so less taking it literally and more reading between the lines...

Steam can already achieve this:

Allow its users to trade games they own with the same method they use to trade gifts, the money either being transfered to Steam Wallet or directly to a bank account.

Or simply allow users to trade games just like gifts and how the payment is made is of no concern to Steam, users having to use sites like eBay or PayPal to transfer money from one to the other.

Edit: There is also a digital distribution site that allows you to trade-in a game you bought, it is called Green Man Gaming. Not the same as reselling a game, but it is close.

Yeah, if anyone is rising up their glasses in celebration today... it's steam.  They're already the most popular DD platform, are already set up to more or less handle this ruling, will essentially force people to use their steam more often seeing more steam deals and games, and in general likely force more and more companies into steams hands.

BIG day for Steam.



mor2 on 04 July 2012
Kasz216 said:
BIG day for Steam.

How so? because all I see is them lose revenue. 

IF (huge if) this rulling will not be overturned, the other providers will get time to catch up and the only thing that steam wins is less sales. Since everyone will be passing thier games along instead of buying, I will, no reason to buy most games even on steam sales, I'd just buy one and pass along"sale/resale" betwen anyone I know.



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Dark_Lord_2008 on 04 July 2012

It is a good law because there should be no difference in buying or selling physical or digital forms of media. If a person buys a brand new copy of media he/she should be allowed to sell/transfer it to someone else.



SamuelRSmith on 04 July 2012
Kasz216 said:
Rhonin the wizard said:
mor2 said:

the whole point of this ruling that steam will have to make due for a way to allow me to resale my game, so less taking it literally and more reading between the lines...

Steam can already achieve this:

Allow its users to trade games they own with the same method they use to trade gifts, the money either being transfered to Steam Wallet or directly to a bank account.

Or simply allow users to trade games just like gifts and how the payment is made is of no concern to Steam, users having to use sites like eBay or PayPal to transfer money from one to the other.

Edit: There is also a digital distribution site that allows you to trade-in a game you bought, it is called Green Man Gaming. Not the same as reselling a game, but it is close.

Yeah, if anyone is rising up their glasses in celebration today... it's steam.  They're already the most popular DD platform, are already set up to more or less handle this ruling, will essentially force people to use their steam more often seeing more steam deals and games, and in general likely force more and more companies into steams hands.

BIG day for Steam.


Hmm, maybe. If there's no difference between a first and second hand title (and, honestly, why would there be?), then there will be no difference in price. This may be good for Steam, and the gamer, as they each get a bigger slice of the pie without the publisher... but which publishers are going to want to agree to that?



Kasz216 on 04 July 2012
mor2 said:
Kasz216 said:
BIG day for Steam.

How so because all I see is lose of revenue. 

IF (huge if) this rulling will not be overturned, the other providers will get time to catch up and the only thing that steam wins is less sales. Since everyone will be passing thier games along.

if that's the case, I don't think you know much about the digital PC buisness or economics...

1) Platforms like steam become needed with this ruling.  If forced to provide a way to sell your used goods, having a user name based software management program is needed. 

2) Steam could also pull a gamestop and offer to BUY games back for store credit, and then turn around and resell them as used in the store.  Like.... I think it was GOG that was going to try and do that?   Most people woudl go with this "quick and easy" way rather then track down someone.

3) Second hand markets drive sales in primary markets.  While this gurantees nothing for the individual publishers, some will lose out, others will gain greatly, and steam will be collecting the extra revenue all the way.



mor2 on 04 July 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
NJ5 said:
SamuelRSmith said:

Depends.

If, when you exchange the property, you sign a contract stating that you must use the property in a certain way, then you must stick to that contract.

Also, if you buy a license (which most software is sold as), the software is still not your property. You may be able to sell the license, unless it is part of the agreement that you signed (clicking I Agree, or whatever).


You can't sign your rights away in a contract (even if you do so willingly and voluntarily). Companies like to pretend that what they write in these "license agreements" is gospel, but it's only gospel as far as it doesn't contradict the law.

First and foremost, you do not have a right to a specific piece of property, so you're not selling away anything. You have the right to obtain property, and you can't alleviate that through contract, but this is something different. This is how you use a specific piece of property, which, obviously must not contradict the law.

I'm saying this new law diminishes property rights because it reduces the amount of control that a producer has over their own property. Just because a game exists, and you have money, does not entitle you to that game. There must be a willing transaction, and the producer may have certain stipulations which they may want to enforce via contract. A law like the one being discussed reduces the stipulations that property owners can put on their property, and, thus, damages property rights.

To give the usual example if I sign a contract saying that you will torture me, that doesn't cease my right to live without being harmed by you.

I don't see the distinction between buying a "software" and a "license". Either I can re-sell the "software" to someone else or I can sell the "license". The effect is the same, after I sell it I can't use it and the other person can.

When you buy a piece of property, you own the property. When you buy a license, you do not. That's the distrinction.

When you buy a piece of property, you may sign a contract specifying what you can and can't do with the property (like, for example, when you buy a house in a gated community, they might have certain rules about noise pollution, pets, whatever), but the property is still yours. When you buy a license you're effectively buying access to somebody else's property. If the license states that it is non-transferable, then it is not transferable.

Obviously, the European Court (or whatever its proper name is) disagrees with me here, and is thinking about "consumer rights" (bollocks). Unfortunately, like many of the European political elite, they seem to forget that most consumers are also producers. So, when you damage producer rights, you're also indirectly damaging consumer rights. These sorts of deals should just be left to the market, with so many competing publishers, developers, distributors, alternatives, the markets will find the right balance between what's good for the particular producer, and what's good for the particular consumer.



very true and I do think that this wil be left for the market, either they flip the finger to them and simply change "sale" to "rent" or they go the cloud gaming way games as service and not product.

 

In either way in the end our rights that will be damaged here.



Kasz216 on 04 July 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
Kasz216 said:
Rhonin the wizard said:
mor2 said:

the whole point of this ruling that steam will have to make due for a way to allow me to resale my game, so less taking it literally and more reading between the lines...

Steam can already achieve this:

Allow its users to trade games they own with the same method they use to trade gifts, the money either being transfered to Steam Wallet or directly to a bank account.

Or simply allow users to trade games just like gifts and how the payment is made is of no concern to Steam, users having to use sites like eBay or PayPal to transfer money from one to the other.

Edit: There is also a digital distribution site that allows you to trade-in a game you bought, it is called Green Man Gaming. Not the same as reselling a game, but it is close.

Yeah, if anyone is rising up their glasses in celebration today... it's steam.  They're already the most popular DD platform, are already set up to more or less handle this ruling, will essentially force people to use their steam more often seeing more steam deals and games, and in general likely force more and more companies into steams hands.

BIG day for Steam.


Hmm, maybe. If there's no difference between a first and second hand title (and, honestly, why would there be?), then there will be no difference in price. This may be good for Steam, and the gamer, as they each get a bigger slice of the pie without the publisher... but which publishers are going to want to agree to that?

It's either agree to that, or have everyone create their own expensive as hell databases with usernames for every single game people own.

Which would only serve to fuck over their own market share, since it's been shown that people generally only want one DD service.

This likely screws over Origin, because nobody will want to put so much money in a main competitors hands.

Sure Steam is a competitor too, but they're a laid back not wanting to expand time company that exists seemingly to just print money and give the owners and big wigs an enviroment they like to make their games.