Steam users free to resell their digital games, court rules
www.gamingbible.com
Those who purchase digital games are free to resell them, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled.

Finally some good news! I’ve been waiting for quite a while for such a ruling.

  • sunbunman@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    I see a massive downside to this ruling as a gamer. This is talking about resale of a digital game. In reality what would happen is someone would download a game, copy the file to a harddrive, sell the “digital license” or whatever it’s called for a lesser amount and still own a copy of the game. It’s basically simplifying piracy.

    This might actually necessitate game companies to have a hardline DRM approach to their games. Ironically the only games that are protected from this kind of resale are the those that heavily dipped in microtransactions since you can’t resell those and would push the market more in that direction.

    IMHO this ruling is shortsighted and pushes for a future with increased monitisation that isn’t in the box value of the game and targets to hurt the Devs that make consumer friendly games while giving games with loot boxes and microtransactions an advantage in the market when talking in terms of overall sales for the devs.

    • Deceptichum@kbin.social
      0·
      8 months ago

      Why would anyone go to that effort when you can pirate them?

      Seems like an absurd situation to worry about.

    • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Maybe this is what those game companies can finally use NFTs for!

      I’m kinda kidding but maybe blockchain can offer a solution.

    • Naz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Steam has a sub 2-hour game time no questions asked refund period - what prevents someone from doing exactly what you said using the refund process instead of resale?

    • tryitout@infosec.pubEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Any protections to consumers are a win. I think overall this will be a positive for gamers.

      IMHO this ruling is shortsighted and pushes for a future with increased monitisation that isn’t in the box value of the game and targets to hurt the Devs that make consumer friendly games while giving games with loot boxes and microtransactions an advantage in the market when talking in terms of overall sales for the devs.

      Your last paragraph could hold some truth if publishers think this will affect profits. I don’t know if this would significantly impact profits since we’re talking about a new secondary market that did not exist in the digital space before. There’s probably some historical data for how physical used game sales affect new game sales but it might be hard to quantify since that market has existed pretty much from the beginning.

      I would anticipate another across the board price increase for games as a result, but I see this more as an excuse for greed on the publishers’ parts rather than a cost to offset any actual lost revenue.

      • sunbunman@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        My problem is traditional consumer friendly sales model for digital games are already on the back foot. This ruling only works to dissuade any new or existing Devs from persuing that model over one with microtransaction.

        If anything I want this method of purchasing digital content to be pushed further into any game with purchasable in game items to even the playing field.

        • tryitout@infosec.pubEnglish
          0·
          8 months ago

          I agree that microtransactions and loot boxes in gaming need regulation as well. Hopefully this is a step towards that.

  • krellor@kbin.social
    0·
    8 months ago

    Am I wrong or is this article simply re-reporting a Eurogamer article from 2012? Because the only source this article cited is a 2012 article from Eurogamer.

  • Norgur@kbin.social
    0·
    8 months ago

    Haven’t we had some ruling of that sort on the past where Valve basically went “fuck it,you may be allowed to sell it, but we ain’t implementing anything you could do that with”?

    • can@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      The article they reference is over a decade old so it may in fact be this you are remembering.