Do I own my games or not?

[Zoltan]

I was around back when STEAM started. It took time to trust them that they will be around long enough from buying the games that were on disk to buying them on steam and still owning them.

Now I am being told I don't own my games that games are only a service.

What the Hell !

We need to know if steam is sticking to the original plan that we own our games.

[XartaX]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 の投稿を引用：

XartaX の投稿を引用：

You do realize that discs today are a lot cheaper than discs back when games were mainly sold through physical copies, right? Especially if we go back to the 90's. If we're looking at these prices to calculate it into the cost of the game at the time (to find the remaining cost that is digital only which you can then adjust for inflation), we have to look at the cost of said physical components at the time, not today.

And I literally have a ton of game boxes in random boxes around the house. Physical copies of games used to have things in them. It slowly shrinkflated away until you only had a plastic case with maybe a single sheet of paper in it and a disc, but that happened over time. And then in the end becoming fully digital (I think if you buy a "physical copy" these days it just has a cd key in it).

I just leave this 1995 post here.....
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/05/arts/pennies-that-add-up-to-16.98-why-cd-s-cost-so-much.html

Right so you just proved my point. A CD for music costing 75 cents for them to manufacture. These were called Audio CD's, or CD-DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio). CD-ROM's were a bit more complicated to make since they were made to store a wider range of data types. CD-DA's were standardized and could be produced in larger quantities.

[Ben Lubar]

XartaX の投稿を引用：

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 の投稿を引用：

I just leave this 1995 post here.....
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/05/arts/pennies-that-add-up-to-16.98-why-cd-s-cost-so-much.html

Right so you just proved my point. A CD for music costing 75 cents for them to manufacture. These were called Audio CD's, or CD-DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio). CD-ROM's were a bit more complicated to make since they were made to store a wider range of data types. CD-DA's were standardized and could be produced in larger quantities.

No, the disc cost $0.03 to manufacture. Everything else was royalties or other costs unrelated to the actual manufacturing.

[XartaX]

Ben Lubar の投稿を引用：

XartaX の投稿を引用：

Right so you just proved my point. A CD for music costing 75 cents for them to manufacture. These were called Audio CD's, or CD-DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio). CD-ROM's were a bit more complicated to make since they were made to store a wider range of data types. CD-DA's were standardized and could be produced in larger quantities.

No, the disc cost $0.03 to manufacture. Everything else was royalties or other costs unrelated to the actual manufacturing.

It was the royalties for the manufacturing process (inventor etc.). Ergo part of the manufacturing cost, and would also be present for CD-ROM's.

Edit: Anyways, sleep time.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

XartaX の投稿を引用：

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 の投稿を引用：

I just leave this 1995 post here.....
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/05/arts/pennies-that-add-up-to-16.98-why-cd-s-cost-so-much.html

Right so you just proved my point. A CD for music costing 75 cents for them to manufacture. These were called Audio CD's, or CD-DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio). CD-ROM's were a bit more complicated to make since they were made to store a wider range of data types. CD-DA's were standardized and could be produced in larger quantities.

Tell me you know about CD-ROM without telling me you know about CD-ROM... I want you to research on the materials, yes the source to making the CDs... Not just DA, but ROM as well, you notice why one barely cheaper than the other for a reason, and here a hint "Aluminum & dye". Think for a moment on that....

You do realize PS1. Sega Saturn, Dreamcast disks are CD-ROMs right? Even in the 90s there were huge drive for better machinery, technique, and competition.

DVD was not standard until 2000s, and things became more efficient, and cost lower in 2000s with even better machinery, technique, and competition, hence LOW cost to making physical product.

[Ganger]

Komarimaru の投稿を引用：

XartaX の投稿を引用：

Last year the EU has ruled legally that you're entitled to resell purchased & downloaded games/software no matter what EULA says.

It's mostly just a matter of things going through courts and lawsuits piling up. We will be able to resell them directly on steam eventually (at least if Steam etc. want to continue operating within the EU). But in reality that isn't the case just yet.

Edit: Ruling was from 2012, not last year, lol. Article I found made it sound way more recent and was published late last year. So yeah like I said don't expect anything anytime soon, but according to EU law they aren't allowed to stop you from reselling. Source: https://game8.co/articles/latest/steam-gog-and-others-must-allow-reselling-of-downloaded-games-in-eu#:~:text=The%20Court%20of%20Justice%20of,an%20End%20User%20License%20Agreement.

Ya, uh, that's called a clickbait article. This happened in 2012, and Oracle Won. Should help to read the sources next time.

There is no re-selling. And if I were you, I'd pray it never happens. Since games would cost $300+ new then.

What would happen, games companies will simply rent you a game for a limited period of time for a set fee. We may even see subscription based gaming disappear in favour of charging gamer's $40 for 6 months rent time... I truly believe this type of ruling would be bad for us gamer's in the long run.

I just wish companies such as steam and epic would come out in lamemen's term and say, we don't own nothing instead of hiding behind legal jagon.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Ganger の投稿を引用：

Komarimaru の投稿を引用：

Ya, uh, that's called a clickbait article. This happened in 2012, and Oracle Won. Should help to read the sources next time.

There is no re-selling. And if I were you, I'd pray it never happens. Since games would cost $300+ new then.

What would happen, games companies will simply rent you a game for a limited period of time for a set fee. We may even see subscription based gaming disappear in favour of charging gamer's $40 for 6 months rent time... I truly believe this type of ruling would be bad for us gamer's in the long run.

I just wish companies such as steam and epic would come out in lamemen's term and say, we don't own nothing instead of hiding behind legal jagon.

The issue is that this just hurt mostly indie devs, or publishers that wanted more cut of the pie instead being forced to take a small cut of it in name of a rental service, and only way to make it better for them is charging more on rental fee, which only turn people off more, means lower subs to the plan, less pay out as well. That why not whole lot of publishers jump for joy for xbox game pass, but its their way to gain fixed pay for small rate overtime if they weren't expecting people to buy their games.

And they kind of did in their terms when they refer to us buying license we never own, nor can we sell them. But wanting to say it plain and simple is I think they can do, but I doubt any company wants to do that without being in terms to stating it so get whole legal subject on it.

[Tito Shivan]

XartaX の投稿を引用：

So basically as soon as you can get games properly categorized as Computer Software it'd be up for a court case again.

Two EU courts have ruled in the same regard. A change in categorization seems very unlikely.

I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening.

C²C^Guyver |NZB| の投稿を引用：

Okay? Being able to resell a game is moot in some cases. Take a look at The Crew. Think someone will give you anything for that?

And that's the other part of the subject. Do anyone think that in a scenario where games can be freely resold publishers and developers are simply not going to react? That they're not going to take measures to stop the sales losses? They're not going to change and adapt their business model to the new situation?

Beware what you wish for. Reality grants wishes like a monkey paw.

[Blitz4]

XartaX の投稿を引用：

Last year the EU has ruled legally that you're entitled to resell purchased & downloaded games/software no matter what EULA says.

It's mostly just a matter of things going through courts and lawsuits piling up. We will be able to resell them directly on steam eventually (at least if Steam etc. want to continue operating within the EU). But in reality that isn't the case just yet.

Edit: Ruling was from 2012, not last year, lol. Article I found made it sound way more recent and was published late last year. So yeah like I said don't expect anything anytime soon, but according to EU law they aren't allowed to stop you from reselling. Source: https://game8.co/articles/latest/steam-gog-and-others-must-allow-reselling-of-downloaded-games-in-eu#:~:text=The%20Court%20of%20Justice%20of,an%20End%20User%20License%20Agreement.

add to that what happens to your Steam games when you die. per an article, it states that unless you give your credentials and ability to login via 2FA if applicable, your games won't be accessible by anyone.

Great so say someone setup a way to leave their password manager info in a will which allows access to their accounts.

They log into your steam and they don't like one genre of game, they like another genre. They want to trade what you bought for what they'll play. That's what you indicated in the will, "that you will have as much enjoyment from Steam as I did"

They can't have the games transferred from your account to theirs, so they'll have two logins. They'd add all of your email accounts to theirs on their mobile device in order to indicated to the email provider that you're still alive as they will close inactive accounts, no matter what. Those email accounts are necessary for passwords and 2FA. But they can't add the steam account to their account in the same way that your email app does on your phone, merging two accounts into one. Nor can they sell off Steam games to a 3rd party in order to buy other Steam games that they'd enjoy.


But that story is against how Steam would handle a customers death.
To Steam, you and only you can login to your Steam account no matter what you wanted to happen after you die and if you were to die, your entire Steam account is deleted.
Steam games aren't tradable via a 3rd party.

In the simplest terms, this means that without express permission from Valve you can't just give your Steam account to another person. Even if you were to write it into your will that you wanted this to happen, without that permission, it wouldn't hold up upon your death. Earlier this week I spoke to a lawyer who specialises in the video game industry to confirm that this is, in fact, the case.

"Steam's position is that you can't pass it on," explained Alex Tutty, a partner at Sheridans Law Firm. "Which is the default position for pretty much everyone who licenses software. Then they also do say that they'll consider things on a case-by-case basis, so if somebody dies, they will consider proof of death and whether there'd be a legitimate interest in saying you could transfer it.

You can not transfer said licence for a steam game to another person not if you wanted to sell a game, not if you wanted to transfer your games you purchased in your will.

https://www.eurogamer.net/what-happens-to-your-steam-account-when-you-die


Physical games are getting more attractive the more I think about it.

[N1ck0]

Komarimaru の投稿を引用：

There is no re-selling. And if I were you, I'd pray it never happens. Since games would cost $300+ new then.

And nobody in their right mind would buy them at this price. It's not like it's bread in Germany in the 30s.

[N1ck0]

Blitz4 の投稿を引用：

Physical games are getting more attractive the more I think about it.

They are. They're less convenient in many ways, but at least physical mediums don't make you their ♥♥♥♥♥ like digital distribution platforms do.

[N1ck0]

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

And that's the other part of the subject. Do anyone think that in a scenario where games can be freely resold publishers and developers are simply not going to react? That they're not going to take measures to stop the sales losses? They're not going to change and adapt their business model to the new situation?

Beware what you wish for. Reality grants wishes like a monkey paw.

Adapt how? By making "buying" games even less enticing than it already is? People can adapt in return, and stop supporting a business that became so anti-consumers that it doesn't deserve to keep being lucrative.

Knowing people though, would they stop supporting it? Probably not. But I would on my end, so I'm not worried.

I'm already done with buying games for the most part.

[Crazy Tiger]

Nick の投稿を引用：

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

And that's the other part of the subject. Do anyone think that in a scenario where games can be freely resold publishers and developers are simply not going to react? That they're not going to take measures to stop the sales losses? They're not going to change and adapt their business model to the new situation?

Beware what you wish for. Reality grants wishes like a monkey paw.

Adapt how? By making "buying" games even less enticing than it already is? People can adapt in return, and stop supporting a business that became so anti-consumers that it doesn't deserve to keep being lucrative.

Knowing people though, would they stop supporting it? Probably not. But I would on my end, so I'm not worried.

I'm already done with buying games for the most part.

GaaS is already a result of it. Same with devaluing physical copies by adding day one codes and thusly reducing trade-in or resell value. Limited activation DRM initially was created to stop secondhand trading/selling.

They'll find a way. People often enough only think about their desired outcomes, but reality is that the the wish gets granted in a much different way.

And of course there will always be people buying things. Everybody has a different sense of what "value" is.

[Tito Shivan]

Nick の投稿を引用：

Adapt how? By making "buying" games even less enticing than it already is?

Games As A Service.
Freemium models where the actual game is free to play.
Subscription-only games.

There's many ways the developers can strip the 'game' you can resell of value to assure people will keep buying from them.

[N1ck0]

Crazy Tiger の投稿を引用：

GaaS is already a result of it. Same with devaluing physical copies by adding day one codes and thusly reducing trade-in or resell value. Limited activation DRM initially was created to stop secondhand trading/selling.

They'll find a way. People often enough only think about their desired outcomes, but reality is that the the wish gets granted in a much different way.

And of course there will always be people buying things. Everybody has a different sense of what "value" is.

Doesn't that prove they'll find a way to shaft customers no matter what though? So again, the only answer is to stop supporting this business financially.

It's everyone's individual choice though. If people want to keep throwing their money out the window, it's their right.

[N1ck0]

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

Nick の投稿を引用：

Adapt how? By making "buying" games even less enticing than it already is?

Games As A Service.
Freemium models where the actual game is free to play.
Subscription-only games.

There's many ways the developers can strip the 'game' you can resell of value to assure people will keep buying from them.

Okay, but again, it's already all there existing without the reality of being able to sell/trade activated digital licenses.

And it will get worst if people keep supporting this business even if we're never able to sell/trade our licenses.

I'm a realist too though, and don't believe it will ever happen. I mean, the right to trade our licenses. This business getting worst for customers will definitely happen; either ways.