Renting Games

[Kuehnau]

I saw someone suggest this before and actually had it closed down by a mod, I don't think that it was fair for them to lock it because they didn't agree with it. Their basic argument was that developers would be loosing money if a game could be beat in a day.

I don't think that's even remotely a fair response and locking that topic was just as unfair. If I pay to rent a game for a day or two at $5.00 and can beat it in less then 24 hours, then it seems to me that they didn't deserve the full price of admission to begin with.

Games are sitll being rented, even if you don't want to admit it or not. There's still rental places that are alive and there are other services that still offering rentals as an option, such as Red Box.

Onlive had a great idea when it came to renting and it wasn't like it was forced, developers could opt in or opt out of it as they seen fit. Adding a rental option would most likely bring in more money when someone can't afford to pay the whole price tag at once. At the very least it'd allow people to decide if they want to keep renting the game or pay the full price of admission.

[legendslayer_4]

I like where you're heading with making games easier or cheaper to acquire, do you have any more ideas on how or what Steam could do to offer people things like game rental while not losing money for the people who made the games?

[Kuehnau]

You are pretty cute.

Do you think rental places like Family Video go out and buy a single disk from like Walmart and then continue to rent it? They agree to some sort of license, these games are generally more expensive then a standard retail game would be, because of course the rental company is making money off of it.

Let's assume Valve makes money off of every single sale they ever make here, they'd still be taking something from developers who agree to "rent" their software out to people for an undetermined amount of money that they and Valve would have to agree to.

And considering these same people who are renting games, wouldn't get around to actually buying a game at full price, they'd still be making something, since most PC users who can't rent titles, are most likely going to turn to piracy anyways.

It boils down to this, the console market is still thriving after decades of rentals and used titles. And a lot of local places in my town actually rented PC titles until technology made it easier to pirate games anyways, so if people are going to steal anyways, why not give them admission at a cheaper cost and still make SOMETHING off it?

That's ignoring the massive amount lost revenue involved when Steam has sales events that tends to happen during almost any major holiday. So if developers and Valve can both afford to offer up to 80% or 90% off a title, I got a feeling they could continue to offer rentals from participating developers while still making something.

If anyting Valve could have some sort of incentive for owning a full title, like only allowing achievements and cards only for actually "owned" titles. Although, honestly, that wouldn't be that big of an incentive for me.

I used to pay $30.00 a month with my local video club to rent up to three games a month with no late fees, I'd usually keep a game until I beat it and then turn it back in, they were bascially making an infinite profit for people signed up with their "membership"

Fact is, it's not impossible and the people acting like it is, are ignorant.

[Fork_Q2]

I don't think that thread should have been locked, as I couldn't find a recent one on the same topic. Still, Valve wouldn't implement it because it would cost them money for little chance of a new purchase from the renter, and publishers would have to agree to this first. I think we should just chalk up "renting" games as one of the few advantages console has over PC.

Oh, and imagine all the begging on the forums if this was possible, "please can I burrow Outlast, I see you haven't played it in a month, stop being greedy! You got nothing to lose by lending it to me!"

[Silicon Vampire]

No, thanks. If I wanted to rent my games, I'd buy a console.

This would only serve to remove profits from the devs/pubs and Valve while raising prices and eliminating most sales.

This is also why these threads get closed. It's been brought up time and again with exactly the same results. You only need to read these threads and they all take the same direction and come up with the same responses.

EDIT --------------------------

Also, piracy is always brought up (as has been already in this thread) and that topic is never allowed.