Idea of trading games like trading disc.

[Apple]

Hello Steam users and the administrator fellows,

I have been a PC gamer and Steam users for more than 10 years, and so far so good I'm still enjoying using Steam, and I'm faithful to PC gaming.

Recently I purchased a used PS4 (I know it might not be related but please hear me out) from my friend, and I joined a forum of PS4 disc game trading, I could see that the disc market is very active. Suddenly it reminded me of the past of when people went out to hire VHS tape to watch movies/music, etc. And I thought it could be an interesting idea with Steam.

Okay, I know this is totally a CRAZY idea as games on Steam are being sold digitally and it could make a HUGE negative impact on sales, policies, profit, local law compliance, etc... But it could be a very pro-consumer move.

I understand that Steam games are being sold digitally and there a lot of people scamming people on Steam, exploiting the bloody hell out of Steam. So I came up with some conditions for this feature to work:

- The games must be purchased through Steam directly. Gifted games don't apply. DLCs may not apply (but I hope it would). Games purchased when it was on sales off more than 50% may not apply.

- Games eligible for trading/transfering to different account must have been sold on Steam for 1 or 2 years, so it would still protect the launch sales. I understand some games have third-party launcher involved (like Uplay) and could complicate things so we would leave them for now.

- Steam would charge a small fee for the transfer. (well they still have to make money somehow)

- Accounts eligible for trading must not be VAC-banned and have a limit of 1 or 2 games trading per month. Two-Factor authenticator is required.

- Accounts must be 6 or 1 year old and must not be in Limited status.

That's all for the the crazy idea I just had on mind. I understand it might not be even a real thing, but I hope you guys at Steam headquarters take a look and consider. I'm looking for a response from you guys, whether this idea is accepted or not.

Thank you.

[cinedine]

And what's in it for Valve or the studios of the games?

[Apple]

Originally posted by cinedine:

And what's in it for Valve or the studios of the games?

That's why there would be a small fee for the service. I thought to protect the sales occasions like Summer or Winter sale, the games when it was purchased must not have more than 50% discount.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Please use the search. There are recent threads on this.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Apple:

Originally posted by cinedine:

And what's in it for Valve or the studios of the games?

That's why there would be a small fee for the service. I thought to protect the sales occasions like Summer or Winter sale, the games when it was purchased must not have more than 50% discount.

A small fee that is significantly less than what they would make from a purchase. Though it would essentially cost them a purchase.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Apple:

Originally posted by cinedine:

And what's in it for Valve or the studios of the games?

That's why there would be a small fee for the service. I thought to protect the sales occasions like Summer or Winter sale, the games when it was purchased must not have more than 50% discount.

The small fee should be no less then what the game is currently selling for, with 70% of that fee going to the developer and 30% going to Valve.

Or people could just buy the game for the same price.



This has been discussed to death and all the issues with it have been pointed out many times.

Use the search feature

[MagnumForce]

someone could just hack your account and trade all your games away
i buy steam games pretty cheap at 4.99 so i don't need to trade
but i guess i wouldn't mind you buying your new game at 60 dollars and 3 years later you can sell it to me for 4.99

[Apple]

Originally posted by blindape:

someone could just hack your account and trade all your games away
i buy steam games pretty cheap at 4.99 so i don't need to trade
but i guess i wouldn't mind you buying your new game at 60 dollars and 3 years later you can sell it to me for 4.99

Uhhh yeah it's kind of hilarious in some way. I hardly play a game anymore once the story has been completed though so I thought it would be a good idea to...sell it. I get it it's not going to happen because games sold digitally are intangible and are even harder to manage.

[Apple]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

Originally posted by Apple:

That's why there would be a small fee for the service. I thought to protect the sales occasions like Summer or Winter sale, the games when it was purchased must not have more than 50% discount.

The small fee should be no less then what the game is currently selling for, with 70% of that fee going to the developer and 30% going to Valve.

Or people could just buy the game for the same price.



This has been discussed to death and all the issues with it have been pointed out many times.

Use the search feature

Could you kindly provide some keywords so I can search?
Edit: Sorry I was just being lazy. I'll go have a look and see for myself.

[Gwarsbane]

trading games
sell old games
trade old games
trade games in library
sell games in library

There are a few suggestions...

If more people searched first they wouldn't need to make posts that are very obviously never going to happen.

[Washell]

Originally posted by Apple:

and I joined a forum of PS4 disc game trading

You do realize both Sony and Microsoft have presented/leaked diskless versions of their next-gen consoles right? The industry is moving away from sharing/reselling games. Don't expect them to move towards it on the PC, unless forced to do so by consumer lobbying turning into laws to enforce digital ownership and resale rights.

[Apple]

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by Apple:

and I joined a forum of PS4 disc game trading

You do realize both Sony and Microsoft have presented/leaked diskless versions of their next-gen consoles right? The industry is moving away from sharing/reselling games. Don't expect them to move towards it on the PC, unless forced to do so by consumer lobbying turning into laws to enforce digital ownership and resale rights.

Ask far as the news goes, I only see Microsoft released diskless console. Well, unless Sony releases there variant, we'll see how it goes.

[Garou]

We don't actually own games. We own licences to play which are non-transferrable so I doubt trading digital games will happen.

[Gwarsbane]

The Sony PS5 will have a blu-ray player in it, but so far there is zero word if they will actually release games on discs.

https://www.google.ca/search?source=hp&q=sony+ps5+specs

The disc reader from what I have seen so far might only be for backwards compatibility (and movies). Till its released, we have no idea if they will or won't have discs for the new generation games.

Over all the entire industry is moving towards digital only releases because of all the money they make without all the middle men in the way and because of all the money they are losing thanks to trading/selling old games. This is why you pretty much don't see games on discs for PCs anymore and even the physical boxes for games you see in stores either don't have anything on the actual disc other then some info or don't actually have a disc and just some info on where to get the download and both come with keys that lock the game to an account.

People dump on steam for having a 70/30 split yet they never consider how much of the price they get when they sell a physical product in the store because of design costs, manufacturing costs, shipping costs, storage costs, a cut for the store. At best they might be getting 30% to 40% of a full price game. And when that gets resold somewhere, they get 0%.

This is why the next Sony Playstation might be the last console with physical media, or to be able to use discs. And I doubt they would switch over to USB drives to deliver the games on. Lots of security issues with something like that.

This is also why trading will never happen on steam or any other digital distributor like Steam/epic/Battle.net/Origin/Uplay/whatever unless you give money to them that equals the amount they are losing by not selling a digital copy.