Trading and reselling games.

[Rumple4skin]

I was thinking it would be a good idea to resell games from our steam libraries on the community market place. My library is filled with games I'm never going to play and I thought it would be better for someone else to buy and enjoy them at a discount.

I've looked to see if this is a thing already and I can't find any evidence to suggest it is, so is it something that might be feasible in the future?

[Brian9824]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Цитата допису FFL2and3rocks:

"I want to sell my old games" also means "I want Steam to have higher prices and to stop having sales."

That's like saying we shouldn't be allowed to sell our used console games because then they'll increase the prices. I would remind you, our current situation of not being able to sell used games for PC, is absolutely absurd monopolism of things we should have full rightful ownership of. This will some day come to a legal head given the absurdity and I expect Steam will have to change or take a big L.

Not really an apt analogy because of several points

1. Digital items last forevor, physical media suffers from wear and tear
2. Digital items can instantly be transfered at no cost
3. The lack of a resale market is why Steam has more sales then consoles. Its routine to get games at 75-90% off on steam, its very rare on consoles.

Also the inability to resell games has nothing to do with steam. The licenses sold are non transferable, which is a standard license across ALL software. It also applies to digital books, movies, music, etc.

It's not unique to steam at all and effects every retailer such as Nintendo, Sony, Amazon, Walmart, Apple, etc. Its a standard of software licensing.

[Nx Machina]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

That's like saying we shouldn't be allowed to sell our used console games because then they'll increase the prices. I would remind you, our current situation of not being able to sell used games for PC, is absolutely absurd monopolism of things we should have full rightful ownership of. This will some day come to a legal head given the absurdity and I expect Steam will have to change or take a big L.

You own a licence to download, install and play a game only and that licence grants no rights of ownership. The developers own the game and would need to agree to resale as Valve has no rights to sell said games beyond the initial sale which was agreed with the developer, publisher.

You cannot resell any digital games on any PC platform nor on consoles.

[Count_Dandyman]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Цитата допису FFL2and3rocks:

"I want to sell my old games" also means "I want Steam to have higher prices and to stop having sales."

That's like saying we shouldn't be allowed to sell our used console games because then they'll increase the prices. I would remind you, our current situation of not being able to sell used games for PC, is absolutely absurd monopolism of things we should have full rightful ownership of. This will some day come to a legal head given the absurdity and I expect Steam will have to change or take a big L.

No actually its a basic fact of companies wanting to get paid themselves for what they do and not sit and watch parasitic stores sell the same game 20 times and pocket the money while they only get paid once.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Pfft, more "license" nonsense.

EpycWyn: Like I explained in a post earlier, in the thread that your thread got merged into:

The problem with reselling digital games is that they don't get old.

That sounds silly, but the reason used copies can sell for less than new ones is that physical media can degrade. The cartridge can look shoddier, the plastic can fade, the disc can lose its case and manual, etc..

That doesn't work with digital media. It's literally the same data. The "license" thing is merely a legal conception in order to define what is in a buyer's possession: every copy is defined only by the data contained (rather than a physical object) and is therefore identical aside from said license.

So if you were to sell a "used" copy of a Steam game, you are literally selling the same game as someone could buy on the Steam store. In fact, it'd even be delivered to them the exact same way -- since they'd just download the game from the Steam servers anyway, not from you.

So there are three scenarios to consider:

* Scenario 1: If your copy sells at a higher price than the standard Steam store price, your copy doesn't sell.
* Scenario 2: If your copy sells at the same price as the standard Steam store price, then Steam and the publisher could just cut you out of the deal by not letting you sell, and keep the extra money that you would have gotten from the sale, for themselves.
* Scenario 3: If your copy sells at a lower price, then the publisher can just discount the game to your price (in which case Scenario 2 applies) or deeper (in which case Scenario 1 applies).

The only exception would be if you discounted your game to a very, very low price, but then you'd get little if any money from the sale.

This is a possibility I think that some publishers have considered -- selling only a limited quantity at a very low price, as a temporary promotion -- but I haven't seen it come up much. My first guess is that they want to be able to keep the price of the game high as long as they can, unless they feel that there's just no way to get any more customers. They're trying to prevent people from paying less for any given game than the maximum each of them is willing to, and the current mechanisms provide them this monopoly power to do so. But they're also aware of price tracking sites like IsThereAnyDeal that track the lowest price something has sold at, so they're aware that if they drop the price low then customers are going to have an expectation of "they're gonna do that again", because customers aren't stupid and also know to wait for sales.

[Nx Machina]

Enjoy reading - but more importantly feel free to challenge these in a court of law.

The Witcher 3 Eula:

https://store.steampowered.com/eula/292030_eula_0

2. WHAT YOU GET WITH THE GAME
We (meaning CD PROJEKT RED) give you the personal right (called a 'licence' legally) to download, install and play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on your personal computer as long as you follow these Rules. This licence is for your personal use only (so you can't give a sublicense to someone else) and doesn't give you ownership rights.


Cyberpunk 2077 Eula:

https://store.steampowered.com/eula/1091500_eula_0

3 USING CYBERPUNK 2077

3.1 Licence. CD PROJEKT RED gives you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-assignable licence to display, view, download, install, play and use Cyberpunk 2077 on your personal computer, games console and/or other devices/platforms that are explicitly authorised by CD PROJEKT RED (the list of which is available here [https://www.cyberpunk.net/]), depending on the particular device/system/platform you purchased the game for. This licence is for your personal use only (so you cannot give, ‘sell’, lend, gift, assign, sub-license or otherwise transfer it to someone else) and does not give you any ownership rights in Cyberpunk 2077.


Let us all know the outcome of the court case.

[𒐪⎝ Epylector ⎠𒐪]

Nah media degrades in value because it's just old and therefore irrelevant. Even if it's perfect condition, it's still old news and that alone is what removes value. Your scenarios hinge on assuming what Steam will and will not do. The idea is that Steam would play along for the sake of a better fairer market.

[Start_Running]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Nah media degrades in value because it's just old and therefore irrelevant. Even if it's perfect condition, it's still old news and that alone is what removes value.

So issue #1 of Superman should be pretty worthless hmm?

[Count_Dandyman]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Nah media degrades in value because it's just old and therefore irrelevant. Even if it's perfect condition, it's still old news and that alone is what removes value. Your scenarios hinge on assuming what Steam will and will not do. The idea is that Steam would play along for the sake of a better fairer market.

If that was true then all your old games would be so worthless then you wouldn't even want to bother selling them.

[Brian9824]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Nah media degrades in value because it's just old and therefore irrelevant. Even if it's perfect condition, it's still old news and that alone is what removes value. Your scenarios hinge on assuming what Steam will and will not do. The idea is that Steam would play along for the sake of a better fairer market.

Considering retro games sell for several times more then current new releases I'd say your argument has more then a few holes in it....

[Yzal]

When you resell your old physical games you're selling a finite resource. That game is (probably) out of print already. And even if it's not, it's understood that one day it's gonna be.
If you resell a digital copy, that's a infinite resource. Therefore the publisher can keep selling it infinitely and never run out of copies.

Now let's talk about prices, if you resell your digital copy you have 3 options:
1) sell it cheaper than the publisher, buy they can put the game on sale. so unless you're basically giving the game away you'll never sell.
2) sell it at the same value, again, they have sales.
3) sell it at a higher value. Who in the right mind would buy that?

[ElvisDeadly]

Цитата допису Lazy Dog:

When you resell your old physical games you're selling a finite resource. That game is (probably) out of print already. And even if it's not, it's understood that one day it's gonna be.
If you resell a digital copy, that's a infinite resource. Therefore the publisher can keep selling it infinitely and never run out of copies.

^ this

The reason second hand markets exist for physical things is that they exist in finite amounts. Out of print CD's, Books, DVD's, Computer Games etc

There is no NEED for a second hand market of something that exists as an infinite amount of perfectly exact copies.

You WANT to be able to sell your 'old Steam games' but there is nothing to sell on. What we buy is a license, to play the game, on a single account.

Any changes to that fact will bring massive changes to everything else, and would no doubt push every publisher towards a games as a service subsrcription model to ensure profitability.

[Crazy Tiger]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

Nah media degrades in value because it's just old and therefore irrelevant. Even if it's perfect condition, it's still old news and that alone is what removes value. Your scenarios hinge on assuming what Steam will and will not do. The idea is that Steam would play along for the sake of a better fairer market.

Your idea hinges on assuming it would be a "better fairer" market.

[Start_Running]

Цитата допису ElvisDeadly:

Цитата допису Lazy Dog:

When you resell your old physical games you're selling a finite resource. That game is (probably) out of print already. And even if it's not, it's understood that one day it's gonna be.
If you resell a digital copy, that's a infinite resource. Therefore the publisher can keep selling it infinitely and never run out of copies.

^ this

The reason second hand markets exist for physical things is that they exist in finite amounts. Out of print CD's, Books, DVD's, Computer Games etc

And keep in mind that aproducer needs a certain minimum number of confirmed orders for a production run to be profitable.

Any changes to that fact will bring massive changes to everything else, and would no doubt push everything publisher towards a games as a service subsrcriprion model to ensure profitability.

Subscription based gaming would be very popular.

[𒐪⎝ Epylector ⎠𒐪]

Цитата допису Start_Running:

Цитата допису ElvisDeadly:

^ this

The reason second hand markets exist for physical things is that they exist in finite amounts. Out of print CD's, Books, DVD's, Computer Games etc

And keep in mind that aproducer needs a certain minimum number of confirmed orders for a production run to be profitable.

Any changes to that fact will bring massive changes to everything else, and would no doubt push everything publisher towards a games as a service subsrcriprion model to ensure profitability.

Subscription based gaming would be very popular.

Not really since I largely buy specifically to own for just-in-case I get bored and want a variety of options. If it was all subscription-based I'd just never buy because I rarely actually want to game and subscriptions would remove that variety of already purchased options to sample while forcing me to commit to a short-term subscription to one game I might get bored with quickly. Subscription models would outright kill the market and profits for the vast vast majority of publishers involved. Only an absolute monolith like Adobe or Blizzard can get away with those, and even then they get a lot of ♥♥♥♥ for it while a lot of people still skip out specifically because of the subscription barriers. If you pick a subscription model, you're definitely losing out on more customers, and are gambling on the few you get to make up the difference -rarely works, and only works in a parasitic way.

[rawWwRrr]

Цитата допису EpycWyn:

If you pick a subscription model, you're definitely losing out on more customers, and are gambling on the few you get to make up the difference -rarely works, and only works in a parasitic way.

And yet it's a growing segment of the industry and have had many requests of Steam to produce something similar to what other services provide.