Sale of digital versions of games between users

[Shiroi Senshi]

I have an idea. Digital copies of games are no different from physical ones with regard to their transfer to others users. I was prompted to this idea by my appeal to Ubisoft support, in which I asked to transfer my digital copies of games from different accounts to one common one. It’s possible. Why doesn’t Valve develop a system that will allow users to sell copies of their games on the Steam Marketplace? I am more than sure that the vast majority of users have a huge number of games that are not needed.
There are a couple of thoughts of implementing such an idea. For example, as well as when selling things from inventory, you can set a commission (within reason) or “dispose” of a copy from your account by “selling it to Steam”, that is, Valve sets its price (of course, the price will be much lower that the market price), which a potential seller, he is also a user, is ready to receive in return for the complete removal of the game from the account.
The difference between such an idea and the long-term practice of reselling physical copies of games for consoles is that the money received remains only in the Steam Wallet (funds are not transferred to the card). Even so, but it’s much better than staying with unnecessary games on your account, and Steam will come to life. Think for yourself: with a commission, neither Valve nor the developers will lose anything. Everything is clear with the commission.
Regarding the developers. If players don’t want to buy a certain game, they won’t buy it. If players do not want to continue playing the game, with a high probability, they will not pass it to the end. So what’s the point? And if we are talking about online projects, then the situation becomes much clearer, empty accounts appear, so most online games die before their first year.
Please think about this idea!

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Sounds like an account phisher's dream. Liquidating an entire account.

[Shiroi Senshi]

No, it's just a sound approach to digital property. Haven't you ever sold things in real life?

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Originally posted by Shiroi Senshi:

No, it's just a sound approach to digital property. Haven't you ever sold things in real life?

I have, I also know this method would cut into the sales Devs make overall. And know we'd see a huge issue of hijacked accounts losing their libraries.

[Shiroi Senshi]

The problem is that, as I said, if players are not initially set up to buy a certain game, they will not buy it.
I have no idea what kind of problems may arise, I sold disks at one time when there was a console - the experience was extremely positive.
A couple of days ago I was looking on the Internet for any information on the resale of digital versions of games. If I'm not mistaken, in Europe, at the legislative level, they wanted to raise this issue back in 2019.

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Originally posted by Shiroi Senshi:

The problem is that, as I said, if players are not initially set up to buy a certain game, they will not buy it.
I have no idea what kind of problems may arise, I sold disks at one time when there was a console - the experience was extremely positive.
A couple of days ago I was looking on the Internet for any information on the resale of digital versions of games. If I'm not mistaken, in Europe, at the legislative level, they wanted to raise this issue back in 2019.

Yes and resold games, sold at a lower cost = less funds going into both Steam's and the Dev's pocket.

By your own logic, if someone's not going to buy a game, they're not going to buy it. Meaning, also not going to buy it at a discount.

[Wolf Knight]

this silly idea again. please use the search.

short answer - your idea would drive the game developers away from steam.

if you want to be able to sell the crap in your game library, take it up with your lawmakers. WARNING - you may get what you asked for, but it wont be what you wanted.

you are asking the game developers to compete with you for a sale of their product. dev - 70%, Steam - 30%. where does your cut of the money come from?

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

this silly idea again. please use the search.

short answer - your idea would drive the game developers away from steam.

if you want to be able to sell the crap in your game library, take it up with your lawmakers. WARNING - you may get what you asked for, but it wont be what you wanted.

I don't know about you, but I like getting PAID for my work.

[Shiroi Senshi]

I offered two options.
In the first case, two parties agree: the one who sells the game (conditionally me) and the one who wants to buy this game from me (conditionally you). If you want to purchase this game, you will buy it from me, because let's say you are satisfied with the price.
BUT! If you are not satisfied with this game, no one forces you to buy it from me, someone who will be interested will buy it. Everything is simple. Yes, the funds will be insignificant, especially compared to the market, but we are not talking about 30-40 cents per game. It all depends on what kind of product you will sell. Conditionally, Elder Ring can be safely resold for $ 15 today, yes, it's not $ 30 or $ 40, but it's a very good cashback, don't you agree?
In the second case, I offered Steam to "buy off" my need by determining and setting prices for a specific product by the company itself. It's a crude option, but it's there. If we implement this option, I don't think there will be any significant difference in the end with the same mentioned Elder Ring. Moreover, a specific department of Valve management will be responsible for setting prices, I think it is possible to single out several people from existing employees, although I like the first option more.

[Shiroi Senshi]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

this silly idea again. please use the search.

short answer - your idea would drive the game developers away from steam.

if you want to be able to sell the crap in your game library, take it up with your lawmakers. WARNING - you may get what you asked for, but it wont be what you wanted.

you are asking the game developers to compete with you for a sale of their product. dev - 70%, Steam - 30%. where does your cut of the money come from?

It's a good idea.
I do not know how many times this topic has been raised, but since Valve does not move, then it needs to be raised several times.
great, that is, developers should not release physical copies of games on consoles such as Playstation and Xbox.
No, seriously?
Do you know that the release on physical media is not that cheap?
Yes, but after many years, the companies did not refuse to release physical copies.
Don't physical copies and the possibility of reselling them harm developers' profits? And the profits of Sony and Microsoft?

[JamesF0790]

It's never going to happen. Developers would leave Steam en-masse. Physical releases are still done because they're still expected.

[Shiroi Senshi]

Originally posted by JamesF0790:

It's never going to happen. Developers would leave Steam en-masse. Physical releases are still done because they're still expected.

Complementing my last comment, just for you.
According to your logic, gentlemen, you can cancel comments on Steam.
Why not?
Do you know how many copies were lost due to anger in the comments?)

[JamesF0790]

Originally posted by Shiroi Senshi:

Originally posted by JamesF0790:

It's never going to happen. Developers would leave Steam en-masse. Physical releases are still done because they're still expected.

Complementing my last comment, just for you.
According to your logic, gentlemen, you can cancel comments on Steam.
Why not?
Do you know how many copies were lost due to anger in the comments?)

You're comparing apples to oranges. This is a direct 1 to 1 loss of sales.

[El poco nuez del muerte]

Originally posted by Shiroi Senshi:

I offered two options.
In the first case, two parties agree: the one who sells the game (conditionally me) and the one who wants to buy this game from me (conditionally you). If you want to purchase this game, you will buy it from me, because let's say you are satisfied with the price.
BUT! If you are not satisfied with this game, no one forces you to buy it from me, someone who will be interested will buy it. Everything is simple. Yes, the funds will be insignificant, especially compared to the market, but we are not talking about 30-40 cents per game. It all depends on what kind of product you will sell. Conditionally, Elder Ring can be safely resold for $ 15 today, yes, it's not $ 30 or $ 40, but it's a very good cashback, don't you agree?

I'm not sure I understand. You envision a system where you get to sell your copy through the Steam infrastructure for a price you set? Lower than a copy straight from Valve?

Why would Valve be interested in that? They already sell the product, this would introduce lower priced competition in their very own store.

At best they would set a price for you and that price would be higher than a new copy straight from them. Because they don't want you to sell in their store, they themselves want to sell in their store.

Originally posted by Shiroi Senshi:

In the second case, I offered Steam to "buy off" my need by determining and setting prices for a specific product by the company itself. It's a crude option, but it's there. If we implement this option, I don't think there will be any significant difference in the end with the same mentioned Elder Ring. Moreover, a specific department of Valve management will be responsible for setting prices, I think it is possible to single out several people from existing employees, although I like the first option more.

As in Valve would buy the game back from you? What would be the incentive for them to do so? It's not like they need the copy.

[Start_Running]

Yeah but you don't have th distribution rights to sell the software licenses m8 so you'd have to cut the dev pubs in and they are basically gonna want a cut equal to what they'd get from a new sale. ANd rthen the platform is gonna want their own cut for doing the mayment and transaction processing....

even if Valve only takes a 20% cut. yyou're not gonna get much of anything. and then when you factor in the natural effect of competition. But the side effect for everyone else is that we won't see good sale discounts anymore.

Yeah I'm not willing to say giood by to those discounts so people like ye can make a few nickels here and there.

Basically the dueep discount fills the niche of the resale as far as it goes from the buyers perspective, better even since there will be innately more variety and they occur with predictable regularity.

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

A secondary market literally means less sales. Meaning less money in both Steam's and the Dev's wallet.