Re-Sell Games

[Jenshae]

We can re-sell skins, frequently worth more than games.
I played a game for zero time because it has a third party launcher, which I am not comfortable giving my personal data.
No refund.
Can't resell it.

Why not?
You have the price, make sure that we can't sell it for more than we paid. No profit incentive.
You already have delays on the community market, put a delay on selling games for stolen accounts.
The sold value goes into your Steam Wallet and not your bank account, so it will still get spent on Valve and a game studio, increasing revenue.

What other loop holes could people use to abuse this?

Edit: I am also open to the idea of Steam and the game studio getting a % cut, instead of the complete waste I have had deleting two games from my account.

[Jenshae]

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

You will own nothing and be glad of it.
Such as paying for seat warmers in BMWs and Teslas for other people to not use.

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games would reduce piracy and increase word of mouth advertising.
If your game is good, you have nothing to fear.

Word of moth doesn't pay electricity bills.
And from the devs perspective, that second hand buyer is no different from a pirate. They get the game, the devs get no money in return.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games could also come with limitations, such as no achievements, no skin or case drops (such as Counter Strike) and so forth.

That just complicates things on the back end and would be particularly problematic for single player games.

[Zarineth]

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

Valve said they don't want subscription.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games would reduce piracy and increase word of mouth advertising.
If your game is good, you have nothing to fear.

Second hand games could also come with limitations, such as no achievements, no skin or case drops (such as Counter Strike) and so forth.

If that was worth it, devs would do it already.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

You will own nothing and be glad of it.
Such as paying for seat warmers in BMWs and Teslas for other people to not use.

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

GoG's policy towards DRMs is what stops them from growing. And on GoG you are also forbidden from sharing your games. And some devs already avoid GoG.

Also many devs publish exclusively on Steam, without need of birbing them (like Epic does).

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

Gabe said in an interview that currently Valve is not interested in doing one. But that they'll happily work with whomever wants to bring their own subscription to Steam.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

You will own nothing and be glad of it.

Unless there comes a change to how licensing works, that will remain so. Always has been, technically, jsut in the past they couldn't enforce it that much even though they tried.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

For starters GoG doesn't do that well financially. They all but stopped their core business of making old games work on modern hardware because it doesn't sell enough. They also miss out on lots of games because developers/publishers don't like DRM-free. And you're not allowed to resell games there either. They have their niche position in the market, which is a good thing. But they're not expanding because of their DRM-free stance.

Also, keep in mind that quite a number of games on Steam also are DRM-free.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

I found a way of this making sense to you guys.

Re-selling games would be like EVE PLEX or the WoW Token, there would be a gross gain to Valve and the games they distribute.

The whole reason why those systems, and any system with any in game currency work is because of whales. People who spend a ton of money to get the currency from others who spend the minimum.

In both Eve and WoW you have traders/farmers who do nothing all day but try to build up in game currency, who then sell/trade it to others who spend real money on it.

Both only keep working as long as there are people who are willing to spend lots of money and those who are willing to just farm the in game currency/items to sell to those willing to spend money.

Both systems only work with limited supply that takes time to gather.


Steam is not a game. No one is going to pay more than what a game is being sold for else where just because they can. Games are not limited in number unlike they used to be. Valve and the game developer/publisher/IP owner can spin up millions of new keys for it in seconds.

So at best people will only be able to sell the games for what ever they are being sold for and they will not be able to get any money for it. Why? Because the developers/publishers/IP owners are not going to want anything less then their 70% cut they already get and Valve is not going to want anything less then the 30% cut they get now. So no where in those numbers is there any way for a user to get anything out of it, other than having it removed from their account, never to play it again unless they buy it again.

The developers/publishers/IP owners are not going to be ok with it selling for less then what they are currently selling it for, and the user selling it still won't get any money.



Anyone claiming that used games will get developers/publishers/IP owners more money then they are already getting is just lying to themselves. The only way that happens is if they cut off the supply of new keys, so there is only a limited supply and then hope their game is popular enough that people keep wanting it for years to come in high enough numbers that it makes not selling new keys worth while. And thats just not going to happen.


There is one place allowing people to sell their old games... but I doubt thats going to last once people realize they are helping them mine bitcoin or what ever coin and also once those people realize they will not be able to sell the games for more then what they bought them for and in all cases they will only be able to sell them for less. This is exactly what happens with those stupid NFTs. People think they will get rich off them, buy a bunch of them for crazy dumb prices and then the prices crash.

No where in the NFT world have people who bought "used" NFTs made money when they sold them again as far as I know. A month after NFTs first hit the market they crashed by over 90% and kept on crashing down, they have all lost at least 99% of their "value". That jpg that sold for 69 million dollars is worth at least 99% less then what it started out at.

The only people who will profit are the first people who sell them... after that they will only go down in price which is what we already see with stuff like that.

So why do people think games sold this way will do the opposite? (ya I know, bit of a tangent but its related to the topic)


No, a used game market will not make developers/publishers/IP owners and Valve more money, it will only cost them money and it will in the end cause us to have to pay more because they will kill off discounts, they will kill off selling them in bundles. More then likely games will end up as subscriptions only and the moment you stop paying is when its removed from your system so you won't even be able to sell it or anything in it to anyone else.

[Jenshae]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games would reduce piracy and increase word of mouth advertising.
If your game is good, you have nothing to fear.

Word of moth doesn't pay electricity bills.
And from the devs perspective, that second hand buyer is no different from a pirate. They get the game, the devs get no money in return.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games could also come with limitations, such as no achievements, no skin or case drops (such as Counter Strike) and so forth.

That just complicates things on the back end and would be particularly problematic for single player games.

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform. We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Word of moth doesn't pay electricity bills.
And from the devs perspective, that second hand buyer is no different from a pirate. They get the game, the devs get no money in return.


That just complicates things on the back end and would be particularly problematic for single player games.

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform. We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

There's nothing to advertise, Steam is quite literally the industry leader in its field.

Plus, people are going to pirate, regardless. A second-hand market, doesn't cut down on piracy (people seem to forget how popular modded consoles were back then).

Why would devs use a platform that would effectively allow a system that lets them get paid LESS? It doesn't make sense.

If a Dev wants advertising, they can give media keys away, or they can put a game up for free during the weekend. Free weekends are EXCELLENT advertising for a lot of games.

[Slav Mcgopnik]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games would reduce piracy and increase word of mouth advertising.
If your game is good, you have nothing to fear.

Second hand games could also come with limitations, such as no achievements, no skin or case drops (such as Counter Strike) and so forth.

No, it would not reduce piracy. People pirated all the damn time in the days before copy protection existed, and they weren’t doing it for price reasons alone, some people just want free stuff.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

Word of mouth advertising is a form of advertising. But it's not so great that Valve should look to cannibalize it's own store by creating a secondary market for the sake of word of mouth advertising.

Valve is not so desperate for customers that attracting people to spend a pittance of what they would normally is appealing.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform. We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

No one is forcing you to use Steam, or any DRM clients. Stick to GoG and other DRM free games. If you agree to the terms of Steam, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard and the like, complain all you want, but don't pretend you were forced. You had a choice, you made it.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

GOG doesn't resell games and there's actually a LOT of devs and publishers who don't do business there

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Randot:

Think Steam will ever get a subscription model?

You will own nothing and be glad of it.
Such as paying for seat warmers in BMWs and Teslas for other people to not use.

And you do know there is already people hacking those things because they put them in the car even without you asking for them. They are in every car they sell, because its cheaper for them to do so.

There are also laws in some places or in the works that would stop stuff like subscriptions to get features that are already built into your car.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

That is correct... and they still tell people that they can't resell the games or trade them to others as you bought a license for the game and thats it. Right now from what I can find GOG is making around 1.2 million dollars a year...
https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-looks-like-its-in-a-much-healthier-spot-after-a-hairy-2021/

From what I can find, Valves profits have only gone up year after year along with the number of active users and their last year of profit was somewhere in the 7.7 billion to 12 billion dollar mark. Now I don't know if thats before or after their 30% cut. Next year, its expected to be higher, and the number of active users per day and month keep growing.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=how+much+money+is+valve+worth



Oh and most of GOG games are DRM free, some of them have a form of DRM where they only sell you a partial version of the game, and you have to sign up somewhere and have an active connection to get the full version of the game. So not all their games are DRM free, they are only technically DRM free... as long as you don't want the full version.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Word of moth doesn't pay electricity bills.
And from the devs perspective, that second hand buyer is no different from a pirate. They get the game, the devs get no money in return.


That just complicates things on the back end and would be particularly problematic for single player games.

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

Yes they did... and very few have done that. And where are those developers today? Haven't heard anything about them since they did that stunt... so thats all it was, was a stunt, for some advertising. Doesn't seemed to have helped them in the log run.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform. We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

No, licensing hasn't changed. If you go back and look at those license agreements, which btw you had to agree to BEFORE opening the package, it was a non-transferable license.

The only reason why you could resell them is because there was no method back then to actually stop you. There was no high speed internet, there was no always on connections. There was no central database that you had to connect up to.

But now all thats changed. Now they can enforce the license agreement.

Heck even consoles are moving to digital only so that they can stop used copies being sold. Most of the games with discs sold don't even include the game anymore. Its some basic stuff but no game. You have to download it.


I keep buying on Steam because I see them being around for another 2 or 3 decades at the very least. They keep making profits, they keep getting more and more active accounts daily and monthly. I don't see that with other stores.

If they went with this suggestion, then I could see crashing and going out of business within a few years.

[Gwarsbane]

Missed this one...

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games would reduce piracy and increase word of mouth advertising.
If your game is good, you have nothing to fear.

No it won't. People will pirate no matter how cheap the program is. You can find programs/games that are 2 or 3 dollars being pirated.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Second hand games could also come with limitations, such as no achievements, no skin or case drops (such as Counter Strike) and so forth.

And that just kills your reason why people won't pirate it... after all if you have any or all these limits, why not just pirate the game and get it for free and not have those limits anyway.

And maybe you should not use a F2P game as your example...

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

If second hand games are so bad, why hasn't GoG that has no DRM. not gone out of business or been abandoned by game developers?

The vast majority of publishers won't release on GoG do to no DRM, and those that do often don't release their newer titles. For instance GoG JUST got Fallout 4 on their store about 2 weeks ago to put it in perspective.......

Not to mention GoG is not very profitable, and over the last few years has lost money on at least several of the years and they had to lay off something like 30% of their staff to try to get it under control

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

I found a way of this making sense to you guys.

Re-selling games would be like EVE PLEX or the WoW Token, there would be a gross gain to Valve and the games they distribute.

That's not a good example at all.
If anything, it's an example that offering in-game currency can generate money for the game itself to sustain it, usually with offering advantages like "Premium Time", but your examples apply to the game account of the user which is not at all like reselling games nor related to such.

Being able to use standard in-game money for in-game premium time is also nothing like reselling since it requires effort from the user to play heavily to gain the status.

If anything buying & selling popular in-game items or skins could result in a gain over time to buy several AAA games if done correctly.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform. We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

Word of Mouth is great for small businesses. For huge businesses that are extremely well known, they're already at a peak point where they don't need gimmicks to try hooking users.

Digital distribution always means there will be some kind of restrictions if the company wants to be profitable and continue having business with as many companies as possible aka their immediate customers; Developers & Publishers. This is so it's harder to share anything to anyone since unlike physical media; it can be to a huge amount of people across vast distances if not handled carefully, hence restrictions. The point is to make money and be secure as to not cost the Developers/Publishers money by lacking security, thus both involved making money from having restrictions.

When you're in this hobby, you need to understand how digital businesses operate, and why they don't do certain things. Want to resell games after playing them? Get a console game that can be used regardless of who has the disc.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Word of moth doesn't pay electricity bills.
And from the devs perspective, that second hand buyer is no different from a pirate. They get the game, the devs get no money in return.


That just complicates things on the back end and would be particularly problematic for single player games.

Word of mouth advertising.
Some developers have even released cut down versions of their games to pirating sites because they valued that advertising so much.

Yeah. CUt down versions. or sometimes gimped versions. As a way to troll the pirates.
Advertising is nice but it doesn't mean much if it doesn't drive revenue growth.
Second hand sales..do not benefit the dev/pubs in that regard.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

We had licenses that could be transferred with physical media.
Now we can't even transfer our licence to another DRM platform.

Yeah in the early days that was the case and its been evolving towards what we have now. Can you guess why? Because the previous incarnation was not effective as far as the dev/pubs were concerned.

Every second hand sale was basically cost them a potential sale and gained them nothing.
If the sales of something youi produced determined whether or not you had to discover new recipies for ketchup soup for a month..you'd probably want to make sure you got paid for every sale.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

We are forced to keep or delete games we don't want and use DRM clients that are bloated and more broken over time.

Yeah. Go fig. YOu bought it, and now its yours. FOrever...

And as said the terms underwhich devs woyuld allow the sales would probably make it un desirable to ye. SOmetimes keepi g the ecosystem healthy means you have to do without a few luxuries m8.