Selling your steam games on market place or a steam user store

[Leo Major]

I know there was this new games library platform clone like Stream,GOG,EPIC, etc that game out called RobotCache but with a pretty cool twist..... which was the ability to sell your own games on the app/platform to other users.

This is a great idea... There are plenty of games I have that bought that I don't like like Marvel Midnight Suns (the first 2 hours were all cut scenes and by the time I realized the game wasn't for me It was too late to refund) and I would have no problem selling this game for 20$ to someone on steam. Ofc Steam would probably make it so they get a cut of that sale.... even if just 2% or high as 10% it would add yet another revenue stream to steam.

Of course it would cost money paying programmers to add this feature to the platform and make sure it's not abused in any way.... For example if someone bought a 80$ AAA title and turned around and tried to sell it for 1$ to a freind.... would that be acceptable or would there be a bare minimum. Perhaps you had to have owned the game for at least 30-90 days... or you couldn't sell a game below 5% of what it costs in the steam store etc etc.

But I believe it would be a great feature to add to steam.... and the fact they have a competitor doing it... (regardless of how small) it should certainly be on Steams Radar.


Is there anyone who likes this idea or am I going to get a lot of people gatekeeping the idea?

Thanks for reading.

[Gwarsbane]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Dragonirian:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gwarsbane:

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Being able to sell games WILL kill game companies because today games are so much more expensive to make, take so much longer to actually make. Games are still generally the same price as they were 30+ years ago, and the only things that has changed are they sell far more and make more profit per each one sold because they don't have to deal with all the physical stuff. (box, discs, manuals, shipping, printing, storage, limited shelf space).

Did it kill game companies when you were able to just give your copy of a game to a friend?
Why did the price grow when expences went down? (box, discs, manuals, shipping, printing, storage, limited shelf space)
Why doesn't steam family share feature kill companies?

Long ramble here, hopefully it all makes sense, was a little tired when I wrote this up.

First I already talked about why at least some companies succeeded back then...

It hurt companies but because of how things were with NO INTERNET, NO INSTANT TRADING, Low numbers of physical products made and limited availability the actual amount of trading was very VERY small. You only ever traded with your local friends, To send the game to someone outside of your local friends would cost money. The few games I traded with my local friends we would all keep for years playing them, there was very few rare games we all had at the same time.

Also there was limited stock to start with and they could never make the amount of games physically available for the first 6 months to a year that are sold now digitally in a single day/week/month. depending on the game. They also could not physically make all the games needed for around the world all at once either. There was games available in the US that I could not get for months here in Canada just because they printed everything for the US first, then for Canada (which would require french on the packages for some areas) and the distribution of those games started in the bigger provinces first (I'm in the second smallest province with a population that matched its size). For other parts of the world, they would print the games over in those areas, but if they didn't it could take months just to ship the physical items from the US to other countries around the world after they were printed and they only get printed after the game went gold because there was no day 1 patch to download.


Very few stores that rented out games (at least in my area) ever had used PC games, the ones that did sold them for like 2/3 to 3/4 of the price of a new one. The few used games I bought were at the flea market and they were games I had never seen new on the shelf at the local stores and even those were still 1/3 to 1/2 of what they were in places you could buy them. These games also wouldn't show up used till years after they were released and once games started including DRM that required a check on the internet to see how many times its been installed, those used PC games stopped being sold used.

Now you can instantly send any game license to any person anywhere in the world in seconds. The person can then download the game in minutes to days for almost 0 cost (depending on where you are at and your ISP). There is an unlimited amount of games and the game developer controls the price pretty much everywhere around the world, where as in the past the stores controlled the price.

If the game developer notices that not as many games are being sold, they can put it on sale everywhere at the same time for how ever much they want.



Things back then have VASTLY changed with the introduction of the internet and fast (compared to modems) always on connections. Developers can now exercise control over the product they always had but had no ability to do so at the time.



Also again as mentioned many times, the costs and time to make a game back then was vastly different then it is today. Back then, in 6 weeks to 12 months you could not only make a game, but also get it into stores and start making money. The costs were tiny compared to todays games. It wasn't till the year 2000 when games started costing over a million dollars to make and even then lots of games lost money. From what I have read, in the year 2000, over 3000 PC games were made.... only 100 of those games actually made money. Game companies relied on 2 or 3 games making money to pay for the rest that failed. They can't do that today.

With todays games, they can take 5 to 10 years to make, need to be restarted a couple of times if the game engines change that much over that time. Can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, require teams of hundreds of people to get it out the door in that time.

With games in the past, it was usually a year or 2 before the sales of new games started to become effected by used games just because how long long it took to get the amount of games out there and because of the tiny amount of trading/reselling went on back then just because of how hard it was find people to trade/sell used games to.

With games now (and the instant trading with anyone around the world that you want), they would have a month or 2 to make back all that money and make enough of a profit to start working on their next game AND they need to keep updating their game at least for a reasonable amount of time.

After a month or so, people would then be selling the games that they bought and beat to others who know cheaper prices are only weeks/a month away so why bother buying new, specially seeing as how a used copy of a digital game is no different then a new copy of a digital game. And even if the game companies got a piece of that, it would only be a small fraction of what they would have made selling it new.

[Leo Major]

Diposting pertama kali oleh brian9824:

I'll leave this here so the OP can hopefully learn why his idea is a bad idea - https://store.steampowered.com/app/493340/Planet_Coaster/

Go look at the subscription offer for this. What the OP suggests would lead to all games adopting this model instead of being sold. You'd be paying non stop monthly subscriptions and the game itself would be free or cheap, but all the content is locked behind a subscription you can't sell or transfer.

Stop putting words in my mouth and then attacking them.

That's called a straw man argument. I don't subscribe to that model or anything else you want to put in my mouth.

I subscribe to owning your games and the right to sell them. PERIOD

[Zarineth]

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

Diposting pertama kali oleh brian9824:

I'll leave this here so the OP can hopefully learn why his idea is a bad idea - https://store.steampowered.com/app/493340/Planet_Coaster/

Go look at the subscription offer for this. What the OP suggests would lead to all games adopting this model instead of being sold. You'd be paying non stop monthly subscriptions and the game itself would be free or cheap, but all the content is locked behind a subscription you can't sell or transfer.

Stop putting words in my mouth and then attacking them.

That's called a straw man argument. I don't subscribe to that model or anything else you want to put in my mouth.

I subscribe to owning your games and the right to sell them. PERIOD

Which will lead to developers do what brian said... Or they will run away somewhere else.

And how telling you possible consequences of your bad idea "putting words in your mouth"?

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Yea do that and let valve take their regular 95% cut for selling your games and half of that goes to the dev. Just like a pawn shop that only gives you 5 cents on the dollar.

[Brian9824]

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

Diposting pertama kali oleh brian9824:

I'll leave this here so the OP can hopefully learn why his idea is a bad idea - https://store.steampowered.com/app/493340/Planet_Coaster/

Go look at the subscription offer for this. What the OP suggests would lead to all games adopting this model instead of being sold. You'd be paying non stop monthly subscriptions and the game itself would be free or cheap, but all the content is locked behind a subscription you can't sell or transfer.

Stop putting words in my mouth and then attacking them.

That's called a straw man argument. I don't subscribe to that model or anything else you want to put in my mouth.

I subscribe to owning your games and the right to sell them. PERIOD

I suggest you actually read what I wrote. Never put any words in your mouth. I pointed out that your idea would lead to developers making stuff like that the norm as they'd need to recoup the lost money somehow.

[Crazy Tiger]

Game devs/publishers were already trying to kill the secondhand market before distribution went digital. Consoles are on the same road to be digital only in the future.

Why would game devs/publishers be interested in something they actively want gone?

[Leo Major]

We should have the right to own and resell our games. The game devs took that away from us. They knew if they were transparent about not actually owning our games they would have been up front about it, but they were not they snuck it in the EULA and since it's been the norm for years now some people will just accept it, because we didn't stop buying their games and put them out of business or force them to change it back to consumer ownership. But it's not too late.

[Crazy Tiger]

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

We should have the right to own and resell our games. The game devs took that away from us. They knew if they were transparent about not actually owning our games they would have been up front about it, but they were not they snuck it in the EULA and since it's been the norm for years now some people will just accept it, because we didn't stop buying their games and put them out of business or force them to change it back to consumer ownership. But it's not too late.

That's a nice idealistic approach, but idealism rarely fits with reality.

Unless digital licensing changes, this won't change. And that's not something that easily can be changed by consumers, since it requires various other parties for such changes.

That said, there never actually has been consumer ownership in gaming. In the past with physical media, it couldn't really be enforced. But the game devs/publishers tried with their limited activation DRMs and the like.

Seriously, this is something that needs to change on the legislation side. And by the time that gets changed, since such things are slow moving vehicles, the game devs/publishers will have found another route. Making everything a subscription, for example.

Valve won the appeal in the France case about reselling. That's a sign that it certainly won't change easily.

[xdvd]

wow

[Brian9824]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Crazy Tiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

We should have the right to own and resell our games. The game devs took that away from us. They knew if they were transparent about not actually owning our games they would have been up front about it, but they were not they snuck it in the EULA and since it's been the norm for years now some people will just accept it, because we didn't stop buying their games and put them out of business or force them to change it back to consumer ownership. But it's not too late.

That's a nice idealistic approach, but idealism rarely fits with reality.

Unless digital licensing changes, this won't change. And that's not something that easily can be changed by consumers, since it requires various other parties for such changes.

That said, there never actually has been consumer ownership in gaming. In the past with physical media, it couldn't really be enforced. But the game devs/publishers tried with their limited activation DRMs and the like.

Seriously, this is something that needs to change on the legislation side. And by the time that gets changed, since such things are slow moving vehicles, the game devs/publishers will have found another route. Making everything a subscription, for example.

Valve won the appeal in the France case about reselling. That's a sign that it certainly won't change easily.

They also won the case in Germany, and multiple software companies have won it in the US. Its pretty heavily cemented in software law which is internationally agreed upon. It would require a fundamental shift in licensing law, and that would devastate the software industry.

Sadly some people don't care who else has to pay as long as they can profit from it though.

[Mad Scientist]

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

Stop putting words in my mouth and then attacking them.

That's called a straw man argument. I don't subscribe to that model or anything else you want to put in my mouth.

I subscribe to owning your games and the right to sell them. PERIOD

They're telling you the consequences of trying to push for resell; developers will simply switch to a Subscription model to ensure there's income rather than a few games being bought & resold constantly. Do note that's not a strawman nor them putting words in your mouth, it's a direct action-consequence bit.

Bad decisions have consequences, which is a big reason why these platform don't allow resell.

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

We should have the right to own and resell our games. The game devs took that away from us. They knew if they were transparent about not actually owning our games they would have been up front about it, but they were not they snuck it in the EULA and since it's been the norm for years now some people will just accept it, because we didn't stop buying their games and put them out of business or force them to change it back to consumer ownership. But it's not too late.

They never gave you that right in the first place. Physical media could be shared, often despite it being written not to, or otherwise had limitations like income and total amount of copies existing whereas digital is globally unlimited copies available. There's a huge difference between sharing as in some grade school kids, reselling an old used copy of a physical game, and a digital copy which is always in an available condition.

It's also been the norm since digital came out, let alone Steam. It hasn't been for years, it's been decades. Nor was it "snuck in", people just click "Accept & continue" without reading anything.

You're trying to make digital seem like it was like physical, it never was. Once the distribution method came out, accounts became a requirement; the use rules changed. Once DRM started becoming a thing and licenses became access to content, it became a norm.

You're not getting the ability to resell Steam games.

[Brian9824]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mad Scientist:

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

Stop putting words in my mouth and then attacking them.

That's called a straw man argument. I don't subscribe to that model or anything else you want to put in my mouth.

I subscribe to owning your games and the right to sell them. PERIOD

They're telling you the consequences of trying to push for resell; developers will simply switch to a Subscription model to ensure there's income rather than a few games being bought & resold constantly. Do note that's not a strawman nor them putting words in your mouth, it's a direct action-consequence bit.

Bad decisions have consequences, which is a big reason why these platform don't allow resell.

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

We should have the right to own and resell our games. The game devs took that away from us. They knew if they were transparent about not actually owning our games they would have been up front about it, but they were not they snuck it in the EULA and since it's been the norm for years now some people will just accept it, because we didn't stop buying their games and put them out of business or force them to change it back to consumer ownership. But it's not too late.

They never gave you that right in the first place. Physical media could be shared, often despite it being written not to, or otherwise had limitations like income and total amount of copies existing whereas digital is globally unlimited copies available. There's a huge difference between sharing as in some grade school kids, reselling an old used copy of a physical game, and a digital copy which is always in an available condition.

It's also been the norm since digital came out, let alone Steam. It hasn't been for years, it's been decades. Nor was it "snuck in", people just click "Accept & continue" without reading anything.

You're trying to make digital seem like it was like physical, it never was. Once the distribution method came out, accounts became a requirement; the use rules changed. Once DRM started becoming a thing and licenses became access to content, it became a norm.

You're not getting the ability to resell Steam games.

The rules regarding physical and digital media are also different. There is a reason why you basically see NO digital content not just games being resold.

No reselling of digital movies, books, music, etc.

[crunchyfrog]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Crazy Tiger:

Game devs/publishers were already trying to kill the secondhand market before distribution went digital. Consoles are on the same road to be digital only in the future.

Why would game devs/publishers be interested in something they actively want gone?

Precisely.

I do wish people would actually take the time to look up their claims BEFORE posting about something like this.

They'd quickly learn that right from the beginning when the very first companies that turned to games in the late 1970s started out they tried to do this.

It's as old as the hills.

[Tito Shivan]

Diposting pertama kali oleh A:

We should have the right to own and resell our games.

As an ideal. Yeah.
As a practical ability. Specially with digital it opens a can of worms the size of Pandora's box.