Steam Rental Program

[FafnirChaos]

I'm just going to put this here:

Have a Service so that people can Rent games so they can try them out for a day or two.

- Have Achievements Locked during that rental service.
- At the end of the rental Agreement, all save data will be deleted, and you lose access to the game.
- Have the rental agreement were it could not be extended - so that people could not abuse that system, unless they want to spend more money then what the game cost.

While we do have a 2 Hour window refund policy - That requires you to pay full price for a game or wait for a deal - that can also abused by developers knowing about 2 hour window - along with demos.

Having a limited time full access to a game allows you to make a better informed decision on whether or not you want to purchase that game.

That also prevents players from abusing the refund system - who just want to try out the game themselves - or end up accidentally going over the two hour mark.

This is how it was done in my day - It worked great back then - don't understand why we don't have that today.

Edit: Any short length games would NOT be able to be in this service, and would only be part of the refund system - 2 hours is more then enough for a short game.

[FafnirChaos]

1: The casual market is extremely unstable - Developers make games for that market free to play for that given reason - Anybody outside that market is just going to buy the game - whether its on sale or full price. Also because of how unstable they are, they could be hyped for one game - then another game gets announced which burns the thunder of the first one.

2: I've already mentioned that in my original post.

3: They can make those saves based upon the license agreement, so every time you rent the game it will come with it's own license rendering any save completely useless.

[FafnirChaos]

Also I couldn't give 2 F's what the publisher wants - They want my money they better make sure they make good games.

[Start_Running]

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Escrito originalmente por Brian9824:

I played and beat Divine Force, shaders took about 15-20 minutes and then the game worked fine. Never had that made up hour and a half to figure out how to get it to work.

Dev's already have options to do free weekends, or even to give you a 5, 10 hour demo, or more if they want. The thing is they don't, because they WANT you to buy the game. Often people are hyped for a game, then once they get it, can play it for a few hours that hype goes away making them more likely to wait for a sale or a discount before they buy.

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

You're right.
But it is also optional.
I mean you can't do what you like with someone else's inventory.
That's illegal unless you have been granted explicit permission by the owner of that inventory.
SO Dev/pubs have the choice as to whether or not they want to rent their games through STeam, or sell them. Or both, or neither.


So as said. The feature. Literally already exists.
What you need to do is talk to dev/puibs and convince THEM of the beneefits of using the rental system.

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Anyways this is only one part of the problem. I have yet to hear a good argument against a Rental service.

About 15 years too late for arguments against the service since Valve already implemented it.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Start_Running:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

You're right.
But it is also optional.
I mean you can't do what you like with someone else's inventory.
That's illegal unless you have been granted explicit permission by the owner of that inventory.
SO Dev/pubs have the choice as to whether or not they want to rent their games through STeam, or sell them. Or both, or neither.


So as said. The feature. Literally already exists.
What you need to do is talk to dev/puibs and convince THEM of the beneefits of using the rental system.

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Anyways this is only one part of the problem. I have yet to hear a good argument against a Rental service.

About 15 years too late for arguments against the service since Valve already implemented it.

I'm generally curious - Do you have a link for that, I'm trying to find this.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Start_Running:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

You're right.
But it is also optional.
I mean you can't do what you like with someone else's inventory.
That's illegal unless you have been granted explicit permission by the owner of that inventory.
SO Dev/pubs have the choice as to whether or not they want to rent their games through STeam, or sell them. Or both, or neither.


So as said. The feature. Literally already exists.
What you need to do is talk to dev/puibs and convince THEM of the beneefits of using the rental system.

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Anyways this is only one part of the problem. I have yet to hear a good argument against a Rental service.

About 15 years too late for arguments against the service since Valve already implemented it.

Anyways I fail to see how it would effect the inventory - when people can just refund games, and get their full amount back. - It actually gives some income - as opposed to none at all.

37 Million people at a 5 dollar rental is a lot of money - I get that it's an extreme - however people who do not buy every game that comes out, will at least have an option to try it for a day or two.

[Piston Smashed™]

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Escrito originalmente por Brian9824:

I played and beat Divine Force, shaders took about 15-20 minutes and then the game worked fine. Never had that made up hour and a half to figure out how to get it to work.

Dev's already have options to do free weekends, or even to give you a 5, 10 hour demo, or more if they want. The thing is they don't, because they WANT you to buy the game. Often people are hyped for a game, then once they get it, can play it for a few hours that hype goes away making them more likely to wait for a sale or a discount before they buy.

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

You may have had a faster experience with the shader compile - however some people with a weaker CPU was still doing that almost an hour after the initial launch. - This is also 100% bias, as it was only you who experienced that - If everyone's system was the exact same I would agree. Were not on consoles here.

Anyways this is only one part of the problem. I have yet to hear a good argument against a Rental service.

Actually I can confirm that Brian wasn't the only one who experienced 15-20 minutes to compile the shaders for Divine Force as it took me around the same time to compile them. People should make sure their PC is up to the games requirements so that any problems like compiling shaders is done within a reasonable time frame. I seen folks who were complaining it took over an hour and more but then when they post their PC specs they didn't even meet the minimum requirements.

Even Blockbuster wouldn't do PC rentals back in the day and they could have done with the extra income, even though you could rent console games. It's not a good idea and it isn't needed. If you want to test a game out get the demo if there is one, if not check YouTube or anywhere else for more information on the game in order to make a decision on whether or not to buy the game. I would say wait for a decent discount as that's always good practise if you don't want to pay full price and it gives you plenty of time to find the relevant information on a game.

[Mad Scientist]

Id rather play a demo, watch a livestream, gameplay review, stuff like that. While some sort of rental program may be a neat concept, its ease of abuse especially for unprotected games would be a very large issue that would contribute to the illegal activity networks, so likely that would involve some sort of "super drm" to ensure nothing could be copied and once hitting limitations/expiration that all the files would be digitally shredded to the point of being well beyond recoverable.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Piston Smashed™:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

You may have had a faster experience with the shader compile - however some people with a weaker CPU was still doing that almost an hour after the initial launch. - This is also 100% bias, as it was only you who experienced that - If everyone's system was the exact same I would agree. Were not on consoles here.

Anyways this is only one part of the problem. I have yet to hear a good argument against a Rental service.

Actually I can confirm that Brian wasn't the only one who experienced 15-20 minutes to compile the shaders for Divine Force as it took me around the same time to compile them. People should make sure their PC is up to the games requirements so that any problems like compiling shaders is done within a reasonable time frame. I seen folks who were complaining it took over an hour and more but then when they post their PC specs they didn't even meet the minimum requirements.

Even Blockbuster wouldn't do PC rentals back in the day and they could have done with the extra income, even though you could rent console games. It's not a good idea and it isn't needed. If you want to test a game out get the demo if there is one, if not check YouTube or anywhere else for more information on the game in order to make a decision on whether or not to buy the game. I would say wait for a decent discount as that's always good practise if you don't want to pay full price and it gives you plenty of time to find the relevant information on a game.

\
PC games were different - you had to install them, and that could have easily been pirated - with a huge loss of sales.

Consoles games were cartridge based - so even if you played the game, you couldn't copy it, and you're saves were on the cartridge - so the minute it went back - you wouldn't know if your save file would be there the next time you played it - and would have been better to buy the game outright.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Mad Scientist:

Id rather play a demo, watch a livestream, gameplay review, stuff like that. While some sort of rental program may be a neat concept, its ease of abuse especially for unprotected games would be a very large issue that would contribute to the illegal activity networks, so likely that would involve some sort of "super drm" to ensure nothing could be copied and once hitting limitations/expiration that all the files would be digitally shredded to the point of being well beyond recoverable.

I'm not one to say I would have the solution to that - however I have mentioned that the licensing could be tied to saves themselves - like our accounts are tied to our saves - The could just be dumped from the Cloud and used - and then deleted off your system once the game shuts off - or gets nullified on the cloud after the licensing agreement is over.

Just one idea.

[Piston Smashed™]

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Escrito originalmente por Piston Smashed™:

Actually I can confirm that Brian wasn't the only one who experienced 15-20 minutes to compile the shaders for Divine Force as it took me around the same time to compile them. People should make sure their PC is up to the games requirements so that any problems like compiling shaders is done within a reasonable time frame. I seen folks who were complaining it took over an hour and more but then when they post their PC specs they didn't even meet the minimum requirements.

Even Blockbuster wouldn't do PC rentals back in the day and they could have done with the extra income, even though you could rent console games. It's not a good idea and it isn't needed. If you want to test a game out get the demo if there is one, if not check YouTube or anywhere else for more information on the game in order to make a decision on whether or not to buy the game. I would say wait for a decent discount as that's always good practise if you don't want to pay full price and it gives you plenty of time to find the relevant information on a game.

\
PC games were different - you had to install them, and that could have easily been pirated - with a huge loss of sales.

Consoles games were cartridge based - so even if you played the game, you couldn't copy it, and you're saves were on the cartridge - so the minute it went back - you wouldn't know if your save file would be there the next time you played it - and would have been better to buy the game outright.

You could actually rip the console games even if they were on cartridge if you had the right equipment and programs and things certainly got a lot easier when games came on discs.

[Tito Shivan]

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

But the game being in top shape isn't a guarantee for purchase, and the rental profit is always less than the sale one so... Why put that effort to begin with?

[Start_Running]

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Anyways I fail to see how it would effect the inventory - when people can just refund games, and get their full amount back. - It actually gives some income - as opposed to none at all.

Inventory, as in the goods one has to perform business. Stock, Goods, Inventory. They mean the same thing to a business.

The licenses you buy do not belong to Valve. They belong to the dev/pub. Thusly, Valve cannot do anything with them that the dev/pub does not explicitly authorize.

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

37 Million people at a 5 dollar rental is a lot of money - I get that it's an extreme - however people who do not buy every game that comes out, will at least have an option to try it for a day or two.

36 million making full purchases is alot more money.
See how that works?
Again you'll have to convince dev/pubs that they'd make more money renting than selling.
Then they'd use the rental system STeam ALREADY HAS built into it.

A couple already do make use of this.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Piston Smashed™:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

\
PC games were different - you had to install them, and that could have easily been pirated - with a huge loss of sales.

Consoles games were cartridge based - so even if you played the game, you couldn't copy it, and you're saves were on the cartridge - so the minute it went back - you wouldn't know if your save file would be there the next time you played it - and would have been better to buy the game outright.

You could actually rip the console games even if they were on cartridge if you had the right equipment and programs and things certainly got a lot easier when games came on discs.

There was no control over the home consumer - at that time you could swap stickers on cartridges and send them back to the store. On here were steam is can be controlled - I'm not saying I have all the solutions, however the potential is there.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Start_Running:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

Anyways I fail to see how it would effect the inventory - when people can just refund games, and get their full amount back. - It actually gives some income - as opposed to none at all.

Inventory, as in the goods one has to perform business. Stock, Goods, Inventory. They mean the same thing to a business.

The licenses you buy do not belong to Valve. They belong to the dev/pub. Thusly, Valve cannot do anything with them that the dev/pub does not explicitly authorize.

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

37 Million people at a 5 dollar rental is a lot of money - I get that it's an extreme - however people who do not buy every game that comes out, will at least have an option to try it for a day or two.

36 million making full purchases is alot more money.
See how that works?
Again you'll have to convince dev/pubs that they'd make more money renting than selling.
Then they'd use the rental system STeam ALREADY HAS built into it.

A couple already do make use of this.

I asked for a link to that, and you still haven't provided it - I looked on google, and all I get is that steam doesn't have a rental service.

also I already mentioned not everybody buys every game that comes out - a licensing agreement can be made like any contract.

[FafnirChaos]

Escrito originalmente por Tito Shivan:

Escrito originalmente por FafnirChaos:

The Rental service is middle ground option - Developers and steam will take a profit from that service - However if developers want that bigger purchase, make sure your games are in tip top shape.

But the game being in top shape isn't a guarantee for purchase, and the rental profit is always less than the sale one so... Why put that effort to begin with?

This is my whole point - if a game is in top shape and people rent it, and really enjoy it - they can buy it instead of continuing to rent it.