Rentable Digital Video-Games

[Active Hoper]

Lately, I've been engaging with my local libraries more often, with one of the ways that I've been doing that being the simple borrowing of video-games from them. A title that I recently borrowed is Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, which impressively allows the player to nearly seamlessly switch between its old and new visual styles - a feature that's been pleasantly advanced from Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Yet, it lacks that balance between preservation and modernization in other areas, as seen with its absence of optional settings for auto-savings, creating an unnecessarily forced punishing atmosphere and an uneven experience.

I likely wouldn't have played and subsequently shared my thoughts on that game were it not for the ability to freely experience pieces of art these libraries provide me with. Libraries have their limits, though. They only provide physical titles, excluding a vast amount of digital-only video-games from being experienced with as much ease. That's where places like Steam can step in.

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for, say, $4.99, with games at that price or cheaper than it by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it, or a rough adaptation of rental models from other industries' digital storefronts, can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

[Start_Running]

Always good to note that 'any reason' doesn't apply here.
The reasons for revocation are also set out in the EULA.
Generally speaking. Fraud. Illegal sale. and breaking the EULA terms in a particularly egregious manner.

[Nx Machina]

Messaggio originale di Active Hoper:

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for $4.99, with games at that price or cheaper than it by default remaining unable to be rented.

Valve does not get to decide as they do not own the ip to those 3rd party games. The developers publishers decide as to what happens with their product and not just on Steam but any other platform they put the game on. They want to re-coup their losses from development etc.

It is simple mathematics for developers, publishers if they have their own platform.

1 million copies at $60 per copy = $60 million.

1 million copies at $4.99 for 14 days = $4,990,000 (a loss of $55,010,000)


If your boss decided he was going to pay you only an eighth of your wage per month for the same workload i can guarantee you would object.

As for your suggestion: Valve ‘more than happy’ to help Microsoft bring PC Game Pass to Steam - Valve has no plans for an Xbox Game Pass competitor

You are aware on Gamepass beyond the Microsoft Studio Games all other games are voluntarily put on there, it is not, i want to play game X why is it not on GamePass.

[Start_Running]

Rental works best when you have limited inventory. When you have unlimited.

[Crazy Tiger]

Renting physical games has a benefit for a library. Renting digital games doesn't have the same benefit for a digital game store. Different services with different purposes and different types of products. Not comparable.

The comparison to movies and tv shows is wonky as well. Different industries with different commercial models. Again not comparable.

I get that you want things on the cheap, OP. That doesn't actually sound like a compelling reason for a change, though. You just have to wait for a good sale like everybody.

[Piston Smashed™]

Years ago I tried to get Blockbuster to rent out PC games because they did PlayStation etc but they wouldn't because even back then they knew people would just rip the games and add a crack, allowing them to gain a game for next to nothing. So, there's no way they are going to do it these days with there being so many more PC gamers than back in the late 90's early 00's.

[Ettanin]

You want to rent games? Why?

Save up some cash, then purchase once you have enough cash. There. Rented for a lifetime.

[BJWyler]

Messaggio originale di Active Hoper:

Messaggio originale di Gwarsbane:

For one thing, by the time a movie/tv show is up for renting, most have already made back the money it costs to actually make the movie.

Second, movies and shows are very limited in how long they are.

There is another issue with rentals of movies/tv shows most you can only play them 1 or 2 times and thats it.

There is also the fact of have you see the cost to "rent" a digital movie? Its pretty much the same cost as buying the blu-ray/4k which is the same cost as getting a subscription for 2 to 4 months.

These are differences, but you did not explain how they are differences that prove how renting cannot become an industry standard for digital video-games.

Because renting is a supplemental income for the Movie and TV industry, and not even a big part of the supplemental sources that they have. There is a reason that Blockbuster went out of business. There's a reason that 9 out of 10 people only think of Netflix as a subscription based streaming service, when they were the ones that practically invented the online renting industry. And let's also remember the reality of the situation - movies and TV have a much broader and wider customer base than gaming does. A big summer movie will sell in excess of tens of millions of tickets. A successful Triple A game is looking at about 1 million copies sold. That's a huge business difference.

A gaming developer does not have supplemental sources of income they can rely on. Unit sales of their games are the sole means of income. So when you make a rental service that brings the default value of their game down by several percentages, you have an unsustainable business model. That's something that would be taught in the first two weeks of a basic Business 101 course. Why buy a game for $60 or $70, when you can spend $5 and complete the game within the timeframe provided for the rental and move on to the next? Even if someone really liked a game and wanted to play it again, they would have to rent it out at least 12 times to reach the same amount of income as a one and done sale. The chances of that ever happening are going to be far too slim to make up the difference.

I get it. You and thousands of others don't want to pay premium prices for a premium entertainment product. You think that devs shouldn't be paid for the work they do, and that games should just be handed out to whoever wants them because of the feels gaming gives you. You somehow think that devs are magically immune to needing to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. But that's not reality.

If you want cheap games, there are plenty to be had during the regular sales events and there are plenty of legitimate third party key sellers that sell keys to games at reduced costs. But if you simply want to rattle the tin cup with a business idea that certainly has no plausible foundation in the reality of the industry, then you are going to be outta luck.

[Ben Lubar]

There's a huge number of very high quality video games that are absolutely worth your time that don't cost anything at all to download.

[Tito Shivan]

Devs purposelly killed the possibility to rent games.

Messaggio originale di MonkehMaster:

no thanks, we are already basically renting.

No you aren't.

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Rental works best when you have limited inventory. When you have unlimited.

"Sorry but we're out of copies of RDR2 for rent, Maybe you can try playing "Ted Dead Recursion 2: Reloaded" instead? Plenty of copies available.

[Crashed]

We already have subscription rental - https://store.steampowered.com/subscriptions/ea

[Jackie Paper]

Chatgpt much?

[Active Hoper]

Messaggio originale di Piston Smashed™:

Years ago I tried to get Blockbuster to rent out PC games because they did PlayStation etc but they wouldn't because even back then they knew people would just rip the games and add a crack, allowing them to gain a game for next to nothing. So, there's no way they are going to do it these days with there being so many more PC gamers than back in the late 90's early 00's.

Platforms like Apple TV and Apple Music have protections set in place that are meant to prevent the pirating of titles. Though probably not perfect, they are apparently good enough for those platforms to be offered on PC. Protections on Steam, which do not impede players' abilities to continue to take screenshots and record videos, could be bettered to prevent the piracy of games with a hypothetical rental option in mind.

[Crazy Tiger]

"Could be". sure. Is it compelling, though? No.

[Mad Scientist]

Messaggio originale di Active Hoper:

Platforms like Apple TV and Apple Music have protections set in place that are meant to prevent the pirating of titles.

About as effective as most; very little protections.

Messaggio originale di Active Hoper:

Though probably not perfect, they are apparently good enough for those platforms to be offered on PC. Protections on Steam, which do not impede players' abilities to continue to take screenshots and record videos, could be bettered to prevent the piracy of games with a hypothetical rental option in mind.

If you want rental only, get ready to have to use cloud gaming where you won't be able to get anything on your pc that resembles a game.

[Gwarsbane]

Messaggio originale di Active Hoper:

Messaggio originale di Piston Smashed™:

Years ago I tried to get Blockbuster to rent out PC games because they did PlayStation etc but they wouldn't because even back then they knew people would just rip the games and add a crack, allowing them to gain a game for next to nothing. So, there's no way they are going to do it these days with there being so many more PC gamers than back in the late 90's early 00's.

Platforms like Apple TV and Apple Music have protections set in place that are meant to prevent the pirating of titles. Though probably not perfect, they are apparently good enough for those platforms to be offered on PC. Protections on Steam, which do not impede players' abilities to continue to take screenshots and record videos, could be bettered to prevent the piracy of games with a hypothetical rental option in mind.

No... its not perfect at all, not even close because within an hour or 2 shows on apple TV are on pirate sites.

You need to remember something, if it can be programmed, it can be hacked. It doesn't matter what OS they are on.

Denuvo, which is suppose to be one of the best DRMs to prevent copying of the games, survived for a little while but then got broken and now games are up on pirate sites, sometimes before they are even released officially or at least within hours of being released officially.

They tried changing it and within a few days it was broke again. Basically they have to come up with a whole new DRM from scratch for it to be effective again... but again it won't last long. Maybe a year or 2 at best... then after that, they might as well start from scratch again.

So relying on any kind of DRM to prevent the games from being pirated when rented is not a good idea.