While the UK High Court is busy banning piracy sites, the French High Court has just finished up another battle within the gaming industry. The French High Court has just ruled that Valve must make some drastic changes to their digital games storefront, Steam, stating that all French users must be allowed to resell their digital games. The legal dispute was led by the French consumer rights association, the UFC Que Choisir, who initially filed the lawsuit against Valve back in 2015. As it stands currently, purchases made on Steam are tied to your account, and once redeemed, cannot be resold--only refunded under certain circumstances.

The court ruled that not allowing for consumers to resell their digital library goes against European law, and that Valve has 30 days to comply, or will risk a daily fine of 3,000 Euros for up to six months, until a change is made. Valve, not pleased with the ruling, has decided to appeal the decision, with a representative claiming, "We disagree with the decision of the Paris Court of First Instance, and will appeal it. The decision will have no effect on Steam while the case is on appeal".

Previously, Valve dealt with an Australian legal battle, in which the courts ruled that Valve must implement a refund policy, which it appealed, and then lost against. A year after, Steam added a refund policy for games purchased on the storefront. Should Valve's appeal be dismissed, it could also open the gates to other digital storefronts being investigated, fined, and forced to add a method of reselling their digital titles.

Source

 

[Kioku]

So like things were for the decades before Valve et al decided to artificially close off the second hand market?
What a horror.

Yes, because Valve introduced DRM to prevent people from selling their games as a working product. Makes perfect sense. I still don't understand your seething bias against Steam.

 

[Uiaad]

Yes, because Valve introduced DRM to prevent people from selling their games as a working product. Makes perfect sense. I still don't understand your seething bias against Steam.

HAHA - It is merely the ecosystem of valve there have been attempts to stop people selling media for years before Steam, if you go back to the small print on some older VHS and Betamax tape there was small print on them saying that they couldn't resell them blah blah blah, do you think that this was taken any notice of ? No, the only reason it has been this far successful for steam is that there hasn't been the facility there to do it.

 

[FAST6191]

Yes, because Valve introduced DRM to prevent people from selling their games as a working product. Makes perfect sense. I still don't understand your seething bias against Steam.

My immense dislike for Steam is them being a monopoly (though that is a measure of right place, right time), this stuff with the artificially hobbling the second hand market (which also means delisting is a thing we get to take note of), them acting as gatekeepers for things other than malware (they claim they are not any more but I have not seen anything push the boat out yet).
The second hand thing though is what has always got my goat

 

[Viri]

Hey guys, wanna trade some Steam games with me?

 

[Ev1l0rd]

if as an Italian citizen I manage to violate the law in Switzerland or the USA and make it out of the country (for example by speeding in front of a radar, which takes at the very least a few days to get processed) I may be fined and later wanted for arrest for failure to pay the fine, but unless I stepped on their territory again they would be unenforceable - and this being a digital service makes "entering the border" much easier to conceal or outright avoid

I mean, bad example since you're an individual and we have extradition treaties through the EU with the USA and Switzerland iirc. The reason I didn't bring those up is because I'm not sure if they apply to fining businesses.

 

[crabycowman123]

Something I haven't seen people bring up in this thread: the ability to resell games/accounts means even games that have been taken of the store can still be legally obtained by people who never bought the game when it was in the store. For example, if this was applied to the Nintendo eShop, I could buy a third and fourth copy of Four Swords Anniversary Edition and play with four players instead of two.
That said, I don't think companies should be forced to add new systems (i.e. a resale system) to allow users to sell their games, but rather they should be restricted from banning or otherwise harming consumers because of attempted resale of games (e.g. by selling one's account).
I'm not sure about the specifics of the ruling, but my understanding is that they just can't prevent sales, not that they have to permit them via a store of some kind, which I think it fine.

 

[UltraSUPRA]

If this goes through and spreads across the pond, I might end up giving up my ways of piracy.




Who am I kidding. Physical copies of Earthbound and MegaMan X3 are ludicrously expensive, and repros are piss-easy to make.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

The license you pay for is basically a permission to use something, it's non-transferable for many reasons. It's like saying that because you bought an album on iTunes you are allowed to resell it to someone else, basically a roundabout way of paid piracy if you think about it, since the creator of the item in question doesn't make anything from said resale. Physical products are different because you pay for the product directly, not a license, so people need to stop confusing the two.

As for the "it's on Valve to regulate" BS, no it's not, you can't expect them to regulate every single transaction among the largest playerbase in the world just because you say so, it's not their responsibility. Also, if this actually becomes a thing, you can kiss discounts goodbye forever, almost all games will be full priced at 60€ and there won't be ANY free giveaways anymore, which will pretty much kill anything relating to selling media licenses online, be it for games, movies, music, anime, books, etc. and will affect EVEN storefronts like GOG despite it selling games directly instead of just a license. If you think selling the stuff in your library is worth never having any discounts again and all storefronts eventually shutting down because people will stop paying for games and just pirate everything (which means less money goes to devs and less games are made on top of that), then go ahead and support this nonsense.

Have to disagree here. If you sell the game, the license will probably be revoked. Theres nothing wrong with being able to resell digital products if the license you hold is voided after. It will have no effect on piracy and it's not analogous to paid piracy, unless you're allowed to keep the license, which probably wouldn't happen. Even if the seller then downloads a cracked version it's still very different because them playing a cracked version has nothing to do with selling the game, other than it not being in their possession anymore.

 

[Voyambar]

My immense dislike for Steam is them being a monopoly

Better than EGS iirc

 

[OperationNT]

I hope this French law will be finally applied: there is no reason that digital copies doesn't follow the same ruled as physical market; when you buy something, you should always truely own it...
Unfortunatly, 3000 euros/day is nothing for Steam so they will probably pay the fee and the law will never be applied...

 

[huma_dawii]

I'm not really sure if I think this is silly or not.
I would like to know why they think it violates their laws though.
Being able to transfer your license to someone else would be nice though, but what's stopping everyone from endlessly swapping games out

Same for physical media... is up to the USERS.

 

[Mythical]

It's not the same though, you can give that to anybody around the world willy nilly, compared to a physical game where you need to physically make a transaction or send it in the mail.
I don't think it's a bad idea necessarily. I just feel like if it goes through it won't be handled well by storefronts.
Also you're essentially buying the license on their terms (tos, eula, and such)

 

[FAST6191]

It's not the same though, you can give that to anybody around the world willy nilly, compared to a physical game where you need to physically make a transaction or send it in the mail.
I don't think it's a bad idea necessarily. I just feel like if it goes through it won't be handled well by storefronts.
Also you're essentially buying the license on their terms (tos, eula, and such)

And the advent/rise to popularity of of ebay et al meant I was no longer restricted to adverts in the local paper, yard sales, car boot sales, church rummage sales, school, work, or selling it/trading it to the local game shop (who themselves maybe only had slightly bigger reach -- national redistribution or stock awareness took a while to spin up) for a pittance. Instead I can sit here stark bollock naked on a mobile phone and have the package company deliver me an addressed envelope, get me to chuck the game in and seal it before taking it away with them if I so desired.

Similarly there are terms in agreements that are voided by courts if they are encountered in otherwise legal contracts -- you can't agree to be my slave if I fix your porch for instance, even if we get the agreement formally drawn up, notarised and filed with a good place to file contracts with. Most courts thus far anywhere people would likely care to live have agreed that you can't forgo resale rights (Foxi4 already referenced several cases here from various places), and even then the items in question might not be subject to recovery (there was a nice US supreme court case a while back for printer toner cartridges I think it was) and the people selling it would be the ones that they get to go after if they even can.

 

[pcwizard7]

value and the other platforms don't want people to be able to resell their games because it would cause sales to drop. since atm people must buy their games new at full price.

also, imagine if this went though for everywhere since with digital games condition isn't a factor what would this do for the price of games excluding new releases of course?

 

[FAST6191]

also, imagine if this went though for everywhere since with digital games condition isn't a factor what would this do for the price of games excluding new releases of course?

Is condition much of a factor in time periods the game companies likely care about? I dare say I would put a decent chunk of change on the "loss" of games to the available sales pool is significantly less for condition related things than it is people just chucking them in a box in the attic or literally throwing them out (spurned lovers and bored mothers, even more so if they are theoretically rich*, chuck out just as much as they sell to me for next to nothing/far less than "normal" sources charge)

*having seen what goes in university towns as well with stuff essentially being left then there is also that.

That said I would like some kind of equation for what goes here. Condition a non factor, supply essentially worldwide and trivially so, delisting being the only thing to really lower potential supply and most times we only see that for licensed works (though this can rise to include the likes of car games**), not sure what form delivery would take or how hard transfer would be, the "I'm supporting the devs" factor in all this, possibly said devs reacting by making newer bundles (or bundles of old game + new one) more attractive in some manner***, possibly some devs messing with the market (sale because my dice came up 4 today, oh look the price is less than the second hand price), the usual split between maximum return and time waited for this (someone having to make rent/loan payment/whatever vs someone waiting for a nostalgic guy in a year or so), time also being a thing****, and back to the worldwide thing then ease of picking it up tomorrow (many games I like are somewhat rarer to come across in the real world so if I see a game I want in real life then there is a decision of whether it is there and then as I might not be able to come back, though at the same time the places I go to are usually cheaper than anywhere else by virtue of it not being gamers that are doing it).

**wonder if we will see licensed gun models trouble something at some point.

***for most they would likely think so much DLC like we have seen in gold editions for decades on the PC, however you know it will include some borderline economy breaking amount of microtransaction in game currency.

****there is always something new to play and while games are ageing better than they once did, I can't play N64 games now for instance even if I can play the same game when it got remade for a later console, they are not as ageless as music, films, books and maybe TV (the TV golden age this last however many years, also indy films having what was once high end gear to do things that only studios could consider years before and studios not being able to compete on spectacle.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm sorry, but this thread is essentially yet another case of the peasants defending the feudal lord, lol. This is great news, I hope this law goes through (and maybe it could incite other countris to go in this direction as well)

 

[MasterZoilus]

Go ahead, enforce these laws. It will be obsolete in 5-10 years when all games are streamed from servers and you never "own" the games Think of it like, can you resell your Netflix movies?

Yepp you're 100% spot on! Streaming games WILL be how it will be. There's waaaaay to many benefits for Sony, MS, Nintendo, game studios...etc NOT to adopt the stadia model. Not only will it just pretty much ending piracy but ending the used games sales market which companies can't make a dime off of and since the 1970's have lost TRILLIONS in potential profits when ALL is added up.... yeah this is gonna be a short lived subject. But I doubt 5yrs. I'm guessing 10-15yrs.

 

[FAST6191]

but ending the used games sales market which companies can't make a dime off of and since the 1970's have lost TRILLIONS in potential profits when ALL is added up

Is that like the trillions I "lost" by not playing the lottery and not working 100 hour weeks in a finance firm? Or perhaps that nobody gave me for no real reason other than I am a sort of likeable person.

If we can imagine money/profit as we dance through the land of faeries then why am I not god king of mankind as I am that rich?

Long before software left the hardware* it was on we had rulings that intellectual property rights did not trump resale rights, every ruling since up to this very day has affirmed the right to resell on a wide variety of things and nobody seems to be able to make a case why software in this instance should be an exception.

*I would say long before we had software but Babbage and Ada Lovelace arguably did something there, and at the more philosophical level there is a lot of maths that broaches the area even if it is run on wetware.

 

[Captain_N]

Go ahead, enforce these laws. It will be obsolete in 5-10 years when all games are streamed from servers and you never "own" the games Think of it like, can you resell your Netflix movies?

This guy knows whats up. the goal is to have the consumer own nothing. They they can keep selling the same thing over and over. The smart ones will pirate the shit and store it on their own streaming servers lol.

 

[FAST6191]

The smart ones will pirate the shit and store it on their own streaming servers lol.

That would likely take some serious skills, serious effort in recreation, or breaking into a server to grab a copy there and hoping your local PC is powerful enough for it.

Though if you want real fun