Steam will have to make games resellable?

Quote from Squad

25 minutes ago, Squad said: You can resell a DVD though. Your comparison doesn't hold up.

No I think it does.

Games are software, and the EULA that comes with it states you are getting a license to use the software.

Afaik film on DVDs don’t have such a license… although they have tried to make it the same.

So yes, game keys are much more alike a film or theatre ticket than a film on DVD.

I might not like the price of things (in fact I don’t buy anything on Day1/full price) but I think it’s fair to the devs.

Dunno if I’m missing something… let me know! I’m actually very surprised to see devs siding with such a demand

Quote from blackdog

39 minutes ago, blackdog said: No I think it does.

Games are software, and the EULA that comes with it states you are getting a license to use the software.

Afaik film on DVDs don’t have such a license… although they have tried to make it the same.

So yes, game keys are much more alike a film or theatre ticket than a film on DVD.

I might not like the price of things (in fact I don’t buy anything on Day1/full price) but I think it’s fair to the devs.

Dunno if I’m missing something… let me know! I’m actually very surprised to see devs siding with such a demand

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Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not see this happen.

Does that license also apply to physical copies?

Personally, I just don't want to see the entire game industry going subscription based. There's this great model used by Serum called Rent to Own. Basically, the user pays a monthly fee for a certain time period, and then they own that version of the software. I feel this would be great for users, lowering the barrier of entry, yet the model is not as predatory as something that is subscription based. Obviously, you can't have a monthly payment system for each individual game. Maybe we can have the player pay 2$ per hour of playtime until 30 hours, and then they own the game. Thoughts?

I feel like this system is great, cause I bought PUBG for 30$, and have only 7 hours of playtime. At the same time, I have played CSGO for more than 1000 hours, and only spent 8$ on the original purchase.

Yeah, it's obvious this will just cause industry-wide shift in how pricing works, it's not acceptable to developers to completely lose control of pricing their own games. The market will be flooded with insanely discounted re-sales which the developers see $0 from.

Quote from Buddy

9 hours ago, Buddy said: Kinda sucks for the devs but I would like someone to give me a valid argument of why you can't sell a digital game that costs $60 vs a retail disc that costs $60 (in both cases its a transfer not a copy or duplicate).

???

So on paper it's similiar, but the PC market has heretofore been completely insulated from the console GameStop re-sale stuff. There's also a difference between digital items being resold and physical items being resold, such as a disc. A disc most likely isn't going to be going far from it's current location and likely not going international on re-sale, there are shipping costs associated there and currency differences. I don't know if it would be super devastating but it's hard to argue it won't hurt developers of PC games. Not remotely an expert on this, but IIRC there is already a lot of currency manipulation going on with the sale of game keys, it seems likely that would flourish in this kind of environment.

It's good for consumers in the short term who get cheaper games, but in the long run that just means worse games.

A thought on that

Quote from FMPONE

2 hours ago, FMPONE said: there is already a lot of currency manipulation going on with the sale of game keys, it seems likely that would flourish in this kind of environment.

The one good thing that would come from a used market would be the death of G2A, why would you go on there when you’d find the games on steam directly

I can already see Valve gamifying this, earn badges for every game resold etc

Quote

Quote

Buy the new version of our new game, and unlock:

• The best looking Suit
• Companion AI
• +10 equipment slots.
• Ability to have main weapon
• Vehicles
• Health packs
• Save / Load

Also with the new version you'll gain access to 28 exclusive missions, like: Actual Finale act Boss fights Tutorial*Used version of our game will only feature 3 missions, where you'll grind for XP bonus to unlock cards that give you access to tokens that will allow you to then play a bonus level.**None of the story cinematics will also be available on the used version.

The future of games is looking pretty interesting... fuck my life, this is so fucking stupid.

If this was to happen this would change the face of the industry.

This would expedite the transition towards games as a service and force companies to fiercely compete on capturing people's attention and time, since players just getting their hands on the game wouldn't be a credible way to create revenue anymore. If AAA companies didn't have their hand forced into going GAAS enough already, now they would have no other choice other in order to make the game sustainable.

Some beloved developers might still be able to rely on their community's good will to buy the game at full price or use other means of monetization, but for most it's gonna be dog eat dog. Either you have all the players either you have none. Full speculation here, but with competition getting more aggressive, you can probably forget about companies letting us share development knowledge publicly (GDC, forums like this one), as this information would then be key in making a game that stands out in this market.

Story-driven games and other genres that are at core not endlessly replayable would be forced to adopt a different strategy for recurring payment such as the Telltale episodic approach, or what have you.

With lootboxes an other forms of real money gambling already getting restricted/banned, we can likely forget that as a valid strategy in the coming years... so subscriptions -type stuff would definitely be in.

I need to spend more time and think about it, but my gut response right now is a big NOOOOOOPE.

Digital copy vs physical copy. One or them deteriorates over time, costs more to produce and takes up space on store shelves. Second hand sales of one includes shipping costs (and assumes a good condition of the item), thus limiting the amount on the market. We didn’t have indies before digital distribution for a reason. It’s not very difficult to comprehend. With games you pay for an experience that costs a ton of money to produce these days, you can’t even compare it to how things used to be.

Reading @MikeGon’s post yesterday made me think: hey, they want Steam to offer a second hand market, that doesn’t mean developers have to let that happen.

I mean, devs could DRM the hell out of their games, no? You check if is a different machine and a different Steam ID, and you don’t run the game in that case.

This just as a measure whilst GAAS systems are developed.

Quote from blackdog

20 hours ago, blackdog said: I mean, devs could DRM the hell out of their games, no? You check if is a different machine and a different Steam ID, and you don’t run the game in that case.

What's worrying about this is that it could potentially become a law. That means all digital stores would need to oblige, not just Steam. Then this could get adopted by other countries and become the new standard over time... and no, there's no going against the law

Sadly I think this battle will be hard to fight because this thing going through will likely be seen as beneficial by a lot of gamers.

Wut I can get my new games for like half the price??? Sign me the f*** in!!

Even if it's just in France at first, you can bet your *** people are gonna VPN there with a fake IP address just to save a few bucks. Some already do it with Australia to pick up games early at release day because of time zones...

Quote from MikeGon

17 hours ago, MikeGon said: What's worrying about this is that it could potentially become a law. That means all digital stores would need to oblige, not just Steam. Then this could get adopted by other countries and become the new standard over time... and no, there's no going against the law

Sadly I think this battle will be hard to fight because this thing going through will likely be seen as beneficial by a lot of gamers.

Wut I can get my new games for like half the price??? Sign me the f*** in!!

Even if it's just in France at first, you can bet your *** people are gonna VPN there with a fake IP address just to save a few bucks. Some already do it with Australia to pick up games early at release day because of time zones...

Yes I know what you mean, I know this should then roll out to every store…

(otherwise [tinfoil hat on]Epic is paying this organisation to sue Steam[/tinfoil] lol)

but the argument is that the store has to provide a way to resell games… nothing says the developer has to sell used games. I’m talking here about nitpicking the sentences like layers like to do: a comma can change the meaning of a sentence.

They could argue they (Steam) are content providers, so they are not responsible of the functionality offer by what you sell (alike when they wanted to make ISPs responsible for policing the pirate content).

I don’t like DRMs but if something like this comes to pass I’d like devs to at least try, would be a nice FU.