German group sues Valve

@fanirama You realize the money you spent on those games is a small fraction of what you would have spent on physical copies. Valve works off of a system that has low price points to increase sales. This is great for both gamers and Valve. However, if this digital reselling is allowed, Valve will take a cut in sales due to the steady reselling of copies. This will disallow for low price points and require Valve to up the price in order to compensate. It's really simple if you step back and look at the big picture without ego-centrism involved.

@fanirama So Valve should develop, test and maintain an entire system for you to sell your games on at no benefit to them? Or are you saying, you do it outside of Steam? At which point, scams are going to be huge

@jeffrobin The music industry might have gone through it with the CD's, cassettes, etc., I have no idea. but were talking about digital stuff, let's see can you resell a digital album you bought from itunes.

@luis4800

Yeah that may be, but how much has that hurt MS? not very much. They just make up the revenue somewhere else. Steam might just as well pull out of Germany. This issue is a catch 22 and if Steam must allow the resale of goods, it has to be worked out who will provide any support. If the TOS was rewritten I might jump on that bandwagon as long as I do not take a loss.

I forgot the "re" in sell.

@zzamaro This has been practiced for many years and was not thought of yesterday or today. One of the reasons the most stores will not take back opened software is the fear of the software being pirated and the person got what they needed and now wants to get their money back. So I can understand thier position in the matter. However, Steam and any other company that deals in digital software where you must need them in order to DL your game have one flaw, what happens to your purchases when they bottom up and I am not talking one game because there are people like myself that may have a few thousand or more invested. People think they are getting a physical copy only to find that you still must play through Steam, Origin, etc. So therefore in some cases and it will happen more in the future. The notion that you have a copoy and you still can play is thrown out because the files you need to play are on Steam's servers.

@zzamaro Never have I seen a comment so selfish and ridiculous. Steam is COMPLETELY 100% optional. Almost every single title is available at retail or another distributor. Noone is making you shop from Steam. So you're going to wish an entirely optional service that makes their rules and regulations perfectly clear would close because YOU don't like it. I know you're a troll but this is low even for you.

@zzamaro

Shame i can have multiple copies of my games by backing them up and i never have to worry about my connection because if you have no connection steam automatically runs offline.

And i can do that forever.

So ya....just negated your argument.

Sorry your not smart enough to get around it.

@zzamaro I partially agree with you. Games on steam should be resaleable.

Steam and Origin are both equivalent and not bad - I have about 150 games on Steam and I buy on their sales mostly now. You get great deals without the hassle of storing physical media. You can backup your Steam games to offline Harddrive to redownloading from Steam again. Go in offline mode at least once per PC and you don't have worry if Steam servers are unreachable. Saves are in the cloud and you can play on several PCs (although not at once) and resume most games where left off.

Digital conveniences however have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Yes, some games disappear (like the James Bond ones, was waiting for a sale and then boom! gone Jan 1 2013) but I'm sure you can redownload. Its just not for sale anymore. Plus you can do local steam backup anyways after one download.

But I agree with you that Steam should allow resale of games. That is a market model that is viable and existed for a long time. Lets see what happens with this lawsuit.

P.S. The other posters calling you a moron are morons themselves. Pay no heed to them.

@zzamaro You literally have no idea what you are talking about. In reply; 1. YouTube, reviews, forums etc can usually impart whether a game is worth your money or not before you buy. 2. I own 290 or so Steam games, every single one is still available to me. Even ones you are no longer able to buy. 3. That's not gonna happen in the sort of time frame where you're going to want to play anything on your Steam library to be honest. Though if this group succeeds, this day is going to come a hell of a lot quicker

@zzamaro with all the crazy sales steam does, the last thing it is is a ripoff. If you're not sure you will like a game, do some research or wait for a sale. Also steam has really helped the PC games market take off again and appear relevant to publishers.... that said uplay and origin are a virus.

@Virtual_Erkan Terrible point. $50 games are sold on Steam for $5. That is 10% of the original market value. Steam is great for gaming, and undeserving of these attacks.

@ccagracing "how come new releases on digital distribution are usually more expensive than online or even retail outlets"

*citation needed* No really, it's DEFINITELY needed. I have never ever seen a new game on Steam that cost MORE than it does in a shop for a hard copy. Ever.

@Heshertonfist The fact they are German probably factors into quite a lot too.

@everyday182 TOS also says it can be amended to be legally binding, which is where that ruling on used digital games comes into play. Since they were ruled legal in Europe, Valve can't stand in way of them, unless they be breaking the law. I just wished they targeted Origin first, and possibly shut down online passes. Anyway, this ruling may help protect retail protects for those who can't seem to get good internet connections, which is one good thing that can come from it.

@everyday182 Thankfully a country's consumer laws trumps EULA's. I'm far more interested in a courts ruling on these cases, than blindly accepting everything a company throws in their EULA's.

@CincoToes i think the difficulty is more in there being no universal agreement on how to treat digital media which is the problem, while digital game sales have been around for a lil bit, its a fairly new practice, guess this is going to go back and forth until they reach some middle ground. As for anal probes, i somewhat doubt that will hapen, though the enforcement of such would at least create new jobs, (allways a bright side to things lol)

@CincoToes you re-state a sensible opinion and responded with a crazy one but you cant tell the difference could you? your daily insanity drugs must be running low.

@CincoToes You seem a little paranoid, friend. Here, take this. *hands over a tinfoil hat*

@wiouds "A European court ruled last summer that content creators can't prohibit post-purchase redistribution of work, no matter what end-user license agreement says."

@RockySquirrel Not me.Not all are with Gabe.

I'm neither for nor against Gabe Newell and his corporation. He and his corporation exist because of us, not vice-versa. I couldn't care less who he is nor what he has achieved (albeit I know what he has done), but what rights I have on the games sold through his or other equivalent platforms like Origin.

Buying games on sale doesn't mean anything for the ownership/resale part. Don't kid yourself into thinking Gabe cares about you. He doesn't care about you, but he cares about Valve continuing to exist and make profits

@exedeath In all fairness, if you bought a game and found out it was atrocious, then that's not Steam's fault. Not to be rude, but it's yours, for not doing your homework before you threw money at it. And when there has been a case of actual fraudulent advertising, such as with WarZ, Steam offered refunds. Steam isn't accountable for your lack of judgement--nor should they be.

@exedeath it is PC games you cant resell PC games no where i know of has bought used PC games for over 10 years so you are demanding that digital games do something you cant even do with the physical games.