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Valve and game developers have a bit of a fight on their hands here, with a French court ruling that Valve should allow users to re-sell their digital games.

Reported by the French website Next Inpact, the French consumers group UFC Que Choisir had a victory against Valve as French courts have ruled against them on the topic of reselling digital content. From what I've read and tried to understand, the courts have basically said that when you buy something on Steam it is indeed a proper purchase and not a subscription.

Valve has been ordered to pay damages at €20K plus €10K to cover some costs. On top of that, they will also have to publish the judgement on Steam's home page (presumably only for users in France) and for it to remain visible for three months. If they don't, they will get a fine for each day of €3K. To Valve though, that's likely pocket change. The bigger issue though, is how other countries inside and outside the EU could follow it.

Speaking to PC Gamer who got a statement from Valve, they are going to fight it. Of course they will though, they could stand to lose quite a lot here and it would set a pretty huge precedent for other stores like GOG, Epic, Humble, itch and all the rest.

There's a lot to think about with this situation. Valve could end up changing the way they deal with this, just like they did with the nicer refunds option which came about after legal issues too. Imagine being able to sell and transfer a game over to another Steam user. Valve could take a cut of that most likely too.

Something to think on there is how this could affect game developers too, I'm all for consumer rights but I do try to think about all angles. We could end up looking at higher prices overall, no release day discounts, more micro transactions, more games updated as a constant service, games that require an online account as a service so you're not paying for an actual product and so on as developers try to keep more income when many smaller developers are already struggling.

Interesting times.

Hat tip to Nibelheim.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, Steam
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179 comments
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g000h Sep 19, 2019
For those thinking this will be a good thing for DRM-Free Gaming: I think the opposite - This will push all new commercial games to become purely rental titles, i.e. You can download the game for free, but you won't be able to play it without a subscription. DRM-Free games will just be for free gaming (i.e. where no money is paid for the game title). Commercial game developers won't be releasing DRM-Free any more.

The effect of enabling game reselling on the gaming market could lower profits for many companies to such an extent that they go out of business (bankruptcy) or there isn't sufficient profit to release game titles any more (so those developers would not even create their game titles). As the gaming market currently stands, many developers struggle to make a profit / break even - This law change would make it harder.


Last edited by g000h on 19 September 2019 at 11:10 pm UTC
mylka Sep 19, 2019
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: mylkasoo i gonna make some epic accounts and then i sell the free games i got.....

another good point, we can forget about free keys!

but you could sell your games and maybe you get games cheaper

it has its pros and cons

maybe valve and co charges us for each download. 1cent/GB or sth like that


Last edited by mylka on 19 September 2019 at 11:11 pm UTC
Shmerl Sep 19, 2019
Quoting: g000hFor those thinking this will be a good thing for DRM-Free Gaming: I think the opposite - This will push all new commercial games to become purely rental titles, i.e. You can download the game for free, but you won't be able to play it without a subscription.

I can see some publishers reacting to this, by only selling games where you can't download actual games (i.e. Stadia). Essentially DRM on steroids. And this really "fixes" their worries about illegal reselling part. Transferring something like Stadia game access is trivial and the original user loses access as soon as it's transferred.

However I don't think it fixes their worries about total number of sales going down. Imagine someone playing a game, and then selling it to others, who are buying from such people instead of the store directly. The bottom line would be less sales for the store and developers.


Last edited by Shmerl on 19 September 2019 at 11:15 pm UTC
Koopacabras Sep 19, 2019
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: mylkasoo i gonna make some epic accounts and then i sell the free games i got.....

another good point, we can forget about free keys!

but you could sell your games and maybe you get games cheaper

it has its pros and cons

maybe valve and co charges us for each download. 1cent/GB or sth like that

Imagine the ruling comes to effect, now only the french ppl can sell their free copies they got from humble bundle. That would really unfair.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 19 September 2019 at 11:15 pm UTC
Zelox Sep 19, 2019
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but games you buy on steam and other platforms aren't like real physical purchases. You are buying a licens to be able to play a certen game on steam, battle net or any other game platform. The only exception here is gog I guess. And I don't think I like to be able to buy a game from another user. Is there a discount? And why so? There is no physical damage to that licens.

So it is indeed a proper purches.... of a licens. To me this is just dump and make no sence.


Last edited by Zelox on 19 September 2019 at 11:23 pm UTC
Shmerl Sep 19, 2019
This whole "license" thing is messed up. What you are buying are files. Something that contains digital goods. Attempts to frame it as "licensing" are just dumb methods to reduce user's rights.

However, the problem is in the nature of digital goods themselves. Once you have the result, it costs practically nothing to reproduce it. Question is, how to make this whole model sustainable. I.e. developers make a game, and they need to have certain number of sales to make profit. If this idea of reselling will make it a lot worse for them - they might go bust altogether. May be it won't though. It's up to the user, whether they'll prefer to support those developers, or buy a "used" copy (even though there is no idea of "used" in digital sense).


Last edited by Shmerl on 19 September 2019 at 11:23 pm UTC
mylka Sep 19, 2019
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: mylkasoo i gonna make some epic accounts and then i sell the free games i got.....

another good point, we can forget about free keys!

but you could sell your games and maybe you get games cheaper

it has its pros and cons

maybe valve and co charges us for each download. 1cent/GB or sth like that

Imagine the ruling comes to effect, now only the french ppl can sell their free copies they got from humble bundle. That would really unfair.

it would be EU law, so the whole EU can resell games
i mean i also can sell my DVD, Book, or anything else

as i said.... pay for the download

i am thinking of google.... they need more money for stadia, but now i could sell all my games there and someone can play the game without giving google any money
Nibelheim Sep 19, 2019
If someone interested, there is the full court ruling available here : (in french ofc) :
https://cdn2.nextinpact.com/medias/16-01008-ufc-que-choisir-c--valve.pdf
Koopacabras Sep 19, 2019
This of course means more microtransactions more dlc's more pay as you go...Or they could make all their games with a season pass model. The free base game would be tradedable as you like, but to play it you would have to get a season pass. That would be an elegant way for the developers to get away with it.

and noboby will pay anything for something that is free.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 19 September 2019 at 11:42 pm UTC
herbert Sep 19, 2019
oh my... I saw so stupid comments I don't know where to start...

QuoteValve and developers will be more profitable to abandon the entire French market
France is like their 7th market, how this could be more profitable?

QuoteI see many devs including Ubisoft leaving France, losing hundreds of jobs just because people want to resell a game they get for 15$ for 5$ bucks.

If a second hand market would crash a business, we will not even have cars... There are many reasons to leave France as a company, like taxes, strong social laws, etc., so just don't say anything you don't know about.

QuoteThis will hurt everyone.
Too many arguments I don't know what to say...
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