Sofus said:
All digital products are considered services. They are not products such as a phone or a retail game. A service cannot be refunded, returned or exchanged for something else once it has been provided. EU even forced Denmark to change the rules to the above mentionend, and unless EU changes it once more, then Valve won't be going to any court.
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that digital games are in fact products and are objects to resale, and that any seevice, providing such digital product sales, should also provide a possibility to re-sell the product you own.
In other words, you are wrong.
Falterfire said:
Used Digital still makes no sense.
Sure it does. Just because its value does not fall over time (lets face it, it does, you dont see 60 dollar 10 year old titles) does not mean you suddenly lose all rights asociated with it.
JarinArenos said:
I don't see why Valve can't just add games to their internal digital marketplace and charge users the same 30% fee that they charge developers.
Okay, that's not true, I can see lots of minor problems with this, but none that I think are insurmountable.
actually a internal steam market with small (not 30%) fee is the most realistic possibility for this to work. besides, they already got the infrastructure for it. actually the rumors are claiming that current market is a test-drive for exactly this. and as we know valve likes to test its stuff before reason before it actually does something.
lacktheknack said:
This.
Everyone keeps saying that reselling digital games is a right, but allowing it could very easily disembowel Valve. That's why you buy licenses, not products.
per The Court of Justice of the European Union you are buying products. also, was it so hard to read 1 post above you?
Credossuck said:
God.. i bought my games at 75% to 90% discounts on steam... wtf tryin to resell them seems like fckn fraud at this point....
what makes you think others are willing to pay you more than 25% to begin with? maybe they also bought at 75% discout and wont be buying for more?
SajuukKhar said:
The reselling of digital products simply makes no sense.
Reselling, trading, and all other forms of swapping, only work because, when those things were created, all products they dealt with were physical, and thus could decay, and wear down, making it to where people HAD to eventually go out and buy new versions of the product, and thus prevent infinite trading, which would destroy any and all product makers because they wouldn't be able to sell enough of their product in order to recoup initial expenses, and make a profit to spend on making more products.
Digital products however don't wear down, unless you slap some artificial decay mechanism on them, like digital books did, which people screamed bloody murder about being unfair, despite it being TOTALLY fair. So trading digital products simply isn't feasible because it would mean only one person had to buy a product ever, and then they could just trade forever with other people, and no company can survive like that.
Not being able to trade digital products is a result of them NOT being physical products, and not having the same flaws as physical products, which means they shouldn't be treated the same. You get a product that lasts forever, but at the same time can't be resold, that's the trade off, that's the balancing factor that makes digital products on the same level of fairness as physical products.
oh, another one.
Just because the product does not decay does not make it loose value. a product is ap roduct regardless of form it is in (in this case magnetic memory of hard drive). forcing people to buy new product due to forced decay is a BAD Thing. especially in a market that can only strive by creating new things and not selling same ones over and over again.
someone slapped a decay mechanism for digital books? what are they insane? how does that even come up? "ah, lets see how can we win in the competition of who makes the most stupid decision in the world".
You are ignorantly assuming only one person needs a product. what if, gasp, more than 1 person wants to have it at the same time? but no, that never occurs right? its not like people wait in lines for 8 hours to get their hands on a copy? right? maybe companies would have to, shock and horror, make products that people don't want to throw away after 5 hours? yeah, how could a company survive such harsh rules!
product flaws does not automatically create product rights. your talking out of your ass and you know it.
BigTuk said:
How much more likely is it that Valve will just block German users from buying stuff on steam? Since they are you know the country that's complaining. Seriously, this is digital people. There was a bit of a trade off when you opted for digital media as opposed to physical media.
Cheaper price (due to lower production costs)
Always available (since quantities are relatively infinite)
Ability to install or uninstall freely.
No Disk swapping.
Trade off:
Inability to resell
Seriously it's a trade off people. You can't have it both ways, because we all know that the first thing people will do is find a way to cheat it... it'll also make it that much worse if your account gets hacked, or borrowed by your flatmate.
I mean for christ sakes when you buy a game for 2.99 US you can't really sell it much cheaper than that.
can valve afford to block whole Europe? not likely. the thing woudl be is how would valve tell the game publishers like EA that they cant just buy out this court decision. imagine the shock EA would have by not getting it their way for once?
It should not be a tradeoff. not if we ever want to have a real digital market. you CAN and you SHOULD have it both ways. in the past we were limited by poor technology and that was the only real stopper. now we create artificial blocks, because someone cant buy a 4th yacht this year otherwise. wont do.
and its funny how everyone assumes that games we bought for 3 dolalrs are the only ones we want to resell and those 5 hour "wonders" that we bought for 60 dont exist right?
Catface Meowmers said:
This is clearly a case of the Old Ways vs. the New Ways.
In terms of how we've understood the concept since its inception, there's no such thing as a used digital game. The whole point of a "used product" is that it has depreciated in value, and therefore it's not the "same" product that was purchased initially.
A licensed digital copy of a game is not the same kind of "product" as anything else that gets sold "used", so the old rules do not apply. Your purchase of the game license does not affect its value or depreciate it. I don't see why this is such a big deal.
no. a used product is a product that was used. there is absolutely no requirement about value depreciation.
