Valve Triumphs Over German Consumer Group

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Damn it Germany. You're meant to be cool.

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

Please explain. Last I checked it is still a service for buying games that has massive sales occasionally. Any 'loss of quality' is only addition of bad content, but that doesn't take away from the core service.

 

[Magmarock]

Damn it Germany. You're meant to be cool.

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

Please explain. Last I checked it is still a service for buying games that has massive sales occasionally. Any 'loss of quality' is only addition of bad content, but that doesn't take away from the core service.

Well Steam kind of suck for anyone living outside the US and Canada. On top of that, while I'm not expecting every game to be perfect and sure you'll always end up with some stinkers. Steam just seems to have lost all sense of quality control.

Some games they sell don't even work because they haven't been patched which in my opinion should be illegal to sell without some sort of refund policy in place.

finally there's DRM now I have a great internet connection, but it still bothers me that Steam has more control over my games then I do.

 

[Vigormortis]

Okay, no, you cannot use triumph for the friggin' bad guys. This is not a triumph, anymore than Hitler's invasion of Poland was a triumph. It's a gorram travesty.

From zero to Godwin in under 1.5 pages. Impressive.

If there's one thing the Escapist community does well it's hyperbole.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On a side note, even though I've had to say it way too many fucking times, I'm going to repeat it again:

When you buy a game from Steam (or most DDs), you own the game. All the EULAs and TOSs in the world can't change the fact that you have your own copy of the games files stored locally. EA, Valve, CD Projekt, and the rest can't break into your home, into your computer, and take those file back.

Now, if you're so incredibly stupid, ignorant, and irresponsible as to not bother downloading, storing, and creating backups of any and all games you buy from DD services the moment you make your purchase, then...well...

Then you deserve to have those games taken away, quite frankly.

 

[Strazdas]

Question: can you resell your game? If the answer is anything but yes, it's not a sale, it's a rental at best. For that matter, have you ever read those EULAs? They're basically 10 pages of "you are not buying this game, you are renting it." Except they use the legalistic term of "licensing." A rental is just a specific kind of license to use, which EULAs effectively fall under.

Yes, under current laws i can resell the game and steam is technically holding my game hostage agaisnt the law.
EULAs are not legal documents. They are void in any legal dispute because they were not actually signed (pressing i agree doesnt count as signing in legal matters), and if they would be, you must sign it BEFORE the purchase to it have any legal meaning.

Vast majority of the sales happen because people think it's a good price for the game but only end up buying something they don't like. This is far to common on Steam and there are a lot of people who just haven't touched most of their games.

People buying things they dont like or need? And we should all suffer because there steam profits from idiots?

The difference with selling other stuff is that they wear and tear. PC games do not. You can't keep reselling a car as it'll break down, it'll get worse over time and it'll become a risk to drive. A PC game will be the same after the last patch no matter how long it's passed.

This is meaningless when talking about any product that isnt physical. Like, you know, movie distribution rights, that are being resold on regular basis. and it will become more and more irrelevant as 3D printers get popular.
And its not even true, have you ntoiced all those people complaining about lack of backward compatibility?

Gigantic playlist is a problem for a lot of people. I read about users whining like little babies about a random free weekend game show up in their play list. If they can trim off the stuff they do not like they will do that.
They will also sell them for lower than what the store offer.

just checked, free weekend stuff does not appeal on the list, sounds like a bug to me, fair for complaining.
like i siad, categories fix this problem, and if people really dont want thier games anymore they should just get rid of them (as in sell them, donate them, what have you). Oh, wait, they cant.

Indie games are specially in for a whole lot of trouble. Humble Bundle will practically kill the income of any Indie developer that joins it because they buy the game for a penny and then sell them for half the current price on Steam store.

Because people buying it on humblebundle certainly does not undercut steam price? for indie games visibility is priority number one, and that would only increase visibility.

But this is just to show you how much their stores where able to take away from game developers. Now think about Steam with 6-7 million active users doing it in ONE store.

they are not "taking away" from developers. they are taking away from users by underpaying them and then selling the used games at new game price. your point seems to argue that it somehow destroys developers, except that is not true in every other product we create.

All of those things can be worn out. They are not in unlimited amount. Costs to ship and so much more. Video games on Steam does not do any of that.

yes they do. Compatibility issues with new hardware and OS can easily account for degradation (there are games that literally refuse to run on modern hardware, for example Scarface). There are also shipping costs, the costs of holding a server for the transfer. Yes, they are lower, and that is GOOD, because that means the user spends less to trade in the market. I can perfectly understand steam taking a 10% cut of every resale for keeping the marketplace up or something like that. This has worked in the past.

If you want to kill the PC gaming market.

you are yet to prove that it would do so. and if PC market providing same legal rights to consumers as every other market would kill it, its not a healthy market now is it.

But Half-Life 2 still goes on sale from time to time and it will sell copies. If the user market pushed it down to below a dollar Valve would be losing out on a lot of sales for it.

Im sure Half-ife 2 has turned a profit now. I dont see a problem with this.

But if VAC bans are by account you'll have these cheaters buying VAC banned games on a new account and cheat again. It is amazing how you can not think of the problems with this.

And they will get VAC banned again.
and how is that different from, say, making new account and buying that game now?

But if there is a law that prohibit you to sell MMORPG every developer would build their game so that it acts like a MMORPG and then can't be sold off. Because you'd basically be selling the free account you signed up for.

nothing prevents me to sell a MMORPG. i can take a disc from WOW and sell it to somone, and he would have WOW.
besides, only 1 MMO managed to get away with pay for the disc and pay for subscription and didnt recieve a massive "why are you robbing us" backlash so far and thats WOW. many others tried and failed. ESO is also trying but its too early to tell yet.

Agree or disagree with this decision, the simple fact is being able to trade games on steam would force them to raise prices for longer.

quite the opposite. That would force them to lower the price to compete with resellers.

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

This is simply false. I have been using steam since its "Beta" days in 2003/2004 (granted with breaks because at one point i just told it to fuck off and deleted it and actually lost that account too). and oh boy how much better it is than it was a decade ago, you wouldnt believe in the tales i can tel you.
And there will be no "next crash".

When you buy a game from Steam (or most DDs), you own the game. All the EULAs and TOSs in the world can't change the fact that you have your own copy of the games files stored locally. EA, Valve, CD Projekt, and the rest can't break into your home, into your computer, and take those file back.

Now, if you're so incredibly stupid, ignorant, and irresponsible as to not bother downloading, storing, and creating backups of any and all games you buy from DD services the moment you make your purchase, then...well...

Then you deserve to have those games taken away, quite frankly.

We deserve to have games taken away by not creating our own "pirated" copies of games that in most countries is still actually illegal? (i know some countries got laws and even special taxes to compensate the authors that enable one to make a backup copy, but in most it is still illegal to copy it to the point of if you scratch the CD too bad buy another one).
Yes, we are incredibly stupid that we do not break the law to make an illegal copy of a game that we own anyway and dont only because illegal action from Valve.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Question: can you resell your game? If the answer is anything but yes, it's not a sale, it's a rental at best. For that matter, have you ever read those EULAs? They're basically 10 pages of "you are not buying this game, you are renting it." Except they use the legalistic term of "licensing." A rental is just a specific kind of license to use, which EULAs effectively fall under.

Yes, under current laws i can resell the game and steam is technically holding my game hostage agaisnt the law.
EULAs are not legal documents. They are void in any legal dispute because they were not actually signed (pressing i agree doesnt count as signing in legal matters), and if they would be, you must sign it BEFORE the purchase to it have any legal meaning.

Vast majority of the sales happen because people think it's a good price for the game but only end up buying something they don't like. This is far to common on Steam and there are a lot of people who just haven't touched most of their games.

People buying things they dont like or need? And we should all suffer because there steam profits from idiots?

The difference with selling other stuff is that they wear and tear. PC games do not. You can't keep reselling a car as it'll break down, it'll get worse over time and it'll become a risk to drive. A PC game will be the same after the last patch no matter how long it's passed.

This is meaningless when talking about any product that isnt physical. Like, you know, movie distribution rights, that are being resold on regular basis. and it will become more and more irrelevant as 3D printers get popular.
And its not even true, have you ntoiced all those people complaining about lack of backward compatibility?

Gigantic playlist is a problem for a lot of people. I read about users whining like little babies about a random free weekend game show up in their play list. If they can trim off the stuff they do not like they will do that.
They will also sell them for lower than what the store offer.

just checked, free weekend stuff does not appeal on the list, sounds like a bug to me, fair for complaining.
like i siad, categories fix this problem, and if people really dont want thier games anymore they should just get rid of them (as in sell them, donate them, what have you). Oh, wait, they cant.

Indie games are specially in for a whole lot of trouble. Humble Bundle will practically kill the income of any Indie developer that joins it because they buy the game for a penny and then sell them for half the current price on Steam store.

Because people buying it on humblebundle certainly does not undercut steam price? for indie games visibility is priority number one, and that would only increase visibility.

But this is just to show you how much their stores where able to take away from game developers. Now think about Steam with 6-7 million active users doing it in ONE store.

they are not "taking away" from developers. they are taking away from users by underpaying them and then selling the used games at new game price. your point seems to argue that it somehow destroys developers, except that is not true in every other product we create.

All of those things can be worn out. They are not in unlimited amount. Costs to ship and so much more. Video games on Steam does not do any of that.

yes they do. Compatibility issues with new hardware and OS can easily account for degradation (there are games that literally refuse to run on modern hardware, for example Scarface). There are also shipping costs, the costs of holding a server for the transfer. Yes, they are lower, and that is GOOD, because that means the user spends less to trade in the market. I can perfectly understand steam taking a 10% cut of every resale for keeping the marketplace up or something like that. This has worked in the past.

If you want to kill the PC gaming market.

you are yet to prove that it would do so. and if PC market providing same legal rights to consumers as every other market would kill it, its not a healthy market now is it.

But Half-Life 2 still goes on sale from time to time and it will sell copies. If the user market pushed it down to below a dollar Valve would be losing out on a lot of sales for it.

Im sure Half-ife 2 has turned a profit now. I dont see a problem with this.

But if VAC bans are by account you'll have these cheaters buying VAC banned games on a new account and cheat again. It is amazing how you can not think of the problems with this.

And they will get VAC banned again.
and how is that different from, say, making new account and buying that game now?

But if there is a law that prohibit you to sell MMORPG every developer would build their game so that it acts like a MMORPG and then can't be sold off. Because you'd basically be selling the free account you signed up for.

nothing prevents me to sell a MMORPG. i can take a disc from WOW and sell it to somone, and he would have WOW.
besides, only 1 MMO managed to get away with pay for the disc and pay for subscription and didnt recieve a massive "why are you robbing us" backlash so far and thats WOW. many others tried and failed. ESO is also trying but its too early to tell yet.

Agree or disagree with this decision, the simple fact is being able to trade games on steam would force them to raise prices for longer.

quite the opposite. That would force them to lower the price to compete with resellers.

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

This is simply false. I have been using steam since its "Beta" days in 2003/2004 (granted with breaks because at one point i just told it to fuck off and deleted it and actually lost that account too). and oh boy how much better it is than it was a decade ago, you wouldnt believe in the tales i can tel you.
And there will be no "next crash".

When you buy a game from Steam (or most DDs), you own the game. All the EULAs and TOSs in the world can't change the fact that you have your own copy of the games files stored locally. EA, Valve, CD Projekt, and the rest can't break into your home, into your computer, and take those file back.

Now, if you're so incredibly stupid, ignorant, and irresponsible as to not bother downloading, storing, and creating backups of any and all games you buy from DD services the moment you make your purchase, then...well...

Then you deserve to have those games taken away, quite frankly.

We deserve to have games taken away by not creating our own "pirated" copies of games that in most countries is still actually illegal? (i know some countries got laws and even special taxes to compensate the authors that enable one to make a backup copy, but in most it is still illegal to copy it to the point of if you scratch the CD too bad buy another one).
Yes, we are incredibly stupid that we do not break the law to make an illegal copy of a game that we own anyway and dont only because illegal action from Valve.

In a sane country with sane laws you'd be right. Unfortunately Germany, up to now one of the most sane of all when it comes to that area of the law, just disagreed with you.

 

[Vigormortis]

We deserve to have games taken away by not creating our own "pirated" copies of games that in most countries is still actually illegal? (i know some countries got laws and even special taxes to compensate the authors that enable one to make a backup copy, but in most it is still illegal to copy it to the point of if you scratch the CD too bad buy another one).
Yes, we are incredibly stupid that we do not break the law to make an illegal copy of a game that we own anyway and dont only because illegal action from Valve.

Creating backups is NOT illegal. In fact, many of the DD clients in question; notably Steam; have utilities built into the client that give the users everything they need to make backups.

If you can point me to legitimate laws or legislation that actually, specifically prohibits the creation of backups, then I will stand corrected.

Otherwise, I stand by my earlier post.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

We deserve to have games taken away by not creating our own "pirated" copies of games that in most countries is still actually illegal? (i know some countries got laws and even special taxes to compensate the authors that enable one to make a backup copy, but in most it is still illegal to copy it to the point of if you scratch the CD too bad buy another one).
Yes, we are incredibly stupid that we do not break the law to make an illegal copy of a game that we own anyway and dont only because illegal action from Valve.

Creating backups is NOT illegal. In fact, many of the DD clients in question; notably Steam; have utilities built into the client that give the users everything they need to make backups.

If you can point me to legitimate laws or legislation that actually, specifically prohibits the creation of backups, then I will stand corrected.

Otherwise, I stand by my earlier post.

Well, there's the DMCA. It only allows backups if you don't have to circumvent any form of DRM to make them, because Hollywood paid some good bribes that year -- er, I mean made some campaign donations.

 

[Magmarock]

This is just getting too much Steam's quality has declined drastically over the last decade and will probably contribute heavily to the next crash.

This is simply false. I have been using steam since its "Beta" days in 2003/2004 (granted with breaks because at one point i just told it to fuck off and deleted it and actually lost that account too). and oh boy how much better it is than it was a decade ago, you wouldnt believe in the tales i can tel you.
And there will be no "next crash".

Okay you got me at the Steam being better now then then, but it's gotten a lot worse since I started using it. Steam used to sell games at $50 now it's $80 and above.

Along with the influx of unfinished games and what will be an influx of Steam machines, I am more convinced then ever the next major crash will happen before 2014 is over. It won't kill the industry no, but it will result in job losses and studio closes.

 

[Signa]

But if VAC bans are by account you'll have these cheaters buying VAC banned games on a new account and cheat again. It is amazing how you can not think of the problems with this.

And they will get VAC banned again.
and how is that different from, say, making new account and buying that game now?

Because right now, the banned player will still have to buy a new copy. If used games were allowed, then he could pay himself to get unbanned. There would be literally no down side to getting banned, because you could just keep moving your game to the next account. There might be a chance of Valve taking a cut of the sales if resales were set up, but 15% of the cost of the game is FAR better than 100% of the cost. Hell, he could sell it for $.01 and Valve wouldn't be able to take a percentage of the sale, because it's too small of a number.

Look, I'm all for consumer rights too, but the other guy was right, you're not thinking this through. There's too many problems with allowing resales in a digital world. I hope that one day someone will figure out a way to allow it, but that time isn't now with the current laws, and Valve's current marketplace system isn't the place for it.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

Score one for Valve.

This sounds like praise. Is this even a good thing that has happened?

 

[Zukabazuka]

Score one for Valve.

This sounds like praise. Is this even a good thing that has happened?

How often do you hear companies praise Second hand market? Never. How would they react when the biggest digital market would be forced to allow resales of games you own? How would you split the money or would they even do that?

So if this came in to place there would be games for less price than the steam price, there would be a lot of them and it would last a long time. Think how much money they actually lose if this is put in.


So why would a company decide to put their game on sale after this? A lot of those games would end up on second hand market after you beaten the game. Which in return would give less profit because people would ALWAYS check that section first. How often would you allow a game to be resold? It never breaks. You bring up that it would be compatible issues with new softwares? Guess you been living under a rock because every time there is a new OS for Windows a lot of companies releases a patch for their game to work on it. Most companies does this.

As for this being done in retail is different, its local only. For steam its International. 5-6million active people per day for steam and increasing too. All those games in a single place. You can bet the income for most companies would go down once this come out.

So yes this is a good thing that happen.

 

[Vigormortis]

Well, there's the DMCA. It only allows backups if you don't have to circumvent any form of DRM to make them, because Hollywood paid some good bribes that year -- er, I mean made some campaign donations.

Except that....the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup as illegal. It's primary purpose is to set down (occasionally vague) rules against circumventing DRM services. And, in a few amendments to the law, has even created a number of exemptions in regards to computer software and video games. Notably: that users have the right to actually circumvent DRM systems in certain situations.

And again, as I'd said prior, many of these DD services have built-in utilities for creating backups. Something they wouldn't have if they didn't want users to make backups nor if creating backups was illegal.

 

[Vigormortis]

Because right now, the banned player will still have to buy a new copy. If used games were allowed, then he could pay himself to get unbanned. There would be literally no down side to getting banned, because you could just keep moving your game to the next account. There might be a chance of Valve taking a cut of the sales if resales were set up, but 15% of the cost of the game is FAR better than 100% of the cost. Hell, he could sell it for $.01 and Valve wouldn't be able to take a percentage of the sale, because it's too small of a number.

Look, I'm all for consumer rights too, but the other guy was right, you're not thinking this through. There's too many problems with allowing resales in a digital world. I hope that one day someone will figure out a way to allow it, but that time isn't now with the current laws, and Valve's current marketplace system isn't the place for it.

Wow. Nice to see a few people who actually appreciate how convoluted a problem this whole affair is.

I've been getting really sick of most people saying either, "The systems fine, let it go." or "Just allow everything, including resales, because that'll fix all the problems."

No. Neither of those will do anything but fuck up an already awkward situation.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Well, there's the DMCA. It only allows backups if you don't have to circumvent any form of DRM to make them, because Hollywood paid some good bribes that year -- er, I mean made some campaign donations.

Except that....the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup as illegal. It's primary purpose is to set down (occasionally vague) rules against circumventing DRM services. And, in a few amendments to the law, has even created a number of exemptions in regards to computer software and video games. Notably: that users have the right to actually circumvent DRM systems in certain situations.

And again, as I'd said prior, many of these DD services have built-in utilities for creating backups. Something they wouldn't have if they didn't want users to make backups nor if creating backups was illegal.

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

 

[Vigormortis]

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

I don't disagree that it is a terrible law. I'm emphatically in agreement with you on that bit.

However, the law does allow for the circumvention of DRM systems, given certain mitigating criteria are in effect.

For example, this amendment that relates to video games:
Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. (A new exemption in 2010.)

Regardless, my previous point was, if people are going to buy games from DD services, then they need to take some amalgam of responsibility for those purchases.

Creating backups is one way of doing this.

Even so, there are still some very serious and convoluted issues facing the video gaming industry, digital distribution, consumer rights, and patent/copyright laws.

Certainly more serious and convoluted than what was being addressed in the lawsuit mentioned in the news item. I think that we can both agree on.

 

[Zefar]

People buying things they dont like or need? And we should all suffer because there steam profits from idiots?

Except you want the gaming market to die and all the sales on Steam. Not too fond of that.

This is meaningless when talking about any product that isnt physical. Like, you know, movie distribution rights, that are being resold on regular basis. and it will become more and more irrelevant as 3D printers get popular.
And its not even true, have you ntoiced all those people complaining about lack of backward compatibility?

People have made fixes to most of those things. But those really old things ain't worth playing anymore.

just checked, free weekend stuff does not appeal on the list, sounds like a bug to me, fair for complaining.
like i siad, categories fix this problem, and if people really dont want thier games anymore they should just get rid of them (as in sell them, donate them, what have you). Oh, wait, they cant.

People don't want to categories stuff, people don't want to just use installed list and people are real picky about these things. I've read plenty of topics about it and people do care. They will sell away stuff they don't play anymore.

Because people buying it on humblebundle certainly does not undercut steam price? for indie games visibility is priority number one, and that would only increase visibility.

The difference is now they got a legit way to sell ALL and I mean ALL of those extra copies on Steam. Indie games will die the moment they are put on Indie Bundle because after that you'd get them dirt cheap from Steam market.

they are not "taking away" from developers. they are taking away from users by underpaying them and then selling the used games at new game price. your point seems to argue that it somehow destroys developers, except that is not true in every other product we create.

Game goes on sale = People buy from the Steam store and Developer gets money.

Used game sale = People buy from other users constantly = No money to Developers.

How is this not obvious to you? :/ Like really?

yes they do. Compatibility issues with new hardware and OS can easily account for degradation (there are games that literally refuse to run on modern hardware, for example Scarface). There are also shipping costs, the costs of holding a server for the transfer. Yes, they are lower, and that is GOOD, because that means the user spends less to trade in the market. I can perfectly understand steam taking a 10% cut of every resale for keeping the marketplace up or something like that. This has worked in the past.

Yea Steam taking the money will surely help the Game developers right? If anything Game Developers should take a cut from it.

you are yet to prove that it would do so. and if PC market providing same legal rights to consumers as every other market would kill it, its not a healthy market now is it.

You're letting gamers decide the price of things. They don't care all that much about the money as it'll only be on Steam.
There is a reason why Dota2 items go down like mad. Because there are a ton of them on the market. The same thing will happen every game in large numbers. EVERY single game. Doesn't matter which one it is.
People already trade certain high ranked games for low priced games because it's seen as a better deal.

Im sure Half-ife 2 has turned a profit now. I dont see a problem with this.

That is not the point. It'll make it worthless to put on sale and it'll show Valve and any other Developer that if they put their game on sale it'll go down to that price on the market.

And they will get VAC banned again.
and how is that different from, say, making new account and buying that game now?

Wow, just wow. You're lacking so much foresight it makes it impossible for you to predict stuff.

foresightnothing prevents me to sell a MMORPG. i can take a disc from WOW and sell it to somone, and he would have WOW.
besides, only 1 MMO managed to get away with pay for the disc and pay for subscription and didnt recieve a massive "why are you robbing us" backlash so far and thats WOW. many others tried and failed. ESO is also trying but its too early to tell yet.[/quote]
He would just have a CD of WoW. He needs an account that has a paid subscription on it in order to play it. He can not re use the same CD key you used. So you've basically scammed the guy out of money. Are you for real with these comments?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Check again, the DMCA doesn't consider creating a backup illegal, but it does consider circumventing DRM, for any reason including to create a backup, illegal. That's one of the many reasons it's such a horrendous law. Hollywood pays good bribes -- er, makes big donations -- though, so it is the law.

I don't disagree that it is a terrible law. I'm emphatically in agreement with you on that bit.

However, the law does allow for the circumvention of DRM systems, given certain mitigating criteria are in effect.

For example, this amendment that relates to video games:
Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. (A new exemption in 2010.)

Regardless, my previous point was, if people are going to buy games from DD services, then they need to take some amalgam of responsibility for those purchases.

Creating backups is one way of doing this.

Even so, there are still some very serious and convoluted issues facing the video gaming industry, digital distribution, consumer rights, and patent/copyright laws.

Certainly more serious and convoluted than what was being addressed in the lawsuit mentioned in the news item. I think that we can both agree on.

I didn't realize an amendment had been added in 2010. As the law was written and passed in 1998, there was a wholesale ban on cracking DRM of any sort, even to make an otherwise legal copy. Even the exemption you quoted says it's only to check the DRM for security flaws, presumably so they can be fixed. There's also some unwritten exemptions that were put in there by the supreme court when they ruled jailbreaking iPhones to be legal. That entire are of the law is a mess.

 

[Karadalis]

Ah yes... remember when people started reselling their used cars? Totaly crashed the car industry.

And what about people reselling their furniture? Completly ruined IKEA i tell you.

Or how it destroyed pretty much any other industry where people resell what they bought... the whole world is in shambles i tell ya!

All they need to do is put a non trade period for the first three months or so after a games release in place and after that offer a marketplace where they can take a cut of the profits from any transactions and they would still make profits hands over heels.

What do you know? Problem solved. Oh and dont tell me the masses would actually wait for the non trade period to pass... doesnt work that way... if no one buys that game during the non trade time.. there wont be anyone available to sell said game for cheaper.

Also the masses never wait... a dog will store sausages for harder times before gamers wait for their anticipated games.

The mistake people allways make when it comes to reselling games is that somehow a resold game means a lost sale for the Publisher/developer when the person buying a used copy would have never bought the game for the original price anyways. They allready profited once from the original sale, they have no business demanding to profit from every resale. Used sales have not pushed down the sales numbers of Console games in the last 20 years.

Dead space sold 5 million times... you really think used games had a negative impact on that number?

 

[AuronFtw]

What have you done Valve to deserve such loyalty from fans and the industry. it's been over a decade since Steam was started and I don't think it's even fair to call Valve a games company anymore.

1. Not lie to customers.
2. Take customer suggestions and complaints to heart, and work hard to address them (offline mode, and now game/library sharing) showing that their words and their actions are honest and pure (as far as any for-profit company can be).
3. Work with indie developers to catapult that entire style of game production into the limelight, getting many great indie games the publicity and public awareness they would not have otherwise had.
4. Offer massive sales at a time when no other company was doing that. A lot of people try to point out that other sites like GMG and gog exist, but they are newcomers and lightweights compared to valve - especially their sales being anything good. Once valve started the trend of ridiculously good winter and summer sales, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Valve did not do it to "compete" with those companies, since they were relatively meaningless at the time... and most still are.

The list goes on. Compare valve to any other company and you have to be seriously delusional to think they're worse in any way. I mean, you COULD go with EA and their origin "service," but...

it's been over a decade since Steam was started and I don't think it's even fair to call Valve a games company anymore.

I sort of agree with you here. The unique style of company management (ie no set positions, no set team structure) allows for greater creativity when it comes to making games, but it also allows the company to absolutely fail at timely releases. Even back when Valve was "a games company" they had problems releasing shit on time. It was high quality, no doubt about that, but it was often delayed by weeks/months.

I think that mindset has sort of seeped over into their other projects. Steam earns them a lot of cash, so they put a lot of focus on it. That leads to less focus being put on games... and the byproduct of that is they've gone years without a serious release. L4D2 was glorified DLC of L4D1, Portal 2 was probably the only thing they've put actual effort into (aside from ruining hat fortress 2). It's been years since half life 2, so long that I'm not even expecting a sequel anymore. While all that's sad, I honestly think it's a small price to pay given how much trust I have in the company on the whole if they want to dedicate their time to making a DRM/distribution service that's actually good. There are thousands of great games already available; more than most people can get through in a lifetime. If valve stops making games and instead makes the best distribution network for games we've ever had, is that really so bad, on the whole?

 

[Vigormortis]

I didn't realize an amendment had been added in 2010. As the law was written and passed in 1998, there was a wholesale ban on cracking DRM of any sort, even to make an otherwise legal copy. Even the exemption you quoted says it's only to check the DRM for security flaws, presumably so they can be fixed. There's also some unwritten exemptions that were put in there by the supreme court when they ruled jailbreaking iPhones to be legal. That entire are of the law is a mess.

Yep. They add, remove, or reinstate amendments to the law every 3 years. (Coincidentally, that's also the interval in which some amendments require a renewal to stay in effect)

And there are some amendments and certain portions of the law that allow for circumvention of a DRM system in the event that such a system stops working or blocks use of legally procured software.

It's a gray area, in the end, but there is legal precedent for someone not only legally creating backups of their games from DD services, but also legally circumventing these same services should they become inoperable or inaccessible. This could even include, given the vagueness of that particular portion of the law, circumventing the DRM system in the event of an account ban.

Regardless, the law needs either to be repealed or seriously overhauled. Especially in today's digital environment.