German Court Forbids Resale of Valve Games 261
sfcrazy writes "A German court has dismissed a 'reselling' case in favor of Valve Software, the maker of Steam OS. German consumer group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv) had filed a complaint against Valve as Valve's EULA (End User License Agreement) prohibits users from re-selling their games. What it means is that German users can't resell their Steam Games."
Correct Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
The correct headline would be:
German court refuses to force Valve Steam to allow resale of games
Too complicated?
Re:Bad ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
Game theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading an analysis a while back that actually does a bit of economic/game theory on this, and he found that forbidding resale actually has positive benefits for the *consumer*. Part of his analysis was looking at prices between console games, resellable computer games, and games bought via services like Steam. More specifically, he looked at games with online-playing modes that require servers.
What he found is that with resellable games, gaming companies typically only got that 'first bite' and continued play was essentially free through quite a number of customers. Remember that places like gamestop will buy the old games for a song, and sell them for almost as much as a new game.
With games that can't be resold they're able to price the initial game lower, and keep the profit flowing in. It removes places like gamestop from the equation(so they hate it, of course). Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.
Roughly speaking, the results were that new game consumers don't pay any more(the new game is slightly cheaper, on average, by about the same amount as what they'd be able to sell it to gamestop for), used game consumers don't pay more, and the studios get more money vs resellers, increasing their profits and encouraging more/bigger games.
Re:Hmm? (Score:4, Insightful)
it is impossible to resell, since I'm renting the game, but never "own" it.
Indeed. I think Steam should stop using the word Buy (which they currently do).
but if Steam goes down the path of DRM
Steam has been DRM since before Half-Life 2.
Re:Game theory (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.
Why on Earth would they do anything else? They're businesses, not charities! It isn't extra profit, it's simply the maximum profit they can make!
Re:Bad ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it isn't "fraudelent advertising".
Not trying to troll or anything here, but you seem to share a common misunderstanding with the rest of the world. In the hopes of not getting modded down into oblivion, let me try to explain what is going on. And let me be clear that I don't necessarily support this model, I am just the one who risks his karma and dares explain it a bit better... :-)
You do actually buy something - but not "the game" as such. You buy a license. After you have purchased that license, it is yours. You can use it, or leave it idle somewhere, or burn it, or use it as toilet paper. The license does not give you copyright of the product; but you are free to use the license as you see fit, within the restrictions and rights granted to you in that license... and subject to local laws (which in some cases may expand your rights and in some cases limit it further).
This is in line with pretty much every other "license" in life; including licenses not related to software. A license is society's way of grating you certain rights in a limited fashion and it is used for a gazillion things other than software. You can be "licensed" to produce pharmaceuticals. Or fly an airplane in public airspace. Or recycle waste subject to strict environmental laws.Or carry a firearm. Or drive a car!
Since car analogies are the big thing in IT lets stick to that :-) You can "buy" a drivers license from a local driving school, but you are unable to "resell" that to another person, and you are bound by the terms of the license. You can't drive however you please either. You must follow certain ruled and protocols while driving (restricting the use of your car when operating it). If you loose its physical representation (the drivers license plastic/paper card itself) you are still considered to be "licensed" by the issuing state or country. You may get a small ticket for not being able to produce the little card, but that is not the same as "driving without having a drivers license". A drivers license is in many ways (but not all obviously) a good analogy for a software license. Both grant you certain rights but subject to a number of restrictions. Both are "personal" and cannot simply be passed on to other people. Neither of them are "physical"; they are both tied to your person in an immaterial fashion. Any physical object representing them merely serve as easy/convenient proof that you hold a license - the physical object is not the license.
While you have "purchased" your drivers license from the local driving school, that have not engaged in "fraudulent advertising" if they have used the words "buy" or "purchase" or "OMG get your licenze here for peanutz". But roughly the same condition apply to your drivers license as to a software license. There are many restrictions on how you can use the license, and if you give it to another person that does not in fact grant them "a license" to do anything. You are really just handing the proof that you hold a license - the license itself is not transferred. All the other licenses mentioned above follow this pattern as well.
In this sense Valve does not engage in "fraudulent advertising" because it is well understood that they sell licenses, not complete copyrights for software products. Or in other words: You buy a right to use the software in a limited way, you do not buy the complete copyright and full intellectual property. And giving your license to someone is really noting more than handing them proof that you are the rightful user of said license. The license itself is not transferred.
We may not like the way these things work, but that is an entirely different story.
- Jesper