French court rules Steam’s ban on reselling used games breaks European law | Hacker News Reader

French court rules Steam’s ban on reselling used games breaks European law

polygon.com

74 pointsadrian_mrd54 comments

Strangely I find myself not-liking this ruling. I mean I can absolutely see from an intellectual level, why it's happened - but there will be repercussions.

Firstly the minor one. Restrictions on transfer is what allows us to pick up ridiculously cheap old/good games. Cheap (humble bundle or a steam sale) or even free (you happened to be on epic and pressed a button this month). There are already 'some problems' - but these services will be killed off.

Major concern I have is that every game will "become a subscription service". I love my stack of steam games sat there to be played whenever I want. This is available as I currently have a perpetual license for them, and this is possible as the current market sells many many many more of these licenses than there are people concurrently playing these games.

i.e. If licenses were made completely transferable, then gaming would become a 'market' like some weird global Uber.

EA creates 100k licenses for a game (and the back-end support for it), if > 100k people want to play it the price to play per hour goes up (or they release more licenses), and if less it goes down they cut the price... ...again I'm OK with the model.. but not how it impacts how I see 'my games'

My real objection being that this won't magically become an open market, it'll become subscription hell. EU can say something has to be resellable on Steam, but the industry response will be to "not sell on Steam" - and create endless separate markets.

The market can only handle so many competitors. Only two, sometimes three (if you're lucky?) ever amount to anything. Videogame genres are insanely easy to over saturate. Even streaming services like Netflix and what not aren't actually going to become some subscription hellscape like everyone thinks. Everyone's time limited, so there's only so many competitors that will succeed. And from history, it's usually whoever gets to market first, and does it just well enough for it to work at all.

In the end, in the worst case scenario, you might be paying for one, maybe two subscription services for games. But you'll still have the option to buy games just like now, because not everyone gets to be king.

> Major concern I have is that every game will "become a subscription service". I love my stack of steam games sat there to be played whenever I want. This is available as I currently have a perpetual license for them, and this is possible as the current market sells many many many more of these licenses than there are people concurrently playing these games.

Valve tried to argue that Steam is already a subscription service, and failed. I don't see how this ruling will cause any change here other than allow transfer of ownership.

I believe GP means because if transfer is allowed, it'll happen at the expense of 'new' sales, which hurts developers/studios/publishers as much as it hurts Valve, so they adapt model to mitigate and sell subscriptions instead of perpetual licences.

Which doesn't make economic sense for Valve.

They have two clear options:

a) Switch to a true subscription model, but have to build a way to transfer items sold before the switch in payment model, as those have been ruled to be purchases. The gaming community would likely get annoyed with them.

b) Build a way to transfer items. They get to take a cut of this, and can also pass a cut on to the studios, whilst pointing to this ruling as a reason why it has to happen. The gaming community would celebrate it, even if the transfer is ridiculously complex or difficult.

The second option is the cheapest, and can only increase Valve's revenue, whilst they can also placate their partners.

Can Valve take a cut of the transfer? It sounds like the point is French/European citizens must be allowed to resell the game any way they like without any involvement with Valve at all. If the sales/transfers have to go through Valve, it seems that still infringes on "the free movement of goods within the Union."

Of course they can take a cut, just like any physical copy second hand reseller takes a cut. The trick will be demonstrating ownership of digital goods, which is the industry is beginning to invest in things like blockchain tech.

I think I worded my question badly (or I misunderstood the person I was replying to). I thought they were suggesting Valve / Steam would be the only place the sale / transfer could happen.

>Major concern I have is that every game will "become a subscription service".

we'll see the first netflix-like delivery of games take off in popularity. I think one of playstation's offerings works like this and either EA or ubisoft has this too. It never would result in 'price to play per hour'. This isn't <1995

Alternatively, it on steam it could operate the way a lot of valve's dlc already operates. You end up with a gun in CS:GO and you can transfer it to whomever. The only issue is, the source of that DLC is from 'lootboxes'.

Xbox Gamepass is already exactly this. EA does offer something similar too, yes.

Ultimately people will vote with their wallet if they truly want this or not and no matter how long I look at this, I don’t see it being the future we are heading.

There's a ton of FUD going around about this in games journalism - claiming that this could be the end of the game industry as we know it.

Problem with this reporting is - console games have been re-sellable since the beginning, and console gaming (from a fiscal and number perspective) vastly outpaces PC gaming. That doesn't even include how much more prevalent pirating is with the PC gaming market.

If the console market can survive this, so can the PC market. Yes, even indies.

Yes, but console games never get anywhere near the steep discounts or the sheer number of them that PC digital games get.

I'm sure PC gaming can _survive_ this but surviving is not the same as "nothing will change" nor is it "it's going to be better overall". That remains to be seen.

OP never said "nothing will change" or "it's going to be better overall". To be clear, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, what exactly are you arguing here?

Remember - when you can re-sell the game, you don't need the same deep discounts, when you can sell the game to someone else for 80+% of the original sale price.

Even with that in mind, console games (specifically the ones that can be resold) frequently go on sale for half their retail price, and after a year or two can get down to a third. Just like their digital counterparts.

You might find the numbers surprising. This [1] provides a reasonable overview of financial data on the games industry. PC vs all consoles combined tends to be extremely close in terms of fiscal figures (34 vs 34.7bn in 2016, 32.2 vs 33.3bn in 2017, 25% vs 28% in 2018, etc). User numbers are heavily lopsided in favor of PC. For instance one of the top ten grossing games worldwide is Dungeon Fighter Online. It's Windows only, and has a userbase in excess of 600 million. That is some multiple of the total number of all modern consoles sold.

In any case this isn't about console vs PC. It's about digital vs physical. With digital "licensing" as opposed to ownership, games are thrown about like beads at mardis gras. I have a hundreds of games that easily have a retail price in the thousands of dollars, but thanks to sales, give aways, bundles, etc I doubt I've spent more than $1000 on them in total. Many of the games I've never even played simply for lack of time. If you start enabling reselling this entire model becomes impossible because now organizations would emerge to take advantage of these opportunities for dirt cheap products with the intention of accumulating stock and reselling them.

Obviously this ending would not be the end of the games industry, but I do think it'd be safe to say that it'd be the end of the game industry as we know it.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_in_video_gaming

> Dungeon Fighter Online

A Chinese built and published title. Somehow, I doubt that a French ruling against a US country is going to have any impact whatsoever on a title in China.

Frankly, when it comes to copyright (and anything related to it, like game licenses), it's smartest to ignore the Chinese market entirely, since they don't respect the US or EU copyright system when it doesn't benefit them.

> I do think it'd be safe to say that it'd be the end of the game industry as we know it.

In what way? Even if we include the Chinese market, game developers for consoles with their rampant(!) game reselling have hardly fallen apart (or seen much impact at all) to their bottom line. They're still making record profits. Why assume that the PC market will be that drastically different?

Used physical copies degrade and are an objectively inferior offering to new copies.

Digital copies don't degrade unless artificially made to do so. The copies can be traded for infinity without ever degrading or lessening in value. Which essentially mean that with time the demand for any game would be vastly outnumbered by the supply of cheap "used" copies that never ever degrade.

It would be very hurtful to indies since they will be the first ones to have their games dumped on the market, even if they're good.

I have old physical copies of Nintendo Entertainment System games that are still perfectly usable. I have playstation 1 games that show a few scratches, but which are still 100% usable. I have some PS2 games that got scratched all to hell, used a CD repair device on them, and they still work just fine. They are a digital product, not analog. They don’t degrade with time, for all practical purposes. You’d have to physically destroy the media, which takes quite deliberate effort in most cases.

When it comes to videogames on CD’s, DVD’s, BluRays, and Cartridges, the age of the media means effectively nothing when it comes to a playable game.

They absolutely can survive this. But they don't have to.

Publishers and vendors could simply stop selling software licenses and start leasing them out in the EU. Your rights diminish. They wouldn't have to charge less. They wouldn't have very much of anything. It'd actually be a lot easier than complying than this ruling.

Or —if they're willing to do more than an hour's work— they could completely pivot and only lease software as part of a membership (Origin Access), or keep essential elements of the game as SaaS with rent, or even just keep everything and do remote gaming as a service (eg Stadia).

Welcome to the brave new world of software licensing.

A major issue with this is that digital goods do not degrade or deteriorate, unless built-in.

For indie games, a free "used" digital goods market would mean the end of sales for that indie game. How many gamers would not sell off their Subnautica or Super Meat Boy in a heartbeat just to spend that money on Cyberpunk 2077? Many I guess, in the thousands even.

So very shortly the supply of "used" copies of a game would VASTLY outnumber the demand for that game. Thus effectively ending the sales period for that game, probably forever. No reason whatsoever to buy a "new" copy of a digital good unless it uses some additional DRM locks and microtransactions.

Now why this problem isn't as prevalent with physical copies is that:

A) It's actually not legal (in many jurisdictions, at least the ones with copyright lobbies, of which there is no shortage of in the EU) to make copies of the discs for any other purpose but personal backups. B) All discs deteriorate and degrade with time and they can't be circulated forever due to point A.

If an open market of "used" digital goods becomes the norm then that could spell the end for many smaller studios as we know it. Or it just makes a Streaming future even more inevitable, or Steam will invent some clever thing to circumvent this whole thing. Maybe instead of buying games you simply buy "tickets", I leave this up to the lawyers to figure out.

"The court rejected Valve’s defense that argued Steam is a subscription service."

Good! A subscription service infers new content without having to pay a repeated entry cost for said content.

What is a subscription if not a repeated entry cost for new content?

And often repeated entry cost without new content. With a subscription service, you never own the content in any meaningful way, you just get temporary access, and if you stop paying, you typically lose access to the content.

Steam isn't a subscription service because you purchase a la carte and only get access to the specific content you choose. I would love a subscription service where I could play other games with a flat monthly cost, but that's not how Steam operates.

Given this ruling won't be overturned, I find this a very positive outcome for consumers and the market. Also, I hope that there will be an investigation on the tiered pricing model for steam games, i.e. the same game can almost be twice as expensive in different countries in the EU. This coupled without the possibility of the consumer to buy the product in an EU country outside his/her own country goes clearly against the idea/rules of common market. As a European I should be free to order my product from any EU country of my choosing.

> As a European I should be free to order my product from any EU country of my choosing

As a person, we should be able to order anything we want from any country we want, free of protectionist plots to artificially distort markets to favor politically connected groups such as farmers or auto makers or textile producers.

Perhaps, but the parent is referring to existing European law, not just espousing an opinion.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/selling-...

Yes, thank you for the link.

Relevant quote:

If you offer a special price, promotion or sales conditions, these should be accessible to all your customers irrespective of which EU country they are located in, their nationality, place of residence or business location.

The rules apply to online and offline transactions as long as the sales are to the end user (an individual or business that doesn't have the intention to re-sell, transform, process, rent or subcontract their purchases).

> The rules apply to online and offline transactions as long as the sales are to the end user (an individual or business that doesn't have the intention to re-sell, transform, process, rent or subcontract their purchases).

Doesn't that contradict the decision? Sales to an end user the doesn't have the intention to re-sell..

I think that both consumers have a right to do anything (legally) in their power to get the best price they can on a product and equally business have a right to do anything (legally) in their power to set up and enforce tiered pricing.

That is, I can see many valid reasons for both sides, I don't think the law should take sides.

Valve in general has had an interesting, "hands off" approach that has gotten them in legal trouble in the past; they sold software/games in Australia and for some strange reason didn't think to ensure they were in complience with local Consumer laws [1].

[1] https://www.pcgamesn.com/valve-accc-lawsuit

"Move fast and break laws..."

This ruling sounds like it should apply to mobile apps too. I wonder what Apple and Google think about that.

I like that idea. I could see it leading to people having to upgrade to pay for improved versions, whether that's to fix bugs or new features added - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I do wonder what interplay will exist or evolve related to subscription models though.

Perhaps this ruling should apply to airplane tickets as well? I wonder what Air France thinks about that?

And Eurail passes -- those are issued to a specific traveler, it seems like the inability to sell your Eurail pass is violating this decision as well. I wonder what the French railroads think about that?

Under the logic of this court decision, I should be able to buy a Eurail pass, ride on a train, mail it to a friend, the friend pays me for the pass, then that friend can take the train, then re-sells it to me, then I can use it, and so on. Right? Isn't that what this decision is saying?

> According to EU law, all goods, including software, can be sold used without the permission of the maker or the original seller

If we want to argue that a train ride is a service and not a "good," that logic would apply to software as well -- software isn't a physical "thing" but a collection of information that permits some action (i.e. playing a game.) Just like a Eurail pass is a collection of information that permits some action (i.e. riding a train.)

I think the courts in Europe, especially in old-economy countries that have a strong-anti-tech sentiment might ought to be a bit mindful of the unintended consequences of their decisions.

> Under the logic of this court decision, I should be able to buy a Eurail pass, ride on a train, mail it to a friend, the friend pays me for the pass, then that friend can take the train, then re-sells it to me, then I can use it, and so on. Right? Isn't that what this decision is saying?

Since when was a train ride considered "goods"? Pretty sure a train ride is a "service" and not "goods".

Maybe a single ticket is a service, but what about a "season pass" type ticket? That's the right to ride as many trains as you want. A right to a service isn't a service.

My season pass for the commuter train can be used by anyone I give it to.

It's not really an anti-tech ruling; more a pro-consumer one.

In theory it sounds right, but the downside could be developers getting less sales, and in the already crowded market it could sink a number of them. Or may be it won't. Hard to say.

However, there will be probably a reaction from some publishers to push more DRM and to run to use something like Stadia exclusively. That's not a good thing at all. And if this will undermine DRM-free gaming, I'd say it's not worth it.

Stadia is no different than a PS4 or an Xbox. It's just that you're renting a Stadia, but still buying game licenses (just like Steam). Stadia isn't Netflix for games, it's streaming console for hire.

Neither PS nor Xbox are good examples to begin with. They are already DRMed to the brink.

Stadia however is DRM on steroids. So even worse in this sense than other options, especially when you compare it with proper DRM-free stores. I.e. if it comes as a convenience and you can still download the game - then it's fine. But if it comes as "streaming only" option, it's not.

there's nothing barring valve from giving devs a percentage of the resale right? that in of itself would be a significant advantage over traditional used game sales & key resellers.

Valve could do it, only if re-sale takes place through them. What if it doesn't? Nothing mandates using some middleman for it. I.e. consider some proper DRM-free store like GOG. You can just copy files and charge for it directly (and then delete them, to finish the transaction). In that case, neither the store nor developers will get anything out of it.

I'm curious as to how this gets handled in practice - does Valve get forced into adding a feature to transfer game rights from one account to another? Does it merely make selling your account legal? At the extreme, does this cause Valve to just pull out of the EU market entirely - this is doubtful, but stranger things have happened!

It’s annoying that Steam doesn’t have transferable licenses. All of my games are spread-out over 3 different Steam accounts and I can’t consolidate them.

(I made my first account when Steam launched and added all my physical Valve games by CD-key - then years later I forgot the password (And a dead Hotmail address) and also bought the Orange Box and put it on a new account. I created a new third account for myself years ago to make a clean-break with all the dumb Steam friends I collected in high-school.)

Out of DRM paranoia (before I discovered GOG) I used to have a separate Steam account for each game franchise and a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of them. About 15 accounts (yes yes, I don't own that many Steam games, luckily I discovered GOG before I ended up buying too many Steam games). Would be neat if I could finally collapse them now that most of my games are on GOG (including having rebought games I had on Steam that I actually care to really own).

I suppose you don't maintain a friends list on those 15 accounts.

Pulling out of the EU market is impossible. Tens of millions of Europeans have invested billions into Steam. What does pull out of the market even mean? Stop selling games? They cannot because many games would become broken, as they need steam selling functionality for those games to work. It would leave them non-functional and broken. Micro transactions, subscriptions and DLC, etc. Stop selling would cause many millions in damages and many new lawsuits.

Not to mention none of this is in Valves best interest. Even a used game license market would be preferable to pulling out of Europe...

Its really the developers that hurt a bit. Valve already got their 30% cut on the game. They will comply with the laws for existing games. For newer games, expect fewer sales discounts in the EU to make up the loss. Also some bigger game developers will pull out of Steam and run their own subscription services for the EU. Things like Google Stadia start looking perfect for them. And the independent developers will just have to bare the loss in sales.

Its kind of like the SaaS model. Why pay $100 once when you can pay $10/month for years by calling it a service.

If this ruling is upheld and people are able to sell their digital games to other people - there won't be any more steam sales. Let's pray this doesn't happen.

> The court rejected Valve’s defense that argued Steam is a subscription service. According to Numerama, the court found that Steam sells games in perpetuity, and not as part of a subscription package.

So Steam is in the clear as long as they stop selling perpetual licenses and start selling 99-year long subscriptions for their games?

I suspect that if this ruling stands valve will probably pull out of the French market unless it can take this to the European Union court and win there.

They cannot "pull" out of the French market. The lawsuit from doing that would be insane. What are they gonna do? Take everyone's Steam games away from them? Refund them hundreds of millions of dollars? Billions?

If they lose the appeal, I doubt they'll win at the EU court. They have to either fight and win the appeal or change.

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