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> 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.

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.

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.

>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.