I have a solution: Mandatory license transfer ability. CD-Keys used to be fantastic like this, at least before limited activation and other BS like that came around. A game license should not be...
I have a solution: Mandatory license transfer ability. CD-Keys used to be fantastic like this, at least before limited activation and other BS like that came around.
A game license should not be tied to the distributor (Steam), it should be tied to the purchaser of the game.
So if I buy a game on Epic store, I should be permitted, easily, to export that license from Epic and move it to Steam, or vice versa.
The “problem” this creates for stores is this enables reselling games. You could transfer the games to someone else. You might immediately say that’s a good thing but it’s a little more complex....
The “problem” this creates for stores is this enables reselling games. You could transfer the games to someone else.
You might immediately say that’s a good thing but it’s a little more complex. Digital products do not have any of the issues of traditional second hand like damage, random stock availability, etc. There would be literally no reason not to buy a second hand game key.
IMO the nicer solution would be linking accounts, so you link your steam account to another account. Maybe with some kind of verification process but even if you can abuse it, it’s much harder and limited to abuse.
I think reviving a second-hand PC game market would be just fine. I never liked this undermining of first sale doctrine with the transition to digital media. Movie and music companies were the...
I think reviving a second-hand PC game market would be just fine. I never liked this undermining of first sale doctrine with the transition to digital media.
Movie and music companies were the worst, but game companies were just as complacent.
I am purchasing a game, and thus should have the right to resell it.
Or, I am purchasing a license to use the copywritten work, and thus how I use that copywritten work is irrelevant. If I own the rights to play a game, the place I obtain the binaries from is irrelevant.
So if they want non-transferability of ownership, send me a unique signed certificate, like an SSL cert, that says I have a right to play the game, and allow distribution from anywhere. I'd love to download all my games via a trusted torrent site instead of any storefront.
Edit 2: A thought on how that transferable private cert could work, no worse than current Steam DRM:
Standard created for a purchase receipt (first, last, email, price, date, storefront, etc), this serves as the user's key.
Publisher encrypts the key, sends resulting file and stores in their database. Each sale is then tied to the publisher and user, and not the store. Game phones home periodically (30 day grace period?). Because it's a 1 to 1 copy, and virtually impossible to fake, it can be transferrable.
DRM check must be removed when game is no longer available for sale.
I kind of half agree with you, but allowing resale would be a huge shakeup to the market and have big changes to a lot of things. The hardest hit would be games with a story, you would play...
I kind of half agree with you, but allowing resale would be a huge shakeup to the market and have big changes to a lot of things. The hardest hit would be games with a story, you would play through the story and then sell the game since it has no value to you anymore. This would seriously limit the number of sales a story based game could have.
The result would be a mix of two things. The "new" price for games would explode and then the used price would be used to balance it out so the devs sell 10x less copies but they price them 10x higher. But more likely what we would see is all games shifting to styles where there is infinite gameplay and story/level based games would die out. Everything would become CS:GO where the only way to succeed with a game is make sure people play it endlessly and don't play other games.
We might even see a shift to subscription/renting for games where they don't offer you the option to "buy" at all and instead its all yearly priced.
Counterpoint: This didn't happen with console games or PC titles of yesteryear. I know many of you have never experienced just how free the PC market used to be. StarCraft (the first one) had...
Counterpoint: This didn't happen with console games or PC titles of yesteryear. I know many of you have never experienced just how free the PC market used to be. StarCraft (the first one) had absolutely stellar sales despite being quite easy to pirate, share, or trade. Heck, original Starcraft pre-broodwar had an official LAN mode where you only needed 1 legitimate copy to play multiplayer on your LAN. Story-based games were no exception, they continued to be made and make profits despite this free flow.
Second counterpoint: What you speak of already happened in many games even without the used market. The most popular games in the world are either subscription based or freemium with design decisions geared toward keeping you playing indefinitely. Magic, Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Fortnite all follow this model.
Well...sorta. I get where you’re coming from but so far it hasn’t really worked out like that. You can already buy Steam keys from random people on the internet and the marketplace for that is...
Literally no reason not to buy a secondhand game
Well...sorta. I get where you’re coming from but so far it hasn’t really worked out like that. You can already buy Steam keys from random people on the internet and the marketplace for that is called G2A. How it usually works is someone buys a humble bundle game that comes with an activation key for Steam, and they later decide they’d rather sell the key than activate it on their own Steam account, so they go to G2A.
The problem is that it’s rampant with fraud and scams. Straight up fake keys, and illegitimate keys generated with a key gen have become common place. It’s bad enough that the site strongly recommends you get some kind of insurance with your purchase.
You’d likely need a whole new platform to sell these keys and it would need to be policed fairly well.
G2A is not selling second hand games. Those keys have never been used, they are just bought while on sale and sold at non sale times. Allowing reselling used digital games would be a big change.
G2A is not selling second hand games. Those keys have never been used, they are just bought while on sale and sold at non sale times. Allowing reselling used digital games would be a big change.
They are also often harvested from retail copies that were either physically stolen, bought with stolen credit card numbers, or bought in a poor country with much lower regional pricing.
They are also often harvested from retail copies that were either physically stolen, bought with stolen credit card numbers, or bought in a poor country with much lower regional pricing.
It doesn't have to work that way does it? I think this is a similar issue that Movies ran into and created Movies Anywhere. Basically just a higher level account that stores integrate with so...
It doesn't have to work that way does it? I think this is a similar issue that Movies ran into and created Movies Anywhere. Basically just a higher level account that stores integrate with so you'd be able to have your media in a single place.
This is a really strange suit. After reading its list of complaints and the language inside the legal filings, it just feels... petulant. It basically sounds like the guy behind Wolfire is really...
This is a really strange suit. After reading its list of complaints and the language inside the legal filings, it just feels... petulant.
It basically sounds like the guy behind Wolfire is really mad that he hasn't been successfully selling games outside of Steam, and hates that there's a 30% cut that goes to Valve. And then all the arguments were derived after the fact to retroactively justify this ire. Some of the complaints here are just silly, like that buying games on Steam means they shouldn't be delivered through Steam or that Steam has too many features therefore it effectively traps users through convenience.
Let's reframe the argument. You're a small bookseller. Your business went under because Amazon decimated the retail bookstore model. You have an Amazon store, but they charge you a third of your...
Let's reframe the argument.
You're a small bookseller. Your business went under because Amazon decimated the retail bookstore model. You have an Amazon store, but they charge you a third of your sales just to have the storefront.
This isn't just "Steam is a large sales market", it's more "Steam cornered the market and now can charge whatever they want."
Steam was once a monolith that one had no recourse in dealing with. Bite them, and they could kill your business where it stood. Now that there's traction with other companies (and those companies...
Steam was once a monolith that one had no recourse in dealing with. Bite them, and they could kill your business where it stood. Now that there's traction with other companies (and those companies being able and willing to take a smaller cut), there's the ability to push back.
Steam was not always the de-facto place to buy PC games. Even when the service was first allowing third party games, publishers were more than happy to pay 30% to be on Steam, because it is less...
Steam was not always the de-facto place to buy PC games. Even when the service was first allowing third party games, publishers were more than happy to pay 30% to be on Steam, because it is less than they would normally lose selling games in brick and mortar stores.
I think publishers just want to make even more money than they already do and are looking for a way to phrase the conversation in a way that gets consumers on board with it. They're trying to make Valve out to be the bad guys, by incorrectly applying the "monopoly" label to them.
If someone really wants to compete with Steam, they need to offer something better. Most users are likely already used to having their games on more than one storefront. Right now, people get upset about stores like EGS and Origin in part because they are just shittier clones of Steam that offer the user no benefit. They only exist to make the publisher more money. Meanwhile, Valve is taking their 30% cut of Steam sales and re-investing some of it in their platform in ways that actually benefit their users, like Linux support and Proton.
But this is more like an Amazon reseller now getting irate about Amazon taking their standard cut after over 10 years of being an Amazon reseller. Wolfire's been using Steam to distribute their...
But this is more like an Amazon reseller now getting irate about Amazon taking their standard cut after over 10 years of being an Amazon reseller.
Wolfire's been using Steam to distribute their games since 2008. That was years before the concept of the famous "Steam Sale" that begun Steam's rise to being the place to buy PC games. It's been a 30% cut this entire time. They've been able to provide DRM free copies sold through their site alongside this as well, and there are quite a few other games and companies that still practice that today too, so that entire part of their lawsuit also seems rather questionable.
Yeah I don't really understand why Valve's 30% cut was OK before they were a dominant player in the market, and now that they are the dominant player it is suddenly "too much". If Valve was...
Yeah I don't really understand why Valve's 30% cut was OK before they were a dominant player in the market, and now that they are the dominant player it is suddenly "too much".
If Valve was abusing their market position to increase their take, there might be an argument here. But right now, it's just a bunch of publishers whining that they could be raking in more money if consumers were more willing to buy games from their inferior storefronts.
The complaint about how steam issues keys to publishers is really weird. The scenario they describe seems really generous on Valve's part. Asking publishers not to sell the keys for less money...
The complaint about how steam issues keys to publishers is really weird.
The scenario they describe seems really generous on Valve's part. Asking publishers not to sell the keys for less money than they go for on Steam is totally fair, because they are still Steam copies of the game. He's basically complaining that Valve didn't turn it into a loophole that would let publishers reap all the benefits of putting their game on Steam (exposure, Steamworks integration, community features) without having to actually pay for these benefits.
Yeah, according to Wikipedia: Humble was acquired by IGN in Oct 2017, and Rosen and Graham stepped down as CEO and COO in Mar 2019. So they probably haven't been directly involved in Humble's...
Yeah, according to Wikipedia: Humble was acquired by IGN in Oct 2017, and Rosen and Graham stepped down as CEO and COO in Mar 2019. So they probably haven't been directly involved in Humble's decision making for over 2 years now.
Humble was originally spun off after - I want to say Humble Indie Bundle 2. Very early on anyway. Jeff helped created the new company called Humble Bundle, and David stayed on at Wolfire. I don't...
Humble was originally spun off after - I want to say Humble Indie Bundle 2. Very early on anyway. Jeff helped created the new company called Humble Bundle, and David stayed on at Wolfire.
I don't know if this suit is driven primarily by Jeff or David, but the separation may go back even further than the IGN acquisition.
OK, this makes more sense. "Valve can stop competing game stores from offering (...)" isn't the same as saying they are doing so. Even as someone with lots of games on other platforms I think...
OK, this makes more sense. "Valve can stop competing game stores from offering (...)" isn't the same as saying they are doing so. Even as someone with lots of games on other platforms I think Steam provide a lot of value in exchange for their cut, but whatever their cut is is distinct from their actively engaging in anticompetitive behavior...
I have a solution: Mandatory license transfer ability. CD-Keys used to be fantastic like this, at least before limited activation and other BS like that came around.
A game license should not be tied to the distributor (Steam), it should be tied to the purchaser of the game.
So if I buy a game on Epic store, I should be permitted, easily, to export that license from Epic and move it to Steam, or vice versa.
The “problem” this creates for stores is this enables reselling games. You could transfer the games to someone else.
You might immediately say that’s a good thing but it’s a little more complex. Digital products do not have any of the issues of traditional second hand like damage, random stock availability, etc. There would be literally no reason not to buy a second hand game key.
IMO the nicer solution would be linking accounts, so you link your steam account to another account. Maybe with some kind of verification process but even if you can abuse it, it’s much harder and limited to abuse.
I think reviving a second-hand PC game market would be just fine. I never liked this undermining of first sale doctrine with the transition to digital media.
Movie and music companies were the worst, but game companies were just as complacent.
I am purchasing a game, and thus should have the right to resell it.
Or, I am purchasing a license to use the copywritten work, and thus how I use that copywritten work is irrelevant. If I own the rights to play a game, the place I obtain the binaries from is irrelevant.
So if they want non-transferability of ownership, send me a unique signed certificate, like an SSL cert, that says I have a right to play the game, and allow distribution from anywhere. I'd love to download all my games via a trusted torrent site instead of any storefront.
Edit: The subsequent inevitable arguement about DRM futility. FIFA 2014 sold 17.31 million copies. FIFA 2015, the first game with Denovo, uncrackable for years, sold 18 million copies. No other FIFA game sold as many since, dismantling every arguement about 'all those millions of pirates stealing our sales.'
Edit 2: A thought on how that transferable private cert could work, no worse than current Steam DRM:
I kind of half agree with you, but allowing resale would be a huge shakeup to the market and have big changes to a lot of things. The hardest hit would be games with a story, you would play through the story and then sell the game since it has no value to you anymore. This would seriously limit the number of sales a story based game could have.
The result would be a mix of two things. The "new" price for games would explode and then the used price would be used to balance it out so the devs sell 10x less copies but they price them 10x higher. But more likely what we would see is all games shifting to styles where there is infinite gameplay and story/level based games would die out. Everything would become CS:GO where the only way to succeed with a game is make sure people play it endlessly and don't play other games.
We might even see a shift to subscription/renting for games where they don't offer you the option to "buy" at all and instead its all yearly priced.
Counterpoint: This didn't happen with console games or PC titles of yesteryear. I know many of you have never experienced just how free the PC market used to be. StarCraft (the first one) had absolutely stellar sales despite being quite easy to pirate, share, or trade. Heck, original Starcraft pre-broodwar had an official LAN mode where you only needed 1 legitimate copy to play multiplayer on your LAN. Story-based games were no exception, they continued to be made and make profits despite this free flow.
Second counterpoint: What you speak of already happened in many games even without the used market. The most popular games in the world are either subscription based or freemium with design decisions geared toward keeping you playing indefinitely. Magic, Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Fortnite all follow this model.
The ease and reliability of digital ownership transfers makes this a poor comparison.
Could you elaborate? Transfer of ownership was never really harder than aquiring the games in the first place.
Yeah I guess it would actually be about the same
Well...sorta. I get where you’re coming from but so far it hasn’t really worked out like that. You can already buy Steam keys from random people on the internet and the marketplace for that is called G2A. How it usually works is someone buys a humble bundle game that comes with an activation key for Steam, and they later decide they’d rather sell the key than activate it on their own Steam account, so they go to G2A.
The problem is that it’s rampant with fraud and scams. Straight up fake keys, and illegitimate keys generated with a key gen have become common place. It’s bad enough that the site strongly recommends you get some kind of insurance with your purchase.
You’d likely need a whole new platform to sell these keys and it would need to be policed fairly well.
G2A is not selling second hand games. Those keys have never been used, they are just bought while on sale and sold at non sale times. Allowing reselling used digital games would be a big change.
They are also often harvested from retail copies that were either physically stolen, bought with stolen credit card numbers, or bought in a poor country with much lower regional pricing.
It doesn't have to work that way does it? I think this is a similar issue that Movies ran into and created Movies Anywhere. Basically just a higher level account that stores integrate with so you'd be able to have your media in a single place.
This is a really strange suit. After reading its list of complaints and the language inside the legal filings, it just feels... petulant.
It basically sounds like the guy behind Wolfire is really mad that he hasn't been successfully selling games outside of Steam, and hates that there's a 30% cut that goes to Valve. And then all the arguments were derived after the fact to retroactively justify this ire. Some of the complaints here are just silly, like that buying games on Steam means they shouldn't be delivered through Steam or that Steam has too many features therefore it effectively traps users through convenience.
Let's reframe the argument.
You're a small bookseller. Your business went under because Amazon decimated the retail bookstore model. You have an Amazon store, but they charge you a third of your sales just to have the storefront.
This isn't just "Steam is a large sales market", it's more "Steam cornered the market and now can charge whatever they want."
But Steam has always charged 30%, and have improved the service significantly over its operation, so how would that apply here?
Steam was once a monolith that one had no recourse in dealing with. Bite them, and they could kill your business where it stood. Now that there's traction with other companies (and those companies being able and willing to take a smaller cut), there's the ability to push back.
Steam was not always the de-facto place to buy PC games. Even when the service was first allowing third party games, publishers were more than happy to pay 30% to be on Steam, because it is less than they would normally lose selling games in brick and mortar stores.
I think publishers just want to make even more money than they already do and are looking for a way to phrase the conversation in a way that gets consumers on board with it. They're trying to make Valve out to be the bad guys, by incorrectly applying the "monopoly" label to them.
If someone really wants to compete with Steam, they need to offer something better. Most users are likely already used to having their games on more than one storefront. Right now, people get upset about stores like EGS and Origin in part because they are just shittier clones of Steam that offer the user no benefit. They only exist to make the publisher more money. Meanwhile, Valve is taking their 30% cut of Steam sales and re-investing some of it in their platform in ways that actually benefit their users, like Linux support and Proton.
But this is more like an Amazon reseller now getting irate about Amazon taking their standard cut after over 10 years of being an Amazon reseller.
Wolfire's been using Steam to distribute their games since 2008. That was years before the concept of the famous "Steam Sale" that begun Steam's rise to being the place to buy PC games. It's been a 30% cut this entire time. They've been able to provide DRM free copies sold through their site alongside this as well, and there are quite a few other games and companies that still practice that today too, so that entire part of their lawsuit also seems rather questionable.
Yeah I don't really understand why Valve's 30% cut was OK before they were a dominant player in the market, and now that they are the dominant player it is suddenly "too much".
If Valve was abusing their market position to increase their take, there might be an argument here. But right now, it's just a bunch of publishers whining that they could be raking in more money if consumers were more willing to buy games from their inferior storefronts.
The complaint about how steam issues keys to publishers is really weird.
The scenario they describe seems really generous on Valve's part. Asking publishers not to sell the keys for less money than they go for on Steam is totally fair, because they are still Steam copies of the game. He's basically complaining that Valve didn't turn it into a loophole that would let publishers reap all the benefits of putting their game on Steam (exposure, Steamworks integration, community features) without having to actually pay for these benefits.
Looks to me like another in a line of money grabs, just like their removal of buyers deciding how much goes to Humble/developers/charity.Nevermind! See below, I assume Wolfire was still part of Humble post sale to IGN.
Wolfire Games created Humble originally, but they haven't been involved in it any more for years, as far as I know.
Yeah, according to Wikipedia: Humble was acquired by IGN in Oct 2017, and Rosen and Graham stepped down as CEO and COO in Mar 2019. So they probably haven't been directly involved in Humble's decision making for over 2 years now.
Ahh, did not realize they were no longer a part of it after the IGN sale.
Humble was originally spun off after - I want to say Humble Indie Bundle 2. Very early on anyway. Jeff helped created the new company called Humble Bundle, and David stayed on at Wolfire.
I don't know if this suit is driven primarily by Jeff or David, but the separation may go back even further than the IGN acquisition.
David Rosen of Wolfire made a blog post yesterday to explain more about their motivation for the case: Regarding the Valve class action
OK, this makes more sense. "Valve can stop competing game stores from offering (...)" isn't the same as saying they are doing so. Even as someone with lots of games on other platforms I think Steam provide a lot of value in exchange for their cut, but whatever their cut is is distinct from their actively engaging in anticompetitive behavior...