German Consumer Group Sues Valve Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
True, but that is what I mean. While I think that it should be right to be able to sell your used games I am almost certain that there will be a backlash for us gamers. | |
Aside from the criticism to EA (which I think is just the same as valve when it comes to this specific matter), the statement in bold is exactly what I feel. | |
The EULA was written by someone who charges £700-£1000 an hour and they more about EU law than you do. They are not bypassing national law so much as using the single market rules and the internationally accepted principal that parties to a contract can choose what jurisdiction they use. | |
why the fuck do you need used digital games it make's no sence and if it goes forward all the steam sales will stop | |
As worried as I am that this sort of case could bring the whole cheap PC gaming bubble crashing down, I want to see them at least make a little headway.
The MVM thing isn't a problem for a few main reasons - All that $1 gets you is a shiny badge that says you did it and a chance at a unique cosmetic All you lose out on by not paying is cosmetics, what's the problem? | |
EULAs aren't necessarily legally binding documents. In the US they have often been upheld, but also denied in courts. In large parts of Europe EULAs can outright be deemed void if they aren't presented to a buyer before the purchase or if any part of them goes against applicable law. Following any rules written down in them as long as it isn't legally required isn't mandatory. For instance an EULA could contain that you are only allowed to play the game while standing on one leg in upright position. Personally I created my Steam Account back in 2006 or so having bought a Retail copy of Counter Strike: Source and being forced to use it to be able to play the game. Some of the next few products were also Retail copies of Left4Dead and The Orange Box and only started buying any "Digital Products" from them after 2010. And even then I've also proceeded to continue buying games from other Retailers and increasingly also different Digital Distribution services other than Steam, most of it for games that (only) unlock on Steam nowadays. I don't really ackowledge the validity or legal applicability of their EULA till it is tested in court and local or EU courts uphold their rights and deprive every customer of their rights of ownership, but I don't see that happening seeing as they often strengthen those rights. The only things that aren't contestable are terms based on general Copyright laws that, as I said, would be valid without any EULA or ToS trying to enforce them anyway. You won't be allowed to duplicate and resell a product without authorization. You won't be allowed to hack, change code and give it off as your own, you won't be allowed to download a game from infringing sites for free and play it etc. For that matter even in the US it's being acknowledged that there might be a problem with boilerplate contract terms being presented to you often custom-designed to not be readable where the only choice is often to click an "OK", one of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court for instance admitted that he doesn't read EULAs, but he "doesn't have a solution to offer": http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101021/02145811519/supreme-court-chief-justice-admits-he-doesn-t-read-online-eulas-or-other-fine-print.shtml
What a lot of companies are doing based on these type of contracts is potentially illegal in a lot of countries/jurisdictions since it is a breach of the purchasing contract/agreement which IS legally binding or might contain a lot of paragraphs which aren't legally viable or generally have no legal grounds (seriously, companies can write ANYTHING THEY LIKE in there, and they often do and hope it sticks and nobody notices), there's a very recent example: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121785-Crytek-Promises-No-Bug-Bans-in-Crysis-3-Beta ).
Unfortunately a lot of customers usually don't have the necessary finances or the incentive ($50 game) to open up lawsuits against these big companies and defend themselves over retarded/illegal parts of their EULAs, so they usually get away with it. Most of the lawsuits brought against these terms related to games unfortunately come from botting companies and the likes, which are set to abuse them like: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1062229-Bot-company-sues-Blizzard and not the customers that are abused by them, although every now and then some consumer protection agency will do just that.
As you said, they have been trying to argue that "nontransferable license" thing for a very long time in the software business, and yet you can still legally resell your software almost all around the world. The latest ECJ ruling that the VZBV is basing this new lawsuit on was also exactly about this, and simply stated: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf
The VZBV also managed to force EA to change some of the most egregious terms in their Origin-related EULA back in 2011. Personally, I don't even much care for the "Resale" of games as I wouldn't do that and haven't really done in the past. But the ownership issues over "Digital Products" at play are a very important issue that needs to be adressed, hopefully in favor of consumers. | |
The given law only applies to original copies. | |
As much as we all love the functionality of Steam and all the things Valve does, VZVB winning this can only do good. | |
Why not? Isn't the company that distributes it limiting your sales? There is an actual company that allows you to trade in game, though that still is not transferring the license, it at least shows that some companies already allow at least a trade in for a lower value. It is still not perfect forcing a consumer to have only one choice in who to sell it but again the retailer is the one selling you the game. If you buy a washing machine for example and it breaks the retailer is responsible for the warranty, it has to deal with the shipping, giving you a replacement, etc. for a period of time. When we get into the License bullshit it gets even more illogical. So we are buying a License to use the game, why can I not sell this license to someone else? Because it is non-transferable, why not? Because we say so. But the license is nothing more than a CD key tied to my account that you CAN revoke whenever you want to, so that already shows the ability to take away license keys, so they are capable of being transferred they just don't allow us. Now we have a Supreme court judgement that they should be transferable so Steam should do one of two things, pack up and fuck off out of Europe or adjust the services they offer by allowing license transferals. The publishers are not the ones operating as retailers in this case so they have nothing to do with it. The retailer is forced to offer certain services and the publishers have to abide by those services if they wish to sell on a certain market. I doubt publishers are going to stop selling their games in Europe seeing as that is a good third of all videogame sales worldwide. On top of that games are not advertised as licenses but as games "Add this game to your cart, buy this game, get this game now!" Do you see "License to this game" anywhere, no that stuff is tucked away in the EULA so that it doesn't scare off new customers? "Buy a license to this movie, buy a license to this car, buy a license to this piece of chicken." Doesn't sound quite right don't you say?
Thank you for your soul. We here at Valve corp. value these very much as they allow us to sustain the God-Emperor Newel. Seriously? RUIN digital downloads? Bit dramatic there. Greenman gaming already has a sort of used digital download market and it hasn't ruined anything has it? They even pull the same shit as you are afraid of. They buy back a digital key and then sell it for full price again. OH DOOM DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!!! Please, drama queen much? More consumer rights and less License bullshit is all the better in my eyes. I doubt God-Emperor Newel will cut of Germany as it is one of the largest gaming markets of Europe. I think God-Emperor Newel will take the used game trading hit and keep selling his other games to the German masses. Though seriously thanks for that delicious soul. | |
So did you just talk yourself out of your own argument? OT: Good. Consumer rights have taken a major hit in the ditigal era. | |
I'm certainly no expert in international law, or EU law for that matter. But for other products I know there are certain rights that I can't sign away. What international trade is concerned I had the impression that it is the laws of the country where the product is marketed that applies. So a US company selling something in Italy would have to comply with Italian law for instance. Of course if nothing is sold - as EULAs tend to claim, then that may be the technicality that makes the difference. But whatever the case. This is a political topic for me, more than a legal one. And I hope the German case will add some publicity to what I believe is a murky area for consumers. I'm certainly not happy about Valve or Microsoft making up their own rules. And signing a complicated contract for buying a product worth 40 Euro or less is just ridiculous. | |
I love how you preach deserved loyalty and then promote totalitarian action. | |
I get why Valve doesn't have resale yet. It's not like most of the pubishers whose software is sold through Steam were weting themselves with glee about the prospect of used game sales. But the software licensing model of game distrubution is hardly a flawless edifice worthy of our eternal gratitude. Actually, it's kind of bullshit. Especially given that any book, movie, or CD I purchase, which are also creative products with a market value that tends to drop off after its initial release period, can be resold. The digital versions of these things cannot, granted, but that's why I don't buy the digital versions. One could make a decent case for the license model of game distribution being a bad thing. Being able to sell one's old games allows people to purchase new games at a lower effective price while still giving the publisher full price for the new game. Price of game for the user becoming stickerprice - resale price. | |
I thought the ruling stated that resale of digital good was allowed in Germany but Valve and others don't have to provide any utility to do so. Meaning you could sell your entire profile (which is against the TOS) and be allowed to do it. I would be okay with that. | |
I dunno, I think the main reason people accept what Valve is doing is because there's not really any good alternative. You can buy the hard copy but that's getting harder and harder to do. I don't really need to state why Origin isn't a good alternative. For me, it boils down to: if I buy a game on my PS3 or 360, once I'm done with it, I can sell it or give it to a friend. You can't do that with Steam even though you are paying the same price (usually). I have no idea how they could make this work so that you can give/sell your used games to you friends but I'm sure they could figure it out if they wanted to and if enough of their users bothered to ask. This won't happen though because nobody seems to think there should be an alternative. This is what happens when Valve gets to have a monopoly over the digital retail of video games for such a long time. Even though Origin isn't all that great right now, I still think it's a good thing because it introduces more competition. Valve needs more competition or else they have no reason to change. | |
It would be handy is if Steam would allow reselling games on Steam itself: Valve could still get a percentage of the transaction, DRM wouldn't be a problem given it's still all on Steam and people may be more likely to spend 60$ on a pre-order if they knew they can get some back when they resell it. I can imagine editors wouldn't be too fond of that however. | |
I don't care. They would ruin digital downloads for everyone with their greed and then constant reselling of more then one copy and it has to be stopped. If they want their games for free then they can make their own. And if you think you can tell me they would not abuse it like that then that's bullshit, because that's the way consumerism works. If it can potentially be abused it WILL to the absolute worst way possible. Losers making profit by selling it for a $, or giving it away for a penny THOUSANDS OF TIMES. | |
Good. Anything that gives more rights to customers is A-OK in my book. Ah! And already the corporate apologists run to the defence of the people who've been screwing them over for years. | |
To sell a game digitally all you have to do is have the key that lets you play the game detached from the account service and transferred to another individual. That's not the same as copying software: without the key you can't play the game (unless of course you crack it, but that can be detectable using a client side service.) So yeah, it's possible to resell digital software. The exception would be completely DRM free games that lack keys, but those are primarily the domain of Good old Games, which are at this point torrented like crazy. It sounds like either I missed something on the story, or people in this thread are making some rather strange assumptions about the claims and how this would actually work... | |
Geez, I really hope they don't push it too far. I'd hate to loose Steam service in Germany. -.- | |
There's a difference, we like valve's business practice of not ruining franchises... | |
I don't understand why people keep missing this point. It's so obvious. There is no difference between digital games and other transferrable real world items like books. If you were to sell your game on steam, then steam would revoke your key and you would not have the game anymore. If you were to crack it, then you might have a playable game, but this would a) only be single player, and b) be no different to what you can already do immorally. You would still be breaking the law, and you would still be immorally playing a cracked game. You also couldn't sell the same game more than once, because you would really be selling the game-key, with the downloads and other services that steam offers with it. I should preface this that I like what steam has done, with their sales they've introduced competition that has been much needed in the game industry. That said I still disagree with them on this one issue. Really the only even remotely reasonable defense for steam's actions is that it allows for these cheap sales, and they wouldn't be able to sustain them with used game sales. Even so I think this should happen, as consumer's rights are more important than cheaper games (and would probably result in cheaper games anyway). | |
I think it would be pretty cool if Valve allowed players to sell their used digital games for funds for their Steam Wallets. They already have the marketplace on Steam to sell items. It could work for games too. If Valve is worried about profits they could easily make it so that they get 15% of what the sale makes. | |
AT least someone is standing up to valve and their bullshit DRM | |
Question. WHy dont they jsut remove the restriction from their TOS but just not have a feature to enable it? Then say "Oh its perfectly legal to transfer or sell games to someone else, but sadly we just havent implemented that feature yet" Seems easy to do.. | |
yea when it comes to valve, people here are baised, if this was related to Ea or any other ccompany really there be all for the customer, not the company, but no its valve and there "the best company Eva!" ugh... | |
Before you edited this, it sounded like you were talking about Valve. XD
Strawman.
Yes. Ignoring the fact it hasn't happened elsewhere in other cases and the model you proposed is completely unsustainable it WILL happen, because...Ponies, I guess. All of this hyperbole to try and attack people for going after monopolistic and totalitarian behaviour. | |
Two different audiences. EA was restricting a common - even traditional - action and console gamers were ticked because of it. Personally, it didn't bother me. If that's what it takes to keep AAA extravaganzas cheap, then so it goes. Steam, however, is for the PC crowd. We haven't had a used game market for YEARS. The lack thereof doesn't bother me either, partly from "this is how it's been for all of recent memory" and partly from the fact that I don't like selling my things. Combine this with my inherent dislike of suing, and yeah, I feel perfectly justified in siding with Valve. Why poke more holes in their rights management (reselling digital is a hell of a thing to regulate) and risk losing tons of their great deals because a few people (and yes, it IS just a few, or else this would have come up long ago) want to resell their stuff because they couldn't be bothered to adequately research it/manage their spending better? EDIT: Accounting for people who want it because "I <3 user rights" and such, but don't actually want to sell their games, I guess it is more than a few, but basing off of that, it's not really grounds for suing as far as I'm concerned. It's grounds for not buy Valve-distributed goods. | |
If you do business in Germany you are bound by German law and German courts. Despite what companies try to tell you there is nothing to circumvent that. | |
Apart from the small point the valve Europe in based in the UK. So you might be in Germany but you are doing business in the UK which under the single market rules is perfectly permissible | |
If the EU legal system is in the business of severing contracts between valve and their customers on judicial whim, I think valve should sever all the contracts with all the EU users, denying them the ability to use their steam accounts from then on. Their sovereign decided to terminate their contracts after all. You can't do business with people that change the rules on the fly, can you play a game with someone that creates and modifies house rules in mid play? This is legal plunder. If Valve turns around and burns the German Or EU customers I will continue to support them. | |
yes, look here: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/03/eu-court-rules-its-legal-to-resell-digital-games-software/ http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=481040 europe, strangely the land of the free......
special deliver of 300 boxes full of vaseline.... also:
http://kotaku.com/5923280/european-court-says-you-should-be-able-to-re+sell-your-digital-games
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Here's what Valve should do, in my opinion. Make selling of games work on steam, but only under these terms: I mean lets face it, you get shit value when you trade in physical media, and this would benefit everyone, while still keeping steam sales valid. | |
Are you for real? Have you ever bought a hard copy disk from a brick and mortar store for a Valve game? Guess what? It needs steam. I have disks for Half Life 2, HL2: Episodes, SiN Episode 1, etcetera and guess what? Do you want to know how how much worth those disk have? Zero. They have as much worth as an AOL 14-day trial CD. They were worthless the day I bought them, they're no less worthless now because they're incomplete products sold at full price. Steam is as draconian as DRM gets. And Valve is as bad as every other fricken company out there. They're out there to make money. So please, people, quit defending them. | |
I'd love an ability to sell digital games, but lets be frank, you buy a ability to play the game, not the game itself, so you dont actually "own" anything.
No. You would sell your license to play this game, not the actual data, which means that you loose the ability to play it and he gains it. P.S. god, so many people here dont even understand what the consumer group wants to achieve and imagine that you somehow can sell million of copies. you people dont deserve to pay less for games, because you dont seem to be able to use your brain anymore.
I think we should make a law that when you sell a used car, only such terms can be used: Ridiculous proposition is ridiculous. | |
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