
Do we own our Steam games? - CountHackulus
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/
======
sgentle
On a related note, I once had a dispute with Valve about a buggy game I bought
on Steam. Their support wouldn't say anything except point me to the
subscriber agreement, which says that they could send you a copy of notepad
instead of the game you purchased and you'd still be out of luck.

I considered doing a chargeback, but thankfully I researched it first and
found out that if you do a chargeback, _Valve will disable all of your games,
including the ones not under dispute_. It was so cleverly evil, I'm still not
quite sure what combination of impressed and disgusted to be.

The answer to "do we own our Steam games" isn't just "no", it's "no, and Valve
know this, and they use that fact punitively when they want to".

~~~
kevingadd
I had the same experience, but instead of giving up, I called American Express
and explained Steam's supposed policy to them. They said that was in violation
of their merchant agreement and that they'd be contacting Valve for me.

I was refunded the full cost of the game a couple days later. Interestingly,
Valve never removed the game from my account. It still doesn't work on any of
my PCs to this day.

~~~
Legion
Note to self: buy all future Steam games with AmEx.

Things like that and the warranty extension they provide are why I got an AmEx
card.

~~~
snowwrestler
These types of services are offered by a lot of credit cards these days. Just
have to call up customer service and talk to them about it.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I can't believe it's the year 2012 and we still can't do Game Distribution
correctly.

Despite the fact that Steam knows how long we've played a game or if we've
even launched it, we can't get refunds on games that don't work. THIS is
what's hurting PC gaming.

If I buy a microwave from Walmart and it doesn't work in my house for whatever
reason, I can take it back and get a refund. But if I buy a PC game from
Steam, Games for Windows, Best Buy, and it doesn't work, I'm fucked. Which is
basically a scam. Period.

How can publishers expect consumers to pay for games when they have no
guarantee that it will work?

~~~
ctdonath
How can customers expect publishers to refund for games when they (publisher)
have no guarantee it didn't work?

If you buy a microwave, returning it the next day (and a glance at the
product) Walmart is pretty sure that it was not used for hours on end until it
wasn't needed.

Games (and other products/media) suffer from a tendency of [some] customers to
use/abuse the product and its return policy. Buy a game, play it thru for 24
hours straight (or copy it), and then return it as "defective" - not uncommon
behavior. Maybe not majority, but enough do it for retailers to impose
limitations akin to what clothing stores do by requiring tags still be
attached: returnable for refund if in a condition which indicates it in no way
was used in an manner taking advantage of the retailer's return policy.

Enough people _do_ try to abuse return policies that, yeah, it wrecks it for
the rest of us.

Hey, maybe there's a startup opportunity for verifying "the game was used in a
manner which indicates there was a problem whereby a full-refund return is
fair." Steam may not have an interest in such a service directly given its
overall profit, but if someone can provide a third-party verification
service...

~~~
Silhouette
> How can customers expect publishers to refund for games when they
> (publisher) have no guarantee it didn't work?

Well, under UK consumer protection law, goods normally have to meet certain
basic guarantees, such as fitness for purpose. Moreover, the presumption is
that if they fail within the first few months after the purchase, it's the
vendor's problem unless the vendor can show why it shouldn't be. It might seem
harsh, but that _is_ what the consumer protection laws here say, and it's a
cost of doing business here.

I don't see why the same principle should not apply at least as strongly to
software, particularly given that software is often relatively expensive, very
often of poor quality/compatibility in ways that aren't clear to the purchaser
up-front, and usually issuing a refund in such cases will cause very little
actual damage to the vendor beyond losing the price of the sale. Surely this
all goes at least double for a service where the vendor is providing the
software entirely on-line, so their actual damage from issuing a refund is
nothing but the admin overhead, and where the vendor can see whether the user
has actually been able to run the software effectively as a defence against
fraudulent refund claims.

------
Symmetry
"But the books on my shelves? I seem to have very little rights over them. The
CDs stacked up in a cupboard (remember CDs?) certainly aren’t my property."

This is actually wrong (in the US at least) in an important way. You
absolutely own the CDs and books that you have - you can do anything you want
with just them including reselling them and you have the Doctorine of First
Sales to support you. What you don't have is the right to copy them, that is
you own the book but not the story, the CD but not the song. That's the
advantage reification gives you with respect to copyright, you can do all
sorts of things with the physical object that you can't do with the underlying
copyrighted work.

~~~
InclinedPlane
You actually do have a right to copy them, to some degree.

For example, if you buy a "music" CD-R and then burn a copy of an audio CD to
it, you can retain that copy even if you've sold the original, legally.

Edit: this is because there is a tariff levied against "music" CD-Rs, which
results in the ability to legally make such copies:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_States)

~~~
J3L2404
If that is true then you could start a service where the consumer essentially
simultaneously buys and sells whatever CDs they want without money changing
hands except for some membership fee to run the business.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I don't think that would be legal, the consumer has to make the copy
themselves.

~~~
grecy
Sure, the user can click a "make copy" button.

(These legal tight-rope walks are so crazy)

~~~
onemoreact
There is a fair amount of case law that makes it a public performance when a
product is played / copied outside of a users home. EX: You can't have a rack
of DVD players and let people remote desktop into them to view any movie they
want.

------
rurounijones
One thing I want to see is ALL gaming media stop using the word "Sales
figures", "Sales goals" etc.

The publishers like this because it implies ownership when in fact we all know
that we are getting a license which can be revoked (Now more than ever). Maybe
people will start taking notice when they read

"GAME X licensed 50,000 times" or "50,000 licenses sold for GAME X"

~~~
andylei
its not inaccurate

GAME X sold 50,000 licenses.

~~~
rurounijones
But the implied meaning is hugely difference between

"GAME X sold 50,000 copies" or "GAME X sold 50,000 units"

and

"GAME X sold 50,000 licenses."

Call out the game companies on the fact that they are not selling items most
people would understand it

------
tibbon
So we've got two things at hand here:

1) Consumers don't understand the license vs own thing, just like they don't
understand really basic copyright issues. This isn't about to change any time
soon.

2) I can't think of any better way to handle licensing, unless there's a
government-standard 'digital license' (which would probably be a terrible
idea/implementation anyway). Consumers say they want to "own" something, but
what do they want to own? If you own all the IP to the digital item, then
others don't own it, or suddenly you're entitled to a share of the revenue
from it? That doesn't make sense. A non-revokable license? Maybe that's what
consumers are more asking for, but it has its problems too.

Since consumers often don't know what they want, and don't have the language
to describe what they want, it would seem a conversation that isn't going to
go far.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
People's intuitions are based on the physical world: I paid the same price as
I would have for a game on a DVD, so I should have the same rights as a DVD,
which means 1( the company can't steal it back, 2) I can sell it to somebody
else, or 3) I can give it away.

The problem is that publishers want their cake and to eat it, too: sell for
the high price that includes covering the cost of the secondary market and
kill the secondary market.

------
SoftwareMaven
And there are questions about why people pirate? When you can be sued by
Autodesk for exercising the doctrine of First Sale or have your entire
software collection "stolen" by the company that sold it to you or have your
system riotkitted by playing a CD, it doesn't really encourage people who
would pay, to actually pay.

As I've said before, I don't pirate, but I completely understand why somebody
who can afford to pay for content does choose to pirate instead.

I don't consider the online version much better. Google can destroy years of
data and doesn't care if it is critical to your business or pictures of your
baby's first smile. PayPal can turn off access to the funds you need to pay
your employees for any reason they choose. Too bad, so sad...

------
drbawb
I need to check the license again. (Haven't read it in a long time.)

The thing is: you don't really own any game. Yes you own the manuals and the
case and the physical media, but it's still licensed to you. Just like a Steam
game is.

The only real difference is that Steam can actually revoke that license _and_
enforce that revocation.

However I thought the license stated that if Steam ever went out of business
your games would retain offline functionality and be locally playable. (e.g:
You get to keep a copy w/o Steam DRM and Community.)

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Yeah, the Steam TOS calls games a "subscription".

------
homosaur
Steam support is garbage. I assume from their responses in the past that Steam
Support consists of one guy who does not speak English who they keep in a
darkened room, mostly drunk, and occasionally every fourth message gets
through. They make money hand over fist but refuse to provide even a modicum
of service. I purchased Jamestown, the space shooter, and the download did not
work correctly. It took more than a week of repeated harassment before Steam
support would respond to any question. In between replies was at least 2 days
every time, sometimes more. The frustrating part is that they had the solution
right there. It was something a call center could have worked out in 45
seconds. I think we should hold their feet to the fire to provide better
service or stop buying stuff on Steam because the current level of support in
unacceptable.

------
seanalltogether
On a related note, one of the technical details about the Mac App Store that I
find interesting is the fact that once an application is downloaded to your
machine, there's nothing Apple can do to revoke that copy. It sounds like
steam manages the licenses of your games for you, whereas the Mac App Store
bundles the receipt into each copy of the application that you download. Apple
could in theory deny you access to future updates of an app, and you wouldn't
be able to use that app bundle on a different machine, but they can't deny you
access to an app once its been downloaded.

~~~
CraigRood
> I find interesting is the fact that once an application is downloaded to
> your machine, there's nothing Apple can do to revoke that copy.

I don't believe this is necessarily by design, It's the nature of allowing ANY
application on the store. With steam, to distribute your game you must hook
into the Steam API.

Both come with positives and negatives, as you have mentioned, but I don't
believe either is 'correct'.

------
tatsuke95
I think this is something that we're going to have to adapt to as the media
changes. Sure, we don't really own those games, and technically they can take
them from us at any time. But Valve (and iTunes or whatever) are trying to
make money, and they won't do so by ripping off or treating their customers
badly. I guess it's a trust thing.

I mean, I don't own my PVR either, but I don't fear the cable company showing
up and taking it away from me.

------
Schwolop
It's worth pointing out that in all cases you do still have local copies of
the data and binaries required to run these games on your computer, even if
your account is locked out of the Steam server. So, despite it being against
the EULA (which you're possibly not beholden to after having been banned
anyway), and also possibly against your local civil laws, you could always
download a crack and continue playing anyway.

You're not "illegally downloading" the games, you're legally downloading
someone else's software that just so happens to modify the server
authentication aspects of the games of which you once owned the right to store
on your hard disk. By running that software you are definitely breaking a EULA
that you no longer care about, and you may or may not be breaking laws that
you're incredibly unlikely to be caught or prosecuted for.

Your morality may differ, but I don't have a problem with this.

------
victork2
It's actually a broader issue now.

It's not only steam but every game that is based on a platform that can grant
or refuse access to your games. Just look at the problem with Battlefield 3
and forum discussions. Some people have been banned from playing because they
said something disrespectful on the forums. How the hell is it even legal?

------
mwd_
Admittedly I am not a very serious gamer, but this is part of why I favour
DRM-free games. Humble Bundle has been great. I would feel very uncomfortable
investing hundreds of dollars into a Steam account.

Customers can vote with their wallets somewhat, but I feel the situation is
somewhat unfair in that many people probably do not understand what they are
getting in exchange for their money. You could argue that they accepted terms
somewhere, but most of those contracts are of a completely unreasonable length
and I doubt many people are capable of properly interpreting them. If they do
have problems with the contract, they have no power to renegotiate anything.
This seems like a case where legislation to protect consumers is warranted.

------
kghose
My question would be if the recipients of the gifts were in the same pricing
zone as the account owner.

If they were in the same zone I can see no possible business reason why Valve
would object to it, once they found that it wasn't fraud.

HOWEVER, legally it gets into the grey zone of money laundering, though it is
laughable at such tiny amounts! :)

If the person was gifting games across pricing zones (can you do that?) in
return for cash it gets very complicated and I can see Valve objecting to this
as a way of getting around, say euro and dollar pricing.

~~~
rplnt
Yes you can, I was once gifted a game by someone from different zone.

Also, the pricing zones aren't that much about euro/dollar as they are about
distributors (some of them at least). They are no different from music/movie
distributors. I would understand that in the case of Skyrim for example, where
the Russian version is much cheaper. But I really don't understand why some
distributors make games cheaper in US than in Europe, considering the Europe
is well bellow the USA in purchasing power. And if I remember correctly,
Australians got the most expensive games of all.

We can only be happy that there are no zone restrictions as there are on DVDs.
Or are there?

~~~
barrkel
Europe is below USA in purchasing power in part because things are more
expensive here. Things like games.

There are a whole bunch of reasons: a less competitive market; less scale;
complying to country-specific details - everything from translation to
censorship schemes to VAT; less price sensitivity; different sales channel
setup (game publishers may not want to undercut the physical sales channel by
discounting Steam games so much); etc.

------
kenrik
Remember, laws are country specific. Even if Valve plays nice in the US they
can easily pull this stuff in other countries (The example was Russian I
believe)

Best defense against this kind of stuff is bad publicity and people voting
with their wallets. I would love to see a clear concise statement from
Valve/Steam on the issue of who actually "owns" the licences to the games we
pay for. If the customer is "purchasing a licence" I don't see how Valve/Steam
would be able to deny them access to the games they had purchased. At a
minimum they need a way to allow you to use the games you already purchased
even if they kill switch your account.

If you're just borrowing the games until Steam/Valve get mad at you and
suspend your account then you might as well use a service like OnLive or buy
retail copies of all your games.

