

Will you join my Steam Protest? - HalfPriceDigi

Steam&#x27;s no resale policy is illegal in the EU - see the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling (link below). Basically it says that if you&#x27;re an EU citizen and you paid a one-time fee for a lifetime license of software, you can resell it. I created a site that will let you sell your used Steam games www.halfpricedigital.com Twitter @HalfPriceDigi<p>If you&#x27;re in the EU and you want to protest Steam&#x27;s no-resale policy, just list your Steam game for sale and then email Valve to ask them how you will be able to transfer the game when your auction ends. Here&#x27;s Valve&#x27;s email form http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.valvesoftware.com&#x2F;email.php I&#x27;m turning off the fees on my site for a month starting today - so, no, I&#x27;m not scamming you for a percentage of the sale.<p>Valve will probably tell you reselling games is against their user agreement. Tell them that that&#x27;s against EU law and mention the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling.  If we can get Valve to allow reselling games in the EU, they might allow reselling games all over the world.<p>UsedSoft v Oracle info: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;raywang&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;04&#x2F;news-analysis-usedsoft-vs-oracle-ruling-opens-up-monopolistic-practices-by-software-vendors&#x2F;<p>TL;DR - Protest Steam&#x27;s illegal no resale policy by listing your used Steam games for sale on www.halfpricedigital.com if you&#x27;re an EU citizen.
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Metatron
Eh, I like my money to go to the publisher and the developer when I buy a
game, not some schmuck who's done with the game and wants a quick buck for
something they bought. Used game sales are a moral grey zone and the general
populous of gamers needs to wise up to that.

But you know, good luck with your plan to rally popular opinion and take a cut
of everyone's undeserved payouts!

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HalfPriceDigi
Do you find the selling of used cars to be a moral grey zone? If you weren't
able to sell your used car ever, would you be more or less likely to buy
another car? Do you think that people who resell their used games buy more or
less new games?

When you buy something you buy a license to use that item for as long as you
own it. If you sell it you no longer have the right or ability to continue to
use that item anymore. I think that the argument that you are making is that a
game is an experience and that once you have played a game once you have
reaped the full benefit of ownership from that game. However, I believe that
you are mistaken. The full benefit of owning something is that you can reuse
it as often as you like. You can read the same book as many times as you want
for as long as you own that book. The same is true for a game. The benefit of
owning a game or any software is that you can use it as much as you want for
as long as you own it. When you sell it you are giving up your right to
continue to experience that game until you buy it again.

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Metatron
Of course there's a moral grey zone when selling a used car. We're talking
about the people who craft something being snubbed for the profit of a private
individual. When someone buys a used car that means a new car isn't sold. The
car industry and any industry that has used sales, has to then push up the
price of new products to counter the loss of sales from the used market,
punishing customers. This is BAD, no matter what way you look at it.

Money is meant to be a mechanism that enables the trading of labour. I put in
X effort, I am recompensed with Y money. I can then use Y money myself to by
things that I want. To then resell something I've worked for and legitimately
purchased is me making money out of nothing, or rather from the labour a game
developer has put in. That right there is the moral greyzone. You have a gut
feeling that you should have the right to resell any of your possessions, and
perhaps you're right, but you have to accept the damage you do to an industry,
and to the other purchasers of products and services like yourself, that is
done when you perpetuate a second-hand market.

To say you have a right to resell, and the added inference that 'more money
for myself is good' that comes along with that is a very narrow-minded and
one-sided argument. If you think about the larger picture and the consequences
of your actions then this all becomes a very different proposition. But as the
owner of a used games marketplace I don't expect you to see the selfless side.

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HalfPriceDigi
It seems that your argument then is that no one should ever be able to resell
or give away anything that they buy ever. So when you buy something, anything
at all, you would have to own it yourself until you throw it away. Obviously
that would have a huge negative impact on the environment with items like
cars, computers, clothes, etc. Also, the lack of a second-hand market would
have a negative impact on low-income people who need to buy used goods for the
lower prices. So it seems to me that your argument against the existence of
any second-hand market would have disastrous effects and cannot exist in the
real world.

You have avoided the issue of whether or not second-hand markets positively
impact the primary market. For example, if people weren't able to sell their
used cars, would they be more or less likely to buy new cars. I think that the
answer is pretty obvious. If people couldn't resell their used cars ever, they
would buy new cars less often. Mainly because people often partially pay for
new cars by trading in or selling their old cars.

I agree with namlem's comment "Why does incurring the costs associated with
resale on the industry in any way morally gray? It's the manufacture's right
to price items accordingly. They can just raise it to compensate." The
manufacture should simply price the existence of a resale market into their
product. That's what ever merchant other than Steam already does.

Steam is breaking the law in the EU and their illegal business model (not
allowing resales) is what allows them to undercut the prices of their
competitors. Don't you find that to be a moral grey zone?

The problem with making the argument, as I suspect you are, that because games
are intellectual property that they shouldn't be able to be resold when you
are done with them, is that almost everything is intellectual property. Think
of how many parts of your car are patented. Those patents are intellectual
property. If you let Steam say that you don't own the games that you buy then
you opening the floodgates to a world where you don't own anything that you
buy - you are just "licensing" it. As I've stated above a world like that
isn't practical and I don't believe it is morally correct either. It restricts
the rights of consumers for no reason other than to further enrich the
producers of goods, who many doing just fine as is. Valve is worth 2.5 Billion
dollars. Aren't they doing well enough without having to step all over
consumer's rights?

