I see a massive downside to this ruling as a gamer. This is talking about resale of a digital game. In reality what would happen is someone would download a game, copy the file to a harddrive, sell the “digital license” or whatever it’s called for a lesser amount and still own a copy of the game. It’s basically simplifying piracy.
This might actually necessitate game companies to have a hardline DRM approach to their games. Ironically the only games that are protected from this kind of resale are the those that heavily dipped in microtransactions since you can’t resell those and would push the market more in that direction.
IMHO this ruling is shortsighted and pushes for a future with increased monitisation that isn’t in the box value of the game and targets to hurt the Devs that make consumer friendly games while giving games with loot boxes and microtransactions an advantage in the market when talking in terms of overall sales for the devs.
Edit: My mind has changed from the piracy perspective. Still don’t like how this feels from the overall market perspective.
Any protections to consumers are a win. I think overall this will be a positive for gamers.
IMHO this ruling is shortsighted and pushes for a future with increased monitisation that isn’t in the box value of the game and targets to hurt the Devs that make consumer friendly games while giving games with loot boxes and microtransactions an advantage in the market when talking in terms of overall sales for the devs.
Your last paragraph could hold some truth if publishers think this will affect profits. I don’t know if this would significantly impact profits since we’re talking about a new secondary market that did not exist in the digital space before. There’s probably some historical data for how physical used game sales affect new game sales but it might be hard to quantify since that market has existed pretty much from the beginning.
I would anticipate another across the board price increase for games as a result, but I see this more as an excuse for greed on the publishers’ parts rather than a cost to offset any actual lost revenue.
My problem is traditional consumer friendly sales model for digital games are already on the back foot. This ruling only works to dissuade any new or existing Devs from persuing that model over one with microtransaction.
If anything I want this method of purchasing digital content to be pushed further into any game with purchasable in game items to even the playing field.
This is an important observation; slowly, it becomes better for EA releasing their next singleplayer adventure to restructure: The base is “free”, and then you can buy passes to access the singleplayer world as microtransactions that are not easily transferred.
A lot of RMT content is not easy for a court to define resellability of; think things like orbs that increase a weapon’s stats through a one-time forging process. We don’t want to make that a safer vending process for publishers than full games.
Because pirating games is not something that the majority of the population is either aware of or wiling to do due to perceived difficulty. This can be done through steam which is the biggest host of PC games and significantly less risky than going to some site and figuring out which copy of a game is legit.
Edit: I retract comment, other comment about the steam refund changed my mind.
Steam has a sub 2-hour game time no questions asked refund period - what prevents someone from doing exactly what you said using the refund process instead of resale?
As a gamer, that’s some ridiculous whataboutisms. What’s to stop me from buying a physical copy of a game, copying it, and reselling the game? Only time, experience and know how, and yet that isn’t seen as much of an issue. This isn’t any different, it’s just digital.
Most people aren’t going through the effort of buying a physical game or any media these days, it’s why digital stores are so effective. But the other commenter did say that steam already has a 2hour refund window that basically has the same impact so I might have panicked for no reason.
Though my other point about micro transactions vs full box value still stands.
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I see a massive downside to this ruling as a gamer.
This is talking about resale of a digital game. In reality what would happen is someone would download a game, copy the file to a harddrive, sell the “digital license” or whatever it’s called for a lesser amount and still own a copy of the game. It’s basically simplifying piracy.This might actually necessitate game companies to have a hardline DRM approach to their games. Ironically the only games that are protected from this kind of resale are the those that heavily dipped in microtransactions since you can’t resell those and would push the market more in that direction.IMHO this ruling is shortsighted and pushes for a future with increased monitisation that isn’t in the box value of the game and targets to hurt the Devs that make consumer friendly games while giving games with loot boxes and microtransactions an advantage in the market when talking in terms of overall sales for the devs.
Edit: My mind has changed from the piracy perspective. Still don’t like how this feels from the overall market perspective.
Maybe this is what those game companies can finally use NFTs for!
I’m kinda kidding but maybe blockchain can offer a solution.
Lmao now we’re block chain gaming.
Any protections to consumers are a win. I think overall this will be a positive for gamers.
Your last paragraph could hold some truth if publishers think this will affect profits. I don’t know if this would significantly impact profits since we’re talking about a new secondary market that did not exist in the digital space before. There’s probably some historical data for how physical used game sales affect new game sales but it might be hard to quantify since that market has existed pretty much from the beginning.
I would anticipate another across the board price increase for games as a result, but I see this more as an excuse for greed on the publishers’ parts rather than a cost to offset any actual lost revenue.
My problem is traditional consumer friendly sales model for digital games are already on the back foot. This ruling only works to dissuade any new or existing Devs from persuing that model over one with microtransaction.
If anything I want this method of purchasing digital content to be pushed further into any game with purchasable in game items to even the playing field.
This is an important observation; slowly, it becomes better for EA releasing their next singleplayer adventure to restructure: The base is “free”, and then you can buy passes to access the singleplayer world as microtransactions that are not easily transferred.
A lot of RMT content is not easy for a court to define resellability of; think things like orbs that increase a weapon’s stats through a one-time forging process. We don’t want to make that a safer vending process for publishers than full games.
I agree that microtransactions and loot boxes in gaming need regulation as well. Hopefully this is a step towards that.
Why would anyone go to that effort when you can pirate them?
Seems like an absurd situation to worry about.
Because pirating games is not something that the majority of the population is either aware of or wiling to do due to perceived difficulty. This can be done through steam which is the biggest host of PC games and significantly less risky than going to some site and figuring out which copy of a game is legit.
Edit: I retract comment, other comment about the steam refund changed my mind.
Steam has a sub 2-hour game time no questions asked refund period - what prevents someone from doing exactly what you said using the refund process instead of resale?
Fair call, didn’t think of that.
As a gamer, that’s some ridiculous whataboutisms. What’s to stop me from buying a physical copy of a game, copying it, and reselling the game? Only time, experience and know how, and yet that isn’t seen as much of an issue. This isn’t any different, it’s just digital.
Most people aren’t going through the effort of buying a physical game or any media these days, it’s why digital stores are so effective. But the other commenter did say that steam already has a 2hour refund window that basically has the same impact so I might have panicked for no reason.
Though my other point about micro transactions vs full box value still stands.