Do you have the right to sell your Steam Games?

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This is a topic that I'm not sure has been talked about too much, as I personally don't hear it outside of many 'Steam Trading' circles, but I think it's a very interesting topic. 
Back in 2019 a European Court suggested that Steam Users do have the right to be able to resell the Games in their Steam Library just as you could with Physical Copies, and that the Valves policies on games reselling, infact,  was in breach of European Law and that all products - even without the permission of the publishers or original sellers - should allow users to resell their games. 
Valve appealed the decision. And I believe they actually stated that they actually sold 'Game Subscriptions' - the Court ultimately ruled that they sold 'Game Licenses' (Thank God...)

I can't find much more news about the whole situation. 
But, I personally love the idea of being able to resell my games - though, I'm not too sure how it'd effect the games market -

I'd also expect this same ruling to be applied to every other Digital Storefront, like Epic and so on, but - I'm not sure if this would damage sales, or make them better -

On one hand, I believe people would be more willing to buy the game if they could re-sell it after they find out they don't like it for practically the same money. 
But, the reason physical second-hand products never really beat the original products its because they are at risk of being broken and everything else - in the case of resold digital items, it'd be essentially like buying a brand new item - only for cheaper prices. And, that might lead to developers making little to no profit. 

 

[kerdios]

Didn't Ross cover this court case in one of his dead games videos?

[Alyxx Thorne]

I'm not sure if Ross covered this exact topic, but definitely covered the topic of whether having games on a service like Steam, Origin, Uplay etc. would count as owning a game, when the game would become unplayable if Valve ever decided to remove Steam for whatever reason. Nothing lasts forever, and that's the issue here.

 

Selling games on Steam wouldn't be THAT far fetched considering Steam already has a firmly established second market where people can trade. I think it boils down to more of an issue with Valve being unwilling to let people actually have ownership over what they buy on Steam.

 

This is why I originally supported GOG as most of their games are DRM free. But with their Galaxy launcher now being a thing, it seems they are going the same route as Valve. As far as I know you can't resell games on any modern game distribution service.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Alyxx Thorne (see edit history)