Valve Shoots Down Rumor of Steam Game Trades

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Digitally yours, forever.

We love digital distribution services like Steam. They provide a great place that keeps track of your games, while you don't have to keep track of physical media or serial keys.

Even though there isn't much of a used games market for PC games, the way digital distribution works today makes reselling something you own impossible. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter spoke in an interview with NowGamer about some kind of Steam trade or exchange service: "Steam gives gamers enough other stuff so that they don’t resent the fact they can’t trade in their games. And you know, name all the Steam games that you’ve purchased that you’ve traded back in to somebody else for credit. Steam’s about to let you do that supposedly, you know like trade and exchange, but they’re going to take a fee from it."

Before you celebrate about how you may be able to send your digital games back into the Steam stream for someone else to enjoy, Valve's Doug Lombardi killed the notion with the following statement to Blue's News: "Untrue. We've never met with Mr. Pachter."

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
53 Comments Comment from the forums
  • braneman
    I won't care as long as they start working on episode 3/half life 3(portal and dota are nice and all but they don't hold a candle to half life.)
    Reply
  • Vixe
    inb4 halflife3 request
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Personally I don't care, I pay for Steam games and I know they cannot be re-sold afterwards and it's no big deal

    The only reason for a 2nd hand games market to exist is for buying games cheaper and Steam games are cheap enough already (I recently got every Doom title ever made for a whopping £7.81)

    The second hand games market is a leech on the industry and the developers don't see a penny of the money that circulates through it. So what is better for the end user?

    1) Games distubuted in a way that the 2nd hand market does not exist, every penny goes to the developers so they can reinvest in more and better games and the high uptake of sales means that the cost is reduced for the customer. Quality is increased, cost is lowered.

    2) Games are allowed to flourish in a re-sellable marketplace, a single sale of the game can lead to dozens of separate owners so the uptake is lower, this leads to higher costs for the games and the amount available for reinvestment is also lowered. Quality is lowered, cost is increased.

    Time for this leeching industry to die, if you work in CEX or GameStop then time to look for a new job in KFC, it's not like you had a highly paid position of skilled qualification to begin with. The ultimate winner here will be the customer - we get better quality games and pay less money in the long run.
    Reply
  • steelbox
    back_by_demandPersonally I don't care, I pay for Steam games and I know they cannot be re-sold afterwards and it's no big dealThe only reason for a 2nd hand games market to exist is for buying games cheaper and Steam games are cheap enough already (I recently got every Doom title ever made for a whopping £7.81)The second hand games market is a leech on the industry and the developers don't see a penny of the money that circulates through it. So what is better for the end user?1) Games distubuted in a way that the 2nd hand market does not exist, every penny goes to the developers so they can reinvest in more and better games and the high uptake of sales means that the cost is reduced for the customer. Quality is increased, cost is lowered.2) Games are allowed to flourish in a re-sellable marketplace, a single sale of the game can lead to dozens of separate owners so the uptake is lower, this leads to higher costs for the games and the amount available for reinvestment is also lowered. Quality is lowered, cost is increased.Time for this leeching industry to die, if you work in CEX or GameStop then time to look for a new job in KFC, it's not like you had a highly paid position of skilled qualification to begin with. The ultimate winner here will be the customer - we get better quality games and pay less money in the long run.
    I simple agree with back_by_demand that the games are already cheaper than the physical, shelf market. I to bough doom collection but for 39.99 two year ago. With costed me +- R$ 80. Just Resurrection of Doom goes out for R$ 50, and it's not even available anymore in physical shelf market here in Brazil! Tell me if that isn't a bargain!
    Reply
  • TunaSoda
    As a business model it makes no sense to have the games re-sellable
    Reply
  • kriminal
    yeah i don't care about reselling my games of steam pfftt...
    alot of 90+ games were bargains tho. :)
    Reply
  • dalta centauri
    TunaSodaAs a business model it makes no sense to have the games re-sellableYes, but I would enjoy if Steam allowed you to pass a game you own onto a friend whenever you want, but that's only possible as long as your account isn't vac-banned (so you can't pass Valve games onto a new account that you made.)
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    dalta centauriYes, but I would enjoy if Steam allowed you to pass a game you own onto a friend whenever you want, but that's only possible as long as your account isn't vac-banned (so you can't pass Valve games onto a new account that you made.)It's exactly the same thing, a cottage industry would spring up where people would go into GameStop and "gift" their copy of the game to the store and they would then hand over cash to the seller.
    Then they would take money from the next person and "gift" the game to their account.

    There is always a way to run a scam from it, a blanket ban is the only way to stop it.
    Reply
  • dalta centauri
    9250007 said:
    It's exactly the same thing, a cottage industry would spring up where people would go into GameStop and "gift" their copy of the game to the store and they would then hand over cash to the seller.
    Then they would take money from the next person and "gift" the game to their account.

    There is always a way to run a scam from it, a blanket ban is the only way to stop it.
    Giving a game you owned on Steam to a friend on Steam for free would become a scam?
    Reply
  • carcharocles_theory
    Buying used games is nice... but it's only nice as long as you can't afford a new game. Valve consistently has sales that reduce games to a fraction of their original price--at one point over the summer you could get Resident Evil 5 for 6 bucks--and they are USUALLY cheaper than everywhere else to begin with. I've only seen a couple of times where I could get a game they were selling cheaper elsewhere... but then you have to factor in shipping or tax (most places won't have tax on steam), meaning ultimately you are still saving money.
    And yes, the biggest downside of a resold game is that it takes money away from developers, but this IS something that happens in every other market. However, if you can get a brand new Ferrari for the price of a new Ford Focus, would you really buy that 7, 8 year old beat up model to save a few extra bucks?
    Reply