The fact that triple A games have similar prices today on steam to the times when they also had both disk printing, physical distribution to stores and resale figured in seems to contradict that assertion. The main thing that’s keeping prices down seems to be the storm of smaller indie games and sales (which for Triple A games happen much much later in the lifecycle these days).

Inflation and the use of things like performance capture has increased costs

>If games could be resold then I’d have to go through the trouble of reselling them in order to recoup the difference.

works both ways, you'd also have the opportunity to buy a resold game, which in the case of digital goods would not appear to make a difference.

I suspect the reason digital stores don't want to allow a secondary market is because market forces would actually cause prices to drop. I'd sell 75% of my Steam library for whatever the current bid price is right this moment. Even if I just get 20 cents total, that's 20 more cents of value than I'll ever get from those games again.

How about the ability to sell one's account, then? This is currently forbidden in the EULA, as far as I know, but I don't think it would hurt prices that much.

Or purchase a "license upgrade" to resell the game. That would be a deferred commission not everyone has to pay. Include the option to purchase it together with the game, and attach it to the license being transferred (I don't think they could get away with selling that upgrade multiple times in a row).

I do not see this as a black-or-white situation. I am all for giving consumers more rights, and feel like we have been brainwashed into accepting the status quo by Big Tech™.

I do not blame valve. They are one of the better players in the market, and it doesn't surprise me that they just used an existing commercial model everyone was already familiar with. I appreciate the fact that we are having this overdue conversation right now, and that at least some courts recognize the consumer some rights.

> How about the ability to sell one's account, then? This is currently forbidden in the EULA, as far as I know, but I don't think it would hurt prices that much.

That point was made again and again to justify the previous "no refunds" policy. It wouldn't surprise me if changing that policy actually kind of had the opposite effect (have people buy more games). Of course, people can also buy more expensive games now due to the same reason: not sure if the game is worth that price? Buy it and refund if it isn't (previously you wouldn't have bought it).

I am quite interested in seeing the same ruling apply to ebooks/others as well. The only thing I am afraid of is if they turn everything into a subscription. Subscriptions are evil (except for recurring donations, in my book).

I don't get the logic. How not reselling keeps the price down? Isn't it the other way around?

There are games that are 2 or 4 years old and still have the same price as the release day. If reselling was an option it will force them to lower the price and even offer more for those buying "new".

Almost everyone I know only buys games during the big seasonal Steam sales, perhaps with the exception of the occasional “must have.” By not allowing resales, game developers are forced to offer big discounts during these sales in order to capture the “clearance bin” prices that would otherwise go to the secondary market. If reselling were possible, game publishers would never offer those discounts since resellers would always undercut them.

I have personally purchased some Steam bundles that included games I’m actually interested in playing for less than a dollar.

It's easy create a "tax" that goes to the devs for every resell. Actually that would be better than the old physical games reselling.

If forced Steam will surely put a "tax" for themselves, so why not add the devs.

Digital games are expensive because of ohisical media version price parity. And guess what? Those games already have the "can resell tax", so you digital games are already more expensive due to the ability to resell, even though you can't actually resell them.

Actually you’re just subsidizing the people who can resell their physical disk copies.

If game companies could just raise prices today and make more money, why wouldn’t they, regardless of what happens in this case?

If anything, allowing resale would cause demand for new product to go down causing lower prices.