The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) has filed a lawsuit against Valve, saying that users should be able to resell games that they own.
The group claims that Steam users should have the right to sell their digital version of their games, much like that of a boxed product.
“If I pay the full price for a game, then why am I not allowed to do with it what I want,” said Carola Elbrecht, VZBV’s project manager.
VZBV reportedly threatened Valve with a lawsuit, unless the game company changed its policies.
A Valve representative has responded to GameSpot, saying that no formal complaint has been received from VZBV.
“We are aware of the press release about the lawsuit filed by the VZBV, but we have not yet seen the actual complaint. That said, we understand the complaint is somehow regarding the transferability of Steam accounts, despite the fact that this issue has already been ruled upon favorably to Valve in a prior case between Valve and the VZBV by the German supreme court. For now, we are continuing to extend the Steam services to gamers in Germany and around the world.”
It is worth noting that this isn’t the first time The VZBV has taken on Valve. Previously they claimed that Valve’s prohibition of user account transfers violated German laws. The case went all the way to the German Federal Court of Justice where a judge ruled in favour of Valve, saying the terms did not violate German law.
However, as reported by Gamespot, a European court recently ruled that content creators can’t prohibit post-purchase redistribution of work, no matter what the end-user license agreement says.
What do you think? Do you think Steam users should be able to resell games from their accounts?
Source: PC Advisor
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It’s a complicated issue,
If valve allow re-selling of games a few outcomes are obviouse
1) Valve lose money because only half of their userbase needs to buy a single game and then that half can resell it to the other half (these halves are obviously possible buyers)
2) The Game Industry lose money and faith in valve because they are no longer making maximum profit (as explained above) therefore valve go out of business
Essentially i would like to see being able to trade games but people have to understand that this is a very delicate issue. Knowing the gaming community there will be trading sites up and running within minutes of this going live and valve will feel the affects instantly.
I think the best solution is that you are able to ‘gift’ your game to friends but you have to pay valve to do so.