A lot better alternative would be to change the laws to turn any digital goods as public domain whenever a publisher is no longer willing to renew any third party licenses in order to be able continue to sell new copies, as this way you don't need to buy used copies while the rest of us don't have worry about publishers adding resale tracking DRM to all their games.

I'd be fine with that too. Either or.

The conversation about resale comes up every now and then, but most people never seem to remember delisted games. Before GabeN ruined game ownership, discs going out of print wasn't a big deal. Now that everything's tied to a digital account, delisting is a massive problem. We need either the ability to officially sell (transfer) licenses from one account to another, or to have a law forcing a game into the public domain if publishers refuse to sell it. The preservation of art is more important than petty corporate squabbles.

Heck, both methods would probably encourage all corpos to sort out their squabbles immediately too.

Thanks for the update, but I don't see how the post's age affects its relevance. Regardless, since this was reported in 2012, it seems like a moot point now.

As I said in my first post, who's going to drop the shoe and do it, and more importantly, who's going to enforce this?

They cannot stop someone reselling downloaded games, but who's going to actually implement the system?

Own a book? You can resell it.

Own a DVD? You can resell it.

Own a CD? You can resell it.

Own a game cartridge? You can resell it.

The video game industry has always hated the resale market and sought to kill it.

Their favorite mantra is "... but publishers (and developers) are losing money due to resales."

I feel this is unjustified.

Because when people buy a resale game... and like it... they become fans of the game, series, developer, publisher, etc. And those fans will be more likely to spend full price for another game in that series, from that developer, or from that publisher. This is cultivation of a fan base / customer base.

Taken to an extreme... this is the reason Game of Thrones (one of the most pirated tv shows in history) became one of the most-watched in cable history (and generated huge HBO subscriptions for the final seasons). I'm not advocating piracy, but it generated fans and customers.

I would argue that those publishers wanting to lock down content (end ownership) often have content that few want. They look to squeeze every drop of blood out of mediocre content... and they have strong PR departments to complete the con.

IMO ownership of purchased products is paramount... and sadly the digital marketplace was created to be a gateway to that removal of ownership. Convenience is never granted without something being taken away.

The EU seems to have a strong definition of ownership, but...

... that matters little if there's no enforcement.

And in the digital realm there is certainly no will from publishers and marketplaces to dismantle their carefully constructed web of EULAs, registrations, DRM, etc. so that people can own what they purchase.

"You will own nothing and you will be happy."

That is not an apples-to-apples comparison that your statement is actually making though.

Used physical games didn't destroy the gaming industry for reasons such as that:

- There was not enough of them on the market.

- Many/Most people didn't/don't want to buy crusty used things when that had other people's grubby, filthy hands all over them.

- Many/Most people didn't/don't want to buy used game discs because they could be scratched or otherwise damaged and therefore either not work, or only partially work.

- Selling used games to brick & mortar stores is not worth doing because they hardly pay anything to the person selling. And setting up online listings on sites like eBAY is a hassle that most people aren't going to want to be bothered with doing.

- Buying used games from brick & mortar stores is not worth doing for the buyer either, since the store is charging them ripoff prices for a used product that is not in pristine condition, but they are being asked to pay a price akin to what it would be worth if it was.

In contrast, if the digital reselling of games becomes a thing, then none of those factors would be applicable to digital reselling, whereas they are applicable to physical reselling.

In other words, the digital reselling of games would be much more appealing to most consumers than physical reselling is, because all of the re-bought digital copies will be 100% pristine, just the same as it always ever was, whereas with physical discs, that is not so, which makes them much less appealing to a massive audience; and also, because the digital reselling market would be much quicker & easier for the sellers to sell for a fair price than used physical games are, and also for buyers to buy the used games at a fair price.

As for your other claim, that "if someone wants to abuse this, they already can." I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean someone illegally reselling GOG games now, before the laws have changed? If so, then no they can't, because if they did that, then be arrested for the crime, and their illegal business would be shut down.

On the other hand, if by that statement, you were referring to a consumer downloaded pirated software, that's also not an apples-to-apples comparison either, since that has the risks of viruses, and is almost always the outdated 1.0 version of the game, and many/most consumers don't want to run the risk of having viruses or being stuck with the un-updated, worst possible version of a game. Plus, users who don't use a VPN but who download pirated games would be warned to stop doing that by their ISP or otherwise have their Internet service cutoff, which average people are not going to continue trying to be pirates after they receive any warning like that. Or, they would get financial settlement demand letters from copyright trolls, which would also scare them away from ever doing piracy again (I'm not sure if the gaming industry has copyright trolls too though, or just the movie & music industries).

All of that means that digital reselling of games, if it becomes allowed, will certainly be massively more popular & mainstream than digital piracy is. And it probably would put companies like GOG right out of business.

The unlimited supply of digital copies is a problem created by the publishers themselves.
The players are not to take responsibility for this.


But even in the old retail days games often cam in much larger supply but originally intended.
First they were sold in the retail box. Then maybe after a year a second run of the game, if it was successful enough.

But after this it would rapidly lose it's value.
Third party re-publishers like Green Pepper or Preis Pyramide would step in and release cheap versions of the game.
Companies like GoldGames would release a special magazine containing nothing but the game, a walkthrough and covers for the CD Jewel case. This is how I got my first batch of LucasArts games, the newest one being Vollgas/Full Throttle.

In many other cases, at some point the game would be released on the cover of a magazine, at this point the dev would get something between 1$ and 1.50$ for every copy.

Now the market is flooded with digital copies, but that does not change the laws that we are allowed to sell our property and hopefully the EU lawyers find a way to force the selling platforms to acknolodge that we actually own our game licences and don't just have the right to play the games.

The second hand market was always a problem for publishers and hopefully will be again at some point. Some games surely will lose all their value. That's something the publishers and store platforms should have thought about. After all they know the laws better than we do.

kinda no. what is what in "the older day" was that you had a physical something, most often a disk, a CD, a cartridge or a tape. You then bought two items, the physical something and the license. What you where actually allowe to sell was the physical something, not the license. There was a doctrine at the time that losely said "The license follows the medium" (which still exists for physically printed software)

But now that we have digital only, there is no physical something to sell, nor a physical medium that a license can follow.

The main difference is that, off course, a physical something will always be limited in how many copies are printed out, and it also have a limited time span. So at some point, a physical something goes out of circulation, and it enforces that a market never stagnates, but are constantly bringing in income to the license holders. The resale of the physical something is also limited by physical proximity (it has to physically "pass hands")

With digital only these limitations no longer exists, you have unlimited copies, there is no degradation over time, there is no physical proxomity limitations. These are game changers in the software market, and have massive implications for re-sale of licenses.

Follow the old rules for re-sale in a digital only market, would mean that the software marked would stagnate, and it would just not be vaible for anyone to produce software. The maket would go into decline. I dont know about you, but part of what I like about my hobby of playing games, is to try new games as well every now and then.

(not to menation on this forum that any viable re-sale of software / licenses can only work in a DRM'd market place)

Kinda what I said. And that's not our fault.
Because they decided to flood the market is not a reason to forbid to sell what you bought.

If you own something, you have the right to sell it. And that's the end of it. That's a basic right for every property.

To say that it should not be possible is the fist step to acknolodge that you don't own it.
(edit: which btw I know we don't, we are only paying for a service. But there's still people not aware of that).

It's time to make our acquisitions our property again.

my argument was against that. I do not think it would work in a digital only market, if you do not limit the market in some way, then it will collapse. Yes, you could sell the physical "thing" the software came on, but not the software itself. The software did not exist outside the physical thing it came on.

Without the physical thing, you could also argue that you do not own anything, in a way software in tself is a non-physical concept, so you also cannot own it. Can you hold and give me in my hand a piece of code?

The supply of digital copies is "limited" by the amount of copies sold.
(I put "limited" in quotation marks, because - of course - one can illegally duplicate these copies, after the DRM is removed)
The market can not be "flooded" with digital copies, because, again: there are only as many copies on the market, as are sold (illegal duplicates ignored).
In case of digital game downloads goes: the demand creates the supply.

That's not exactly true. You can sell Windows - with or without CD. Microsoft wanted to prevent that, but they had to allow it.

Btw, can you put some Bitcoins in my hand? Or the famous blockchain?
Personall I do consider bitcoins property, even if in the end managing them is only a service and they don't exist without physical media.
All NFTs are considered to be property.

Perfect. That's one less argument against reselling aquired goods.

you do know that Bitcoin is a scam?

You know, it's always amusing when someone brings up a digital currency; something with which has no agreed value, no product of labor involved, no skill in production, and the only risk involved is only slightly massive.

The money in my bank account may fluctuate, but it isn't subject to the dreadful spectre of speculation, and more to the point, is insured by the government, that if someone stole my share, the bank explodes, or some other absurdly rare circumstance, I would have claims to recovery.