News - EU rules that users can resell digital downloaded games

[Malphas]

I guess the depreciation over time can come from technological advancement, rather than the product actually degrading.

Exactly. Games (and movies, etc.) generally make most of their revenue within the initial release period, so it's not like only one person has to buy the game new then everyone else can just buy it second hand from each other, one after the other (ridiculous example to illustrate the point). So although a digital copy of a game won't physically degrade like a boxed game or a car or whatever, the game might still be six months old by the time you're purchasing it second hand so it has in effect lost part of its value still. Not only that but the reselling of games does potentially allow those buying new games to buy more of them and more often, which could offset some of the publishers' losses.

[TaintedShirt]

Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy – tangible or intangible – and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right.

[my bold]

Guys I think you may have missed something. I'm not sure and I'm no lawyer so bear with me.

I haven't read the full judgement but the article quotes that the customer has to have been granted right to use that copy for an "unlimited period". If the game is purely offline then what you all say is more than likely true.
However, if the game is online or uses the net maybe played on servers they control then they can always state that the game is only able to be used while they support the servers i.e. not an unlimited time period so the judgement will not affect them.

Any bets on what game dev's will do next?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Green Man Gaming already gives you trade ins for certain games.

[Malphas]

Well as already mentioned, the car industry both gets continually paid through service parts/franchises and has a high enough initial cost of cars to make the business profitable in the long run.

The service/parts issue is an aside, there are plenty other second hand markets (e.g. furniture, clothes) where the manufacturer doesn't continue to make money. And the initial cost is a chicken and egg issue, if digital game downloads were subject to the same market forces as cars then the initial price would adjust accordingly also. Probably wouldn't need to increase as much as you might think though, considering cars cost materials and labour for every unit sold, in addition to the cost of develop (design, engineer, test) and market the product. Digital distribution on the other hand has costs close to zero and almost 100% margin per unit, with almost the entirety of costs being development and marketing. Not only that but - again like the car industry - the second hand market could influence first sales, with consumers more likely to buy more games with the knowledge and increased disposable income that comes from being able to sell them later - as is already the case with boxed console games.

The car/other physical goods analogy actually works fine even when discussing resell of intellectual property.

[crossy]

That would never work, how many people are going to keep a game if they've played it through? It would be effectively selling the game at (initial price) - (2nd hand price). Each person would only in effect pay a few pounds for having played the game rather than £30+. You'd have to hugely increase sales for that to pay for itself...

Good games do tend to get held onto - I've heard it said that Bulletstorm (for example) can be completed quickly, however it's got definite "replay value" to see if there's higher scoring ways to complete or the "what happens if I do X?" factor.

Granted that won't happen with your typical "on rails" beat-em-up or any movie tie in (or - for that matter pretty much all of the current crop of Olympic bandwaggon fodder).

I also didn't say how much EA etc would offer - I would assume a sliding scale - so if you sold BF4 in the first month then perhaps you'd get £15 back, second month £12, third £10, etc. It also wouldn't prevent EA turning around and selling the license they just "reclaimed" at a good profit - since there's obviously no difference between a new and used digital download.

Yes, it would mean that game prices would have to rise - but even something as simple as pricing digital the same as real would be enough - perhaps the savings in not having to produce and ship disks, manuals, etc would cover the shortfall?

I'm sure that there's folks in the publishers looking very closely at this at the moment...

Just as long as they don't come up with a subscription-based "pay to play" model. In which case Just Cause 2 and COD:2/4 would be costing me a mint!