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Steam may Introduce Game SharingFollow

#1 Jun 19 2013 at 6:34 AM Rating: Good
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It's just some new code in the directory that clearly points to some kind of sharing system, but what that means is unknown. For all we know, it could be a new rental service, and not a user-sharing system.

It'll be interesting to see where this is going.
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#2 Jun 19 2013 at 6:53 AM Rating: Excellent
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Wasn't there some EU court ruling or law or somesuch that said you needed to be able to share/control your digital content? It may be in response to that. At my least optimistic, I'd suggest Valve could go to publishers and say "Who wants in on this ability?" and those who don't will be region locked out from EU markets.

I would greatly prefer NOT to have some wholesale "sharing" ability across everyone's complete catalog as such a thing would only drive prices up as publishers try to compensate for the lack of new sales.
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#3 Jun 19 2013 at 7:04 AM Rating: Good
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Well, if it's JUST a "share" system, it shouldn't compete too heavily with sales. You wouldn't be permanently transferring content.

They might also use the ebook model, where it's "lent" out for a period of time. They'd probably need to connect to the net to play the game, it wouldn't be available to the original owner.

I imagine they'll be a cap on the length of time you can lend it.

It's also possible that this isn't a lending system at all, but more of a way to add registered users to a game key? Like Microsoft's family share idea, but across PCs.

I also have no clue what that ruling was, so no comment there.
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IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#4 Jun 19 2013 at 7:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Well, if it's JUST a "share" system, it shouldn't compete too heavily with sales. You wouldn't be permanently transferring content.

Eh, I think a lot of games are "one and done". I played Bioshock: Infinite. Enjoyed it. Little desire to play it again. Maybe someday I will but I could probably loan it to a dozen people before then and that's a dozen people unlikely to ever buy their own copy once they've played through it. You could apply the same to any number of linear games.

Here's the EU case I was thinking of. My thought at the time was the same as now -- this would lead to (EU) region restricted games before it led to widespread digital resales in the US. We haven't seen that yet but we haven't seen resales in the EU yet either.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#5 Jun 19 2013 at 7:41 AM Rating: Good
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I'm not sure that ruling would apply to Steam? I'm sure I'm not fully understanding, knowing nothing about the involved parties. But what it seems to be saying, to me, is that you cannot stop the transfer of a digital license. But that shouldn't put the impetus of enabling a sale on the place of the platform, no?

To me, that means that I must be able to sell my Steam account, which contains the collection of my digital licenses, not necessarily that I be able to remove one of my digital licenses from that account and transfer them that way.

If I really cared about resale value, I could just be creating new Steam accounts for each game I wanted to enable, and sell that.

I guess the answer to that question comes down to whether or not the concept of a user license is bound to the user's relationship with the digital distribution platform, the digital distribution platform with the publisher, or the publisher and the user. Or all three.
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IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#6 Jun 19 2013 at 7:50 AM Rating: Excellent
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I won't pretend to be conversant with the case, nor an EU internet lawyer. I've just heard folks suggesting they're related. They could very well not be but, hey, we have three lines of Steam code to talk about Smiley: laugh
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#7 Jun 19 2013 at 7:53 AM Rating: Good
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Well, talking about 3 lines of code is more fun than doing work...

[EDIT]

Unless you're paid to talk about 3 lines of code. Then it's the worst thing ever.

Edited, Jun 19th 2013 9:54am by idiggory
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IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
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