German consumer federation goes to court war with Valve

Sorry I didn’t post this earlier but now it’s here, check this out, finally someone BIG is going after Valve, Steam and it’s subscriber agreement. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!

The Federation of German Consumers Association (VZBV) has taken issue with Valve and Steam. The VZBV tried to get Valve to allow Steam customers to at least be able to sell their game licenses to other users after the Court of Justice sent down it’s decision. Steam users can’t even give away games they’ve purchased if they no longer want them in their library.

The VZBV announced this week that it’s escalated its pursuit of Valve:

“[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][The VZBV has] submitted a complaint against the company to the district court of Berlin,” said representative Eva Hoffschulte on the group’s website.

The VZBV also went into detial about what in particular it’s trying to get Valve to change. In particular, it claims that by restricting Steam users from reselling games they’ve purchased on the service, Valve is limiting the growth of the digital distribution industry as a whole. They also think it’s unfair that consumers don’t have the right to resell digital games when their prices fluctuate so wildly.

A consumer that spends $60 on a disc version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, for example, can resell it for around $35 before the disc drops in price to that level months later. A Steam user that pays full price for a digital download, meanwhile, doesn’t get any of that value later on.

Valve is open to exploring used game sales. It already offers the Steam Trading service. Rumors that Valve would test letting users sell back games after playing them have been circulating for years now.

This much is true: Valve hired a full-time economist in June 2012. If nothing else, the company is actively researching what a media business should be in a world without physical goods.

Source: Digital Trends[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]