Steam may offer trade-ins

humanji

Just a rumour at the moment, but I read this on Kotaku:

Kotaku wrote:

Right now, if you buy a game from Steam, finish it and don't want it, well, you can...delete it. You can't go trade it in. But there are whispers that the digital purchase giant is considering implementing such a scheme.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, taking a break from wildly speculating about the future of the industry, has actually gone on record to say he's heard Valve will soon be allowing those who download a game to trade it in.

"Steam is phenomenal, it's a great service," he told NowGamer. "Steam gives gamers enough other stuff so that they don't resent the fact they can't trade in their games. And you know, name all the Steam games that you've purchased that you've traded back in to somebody else for credit. Steam's about to let you do that supposedly, you know like trade and exchange, but they're going to take a fee from it."

Interesting. At the moment, if you delete a game you've purchased, you may not get anything back in return for offloading it, but you can download it again in the future. Giving consumers the option of forsaking that convenience in exchange for credit towards future purchases would, we'd imagine, go down a treat with most of Steam's regular users.

Personally, I can't see why they'd bother as it'll just mean lost revenue. It'd be pretty cool if they did, though. It'd make up for the overpricing of their games, plus I guess for them it'll possibly cause people to trade back games thye don't want only to buy them again at a later date if they wanted to play it again.

johnny_ultimate

Always thought digital distribution would see an end to trade-ins. The concept of ownership gets a bit weird when it comes to digital copies, especially if this actually comes into action.

Curious to see how it works, not personally interested (I like my Steam library!) but it would set an interesting precedent. A good or bad precedent I'm not sure!

Fanny Cradock

It would be nice if there was an option to pass the digital rights on to someone else as a gift. I have a number of games in my library that I am unlikely to play again, and it seems a shame that they will just sit there unused. It is possible that they could use a model similar to the "new and used" section of Amazon.

Lever let it be said that an act of generosity got in the way of potential profit!

dreamers75

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

It would be nice if there was an option to pass the digital rights on to someone else as a gift. I have a number of games in my library that I am unlikely to play again, and it seems a shame that they will just sit there unused. It is possible that they could use a model similar to the "new and used" section of Amazon.

Lever let it be said that an act of generosity got in the way of potential profit!

I dont think thats the angle, i would like to give games to other people. But Steam want us to sell it to them for a voucher and then .....well i dont see anyone buying my copy tbh even if it was cheaper.

Not sure it could work but i would like the option to gift a game i own to someone else.

Fanny Cradock

dreamers75 wrote: »

I dont think thats the angle, i would like to give games to other people. But Steam want us to sell it to them for a voucher and then .....well i dont see anyone buying my copy tbh even if it was cheaper.

I understand that; hence my cynical closing line. They are in business to make money. No surprise there. Unless they can figure out how to trade games without undermining their own profits I can't see this being anything but wishful thinking.

About the only way I can think of Steam not taking on any direct financial liability would be to act as an auctioneer - one that determines value, which I assume would take the form of Steam credit. Another alternative would be to allow users to swap games between themselves. But the hassle involved would be unreal.

Like I intimated earlier, I'm an old cynic, and because I can't imagine any obvious advantage to Steam as opposed to a truck load of hassle, I'll believe it when it happens. Still, if you asked me about Amazon's new and used section before it happened I probably would have said much the same thing.

dreamers75

So Steampal ? :pac: