Game Reselling System
Well, looking at my game library and the current gaming market, I see that many of them are just "showcase games" or "playable movies," disposable games made to be played for a while and then abandoned, and many people end up having several of them unnecessarily in their library, which is my case.
I currently have 97 purchased games and barely have time to play them, so an interesting option for Steam to implement would be a system for reselling access keys.

Game publishers and developers could voluntarily participate in this system and list the games they allow to be resold. This system would be useful to generate greater turnover of games and also extend the life of many of them, after all, there are games that were released a long time ago and still have a high value today, which consequently reduces the number of sales, since many will not want to pay a high price for something old without a good reason. A resale system could revive these games and also reach a new audience.

In this system, basically, each user could resell any game from their library that is applicable, for a maximum value of up to 80% of the game's original price.

To buy, the interested party would access the reseller's profile, and below the "Games" option in the right-hand sidebar, there would be the option "<player's name>'s Shop", then they would simply click to see the available games, then click the purchase button and make the payment, then the game key would be transferred to another account and that's it.

As mentioned before, the price of each game would be defined by the user who owns the key, and the received balance would be divided into 3 parts: a percentage for Steam (the intermediary), another for the developer, and the rest for the reselling user.

Thus, games that are not selling much due to high cost or other reasons could reach new audiences, after all, many games we only get to know after seeing a friend playing them, and they would also get a constant income, even if they don't sell much.

One of the problems that could arise would be access to these keys, which would be linked to external platforms, as is the case with Rockstar Games titles, which link the keys to the Social Club. Two possible solutions for this would be for the participating company to create a system to revoke and transfer keys resold on Steam, or for Steam not to allow games that use external accounts, thus only allowing games that use the Steam account to authenticate the keys.

Anyway, it's just an idea, but it's something I would like to have as an option, precisely to get rid of several games I own, and with the balance, I could buy games that I currently want.
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A dev/ publisher sells you a game, they get 70% and Valve gets 30%

You (re)sell a game, one or both of them gets less %.
So why would this ever be implemented?
Last edited by Yzal; 7 hours ago
The fact that the game license is non-transferable should tell you that devs have not interest in this.

A limited, personal, nonexclusive, nontransferable, non-assignable and fully revocable license to use the Game and any Content therefrom for your individual, non-commercial, entertainment purposes only.

Did you know there is already a platform on pc that allows this? No?... That should tell you how well their service is going. (Can't remember it's name, but i am sure someone knows that one i am talking about.)
Last edited by d3str0y3r; 6 hours ago
Valve isn't going to cannibalize their current store because some users think that would be neat. And it doesn't matter what the argument is. Unused licenses do not matter or hurt anything. Valve has no reason to try to recycle them. Digital licenses are an endless resource.
Originally posted by d3str0y3r:
Did you know there is already a platform on pc that allows this? No?... That should tell you how well their service is going. (Can't remember it's name, but i am sure someone knows that one i am talking about.)
Robot Cache
Originally posted by Ualin:
..
Anyway, it's just an idea, but it's something I would like to have as an option, precisely to get rid of several games I own, and with the balance, I could buy games that I currently want.


not to cut you short. You make good points. I've struggled with accepting this as well. Do you have any way of doing that for me?

Because reality sucks. I can't do this.

anything on steam wasn't on steam to begin with, and if it starts on Steam Cloud then that may be the only games that your idea would apply to.

Because A store sets the distribution rights and it get thick as it morphs across the web.

Most games before a Cloud distributed system were online else where.
Last edited by IDidn'tK; 5 hours ago
Originally posted by Ualin:

To buy, the interested party would access the reseller's profile, and below the "Games" option in the right-hand sidebar, there would be the option "<player's name>'s Shop", then they would simply click to see the available games, then click the purchase button and make the payment, then the game key would be transferred to another account and that's it.

As mentioned before, the price of each game would be defined by the user who owns the key, and the received balance would be divided into 3 parts: a percentage for Steam (the intermediary), another for the developer, and the rest for the reselling user.

Or, hear me out, they cut out the middle man of the reselling user and simply split the profit 70/30.
Problem here is interpretation technically you don't buy the game you purchase a license. On the PS or Xbox it lies a bit different at least with physical copies
It's a nice idea for us as consumers, but there is nothing to gain for devs/pubs or storefronts.

If games don't sell due to high costs, devs/pubs can lower the prices. No need to create a competing market in the same store that earns them even less.
You have a non-transferable license to play your games. You do not own them. You cannot sell them.
Originally posted by Ualin:
Game publishers and developers could voluntarily participate in this system and list the games they allow to be resold.
spoiler: They're already doing that

Originally posted by Ualin:
As mentioned before, the price of each game would be defined by the user who owns the key, and the received balance would be divided into 3 parts: a percentage for Steam (the intermediary), another for the developer, and the rest for the reselling user.
Were you around the time Steam tried to introduce paid game mods? Because what happened there with revenue share is quite relevant to this discussion.

Originally posted by Ben Lubar:
Robot Cache
Will it ever outgrow its 'investor trap' phase?
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