Indeed, and Mr Lombardi has conveniently chosen to omit one crucial fact which Viola Lachenmann addresses in the blog I posted above (now a proper translation):

"The legal situation has now changed. In one fell swoop, the ECJ has ruled that the resale of software also purchased online must be permitted. Until now, the view was predominantly held that this could only apply to physical software, while with virtual goods, the rights owner could reserve considerably more extensive rights.

The ECJ also came to a decision that will now affect Valve's practice. It ruled that a buyer is permitted to resell software and that the rights owner may not forbid this. Technical measures may only be implemented to ensure that the original buyer has fully deleted the software and that only the new buyer is using the software. This is logical because the resale must not result in two people playing the same Valve title, for example.

However, the ECJ also banned such restrictions that prevents the resale of software. This is precisely the case with Valve, because the binding [of software] to an account by Valve inhibits the resale by technical means. Therefore, I consider Valve's practice in this regard, against which the VZBV has now once again filed suit, to be in violation of law. The previous nonsensical ruling of the FCJ will be overturned in favour of a new ruling."

For what it's worth, I do agree that the resale of digital products presents issues. But at the same time, the lack of a secondary market has created entirely new and much more serious problems. Publishers are no longer incentivised to produce good software. Just look at the Aliens: Colonial Marines farce to see what I mean. Not to mention that users have very few rights when it comes to defective software nowadays.

The thing about a secondary digital market is that it does involve a certain amount of effort on the part of the seller and buyer. Valve is not required - morally or legally - to aid in the publication of such resale, so these games must be resold via another platform. Used licences are in limited supply, and are hence subject to the laws of supply and demand and corresponding pricing. Popular and well-received games will always be in more demand than the used licence market can satisfy. Poor quality games will cause supply to outstrip demand.

And a used licence can 'degrade'. Just because a functioning game can be sold does not mean that the services have to follow. In fact, in productivity software markets, they usually don't. When commercial software is usually resold, they are not bundled with the services that are contractually provided by the publisher.

Valve could, for example, offer the ability to download a DRM-free transferable and archivable copy of a game in exchange for removing that game from the account.

Yes, I agree with you completely, but also I would say that there are also people that insult people just because they use Steam. Both sides have flame warriors.

And I'm saying that even tho I'm more on the side of people that dislike Steam. I still use it when I can't avoid it, even tho I really don't like it. Playing games like Total War, X-com or Square Enix games is too important for me.

Uh... Except for reputation and sales of their following products, actual first-hand sales as 'everyone' doesn't preorder - you know, all the actual incentive to produce good software, as opposed incentive to produce software with artificial longelivity and pre-order DLC.

I agree there are issues with the games industry currently but this particular one doesn't require a used sales market. Instead a ban on the current practice of having Review Embargo's like they did with Aliens Colonial Marines would be better, or perhaps do away with the notion of 'preorders' entirely, given that it just seems to fuel making seperate content to push it anyway. Although true to some extent, at *some* point there will be a critical mass where used sales are so plentiful that sales completely stop. There's no throwing sales at people to sell more, because the used sales will simply undercut them. That means there is no late life sales for games anymore, it comes to an abrupt halt. This means that developers will probably have to find their profits at the beginning of the sales life, quite likely pushing up prices of games to begin with, and keeping them high rather than throwing early sales.

That or they will have to push a certain style of game that promotes continued usage or makes you feel personally invested. (MMO/Social gaming pushed even further). That, or they can simply decide to go a whole different direction and make the game 'sale' a minor thing, making the game low cost/free but taking micropayments to the extreme.

There's also the notion that story based games/games with low replay value/short games will suddenly be a lot less feasible to develop. In some ways a good thing but it also forces games in a certain direction, and forces a certain style of games.

No, a bad thing! Bad, bad thing! I'm going to slap anyone who tells me that an artificially long game is better than a condensed, short and fun experience.

Quite a few people actually liked Aliens: Colonial Marines also... same as with Duke Nuk'em Forever and Daikatana, they hype of how terrible they are is larger the reality... I blame media mostly for this, not the games. Without the hype before and after it would have got a better reception. I have a feeling that In 6 months time this game will be mentioned in the same way as for example DK:F, Dragon Age 2 and Rage - flawed maybe, but not that bad actually. Opinions....

i see many times the people mentioning installers ? steam can also make installers of your games when you backup games using the client , heck i have 90% of my steam games in installers made by the client , no need to download stuff again just run the installer and the game is back , it compresses the game nicely to even write as cds or dvds

also some games on steam dont depend on the client at all in this case you just make a copy of the game folder , restore it when you need to just run the game and run the game exe directly , i dont have a list of games that allow this but
top gun works for me in this method , just run top gun.exe and it does not even check for steam

steam cloud is one thing to love though , played quake 1 after almost a year ago was happy to see my save was still alive and restored from the cloud , considering that i formatted my system thrice during that period

To actually run the installers you need to have the Steam client installed and it needs to do a first launch verification anyway, soo it's not exactly a 'DRM-free' way.
I'd actually like to see a list of games that work like this as well. Just keep in mind that changing installation path / taking installation to another machine has a pretty high probability of breaking a game completey - depends on the game of course, some will work fine, some won't work at all.

ya that could be a problem , between i just checked up on two old games i got recently tomb raider angel of darkness and commander keen collection , they seem to run as well without the client , just run the exe directly

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/list_of_drmfree_games_on_steam

Sadly that list hasn't been updated in a while, but it's still a good starting point. Not only are some games DRM free from Steam by default, but with some other games, you can actually apply DRM-free official patches on top of the Steam game folder which will make the game DRM free by replacing the Steam modified exe with a DRM free retail exe. I've done that with quite a few of my Steam games. Divinity 2 and the X space sim series are a couple of examples of this. (If you ever run into an issue where a patch won't install because it can't find the retail installation, just extract the contents of the patch manually by using something like Universal Extractor and swap the exe files.)

Edit: Just to clarify, the first time install from Steam is never required once the game has been downloaded. All the first time install does is install game dependencies, the files for which are included in the download folder of the game and can be installed by the user instead of by Steam (things such as dotnet versions, VCredist, DirectX, etc.)

While I've managed to resist the hype surrounding ACM, I'm yet to find anyone personally who's actually enjoyed it. Actually, the majority of people I know that have played it haven't complained about the graphics - which most media reports seem to be focusing on - but rather that the game is repetitive, the AI crap beyond belief and that's not a patch on any of the older AvP games. Not to mention that huge numbers of console copies are reaching preowned shelves, which is never a good sign.

I did, however, personally fall into the DNF trap on Steam, and if I had the opportunity to sell any of my Steam games, that would be one of them. A truly dreadful, dreadful game.

I agree entirely, but how do you want to enforce such a ban? A ban on review embargoes, for example, could be circumvented by simply refusing to release copies until release day. There's little that legislating can do there.

Good ideas in theory, but ultimately unpracticable.

What you're talking about there is the 'tail' of any IP, which has already been shortened massively thanks to Valve's practices (and other distributors copying them). Digitally-distributed games have a very short 'tail', because the only time they gain significant attention is when they are new due to the media attention and consumer popularity. This popularity usually fades pretty quickly, which then inevitably results in the heavy sales that we often see on Steam in a desperate attempt to get some kind of exposure. The final port of call of a PC game is then some kind of bundle, after which point the sales life of a game has gone. The tail is dead.

I'm not saying that Valve is (solely) responsible for this. Many indie devs don't have much business sense and assume that marking down their games heavily will result in massive sales followed by consistent sales thereafter. This rarely happens. Games like Killing Floor and Minecraft, which have enjoyed steady sales for some time, are exceptions.

The problem is that when the media exposure is gone, most games have no market exposure whatsoever. Used games usually provide a certain amount of marketing through word-of-mouth.

But the thing is, a short tail - whether it be created through used games or digital distribution - is actually good for gamers. It creates an incentive for creators to keep creating instead of living off the fruits of existing works.

... or the word of mouth created by first-time sales combined with deep discounts. You keep ignoring the fact that there are people who buy games directly from distributor :-P

That's your opinion, personally I enjoyed, it was OK.

Edit - but then again I knew what I was getting. moral - do your research and don't believe in hype?

and on topic - I do not think digital resale will work. all the reasons why in another thread somewhere on this forum...

Edit 2 - There is a long part of this thread on digital resale -
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/valve_slammed_by_consumer_protection_issued_cease_and_desist_on_anticonsumerist_eula