is it really economically smart for digital distribution services to make transfering games to other accounts impossible?

By TheBigOne on October 27, 2008 5:39:32 PM from

So I thought about buying Company of Heroes from Steam or Impulse (once it is available) but after some thinking I decided against that and will buy it in a shop because it is the better choice for me.

I find it discomforting that just because I get something digitally I don't have the same rights as when buying it in a store so I made the logical choice. If it was expected to be cheaper than in the shop I might have decided otherwise but with this regional pricing (I don't have a problem with that) it is pretty obvious it will cost more or less the same. Sure digital distribution has some nice advantages for TheLazyOne but its not enough to make up for binding the game unremovable to myself when I the retail copy gives me the option to burrow it to friends (which I do regularly) or to sell it (which I've never done yet, but its nice to know I can).

So with the current business practice, physical copies are superior to digital versions and people might be inclined to buy the physical copy because they then actually own the game.

"HOLD ON! You don't own the game, you own a license!" - nonsense, if I buy the game in a shop I own the game in the same way as I own a book, a poster, a Vinyl or a Film and every other goods* I own. I don't own the artistic and technical work in it but I can freely burrow, exchange and trade them without breaking any law. Have you ever heard writers complaining that people burrow books to their friends or that there are Librarys (you know that thing where you can get entertainment for free and which surprisingly didn't kill all the book stores yet)? I buy about 20-30 books every year and I lend almost every book I to at least one of my friends and surely got hundreds of books burrowed from them already, but this doesn't stop anyone of us to buy books, same for CDs and Films (the numbers are smaller though).

Okay, the developers/publisher wouldn't get any money directly from that so why should Steam or Impulse allow that? Maybe because they would sell more copies as they don't give the buyer less rights compared to buying it in a store then. Surely it could be abused but so could the "return of money if you run into technical problems" and from what I read it wasn't abused yet so why should it be different with the ability to transfer games to friends. To be clear, all I want is being able to transfer it to my friends account, it is not the responsibility of Valve or Stardock to have a 2nd-hand selling platform, finding a trustworthy solution for transactions with strangers is up to themselves.

As final note, the current policy could also turn out very interesting once Demigod is released, someone buys it in a german store, binds it to his account and then can't transfer that game to another person. I think I've read reasoning like "he can still transfer it just can't get patches and play no online multiplayer. Those are not part of the purchase anyways". I totally agree with the patches but not about the multiplayer at least when it is mentioned on the box. If it is mentioned on the box it is part of the purchase and not being able to transfer the multiplayer part of Demigod would be a deliberate reduction of the quality of the game which violates the German Civil Code and could get the german publisher for Demigod in some trouble if someone takes it to court and wants a test case. Wouldn't be very good publicity surely.

+9 Karma | 24 Replies

With Stardock, yeah, physical copies are superior to digital, since they give away all the same capabilities. However, there is something to be said for being able to download it whenever you want.

You also can't just sell your physical copy either, the license is tied into your account, your buyer either has to go to other sources to get updates, or is stuck playing the out of the box version.

I would say it depends on the requirements the publisher is making of you which one is better. I prefer Stardock's ease of use to the other ones I've seen, so I'd side with them over a physical product from another any day unless theirs came with the same hassle anyway.

Let's face it. The digital download has the same rights as the retail box, at least for Stardock. You can download the install file and set it up on a computer without an internet connection (at least for Gal Civ, not sure about other titles). And you can even have the patches update if you are comfoprtable with whoever you sell it to knowing your email and password.

As a long time computer user, I have been burned by games before. The approach Stardock uses is reasonable. Yes, I would like to be able to sell the game when I get tired of it. If I could do that I might get a little bit of my money back. But, from past experience, if the game is any good I'll go back to it after a while. And if they did let you sell the game, how much more would it cost when you first buy it?

Just a few things to think about.

Broosbee its not so much about selling for me, its more that I like to give my old games like monkey island to my younger cousins who were born after it got released or System Shock 2 to friends who think halflife had a good story.

Yah I could give my friend the account data but then he would have access to all my games, not just the one I want to burrow, or I could set up a new account for every purchase I make.

For Stardock games there really isn't much of a difference between retail /online as you need impulse to patch (which I think is a good idea to protect their games, however I hope that that is mentioned on the box).

But for games from other publishers sold via Impulse there is a difference.

I that it interesting that yo can buy a SoaSE license from the Stardock store for users who may have bought second-hand or been given the game. Everyone's a winner.

Well, I am going to use Impulse to upload Entrenchment (but only because it's not on a disk/retail). But I'm paranoid about not getting a box to hold. I just finally got my GCII game reregistered, after getting a new computer (and a new email address). Without being able to send in a picture of my receit/disk/box, I'm 99% sure I'd never have got it re-registered ever again.

I guess your only "paranoid" if your wrong. . .

Quoting psychoak,

reply 1

You also can't just sell your physical copy either, the license is tied into your account, your buyer either has to go to other sources to get updates, or is stuck playing the out of the box version.

1) The out-of-the-box version is well worth it if abstaining from updates saves you enough.

2) This isn't a Stardock game he's talking about; it's Company of Heroes. A retail edition of that updates itself before asking for your account info. So yes, resale is plenty viable.

Without being able to send in a picture of my receit/disk/box, I'm 99% sure I'd never have got it re-registered ever again.

I think you're confused a bit here. If you buy a digital download, it registers itself on your account automatically. As long as you have your account, you never have to re-register anything.

I think as a marketing tool it would be wise for a company to allow transfers however something like that is probably years away from being implemented since the DDS industry is basically in the formative process. With that said I think a minor transfer fee should be charged for such a service.

I think you're confused a bit here. If you buy a digital download, it registers itself on your account automatically. As long as you have your account, you never have to re-register anything.

If you havd read correctly his post, you would have seen that he has also changed e-mail. And since he didn't have any longer access to his old e-mail, he need some physical proof to show that he is the first user of his copy instead of a second hand user as he wanted to tranfer his serial ID between e-mails

Oops That's what I get for posting late in the evening. But even then, SD has the sale records if it was a digital copy

It still sounds like PurplePaladin went a very round-about way of doing it. Wouldn't it have just been easier to merge e-mail addresses, or just change the account's e-mail address instead of trying to transfer serials to a new account? Neither of the two options above require any proof of purchase since it doesn't deal with products directly.

There's a key bit of mistaken reasoning in the original poster's argument: It's not digital stores that determine that we're not going to respect copies of games sold via competitors' stores (at least in the case of Impulse - can't speak for others), it's the publishers. The publisher has to allow us to do this, and thus far, none have.

Yarlen, I didn't blame you for that, I am not even blaming anyone if they decide to have the games nontransferable (although its still a bit strange as all other purchases with some exceptions like medicine are freely tradeable). I just dislike a lot that there is a difference between buying the game in a store and buying it online. If I for example would buy sins online, I can't give it away to a friend. If I buy it in a shop I can. If there was a system to prevent that I give my shop copy away (however you want to achieve that) I wouldn't have a reason to not buy it online but as it is now there is a reason to do so. (Not saying I would like if it was this way but I hate inconsistencies)

Quoting TheBigOne,

reply 12

TheBigOne - quite a few publishers use systems that achieve that end. Going this route ends with Starforce and 3 activation limits - those things don't really stop pirates, but they kill the used game market. Non-transferable online purchases do the same thing, but without the horrible side effects.

If I have to choose I rather not be able to sell my used game but have the ability to get the game anywhere and to be able to play without a cd/dvd in my drive.

In a perfect world no protection at all but that is not going to happen, like going to bed without looking your doors, it's nto something we do generally now days.

If it is mentioned on the box it is part of the purchase and not being able to transfer the multiplayer part of Demigod would be a deliberate reduction of the quality of the game which violates the German Civil Code and could get the german publisher for Demigod in some trouble if someone takes it to court and wants a test case. Wouldn't be very good publicity surely.[/quote]

No court will care because the value of a copy is just to small. Else we would have seen such cases long ago.

[quote who="TheBigOne" reply="3" id="1917698"]Broosbee its not so much about selling for me, its more that I like to give my old games like monkey island to my younger cousins who were born after it got released or System Shock 2 to friends who think halflife had a good story.

Yah I could give my friend the account data but then he would have access to all my games, not just the one I want to burrow, or I could set up a new account for every purchase I make.

For Stardock games there really isn't much of a difference between retail /online as you need impulse to patch (which I think is a good idea to protect their games, however I hope that that is mentioned on the box).

But for games from other publishers sold via Impulse there is a difference.

If you got the time you can archive the game via Impulse and burn both on a cd. And if you care about the muliplayer you only need to give him your multiplayer account for the game. At least this should work for SoSE.

Ok something messed up the quotes and when i try to edit it i cannot see the box where i could make the edit.

At least for now, we are comparing apples and oranges, imo. When you buy a game from a brick-and-mortar shop you are buying an object (the disc) which gives you access to information (the game). When you buy a game via Impulse or similar you are essentially buying the information directly. There is no way to allow peer-to-peer sharing of that particular chunk of information that also allows commercial enterprise. That's ok. You don't really need to loan your own personal copy. You just want to give someone else you know access to the game. Systems can be enabled to make that happen.

What might work would be a relaxed referral system (one publishers could opt out of) which would allow a buyer to make three referrals. The lucky referred would have a day of free play on that game, with the option to pay full price for the remainder. Make it competitive, a buyer who has 20 referrals make subsequent purchase gets a free game. This would work really well for indy or small games and apps that need word-of-mouth and it's the way alot of indy devs demo their products. Make it systemic and you will make small devs and gamers really really happy without pissing off the big guys.

its a shame that you cant unregister a game. becasue then you could just give it to someone else. Of corse then you wont have accses any more but who care you gave it away.

Like many other things, this is up to the individual developer. For example, Blizzard expressedly allows transfer of Diablo II, although the EULA specifies all supporting materials must go with it (box, manual, etc). They do not allow the same for WOW.

When I got my new computer (and IP), I had NO idea that a game could be "glued" to my email address. I could not figure out why it would not re-registger. I ended up trying, off and on, for over a year I think. From now on, I guess I'll have to keep records on what email/credit card I used for each game.

On a scarry note: my C drive is filling up (Thanks Windows), because, as most know, everything gets defaulted to the C drive for saves ect for most games/programs. Anyway, with only 1+ meg left on C drive, I can't do much now (let alone defrag it), so I have to get a new hard drive; which means a new OS reinstall 80

Anyone know how to make windows not put everything on C, or is that not changeable?

Its changeable if you use impulse. I got the same issue with my c drive being almost full but i managed to download and install everything bigger to my other drive.

You can move a lot of things in windows if you know where to look (more easy in linux, alas we're not a big enough market for Stardock =p). You can move yoru My Documents folder to another location or drive. Right click on My Documents on dthe desktop, select properties, click the move button and select a new folder. You can install new programs to another drive if you wish. the defaults can be changed using some programs like TweakUI.

Quoting PurplePaladin,

reply 20

Anyone know how to make windows not put everything on C, or is that not changeable?

Don't go with the default. Whenever you install a game or save a file, it asks you where you want to put it. Simply change where it is going to save the file.

Quoting Yarlen,

reply 11

^ quoted for truth. Let's hold the actual culprits responsible. You don't whine about Best Buy having DRM games because you know they're just selling stuff, and they don't get to say how it's designed or implemented.

Remeber WE are the ones with the cash. WE get to decide who gets supported and who doesn't.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

is it really economically smart for digital distribution services to make transfering games to other accounts impossible?