Topic: How could reselling digital media work?

In LTT's recent WAN Show, "Linus and Luke discuss Microsoft’s appeal of a UK ruling that could let consumers legally resell software licenses, exploring how this could upend Windows, Office, and even digital game ownership." But as was discussed within, there isn't a clear way to do this.

You can resell your physical media, but there are reasons that is a bit different. First is the fact that physical media has greater risk, with possible damage from use, and requiring trust in the seller. It also has an amount of friction on the part of the seller, having to picture the item, list it, find packaging to post it in, print the postage label, and take it to the PO. This reduces the amount of sales lost from used physical media.

Focusing in on a store like Steam, this doesn't work. A digital license doesn't degrade from use, and if the second-hand market aspect was controlled by Steam itself, there isn't the risk of trusting the seller. It would also (likely) be far more convenient, as is the case with much of digital media, reducing the friction for the consumer to sell their copy to just a few clicks. As such, you could end up with people just buying a "used" copy of a digital game for 80% of the price new. For obvious reasons, that wouldn't work.

The best idea I could think of, was something involving giving up your copy of a digital game license, in return for maybe 20% of the price you paid in store credit. With Steam and other stores taking about 30% cut, this wouldn't impact the developer, leaving Steam with a certain 10% from that game. The 20% given back would have the assurance for the store that it would go towards another game sale. A lower percentage like 20% also works well in shifting the use only to more expensive AAA game sales, where the store's profit margin will be higher. A £10 game would only give you £2 back, not really worth it for losing access to your game. But an £80 AAA game would provide £16 back, which could certainly buy an indie game or an older AAA game on sale.

But this is not perfect either. Being stuck to only store credit, and not a return in the actual currency you paid with, traps you into only being able to use that money within that store, unlike with the selling of a physical copy of a game.

Interested to hear what anyone else thinks about this!

Virtual Game Cards

People sell knives skins in counterstrike. What's the difference?

The Vendors have an unlimited amount of License at rrp. The second hand market has a variable amount at variable prices up to RRP.