Valve has won a landmark case in Germany, setting the precedent for the 1st sale doctrine not to apply to digital games. In plain English, this has made digital resale of games impossible.
As a brief refresher, Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband, which translates to Federation of German Consumer Organisations, and is known as VZBZ for short, brought the issue to Valve. VZBZ is a nongovernment, nonprofit umbrella association, that represents Germany’s different consumer rights organizations.
VZBZ made the case that Valve has to comply with a European Union decision from 2012 that states that companies cannot stop consumers from reselling digital product. That case involved Oracle products, and the decision then was that consumers could resell Oracle license keys to each other, as long as the seller was no longer using the key.
However, the new court decision seems to have made Steam the exception, as the jury believes the ruling does not apply for the digital storefront.
It’s not clear at the moment what this decision means for comparable storefronts like iTunes, but if the court swung the other way, it would have dramatically changed the way Steam worked. Valve would have to incorporate a system for their users to sell their games to each other. Beyond that, there is no telling how it could have affected the nature of Steam sales, as well as the terms between Valve, their developers, and their users.
I am sure many Steam owners will be fine with this arrangement. Whether the change could have been better for consumers, or Steam or the industry in general, we will not get the chance to find out.