Valve sued in Germany over game ownership - woodbeetch

The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) sued computer game distributor Valve because it prohibits Steam gamers from reselling their games.

Steam clean users own the games they buy and should exist healthy to resell them when they need to, impartial like-minded owners of traditional card or board games can, said Carola Elbrecht, project manager for consumer rights in the digital world at the VZBV, on Th. But spell those traditional game owners can resell their games whenever they like, Steam users often cannot, she said.

In theory, a Steam user could download a game, burn it on a Compact disk and resell it, she said. In most cases, though, buyers wouldn't be able to play the courageous they purchased because the games are coupled to a exploiter account and without the key for that specific history, online-only games are not playable, she said.

Because Valve forbids its users to sell or channel their accounts to another soul, the convert of games that can single be played online is out of the question, she said. This way that a Steam user only partially owns games, Elbrecht said. "If I pay the full price for a game, and so why am I non allowed to do with IT what I want," she added.

Valve was warned in September by the VZBV to change this recitation, but the company did not abide by with the federation's demands. Therefore, the confederation sued the company in the Territorial dominion Court of Berlin on Wednesday.

"We are aware of the press release about the lawsuit filed by the VZBV, but we have not yet seen the actual charge," said Doug Lombardi, Valve's vice chairman of marketing, in an email. "That said, we understand the charge is somehow regarding the transferability of Steam clean accounts, despite the fact that this issue has already been subordinate upon favorably to Valve in a antecedent case between Valve and the VZBV by the German supreme court," helium same.

Previous lawsuit

The VZBV sued the gage distributor for similar reasons once before, Elbrecht said. That sheath went all the way to the German Federal Court of Justice, which ruled in 2022 that Valve did non rape German law by prohibiting the transfer of user accounts.

The Romance of Justice of the European Economic Community (CJEU), however, subordinate in July that the trading of "used" software licenses is statutory and that the author of such software cannot oppose some resale.

Patc the CJEU's case is not exactly the same as the current litigation against Valve, the VZBV reckons that the ruling gives sufficient basis for a new cause, Elbrecht said. She expected the judicial proceeding to pass off for years, and it will credibly end up at the federal court once again, she said.

Yet, a new lawsuit is useful, she said. Likewise raising awareness of the issuance and possibly changing the minds of the judges, the litigation is too meant as a signal to other biz distributors that wealthy person the same practices, she said.

While Valve was unwilling to convert its practices along this point, it promised to change the way it gets users' go for when information technology changes its terms and conditions. The last time Valve changed the terms and conditions for Steam, users were unable to play their games if they did non go for the new rules, Elbrecht said. Valve promised to adjust the mandatory go for to let users WHO don't want to accept the new terms in the future to even so represent able to play their purchased games.