"Re-Gifting" or "Give Away" or whatever term you may find appropriate to call it...

[KaKistoZ]

How about adding the function to "re-gift" games that are unwanted? Steam should be perfectly capable to do so, seeing that you already may pass on guest passes so easily...? It shouldn't be any more difficult than that? ...or...?

I for one and all of my steam buddies think it's a brilliant idea. Why posess a game one hardly plays when someone else can take pleasure of it? You still got your money from us, so what difference does it make?

Sincerely, Azeem Amin a.k.a KaKistoZ

[phoenix5]

But wouldn't they get more money if your friends had to buy the game, rather than getting it for free from you? Where's the benefit to Valve or the game's dev/publisher? I understand what your suggesting, but it's not thought out very well.

[KaKistoZ]

But wouldn't they get more money if your friends had to buy the game, rather than getting it for free from you? Where's the benefit to Valve or the game's dev/publisher? I understand what your suggesting, but it's not thought out very well.

The difference between giving customers what they want rather than being difficult and greedy is precisely that: profitting from kindness and making customers return and buy other games rather than making customers flee from a bad experience with management that doesn't listen.

My suggestion is thoroughly thought through, it's rather possibilities with Steam that aren't thought through.

[Shakur]

This could be nice, but you forgot one detail:
hackers may transfer games from other accounts, VERY easily this way...
Hack an account, and take all you want, this is like robbing a store, just easier...

[KaKistoZ]

This could be nice, but you forgot one detail:
hackers may transfer games from other accounts, VERY easily this way...
Hack an account, and take all you want, this is like robbing a store, just easier...

True, there might be a backdoor hacking opportunity to this feature, but only if Steam would allow the game transition to be easy. I would imagine that some sort of security pass would naturally be implemented into this feature if it ever were to be considered by Steam.

Ofcourse, one would want some sort of safety that disallows confirming the transition task too easily by accidentaly hitting the "enter/space" button on the keyboard or even a click of a mouse button, but also remains safe from hackers and such.

I'm sure all of you can see where I'm aiming at: a simple password type-in would do the trick, possibly even an answer to a question only you would now the answer to.

However surely there is no need to suggest this as I'm confident that if Steam would've implemented this feature, I'm sure they would've taken every precaution against hacker attacks and any exploit possible.

[Dr. Ha]

[QUOTE=KaKistoZ;11392793]
I'm sure all of you can see where I'm aiming at: a simple password type-in would do the trick, possibly even an answer to a question only you would now the answer to.
QUOTE]

I don't believe that is what he was speaking of. He means if someone was to hijack your account, he could just transfer all of your games over to his master account, so he didn't have to log into different accounts to play different games and such.

Though, I do not believe this would be a problem, as Valve could just transfer the games back when you re-gain your account.





I do not support this idea though.

[KaKistoZ]

I don't believe that is what he was speaking of. He means if someone was to hijack your account, he could just transfer all of your games over to his master account, so he didn't have to log into different accounts to play different games and such.

I know what he ment; that if there were accounts hijacked, that they could simply grab the games and place them in their own account. Which is why some type of security pass is in order.

As I was trying to explain: sure, if someone were able to hijack your account then they would have access to you're games true enough. But if Steam would ever consider including this feature, surely there will be another stage the hijackers would have to bypass in order to be able (allowed, if you like) to move games to their own account.

And as I was suggesting: a password, preferably a 8-10 letter/digit alphanumeric password would do the trick. This password would ofcourse have to be different from the account-password.

The few alphanumeric combinations that has been cracked since the dawn of computer age, nowadays, with specially designed programs, usually takes months, even a year of constant calculation with countless trials and errors to figure out.

The most likely way for someone to figure out the password is to plant a certain keylogger or even hearing it upfront. Otherwise, cracking it would be practically impossible.

Yet again I conclude: Yes, I am confident that I speak on behalf of many when I say that this feature would be both most convenient to the users as well as immensely appreciated. And I am sure that creating this feature would be easily done as I know Steam would be fully capable to do so.

All security kinks and possible exploits is hardly an issue. Steam has managed to keep our user accounts safe so far. Adding this feature wouldn't add the slightest difference to the level of security.

If you don't like the idea, well simply don't use it. As easy as it gets.

[phoenix5]

If you went out and bought a retail copy of a game (without any activation limits), played it, concluded you were done with it and desired to give it away, you could give it to a friend. Let's say you're a wildly popular guy and you have ~40 people you could choose to give the game to.

Now take that idea and put it online, where you're not limited to your local group of friends. Basically you could then give your game away to literally millions of people. They play it and pass it on yet again. How does this help Valve and the other game dev/publishers sell games?

The idea has merit, but would need to have limitations enforced. Maybe you can give away your games if you've played them for less than 3 hours (didn't like the game, want some one to use it). Maybe you can give the game to a friend for a small "transfer" fee to help limit the amount of swapping.

Unrestricted game gifting does nothing for Valve other than reduce sales. You can say that it makes for happy customers, but that's not really a viable business model. McDonalds could give away free cheeseburgers to every other customer, but they'd have to charge twice as much for the paying customers to eat. The people eating for free would love McDonalds, but I'm not willing to pay for you and your friends to eat.

Saying "If you don't like the idea, well simply don't use it" is ignoring the issue. Sure I'd love unlimited free games and if they implimented your idea as a policy I'd take advantage. What I'm saying is don't expect your idea to go anywhere. It's not realistic.

[KaKistoZ]

If you went out and bought a retail copy of a game (without any activation limits), played it, concluded you were done with it and desired to give it away, you could give it to a friend. Let's say you're a wildly popular guy and you have ~40 people you could choose to give the game to.

Now take that idea and put it online, where you're not limited to your local group of friends. Basically you could then give your game away to literally millions of people. They play it and pass it on yet again. How does this help Valve and the other game dev/publishers sell games?

The idea has merit, but would need to have limitations enforced. Maybe you can give away your games if you've played them for less than 3 hours (didn't like the game, want some one to use it). Maybe you can give the game to a friend for a small "transfer" fee to help limit the amount of swapping.

Touché, awesome reply. Finally someone who debates the topic and produce thoughts around it rather than concluding right away that it couldn't be done. Nice, thanks. :)

After reading you reply I realize that I left out a few details I had on my mind concerning the feature. The idea was primarily to limit the usage of this feature to Steam friends, and ONLY that.

However I see your argument, and you're absolutely right. How would Steam possibly benefit from the transfer... Guess what? You answered your own question before I even had the chance to ponder upon it.

Transfer fee! Ofcourse! I would GLADLY pay half the purchase price if I could remove the game from my own list and place it in someone else's who would appreciate some certain games more than I did. Or even, as you said: If I could document that I've played less then 3 hours or so, that the transfer will be approved.

Steam could even limit the transfer to one game per month or so, just to make sure that the transfers doesn't happen too frequently. There are TONS of possibilities, in ways that both Steam and it's customers can benefit from.

To me this deserves to be just as realistic as the idea of letting certain modders gain acces to Steamworks for their mods. I definately think it is a feature worth looking into.

I can only hope that someone important from within Steam could investigate further into the idea and give me a final decision, whether it's negative or positive to the cause and why it wouldn't work.

[phoenix5]

Limiting the transfer of games to one per month (or something like that) is another good option. Steam already has a working "guest pass" feature (that is seldom used) that could be modified to allow the transfer of game ownership... so the back end for this really shouldn't be too hard to do. Lord knows I've got a few games in my list that I'll never play again. :(

[C4rn463]

i would love this idea. i would sell my l4d copy for someone.

[tonytoff]

Absolutely brilliant idea....with limitations and good practice of course.
I could see this making Steam even more popular than it already is.

[Charax]

Transfer fee! Ofcourse! I would GLADLY pay half the purchase price if I could remove the game from my own list and place it in someone else's who would appreciate some certain games more than I did. Or even, as you said: If I could document that I've played less then 3 hours or so, that the transfer will be approved.


So...you'd gladly pay 150% of an already-overpriced Steam Game's RRP for the pleasure of not having that game? gee, I can see that being a popular option.

And what about games bought on sale or gifted? would I have to pay half the RRP, or are you expecting Steam to keep track of the price you paid for every single game you own?

A transfer fee is a good idea, but it would need to be a small fee (around £5) to be viable. they could introduce time-based transfer limits too, but I don't think they're required.

[Azraelle]

VAC-banned accounts should not be able to take advantage of this feature. Otherwise it could open a can of devious little worms.

Aimbotting in TF2 results in a VAC ban? Set up a new account, transfer TF2 to that account, and wham - no more VAC ban. A lot of cheaters already willingly pay for the game again on a new account in order to cheat away for a while; this would just give them a cheaper alternative.

[Roxor]

Oh, definitely. If someone is stupid enough to cheat and get banned, they should also kiss their give-away privileges goodbye as well.

As for the transfer fee, I think 5% of the game's cost new should cover Valve's costs in account-management and the new "owner" downloading the game.

[MADDOGGE]

NO, well intentioned idea but no. Opens too many cans of worms.

I don't understand people wanting to get rid of their PC games anyway. Get a console and rent them. That is the absolute cheapest legal way to play games.

[phoenix5]

I don't understand people wanting to get rid of their PC games anyway.

Well good, then you wouldn't have to use the feature.

[mrsoftware]

You still got your money from us, so what difference does it make?

they get paid for one copy of the game rather than 2...
so quite a big difference actually.
nice principal, but a ridiculous business idea.

[dragging man]

If that where to happen, then in theory, Nobody would ever have to buy a NEW steam game.

When 1 person is done with Doom, they give it to there freind, who gives it to his freind, And so on.

[mrcraggle]

I was just thinking of this myself then noticed I've been beaten to it:P I want my friend to experience Monkey Island. I know it's pretty cheap but it's not the kind of game everyone is into and may not want to pony up the money if they can't play it and she doesn't have an xbox.

Seeing as Steam requires the internet, I don't see this as too improbable. Lets say you've completed a single player game that you bought a long time ago and you no longer play it. As long as steam exists, it's just going to stay in your "not installed". Maybe there could be an option to re-gift as the OP said but once you do, it's deactivated from your account and uninstalled. This could potentially work as Steam gives you a digital code that you never see so it could just mark the digital code you had as void and register a new code to the new user.

Of course there are complications such as hackers and people that may abuse the system. But maybe a small fee would be the best way. Perhaps a percentage of the price rather than a flat out fee across all games as some are very cheap compared to others.

[thejuice027]

How many times is this gonna get suggested? And how many times is it gonna get shot back to the ground? I'll say no again when the idea grows back its wings and flys again.

10shotdowns

[uecasm]

I know what he ment; that if there were accounts hijacked, that they could simply grab the games and place them in their own account. Which is why some type of security pass is in order.
All transfers would be logged (just as purchases are now), so if an account was hacked and games transferred that would actually be a *good* thing, as it would tell Valve who the hacker was and thus who to ban. :) (Though verifying the logins against IPs would probably still be required, to prevent griefing by transferring the games to an innocent third party.)

And of course other deterrents such as a limit on transferrable games per day or a small transfer fee would help too.

If you went out and bought a retail copy of a game (without any activation limits), played it, concluded you were done with it and desired to give it away, you could give it to a friend. Let's say you're a wildly popular guy and you have ~40 people you could choose to give the game to.

Now take that idea and put it online, where you're not limited to your local group of friends. Basically you could then give your game away to literally millions of people. They play it and pass it on yet again. How does this help Valve and the other game dev/publishers sell games?
For starters, this is one way that people who wouldn't otherwise buy a game can get introduced to a series, and thereafter choose to buy it themselves instead of waiting for a friend to be done with it.

And there is no fundamental difference between this and second-hand sales (or gifts) of retail games -- which are legally protected in the US at least (ever hear of the Doctrine of First Sale?).

[>X<]

Steam would go out of business if games could be swapped about.

Imagine a table with all the unused games in the world on it and you can put as many as you like on it and pick up the same number of different ones. Would you buy another game or just swap forever?

Steam is about having your games stored in your head as a username and password and being able to play them anywhere. You pay for the games to be yours forever.

If you want to hire get an box360.

[phoenix5]

The same things were said about the used games stores back in the day, and yet game devs/pubs have survived and even thrived. The key is to control the trading of games, limit it, and even profit by it. I don't think anyone in this thread is naive enough to think that Valve would allow uncheck trading of games... it simply doesn't make sense. But paying to allow your used to game to be transferred on a limited basis (trade only to friends you've had for more than 6 months, etc) opens a up a new potential source of revenue. Don't misunderstand... there would have to be a lot of limitations.

The ramblings of the forum monkeys isn't going to amount to much of a business plan for this... but I'd argue that it's a possible and could even be profitable.