This past July, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that digital software distributions services, such as Steam and Origin, cannot prevent users from reselling their digital copies of games, regardless of the EULA they signed. Using what seems similar to the “first sale” doctrine in copyright law, “[t]he exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence [sic] is exhausted on its first sale,” essentially saying that the game that you buy on Steam is your property, with the right to resell. While this is limited to the EU at the moment, this evinces a trend that digital property will be treated similar to physical property, and the US may likely adopt a similar stance when the issue arises.
While the specifics of how Steam and Origin might change to comply with this ruling, James Portnow of Extra Credits has considered a few options. First, since distributors have records of what they sold to customers and for what price, they can offer a return option for a fraction of said price. That is, if I buy Psychonauts for $5 and my roommate buys it for $15, we each could return the game on Steam for 50% of the purchase price and put the proceeds into our Steam Wallets. Steam then invalidates the keys that we had purchased. Green Man Gaming already does this, and it seems like it would function similarly to the standard trade-in market for physical used games.
Where the issue gets tricky is peer-to-peer game sales. Since the game is digitally distributed, there is no difference between a used game and a new game, so it is unclear how one would price a “used” digital game. Since there would be no scarcity of games and the variable cost to produce a game is so small, the economics of how the “used” digital game market are unclear. Another major issue is piracy, though with the proper DRM like Steam, this can be avoided. If Steam were to offer, say, an auction house or other market-type place similar to Diablo III’s real-money market, then they could take a small percentage of the sale price.
Whatever is going to happen is likely going to happen soon, since a German consumer group is suing Valve for the ability to sell their used digital games. While a prior case was dismissed, the recent Court of Justice decision brings this issue anew. I think Steam will take the easy route and implement a percentage buy-back similar to Green Man Gaming, but Valve may opt for something more creative. Maybe now I can sell back Dear Esther and buy something more worthwhile.