I bought a lot of games from various Steam sales, some never to actually play, some to finish and then recommend to other players, but whenever I look at my library there's one question that pops up into my head: “Why couldn't I sell that copy of the first Witcher to a friend that would like to play it instead of keeping it forever in my little Steam village?”.
So far second hand sales have not entered the digital distribution space fully and there's currently no indication that this could happen any time soon.
But their presence would make buying and selling games a more open experience for everyone and would allow the industry to expand its presence.
Imagine logging into
Steam and seeing that you finished the first Half Life game and its expansion three times and never plan to touch them again (maybe another replay when they are recreated by a mod using the Half Life 3 engine in 2016) while remembering that you have at least one buddy who is not familiar with the series.
At the moment you cannot sell the games you own to your buddy for a small fee and gifting is also not an option.
Everything someone gets on
Steam is there forever even if the owner does not feel the need to play it any more.
A digital space where I can sell my unusable stuff to someone else would mean more games in the hands of more gamers and presumably a new source of revenue for Steam and similar services, with the added benefit of making the digital distribution space more attractive to publishers.
A digital system would also create a space where they can get a percentage of the transaction, increasing their revenue and removing their main problem with second hand, and where quality of the actual video games that are transferred is assured, given the digital nature of all sales.
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