The story begins in 2015: the UFC-Que Choisir association sues the publisher of Valve games. The motive? A formal notice to modify certain clauses in the user contracts of its Steam dematerialized games download platform. In particular, it prevents, for one reason among others, the resale (or any other transfer) of 'selling or invoicing or transferring its right of access and/or use of the content and services accessible through the platform'. In concrete terms, once you have acquired a game in dematerialized form, it is impossible for you to do anything with it when you have finished it and no longer wish to use it. An aberration according to UFC-Que Choisir, which fights among other things for consumer rights, especially those who live in the digital world.
A first judgment finally rendered
The decision was rendered on 17 September 2019: the Paris Regional Court granted consumers the right to resell/transfer the rights (of) their games purchased via Steam. More precisely: 'Valve can no longer oppose the resale of this copy (or copy) even if the initial purchase is made by downloading'.
Valve is currently fined $500,000, which is almost anecdotal for the huge publisher. But above all, it is called upon to find solutions to enable transactions to take place. This case could then set a precedent and change the situation for other download platforms in the future.
For the time being, Valve has announced that it will appeal in the coming days and here are the words of Doug Lombardi, VP Marketing of the publisher: 'We do not agree with the first decision of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris. This will have no effect on Valve as long as it is under appeal.'
Other terms considered unfair
Apart from this subject, which was the most difficult, the Paris Court ruled that 14 other clauses were unfair. Valve will have to reimburse Steam wallet funds to users who request them, will no longer be able to appropriate all the mods created by users, and will have to pay attention to users who encounter problems when downloading any product from the platform whatsoever.
Once again, all this is subject to the future decision of the Court of Appeal. We should know more in the coming months, and whether the dematerialized gaming market will really be changed permanently.
Written by Jérémie "Djey" Mathis. Translated from French by Millenium.us.org
After months of no news, The Last of Us 2 will be unveiled during the State of Play hosted by Sony on September 24. Joel and Ellie should soon be back on our consoles!
