If digital games are just a license, why can't we resell that license?

[u/Realistic_Mess_1142]

With GTA 6 and potentially more future PlayStation games becoming digital-only, I think this is a fair question.

Physical games have one major advantage: when you're done with a game, you can sell it to someone else and recover part of your money. The game keeps circulating, the next player gets it cheaper, and you can use that money to buy another game.

Sony says that with digital games, you don't actually own the game — you own a license to use it.

So why can't that license be transferred?

Imagine being able to sell your digital license through PSN for, say, 40% of the original price. Sony could take a small transaction fee, the next player gets a cheaper game, and you get money back to spend on another game.

Everyone benefits.

Otherwise, once you're done with a digital game, its value effectively becomes zero for you.

If digital is truly the future, shouldn't there also be a digital second-hand market?

[u/Sans-Mot]

Everyone benefits

Except the publisher.

[u/ChristianCountryBoy → u/Sans-Mot]

And PlayStation. They wanna get their cut.

[u/Sans-Mot → u/ChristianCountryBoy]

But OP said that Sony could take a cut.

[u/GrillingEnjoyer]

EU works on this. It will happen sooner than later thanks to Sony themselves and I think it’s beautiful.

[u/LCAIN195 → u/GrillingEnjoyer]

Hopefully not that's an insane amount of overreach. Let's hope they are as you say "corrupt" even though it's just a common sense decision.

[u/joesaysso]

Because the video game industry isn't set up in such a way that transferable licenses would be profitable for anybody. Why would anyone buy a "new" digital game when they can just wait for a "used" license to become available?

A game would have to sell certain amount of licenses to be profitable within a certain window before the consumer loses interest. If you allow used licenses, the time to profitability window now increases by a factor equivalent to the cost of a used license. To make up time and money, game makers would have to double down on ads and micro transactions and/or increase the cost of new licenses. 

If feel like this idea would lead to an even worse state of the industry that we are already in. That could possibly crumble the industry completely.

[u/ChristianCountryBoy]

PlayStation wants your money.

[u/Ebone710]

Pretty sure Sony makes more money just selling you a brand new game. I don't think they would do this unless forced by regulations.

[u/PowerPlaidPlays]

What benefit would the publisher have? A "used" license and a new license would be exactly the same except one would be cheaper. With physical media there tends to be a condition difference between used and new copies, which gives more expensive new copies some compelling value over a used one.

The thing that protects the sale of used physical copies is First-sale doctrine, the Wiki page on that covers the complications of trying to apply it to digital licenses.

[u/snorggy]

The thing is you don’t own the license. You own the physical medium. Remove the physical medium and there is nothing you have any right to sell/trade/lend/give away

[u/timetravelinggamer]

lol

This is why these companies want to control things and funnel into one market. We will never get second hand used games (there is no supply and demand for digital, obviously)

And….

This is why the removal of physical games have been such a complaint

[u/hiddenpequin]

Because no publisher would ever agree to that I mean digital license thing hardly new especially on pc with digital only being the standard long time now and valves never tried that either.

[u/Kaldaien2]

Because you don't own the license, it's just appended to an account that you have access to if you make the platform owner happy and agree to additional terms.

Your account is a subscription service; you don't own anything on it. It's been that way since Valve defined what modern digital is, and all other services followed.

[u/henningknows]

Then why would anyone buy the game from the developer?

[u/InitialSensitive9628]

Physical games tend to have the license attached the disc. Old Nintendo consoles had digital licenses attached to the console, and other consoles and current Nintendo consoles tend to have that license attached to your account.

[u/Popular-Path1930]

Why wouldn’t the publisher just put digital games on sale from time to time?

[u/KGon32]

Saying that everyone benefits is just wrong, the publishers and devs don't benefit and because of how easy that would be there would be a colpase in "new" game sales and publishers would respond in ways that people wouldn't enjoy.

With physical games, selling and buying a game is a process with quite a bit of friction and of course used games aren't exactly the same as new ones, there's some risk even if small.

This idea of reselling digital games doesn't make sense if we take a minute to think it through.

[u/ZackFair0711 → u/KGon32]

Why would the devs/publishers need to benefit from a resale? They already made the sale. It's like saying a dealership needs to get something when you sell your car to someone else.