Someone just sued Valve to demand that you be allowed to resell your Steam games

Digital copies of games are wonderfully convenient, but one big problem has been that you usually cannot resell them. That game that you never want to play again? You can’t really do much else with it, even if Valve recently added a feature to let you permanently delete games from your Steam library. However, French consumer group UFC-Que wants to do something about the status quo – by suing Valve to demand resales for Steam games.

According to the group, Valve’s policy violates the European Union’s right to resell legally purchased software. It cited as a precedent the 2012 Oracle case where a judge ruled that there was no difference between reselling physical copies of software and their digital counterparts.

UFC-Que also criticized Valve’s claim that it had the right to reuse user-made Steam content, and further argues that the company should refund any leftover credit in the event that users shut down their Steam accounts.

This isn’t even the first time someone tried to do something like this. Last year, a court ruled against a German group that filed a complaint against Valve for disallowing the resale of digital content.

However, even if the French group succeeds, it’s difficult to say if an EU-wide policy shift will trickle down to local customers. Frankly, we wouldn’t count on it, but it’s still a first step in that direction.

Source: UFC-Que Choisir via Engadget