(http://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/30550/11676)
>I finished both games and I was thinking of reselling them or giving them to a friend to play. However, these are both Steam activated games that had a required Steam registration code I had to enter -- and validate on Steam -- as part of the installation.
Here's the website for CEX - a UK shop - with second hand PC games:
(http://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sortOn=sellprice_desc&mo...)
The problem with used PC sales is that, particularly when it comes to multiplayer games, there is no way to guarantee that the seller isn't going to hang on to the CD key and keep using it.
I've long since moved onto Steam, but I remember very distinctly that before digital distribution, stores outright refused to take used PC games that are primarily multiplayer, and made no guarantees about multiplayer CD key validity for the rest. It's a huge gaping hole in the used market.
Now look at that page you linked to - of the ten games on that page, only one has a multiplayer component, and even then it was far from what the game was known for. Second-hand multiplayer PC games simply aren't resellable.
The people selling them know that they can risk cash on a new game; if it's bad they can sell it secondhand and buy something else. Stopping sales of secondhand games (which is something that some people want to do; and is something that is clearly happening) stiffs the customer. You buy the right to use the content, but you may never ever transfer that right.
This desire to restrict what people can do with content is baffling to most customers yet rife within industry.
When Disney were shown domestic video players they were worried that you could not tell how many people were in the room watching the video; how could you charge people to watch a movie if you didn't know how many people were watching it? See also their attempts to create a "watch once" video.
And all this inconvenience to real customers - people who want to buy games (and who need to sell them second hand to afford it) has zero impact on pirates. I suspect (but have no evidence) that it doesn't send any money to the people creating the games either.
As for the business that resells PC games, they are doing so at great risk to themselves. I'm aware of every small game store in Toronto and I have never seen one that would even begin to consider reselling PC games. There might be a way to do it with a strictly warehouse model but in a brick and mortar situation it's just not feasible. Simply verifying if CD keys are active would absorb way too much time and money.
One business has made a go at it, it's still hardly standard for the industry and TBH I wouldn't buy anything from them and neither would 99% of people. The CD Key system is designed for one user/one seat. Anything past that is strictly on the honour system. As someone who has been burned by pirated hardware carts, I don't trust a used PC game for a second.
This is not a common thing at all, and I still think the "reselling used games" argument is basically irrelevant when it comes to PC games. We lost that fight decades ago, it's time to move on.
The parent asked "Who sells PC games anyway?" The stack exchange question is from someone who wanted to sell / give away retail boxed games with Steam activation.
