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UPDATE: Valve Not Planning Game Trade-Ins On Steam
UPDATE: Valve vice president of marketing Doug Lombardi got back to us about this story and debunked it in simple terms: "Not true. We have never met with Mr. Pachter." Well, there you go! Looks like that utopian future of trading in digital games that you were dreaming of isn't so close after all.
ORIGINAL STORY: While Steam has quickly become the number one choice for digital distribution amongst a majority of PC gamers, many still lament the loss of the ability to sell your games once you're finished with them. If industry analyst Michael Pachter is to be believed, Valve will be adding in the ability to trade in games to Steam.
Speaking to NowGamer about the effect of used game sales on the industry, Pachter said the following:
"Steam is phenomenal, it’s a great service. Steam gives gamers enough other stuff so that they don’t resent the fact they can’t trade in their games. And you know, name all the Steam games that you’ve purchased that you’ve traded back in to somebody else for credit. Steam’s about to let you do that supposedly, you know like trade and exchange, but they’re going to take a fee from it."
It's unclear how exactly such a service would work. Would gamers set their own price and trade directly to a friend? Would they "trade in" the game to Valve to get credit toward other Steam games? The idea of trading digital content is definitely new, so it'll be interesting to see how Valve works it out if this is for real.
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