Re: A (small) Step In The Right Direction

I'd like to see the same for online PC games. I have very old games that
I will never play again and would love to get rid of to someone for
free, trade, sell for cheap, etc. No, I am not dump my online gaming
service account! Just games and other software! Heck, letting others
virtually borrow them be OK like Nintendo is doing.


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Honestly, I wouldn't have expected this from Nintendo. While they're
best known for their unique style of games, but they are probably
second-best known for the tightness of their grip around their
properties.

So, learning that you will soon be able to share your games with
others on the Switch (and soon-to-be-released "Switch 2") seems
incredibly out of character with them.* Essentially, every game will
have a 'virtual card' associated with it, and if you drag that card to
a friend's Switch, they'll be able to play that game. It's a digital
equivalent of yanking a cartridge out of your console and handing it
over to your buddy to take home from the night.

Obviously you won't be able to play it in the meantime, but that's
only fair, right? There are some other restrictions too (for instance,
you can only transfer within your 'family group', which can contain a
maximum of 8 members, and there's a limit on how often you can add or
remove people, but still, it's an admirable concession...especially
for families with children that don't want to have to buy the same
game for each kid.

I personally adore the visual simplicity of the method too. It
re-captures the feel of 'cat ridge games that adds an almost tactile
feel to the sharing. I've used library sharing for family on Steam,
but it's much less personal: "Here, have access to this huge list of
games." Being able to virtually hand over a game I think is good and
worth playing to somebody has an appeal all on its own.

But it does raise the question: if it can be made so easy to share
games between family members... shouldn't it be just as easy to SELL
those games? Because, ultimately, all you are doing is transferring
licenses, and if all of a sudden it's okay to move licenses between a
select group of people, why can't I do it with anyone... and maybe get
a fee for the privilege? Steam's "you're only sharing the entire
library" method adds a certain distance to this that shields them from
these questions, but by allowing single-game license-transfers,
Nintendo opens themselves up to this next step.

I'm not sure Nintendo has considered this, but I do hope that this new
scheme of theirs sets precedent that can one day be used to give
gamers back their rights to sell their games again.

* here's more details about it
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-virtual-game-cards-will-let-you-share-digital-games/1100-6530424/

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