- This is actually the first post we've ever written about some guy selling his Steam account
- We can't believe someone would actually want to get rid of their Steam account
[Thanks, Terry]
[Thanks, Terry]
Reader Comments (91)
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:59AM (Unverified) said
More evidence to suggest that PC gaming is on the decline.
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 12:51AM helluvagood said
yup its against tos. they tell younot to buy steam accounts on ebay.. people still do lol. i wonder if that account wll get banned
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 11:15AM ToTheMoon said
I haven't bought a boxed PC game in over a year now and have been buying all my stuff through steam so I do miss the trade 2 games in to get x% off a new title at EB.
An idea would be to create a hotmail/gmail account for each game or batches of games on Steam so that when you grow tired of the games, you can at least sell them. The only problem is that you would have to login to each account to play that particular game on your machine and you would end up with a huge list of login/passwords to refer to.
I know the devs weren't too happy with the whole resale market ("we are losing potential sales" argument ) so I'm sure they are happy with the increased support/usage of digital distribution services.
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An idea would be to create a hotmail/gmail account for each game or batches of games on Steam so that when you grow tired of the games, you can at least sell them. The only problem is that you would have to login to each account to play that particular game on your machine and you would end up with a huge list of login/passwords to refer to.
I know the devs weren't too happy with the whole resale market ("we are losing potential sales" argument ) so I'm sure they are happy with the increased support/usage of digital distribution services.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 12:51AM Nadril said
People actually do this more than one would think. I'm sure its probably just against the ToS as something like selling an MMO account is -- but if you're selling an account why would you care?
If you go to... certain websites you can see people selling steam accounts a lot.
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If you go to... certain websites you can see people selling steam accounts a lot.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 3:30AM BananaBoat said
There is some good money to be made doing RMT (real money trading) for MMO's. Back in the day, a friend of mine and I played a Korean MMORPG, and there were some items that went for upwards of a thousand dollars (not from me, I was a kid without the means to collect money pre-paypal). An account wouldn't fetch that much, unless it was a really old and important account, but people still sold them constantly.
Having said that, I don't see why it shouldn't be legal to sell your steam account. It's against the TOS for sure, but when you really think about it, you own the licenses...why shouldn't you be able to transfer them? It's another example of the first sale doctrine not applying to digital distribution, and it's one reason why I buy most of my games on physical media
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Having said that, I don't see why it shouldn't be legal to sell your steam account. It's against the TOS for sure, but when you really think about it, you own the licenses...why shouldn't you be able to transfer them? It's another example of the first sale doctrine not applying to digital distribution, and it's one reason why I buy most of my games on physical media
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 3:51AM Nadril said
I do agree with you that it should be legal.
I've actually sold a few accounts (not my steam one) in the past. It's against the ToS, yes, but it certainly is not illegal. The most they can do is ban the account and if that happens (it rarely doesn't) you just refund the guy his money or something.
RMT does happen a lot though. While I do not endorse the idea of having gold farmers, as they open up a whole lot of issues in games (and it may be another discussion entirely) I don't think selling an account is wrong at all. Sure, I'd never buy one but there is obviously a market for it.
(For those who are curious I've sold 2 WoW accounts, a Lineage II account and an EQ2 account.)
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I've actually sold a few accounts (not my steam one) in the past. It's against the ToS, yes, but it certainly is not illegal. The most they can do is ban the account and if that happens (it rarely doesn't) you just refund the guy his money or something.
RMT does happen a lot though. While I do not endorse the idea of having gold farmers, as they open up a whole lot of issues in games (and it may be another discussion entirely) I don't think selling an account is wrong at all. Sure, I'd never buy one but there is obviously a market for it.
(For those who are curious I've sold 2 WoW accounts, a Lineage II account and an EQ2 account.)
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 12:52AM darrenhupke said
it wont last, against Steams policy. Probably will be pulled soon.
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 3:32AM emperorzeroxx said
no, you are all wrong, they are pc games... they are worth roughly $0.
jk jk I kidd lol
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jk jk I kidd lol
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 12:56AM wcarnation said
You know that guy totally hit the Holiday Sales hard and then turns around thinking he's the most clever motherfucker ever when he sells the games for their full prices.
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 3:40AM Raiki said
I was thinking the exact same things because I noticed the bundles that I bought myself with original prices of like $300 for $50 lol.
Though he didn't actually sell it, the guy who bought it also bought many other products and left negative feedback on all immediately after, calling the sellers scammers.
Terrible thing though, someone was selling a Starcraft 2 beta code and it sold for $2000 after auction and he did that to him too.
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Though he didn't actually sell it, the guy who bought it also bought many other products and left negative feedback on all immediately after, calling the sellers scammers.
Terrible thing though, someone was selling a Starcraft 2 beta code and it sold for $2000 after auction and he did that to him too.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:06AM Cheesus Crust said
Ok, then how the hell do YOU pronounce it? "IDE"?
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:44AM Lukeyo said
He was talking about Doom's creators, id, though, not the Steam ID itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software
"The name of the company is currently written with a lowercase id, which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and is presented by the company as a reference to the id, a psychological concept introduced by Sigmund Freud."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software
"The name of the company is currently written with a lowercase id, which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and is presented by the company as a reference to the id, a psychological concept introduced by Sigmund Freud."
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 2:26AM Sleeping Lesson said
I've been downvoted erroneously! I ask for redemption!
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:04AM Granger said
I did the same thing with my Xbox LIVE account when I sold it tied to my 360 (wouldn't have gotten money for the thrice-repaired non-HDMI console itself, so may as well include the license to 350 Rock Band tracks and 124 arcade games). Just changed my gamertag to a generic one before I sold it so I could reuse my name later, got a good price and paid off a good deal of debt with it.
Seems a common enough practice. Makes a decent counter argument to the people against digital distribution's lack of a resale market at least.
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Seems a common enough practice. Makes a decent counter argument to the people against digital distribution's lack of a resale market at least.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:04AM danijami23 said
holy shit. $1000! I need to make me a Steam account business.
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:06AM Shiaoran said
The buyer left feedback XD
"Seller is a SCAMMER DONT BUY!"
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=dave311freak&&sspagename=VIP:feedback&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller
IMO he just wanted to see if someone was stupid enough to actually buy it.
He was bascally selling an insta-banned account.
Maybe it was all for the 'fame', because he knows happy writers like Joystiq's love to post this kind of shit?
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"Seller is a SCAMMER DONT BUY!"
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=dave311freak&&sspagename=VIP:feedback&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller
IMO he just wanted to see if someone was stupid enough to actually buy it.
He was bascally selling an insta-banned account.
Maybe it was all for the 'fame', because he knows happy writers like Joystiq's love to post this kind of shit?
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:09AM (Unverified) said
Haha yea JS posts anything. I'm tempted to make a song about videogames just for the exposure... Wait, hmnnn..
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:16AM Benjamin said
To be fair to the seller, that feedback is INCREDIBLY suspicious. He left it about a minute after the auction ended, and he only has a feedback of 2 himself, one of which is from items bought from a seller with 5 feedback, a month ago, who has since closed his account.
But the important part is leaving the negative feedback a minute after the auction closed. How exactly could the seller have scammed him in that time frame?
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But the important part is leaving the negative feedback a minute after the auction closed. How exactly could the seller have scammed him in that time frame?
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 4:22AM (Unverified) said
Looks like we got us an ebay vigilante on our hands, boys.
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Posted: Jan 17th 2010 11:25AM (Unverified) said
This eBay vigilante just might be a steam employee.
No, Just a douchebag. Left negatives right away for Steam accounts, Ipod touches, Modern Warfare 2 retail boxed and Starcraft 2 Beta Key from Blizzcon 08 for multiple sellers.
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No, Just a douchebag. Left negatives right away for Steam accounts, Ipod touches, Modern Warfare 2 retail boxed and Starcraft 2 Beta Key from Blizzcon 08 for multiple sellers.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:08AM The Joy of Cooking DeMat said
Gotta laugh at the "Free shipping!" above the descriptive image.
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Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:08AM (Unverified) said
Yup. I'm sure this poor bastard is gunna go ape sh*t when his brand new $1000 account gets banned.
Nice going making it public joystiq! ;)
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Nice going making it public joystiq! ;)
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 10:15AM (Unverified) said
Going from my experience in the WoW account selling business, the buyer should know going into the transaction that there's a risk of the account being banned.
In this case it unfortunately went public, but in other cases you pretty much have to trust the seller that he won't fire an email off to Valve/Blizzard and get the account banned.
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In this case it unfortunately went public, but in other cases you pretty much have to trust the seller that he won't fire an email off to Valve/Blizzard and get the account banned.
Posted: Jan 16th 2010 1:17AM (Unverified) said
Sounds like Craigslist woulda been a medium through which to sell an account..
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