If Steam Let You Resell Your Games, Would You?

Unplayed game backlogs and Steam sales are fairly common discussions between PC gamers.  At GrownGaming, we’ve written about the difficulty of avoiding Steam sales, the lack of time that we have to play the ridiculous number of games we own, and getting organised to beat the backlog.  The struggle is real.

But, what if we could resell the games sitting in our libraries?

As reported by Gamasutra earlier this month, a French court has ruled against Valve at the close of a 2015 case, finding that some aspects of Steam operate on several policies that are anti-consumer and arguably illegal.  Valve has plans to appeal the decision and won’t be making any changes until the case is closed for good, but there is the potential that games could be resold on Steam – at least in countries within the European Union.

I have 234 games in my Steam library (and many more spread across Origin, Epic Games Store, UPlay, GOG, etc.).  Of those, ‘only’ 116 are not hidden.  Those are the games I have convinced myself that I will actually play.  The other 118 games have either had their time, or were purchased on a whim and I’ve had to accept that I’ll never get around to installing them.  My total spend on Steam is $673.23 according to Valve (you can see yours, too) – though that doesn’t take into account that I’ve bought the majority of my games via other websites and redeemed the keys.  (Never G2A, though.)

Would I sell my games if I could?  Yes.

I would love to start with a clean slate and only purchase games when I’m actually going to play them.  Having a pipeline of games to play is pointless in an age when more games are released every single day than any human being could ever aspire to experience.  It just isn’t possible.

If I could get 50% of the current value of the games in my library, I would sell every game I have in a heartbeat.  It would represent a significant loss, but isn’t that basically what console players do at the end of a generation, anyway?

Would you sell your unwanted Steam games if you had the choice?

Written by John

I'm a 36-year-old gamer, clinging onto the gamepad despite real life responsibilities trying to pull me kicking and screaming away. You can follow me on Twitter: @johnlevelsup.

Current setup: Gaming PC with a 1080 Ti, Xbox Series X, Steam Deck, and retro consoles, on a Gigabyte M32Q monitor, sitting on a Flexispot E7 standing desk.