Should Steam....
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There was a mistake in which keys were to be revoked by Valve, and the publisher has already stated hours ago that they are getting on Valve's case to have it fixed for all the bundle buyers who lost their keys.
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This system is intended for revoking keys that were not paid for. You know, those people that do charge back fraud. Its not about screwing customers, its about the people that screwed the company.
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Can't you discuss without attacking people? It's getting really annoying.
You did the exact same thing in your last thread, and here we go again.
Do you have such a short memory that you already have forgotten what happened last time?
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So you're supporting a person that is defending a person that is attacking others for absolutely no reason, AND telling them to blacklist them? Seriously?
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...I reply with a humorous comment to someone who is the one attacking me without argumentation, which doesn't bother me as long as I can respond like a capable adult, and YOU come telling me I am attacking people, and worse that it's annoying. Screw you, blacklist me, and don't comment on a topic to say something so vapid, attack my freedom of opinion if you can't take the heat of a debate.
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It does kind of harm debate when ad hominem attacks prevail; just because someone else is a jerk doesn't mean that being rude back is constructive.
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It's okay, someone can be rude or make ad hominem attacks (to me) as long as they provide argumentation. Trying to dismiss argumentation with diversion or mockery is worse.
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My problem is that I traded this game, and I don't remember with who. Now I don't have more days under custody and the other person has my game :(
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I've never heard of anyone doing a chargeback, so badly that it would ruin the publisher. However I've heard many people having key they paid for revoked
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Are you sure the people that paid for the keys paid to official sellers?
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Through an Indiegala bundle I think. And i'm pretty sure Indiegala pays the publishers otherwise they wouldn't get the keys.
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Are you talking about games other than Days Under Custody? :o
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These Days Under Custody copies that were revoked by mistake were included in an IndieGala bundle. The other games are not included in the bundle so the problem clearly didn't come from IndieGala.
Then we don't know who's fault it is between Steam (which is unlikely) and Groupees who publishes the game, and I say fault because we actually don't know despite the RP what the intent was.
And it's this possibility enabled by the revoking system as it works today that I am questioning here :)
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To be fair, the majority of times I hear someone has had a key revoked it's been because of either payment issues or purchasing a key from a sketchy third party. This is the first time I've heard of a failure like this on a large scale.
Also, chances are it's IG who is at fault, because they would be responsible for handling the key list that gets reported to Steam as "unused".
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No they're not at fault because the key list were bought by people and the publisher was remunerated accordingly. It clearly is the publisher's fault.
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You're aware if the revoking system didn't exist scammers could just buy up all the keys they fucking wanted of every game in existence and sell it for 50 cents across the internet, right?
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You make no fucking sense. How and where would they be able to buy "ALL" the keys in ways that they're not already able?
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They ways they do it now will inevitably make it so there's no repeat business from the people who got fooled. Take revoke away and it's the fucking wild west. There would be zero fucking repercussions.
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You shouldn't start by taking revoke away, you should make it so that revoke is not necessary anymore. It's like trying to fix and adjust the consequences or worse, let it get out of hands, rather than addressing the numerous causes
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It happens. I remember a couple years back, there was a publisher that had to revoke thousands of stolen keys. Might have been Sniper Elite, can't remember the game for sure.
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This happened with Sunrider Academy recently as well.
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Who would do the refunding in this case? The people that had the keys revoked didn't buy the keys from steam, they bought them from the person that stole the keys. It's not Steam or the publisher's responsibility to refund you for that, you would have to get the refund from the person or persons that stole the keys, but good luck finding them. It's like the example I gave of buying a stolen car, the car gets taken away and unless you can find and get the person who sold you the car to refund you you will lose your money.
Also that poll is very bad.
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Okay yes, you're also welcome to read the rest of the thread because you're asking this question to nobody. Nobody said you should refund stolen keys (even though third party stores do on a per-customer basis), we are talking about keys that weren't stolen.
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Except you are, you say that this feature shouldn't exist at all, the feature exist for cases like that. It was a mistake in this case but you are complaining about the feature as a whole in your post.
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Yes, and there is a reason why. See my discussion with jatan11t.
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Not sure. Given they purchased from scam resellers with stolen keys, I imagine some of them would have had trouble receiving a refund through them. Even then, they wouldn't be without options, but it would require dealing with their bank or PayPal about a refund on the purchase.
This sucks for them, but they purchased from people that stole over US$35000 worth of games. Is the company supposed to take a loss to keep thieves and victims happy? The people who stole the keys don't deserve to keep any money, and the victims aren't without options, and at least learn the ricks of buying from dodgy sites.
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Sunrider Academy
Discussion Link
Kinda annoyed me, since I have that one on my wishlist.
Mangagamer was one of the sites affected, but its published by Sekai Project.
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I don't understand. Where did these keys, generated by the publisher themselves on Steam or transmitted to reseller directly, got scammed, thus recalling the game?
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Apparently, it works like this. You buy keys and pay the publisher with a credit card. After you get the keys, you initiate a chargeback with your credit card company, probably claiming you didn't get what you paid for. The credit card company refunds you and takes the money back from the publisher. Now you have free keys which were effectively stolen, and the publisher has every right to revoke them.
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So some nobody bought thousands of keys directly from a publisher? Some nobody with so few informations, wether company or banking wise, that it could sell these keys on black market without being sued?
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I rather think that most of the keys come from legit deals and bundles on third party stores, but surely can be farmed by creating as many accounts as possible.
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I have no idea about the Sunrider case, I was speaking generally. Also, as Delta said, the transactions could also have been made with stolen credit cards, which amounts to the same thing.
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Keys were gotten from Valve for selling on their own site. People bought copies of the games with stolen credit cards, get keys to resell. Once the cards are reported as stolen, all spent funds tend to be refunded, meaning the original sellers lost all the money, but scammers still have all the keys they have been selling. Valve is then contacted about revoking stolen keys.
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I needed to do an honest chargeback back then, because I bought tier 2 when I wanted to buy tier 1. And I even showed one of the keys by mistake. Gladly IndieGala trusted that I did nothing with the key and they refunded me. And the keys from the bundle, especially the one I clicked on "show", should've been revoked.
Imagine if it didn't. There would be so much room for exploiting.
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http://blog.indiegamestand.com/featured-articles/steam-key-reselling-killing-little-guys/
Maybe that isn't ruin but it is still quite a bit and that is just a smaller site (I don't agree with the conclusion that fraud killed desura and shinyloot as those sites being obsolete seems more likely). I think they're saying $30k of their revenue was fraudulent transactions resulting in losses of around $12k.
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I don't believe for a second that a loss of 12k killed Desura or Shinyloot, however it is still fraud and therefor a problem.
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I have to ask: "I've never heard of" is your best argument that chargeback fraud has no effect?
I'm just curious since I'm not seeing a lot of solid arguments apart from anecdotal evidence and I'd like to see what both sides of this 'debattle' would bring to the table so to speak. So far it seems one-sided.
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There's no argument on either side of the table on the concrete ways these things are happening. I trust what makes sense from a business, contractual and commercial POV.
And nowhere am I saying that chargeback has no effect
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Alright. Thanks for clarifying that you're not saying that it has no effect. Still leaves me curious as to what you are saying about this though.
Do you want to clarify what your response to this part was?
"This system is intended for revoking keys that were not paid for. You know, those people that do charge back fraud. Its not about screwing customers, its about the people that screwed the company."
Or do you mean you're not going to say anything about that?
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Of course, I'm always responding to fair arguments.
As I said in other comments, the system for revoking key is a problem, but it doesn't mean that revoking defrauded key is the problem, the problem is that this fraud is even possible, therefor something is missing in the system.
I was suggesting in another comment that Steam was responsible for it, by wasting money into developing useless even non-sensical thing that I don't believe anybody asked for like the item/card speculation market or the game removal tool while they didn't do shit to develop better interface or system.
For example, this key fraud problem could have been fixed if Steam had implemented (instead or backtracking) on a single Facebook-like button with a Steam Api (the strips where you can reveal you keys or gift them) that doesn't display any keys but rather adds the game directly to the connected user's library or transfers the gift into is inventory. The fact that you are accessing a key for Steam, means therefor that you have an account, and so there's no reason why shouldn't be able to use an Api system everytime you claim a system game that simply add it to your library.
It's not even a solution for key fraud, it's a way better and common sense interface and system for people to add games rather than having to reveal key, copy key, go to steam, click on add game, paste code, add game one at a time then repeat...but Steam doesn't give a shit and is just making it's platform worse as trade escrow and holding just show, nobody wants to deal with that shit.
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So much this.
Valve was only supposed to revoke the unused keys (the keys sent back that were not sold) from the batches sent by Groupees (publisher) to DIG and IndieGala, but ended up revoking the entire batches by mistake.
It was a simple mistake that can be rectified, and the OP is once again overreacting. In before "I'm contacting my team of crack attorneys!" over a $5 bundle game. /facepalm
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Oh hey. Maybe one day you'll get me. I'm an indeed willingly overreacting. Think meta-puzzle...
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well what the developer did if it was intention would have been totally illegal and a violation of consumer protection laws all around the world. As such it would very much be an issue of consumer rights, the fact the game didn't cost much money to acquire isn't important.
In days of custody's case it was a mistake, in the case of Axyos, not so much..
Either way, if the situation isn't corrected people should contact their local consumer protection agency and report the bundle site/Publisher/developer.
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The developer didn't do anything (as Days of Custody goes). This was a case of Valve revoking all the keys in a batch rather than just the unsold ones. I could swear I explained this above ...
The problem has already been taken care of by Valve and the game restored to libraries.
TLDR version - the OP spoke before he knew what really happened.
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Oh, finally someone explains what happened...I don't have the game so no chance it can be revoked by now but I was curious
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is this thread gonna turn into a flame war, like the previous one?
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There wasn't much of a flame war, but if people can't take the heat, they better stay at home with plaid, this isn't called debattle for nothing :)
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Well, that thread was also a lot more "Americans: but this is not the law; Europeans: here it is; Americans: but here it is not, so it applies to the rest of the globe as well; Europeans: sigh".
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whatever happens happens.. every system is flawed and can be broken down.. just gota be patient. Look how many discussion we had with the Steamgift's CV system..
Give it time.. it will work out..
I am sure indiegala.. groupee and volve will work out the issue and give me my now missing game back which i brought legally..
so.. potato rulez.
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I don't agree. I think system change for the worse as soon as people don't try to change the people, and it changes for the better as soon as it's criticised. This is what's happening in politics, consumer products, business etc...
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well.. it don't always work like that.. people tend to always invent a new system to fix problems of the old system.. but most of the time it makes the problem worse.
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I think the problem here is that somebody fucks up (in our case, Valve… again…), and you suffer. And in worse cases it is you who has to go through loops to get the error someone else caused fixed. What if it is something on a smaller scale that won't attract the attention of the online media? You send a million emails and reports and hope you get your stuff back? Then it really would be a lot like thefts of tangible products, that takes forever to get them back even if they are found as well.
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That's interesting. Then the currents structures encompassing Customer Service or People's Voice are inefficient. Indeed it's a small mistake there, a huge fuck-up there and you ended up with a big subprime crisis that ruins, displaces and kills thousands of people.
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Of course Valve should be able to revoke keys that were obtained in illegal ways such as through a card fraud.
If you can't see a reasoning behind that measure, then I'm afraid I won't be able to convince you why it's needed either.
And what happened was a mistake done by human due to miscommunication. No system, neither lack of it will solve that.
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Then explained to me why are more people getting screwed by scammer revoking key than people doing a charge back or stealing key (if that's even possible)?
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Based on what data you're stating that? Based on your own trading history? Because based on my data, it's totally different.
Imagine following situation:
- Scammer buys a bundle
- You buy this bundle from him
- Scammer issues chargeback
Could you give me any reason WHY company should be losing money? Because you bought those keys from scammers? I'm sorry, all keys provided by IG, HB, groupees and all other sites are NOT FOR TRADE AND NOT FOR RESALE. If you're trading them, then you're taking a risk, not even mentioning the fact that you seem to be trading with guys who are not trustworthy, in this case you're taking a risk twice.
System is not broken, humans are broken. And that includes not only scammers who are ripping other people, but also other people trading with them. You can find a dozen if not hundreds of trades from more trustworthy people, only if you wanted to do so. Do not blame a company that ensures that other people can't screw them. You, together with other trader are breaking ToS of the service, and now you're literally blaming company for the fact that they're not allowing you to legally steal their money.
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System is not broken, humans are broken.
100% agree here
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Perfectly reasonable to have way to revoke keys that are fraudulently purchased.
Now, asking for all of your keys to be revoked... That's just human idiocy...
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Do you know the reason? Was it IG to revoke or the dev?
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Groupees the new publisher asked for "excess" keys to be revoked. But somehow more keys including ones that were outright bought by DIG-site were revoked...
My guess is that they send in a list they shouldn't have.
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This is just brilliant -_-'
I dislike Groupees as a bundle site because I hardly ever find intereting games in their bundles and often they price it more than other sites. Now I dislike them as publishers also XD
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Then again, some think that Valve somehow screwed up and revoked all the keys they had given...
I just think it's pretty clear on which side the fault likely is, the one who does this all the time or the one who did it for the first...
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I saw that some people still didn't got the key revoked so it looks like something not affecting everyone.
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I have no problem with saying the bulk Key reselling is illegal and not part of the commercial deal even though it's a response to legit demands for lower price.
However saying system is not broken and human are is typical nihilist misanthropy "buh human are so polluting, poor nature, robots are better".
This doesn't make any sense from concrete or systemic point of view: Humans create the systems, therefor they are as limited and broken as humans defines them but without human they don't exists. Like machines.
AND finally you are saying people who bought a legit key from Indie Gala, a company that buys legit keys from the publishers are breaking ToS of service you don't even know the content of, just for the sake of defending companies at all cost.
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he said that you would be breaking the rules if you bought your games from a reseller, wich is totally true...
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NOT FOR TRADE AND NOT FOR RESALE.
Yet IG will let you buy gift copies and trade it on their site.
Seems someones try to have their cake and eat it too.
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You are aware that the scammers don't revoke the keys themselves, right? They are the ones doing a chargeback and stealing the keys to sell to you in the first place!
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Hum, so they are buying keys, selling them, then doing a chargeback on these keys, therefor having them revoked.
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Actually, in general, scammers aren't even the ones doing the chargebacks. Scammers will use a stolen credit card to buy multiple copies of games, then sell them quickly. Assuming CC company doesn't notice something suspicious immediately, then the CC owner will when they receive their bill and initiate a chargeback days to weeks later. And that's when you lose your game. The scammer defrauded you so it's your legal right to sue/charge them, but that rarely happens. The store loses $25-35 due to the chargeback; they sure as heck aren't going to absorb the cost of the game on top of that.
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What exactly do you think the millions of credit card details being sold on the online black markets are being used for? They're not paying their own bills with them; they're buying digital goods to sell to unsuspecting people.
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They are being used to buy steam key and resell them at 1$? The majority of the key blackmarket is working keys coming from deals and bundles, set at lower price than retail, and because the majority of these keys are working site like G2B or Kingpin are successful.
The very few times, the keys didn't work I was refunded, and only once I was scammed by a revoked key. So it is a very disparate and occasional scam from a few people. Still, if there are key reseller thus scammer in the first place, it's because Steam didn't do shit to update their system except to make more money with item speculation or game removal tool.
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No, they're used to buy AAA or otherwise expensive games, amongst other digital goods, to resell at deep discounts to sell before they're revoked. Just because you haven't been affected doesn't mean it doesn't happen frequently.
http://blog.mangagamer.org/2016/02/15/pay-processor-issues
https://twitter.com/denpasoft_pr/status/700889987311505412
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/01/27/ubisoft-says-deactivated-far-cry-keys-purchased-with-stolen-credit-card.aspx
http://unknownworlds.com/blog/beware-shady-key-resellers-and-discount-steam-keys/
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This, credit card fraud is a huge issue for small/indie companies, 30K-50K in losses CAN put them to bankrupt.
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That's okay, but literally a push of a button and thousands miss their games? If the process is that simple, it is just begging for a case where this happens with a game that'll get a larger attention. I mean this fuck-up indicates that the revoke process doesn't even have a confirmation button… otherwise somebody would have seen that hey, N times as many keys are being revoked than requested.
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Publisher, developer or other authorized entity reports cd-keys that should get revoked, Valve only accepts (and fullfills) the request.
I really doubt that Valve screwed up anything here, I'm more likely to believe in developer putting valid keys on "to-revoke" list.
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Well, Groupees said they requested Valve to remove old excess IndieGala keys, and suddenly Valve revoked all (or almost all) IndieGala keys…
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I think the mis-communication was they said revoke instead of invalidate as AYXOS has done.
All AXYOS keys sold by IG are now invalid. but if the key was already activated then the game isn't removed from your library.
Both are dodgy IMO.
so miscommunication or not I believe all Groupees fault.
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I think that even the Skynet needs to reboot from time to time and lets some humans pass. I have hopes that both parties will do their best to fix things and the poor guys who had their game taken from them will get them back in some way :) This is a bit too big occurence to just ignore and we once again see that automated things are sometimes bad. They make many things easy BUT if the you-know-what hits the fan there will be a lot to fix.
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YES. This is one of the hidden point of the topic: technology and automation aren't shit without smart people to conceive and regulate them as with any technology.
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An order was issued for the disabling of the keys, problem was the wrong list was sent. Other than time, what difference would there be in the outcome if it was done one by one by humans versus automation?
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Exactly: none, because automation depends on the rules set-up by humans.
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Do you realize that this wasn't caused by automation, but actually caused by smart people's mistake?
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Technology is worth more then people in my opinion. Programs never do anything they're not told to do. People are far more likely to fuck something up then technology. Yes, you should never allow a program to do anything without authorization, but it's during that authorization that fuck ups happen. People make mistakes, not programs.
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Except glitches. It's not people who makes these mistakes, it's how they conceived or apprehend the system their work and operate in.
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IG's response about the issue:
Hi,
Seemingly the developer removed all the keys from all the Stores and we are waiting for his answer.
As soon as he gets back to us we will make an announcement on the site.
Thank you.
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That's just wrong. Don't expect knowledgeable answers from first level tech support.
The publisher, Groupees, is the one who gave the order to revoke the keys, not the developer.
Keys distributed in Groupees bundles are not being revoked, only those from other sites.
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Your poll is totally biased and shows you aren't really willing to listen to people with different opinions. There's no point in starting a debate like that.
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lots of people on steam (who have no idea how DRM works and eventually thinks that digital world is completely outlaw) love to apple polish steam and whoever they believe that is "official" resellers/distributors/bundlers/whatever. it is never their fault. considering this, I would vote to "keep that system, I like being screwed" because steam average users do like being screwed to open complaints topics (nothing more) or whatever else (outside justice) that steam or resellers would ever care to know.
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From here http://steamcommunity.com/app/412730/discussions/0/392184342867440595/
We apologize for this issue. It results from a miscommunication with our contact at Valve. All keys were not supposed to be revoked, just extra keys that were not previously distributed in bundles. As some of you may know, there is a big issue with 3rd party sites selling Steam keys. It is causing lots of issues and was one of the major topics of conversation at GDC this year. We were simply trying to ensure that extra keys were not going to make their way to these third party sites. We are working with Steam to correct the mistake and will ensure that folks who purchased the key via Indie Gala or DIG will have their game restored.
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Who cares about game called Days Under Custody :D When they revoke me game like GTA V i will be really mad and starting RIOT, but now i really dont care. I dont lost that key, but i could buy another one for 0,1€, so no big deal :D
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But then you could scammed again and have it revoked again if the key is not legit.
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For once I doubt this was Valves fault. In order for keys to be revoked, devs/publishers must submit a list of keys to Valve and tell them to either revoke or deactivate them. They actually have a large amount of control with their keys since they can be retro locked, deactivated but not revoked (so if you used it, you keep the game but unused keys no longer work) or out right revoking. Manga gamer was the last "big" publisher who had a serious cc fraud problem and they asked Valve to deactivate (and not revoke) a bunch of keys. So those who bought and used the keys from the thieves wouldn't be screwed but that the thieves themselves could no longer sell what they stole.
I know peeps like to blame Valve for everything (Lord knows I have a hate/love relationship with them) but this is a fuck up on Groupees end. They gave the wrong list to Valve and told them to revoke all of them.
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I agree. I've never seen Valve make a mistake like this when it comes to revoking/deactivating keys via request from a dev/publisher. The possibility of Valve screwing up is pretty low, while the possibility of Groupees screwing up is quite high given their history.
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So if a police captain screws-up by allowing a cop to shoot a civilian, or if a company representative screws by leaking crucial information when asked by his management, who is to blame? Only the one carrying the order or the one making the decision? Or both?
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False equivalence fallacy.
Valve implemented this feature for a reason, and they trust that the developers submit correct lists to revoke. Do you have a better idea how to do it?
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THIS. The system is a good one, but it has problems, and this story like a few others reveals that it has flaws with potential for bigger problems: how can we fix/change this?
This is one of the point of the topic.
An idea is if for Steam to stop trying to make money by establishing new features like the item speculation market or removing games from ones account only to make more money, and start updating their system in ways that make sense and make the system better for their customer: for example, get rid of key overall by pushing their key generating system toward an API that directly ties game to accounts, as well as stopping screwing people over legit trade by making their trade system unbearable (escrow, trade hold etc...)
Instead of having a frame which reveals a key or a "gift" button that generates a link, you would have an API like a facebook button which requires you to be connected and either add the game directly to your account or as a gift to send or trade with other accounts as easily and more securely that it is currently done on SG or Reddit.
Problem solved: no key market resseler, no chargeback, no scam, no revoking
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How does this proposed solution solve the key market reselling or scamming or revoking?
You can still sell the gift to other accounts. Therefore, because trading and selling still exists, you can be scammed. And revoking will always exist - through price errors if nothing else.
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Most keys are bought on legit site during sales and bundles. The way these sites provide the game is with a little non-standard scripted box which reveals a code or a gift link.
By making these a standard Steam API which either directly add the game to an account or a limited number of extra gifts (4, maybe 10). As for still being able to do a chargeback on the gifts, I imagined part of a solution, the rest behoves on you.
If you don't see how this dramatically reduce the key market reselling thus scamming I have nothing to add.
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Let me quote you:
no key market resseler, no chargeback, no scam, no revoking
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Whether you are arguing semantics or not, which I'm sure you are, I take it as "is there an actual way to have NO key market resseler, NO chargeback, NO scam, No revoking?". I proposed a partial solution, what's yours?
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Steam's success is due to allowing publishers to sell their products on other storefronts, including physical retail stores. That requires a redemption key system. They used to have an API that redeemed keys automagically, but Valve removed that feature without much explanation; probably because it could be even easier to abuse. Chargebacks are protected by law and stores are allowed to regain items through legal means if fraud has occurred, so the system will remain in place.
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Ah I just read your comment above and I see your angle now. Keep in mind that if this thread does become a flame war, it will be closed.
With regards to your question, I do not have a huge problem with how Valve is doing things, at least not yet.
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Okay, that's an angle, indeed it's not a problem yet as these type of incident are occasional. The goal is never a flame war but a passionate debate, free enough without falling into ad hominem or personal attack. That's my angle :)
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No wait, actually when you trade your extra-gift within Steam you CAN'T sell or charge them. You would only be able to give it to a limited of gift to a limited number of Steam friends with one account. Then you could still have them pay for it outside of Steam, but even if you farmed Steam account it would make the process way more daunting than it is in the current state.
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Mhmm, but hopefully Groupees tells everyone what exactly happened and why soon. The longer this plays out, the worse it will be for them.
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Huh, I was wondering why this got revoked even thought I was pretty sure I got in in a bundle. Hopefully this gets sorted out, it is pretty annoying that games can be yanked out of your account whether you paid for 'em, but as long as there are ways to reactive legit keys in cases like this I'm good.
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Probably miscommunication. But if it happened it means, the system makes it possible, which means there's a problem with how this system was built.
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The "System" can't stop human error.
In all likelyhood either Groupies sent Valve the wrong list of keys, or some at valve read the list as "Keep these keys active, disable all others." In either case, the whole issue is human error. The System worked exactly as intended, it did what it was told and deactivated what it was told. Blaming the computer is like the people who were in my Typing class blaming the computer cause everything they wrote was in capitals, after hitting the caps lock key.
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If people in your class blamed the computer for writing in caps lock when not intended like a millions of other people who do that, it means that the software, the keyboard or our writing interaction can get better.
And people who invent system rarely pulls them out of their asses, they are always the results of constant evolution which start by analysing, identifying and changing what's wrong or how it can get better.
People with the "if it ain't broken don't fix it" or "system are perfect and don't make mistake" mentality are incidentally the ones who invent nothing, while the other either contribute, iterate or invent news ones based on flaws, problems or opportunities they see.
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Oh look, it's another Notabene thread...
Like the people mentioned above, it was miscommunication between the developer and Valve. Also, that metaphor is completely out of context. You could have said that the company IMEI locks the phone, but I bet that does sound as evil as "the company forcibly getting into your house to take this smartphone."
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Explain to me further how that metaphor is out of context.
I'll explain how your comparison with IMEI lock doesn't make sense in return: when you get an IMEI lock, not only do you still have the phone but you also still have the IMEI on your receipt and box, and it if you enter it WILL work. In this case people having both a legit key have seen their games revoked AND the key doesn't work anymore.
Of course it's a miscommunication, like most mistakes in systems, customers services, banking, politics and war...
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Ah, it's our resident legal expert again.
This time he has formed a class action in the space of a week?
Hmm.
Hmmmm....
HMMMMMM.
It's funny how reading a little about something can make you far more wrong than someone who is completely ignorant.
I suggest you look at the remedies for a breach of contract, both generally and in terms of the EU derived consumer law. Both the theory and practice.
Look up the word "license" too, the legal meaning is the same as the dictionary definition.
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Uh, well, the thing is...
These keys were accidentally revoked because the distributors dun goofed, and not as part of an intentional working of the system. Some communication implies that these were keys that were never customer facing, meaning that they were never distributed in the first place, which is a common practice for retailers and bundle sites (to avoid being responsible for product that they didn't and won't sell), just gone catastrophically wrong. What probably happened was someone at IG sent back the wrong list and had ALL they keys revoked, not just the unsent ones.
So in short, the system is fine, but people should double check their work. If the system didn't work like this, it would hinder retail because then any time you gave a retailer a key, sold or unsold, they would have to pay immediately (because it can't be revoked), essentially meaning that either digital retailers would no longer stock large quantities of games (so copies would sell out quickly, and they'd have to request more keys) or that they would request a key whenever the sale was made, resulting in a huge delay.
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I don't know if they only generate keys for the sold bundle, or if they have, as you said a list of keys given by the publisher to sell, but I doubt that's how the system works.
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A fine system only have so much time before it gets corrupted by the natural laws of chaos (every construction, movement, ideology, system or structure only has so much time to last depending of the original conditions it was set with until it start to weaken, be corrupted and then crumble) and either gets updated or falls.
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How would the model where Steam generates and sends a key at the moment a sale is made result in a huge delay? It could be done as a simple web request which would, barring exceptional conditions, resolve in under a second no matter where you are in the world. I do realize, of course, that Steam would have to make damn sure their system had no downtime, but OTOH there would be no problems with key stocks (and, I mean, the very concept of having stocks of digital items whose supply is effectively infinite is absurd).
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It's a Notabene thread. He just wants people to say he's right and smarter than the rest of us
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You don't own any game on steam, you only own the license to play them. Valve change the their TOC/license wording after this court order proved people have the right to resell used software. Now you don't own any of the software there and as such it can legally be removed from your account at any time for whatever reason.
This is why you should always strive to buy DRM-free games, DRM-free software is the only instance within digital distributed games where you actually own the software. And as such are even legally allowed to resell it (provided you erase your own copy).
Now we only await a proper portal for managing and buying DRM-free games, until such times steam is an easy way for us lazy people.
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you DON'T own a licence to play them, you own a licence to a COPY of it. So YES you own your game on Steam.
However you are right, it's of course better to buy DRM-free and yes you are right that Steam is the most convenient platform despite it's horrible interface and system.
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No I'm sorry, on steam you do not own your game. If you owned it you would be legally allowed to resell it and steam would have to provide you means to do so by the above court order. For this reason Valve made sure you don't own the game, just a license to use/play it. This way they can legally avoid providing you with the means to resell the games.
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YES. You DO own the games because their TOC/licence doesn't prevail to countries laws and regulations which say that if you're buying something, you have a right to it, period. And if they are not making it DRM-free, it should be accessible at ALL time. That's WHY...Steam was condemned by the court, them changing their TOS doesn't change one thing, and you can be sure that they will simply implement what was missing because it's complicated to find a way to do (although Microsoft and probably Sony are working on such a system as we speak as it was announced).
And that's exactly why, when a publisher removes a game that was paid for from their store, they still make it accessible to download, otherwise they wouldn't even bother. In fact they would have gotten sued and lost again. There's even an attorney who recently took the time to read the whole Apple TOS and found that they could be sued for a huge amount of money for about 50 terms that were illegal.
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I know about the apple license. The difference is that with apple you actually buy a product. On steam you buy a license to play, you DO NOT buy a copy of the actual game. You are right that they cannot prevail any countries law, but it is NOT a license to a copy of the product. It's a license to use the product, nothing more. There's a huge difference. There is of course the issue of if this type of license would hold in court, but that has so far not been tried as far as I know.
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I'm totally cool with that. I actually think that developers and publishers should have more power over their keys. It would add more excitement because you will never know if your favourite game will be in your library tomorrow.
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So you're advocating for companies to be able scam and steal people's money?
Edit: maybe your right, in fact more right than you might think because wait for game streaming to arrive...
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If you calmed down you might realise what he/she meant
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Oh yes, I sensed the cynicism but failed to see the irony.
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"Kartyl! Your words are so wise, that you probably don't know, how wise they are!"
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dark souls 4 should have a perma death system where the devs revoke your key.
want to be hardcore?
here you go, fanboy :3
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This is why I like DRM free and physical copies of games (I.e. CDs and cartridges), though I'll still buy downloadable games as well.
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I don't care about DRM-Free as long as I keep the receipt for the licences if anything should happened. The real "threat" is the platforms and more importantly for the future, streaming...
However I'm starting to go back and stack a lot of physical games too...
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Even if you buy something, if the seller did not have ownership, the ownership would not even transfer to the buyer.
Example: stolen art, you may legally buy it from a legal art supplier... only to later find out it was stolen some centrury ago, and they steal it from you.... they are only shifting the victim in this case, from the original owner to the new buyer. Imagine if this was murder or rape, shifting victims seems criminal in itself!
Even for the phsyical world, only the buyer is the victim, as the person that originally had their property stolen gets it back free of charge.
Actually, the criminal is the true benifactor here, beyond the fist victim getting back their property.
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Wow finally an interesting point.
- Technically: Publisher exchange money for a licence. OK.
- Buyer exchange money with someone else for this licence. OK, because yes reselling is legal in precise terms (even for physical object there's only so much copies of a same item you can sell before it's consider fraud, otherwise it's like domestic used sell, and the price is also a factor).
- Second buyer gets second-hand game and use it. OK
- Buyer does a charge back while keeping the licence. Not OK, publishers loses money.
- Publisher revokes the key, second hand buyer loses both money and the game: Absolutely Not OK.
Clearly even in this case the thief is the main responsible for stealing money BUT publisher is taking back their key, so they are transferring the problem to the final victim with taking their responsibility into pursuing the thief. This is the big difference, and the subtle mystery that raises question: is the publisher responsible for unwillingly taking part in the scam by depriving a buyer of a copy he paid rather than pursue the frauder?
Interesting.
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Your logic is flawed.
Just imagine someone steals your car and then sells it to someone. Later the police find it.
Wouldn't you feel entitled to receiving your car back? You paid for it once after all.
The last buyer will have to get his money back from whoever sold it to him.
In most modern countries this is how it works. You can not buy something that was obtained illegally and have the rights to it.
The original owner does not lose the rights to it just because it was sold on.
And murder or rape?
Sorry, but that is so wrong you should be ashamed of yourself.
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So after recently having an adventure with the Square-Enix store, because it turns out they used an illegal tierce-party system from a company I am suing in a group action, here comes another problem that is grave in terms of implications:
People who legally bought an Indie Gala bundle containing a Days Under Custody key which, as it is probably the case for 99% of the other games, is probably being paid in turn by Indie Gala to the publisher (otherwise they would be there), had their Days Under Custody key revoked.
First, this system shouldn't exist in the first place, it's no wonder it's mainly used by scammers in key market, trading or gifting: once you get a key, especially if you bought it, NOBODY should be able to take it back from you WITHOUT due process.
Because this is the equivalent of you buying a smartphone/console/whatev in a legal shop, then having someone from the company forcibly getting into your house to take this smartphone back which, EVEN if they refunded you is a breach of a commercial contract, and it gets worse when they don't even refund you.
NOW I'm not saying there shouldn't be a system to be able to retrieve say, stolen keys, but this current system ends actually being more beneficiary to scammers, whether they are publisher or key reseller by the way, than legal owner AND is probably illegal (as always with the digital, it's not sure what the physical contractual equivalent of this revoking system is, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't stand one second against consumer or commercial laws).
BUT, on the same theme, I appreciate something that Steam does which Apple doesn't: A digital store is the equivalent of a remote CD/Book/DVD library shelves of which the access to media is granted when you pay for a licence. Therefor, as long as you bought a licence for an item in this library, it should be accessible at ALL time, and I like the fact that Steam users can still access games they bought even if they have been removed from the store.
Meanwhile Apple is scamming you out of some bucks here and there when you buy content which then disappears from the library without Apple issuing a refund. And for those doubting the illegality of it: Apple WILL refund you the app if it's not accessible on the store anymore because that's how the law works in this case, thank god for consumer laws.
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