Well HB could do something. They could cancel all the keys sold to retailers saying they void the Tos. Then alot of ppl would get their game removed and then they would ask their money back from retailer. So in the end retailers would loose the money they spend on HB and get burned that way. Retailers would stand badly legalwise since they obtained the key "illegally" so they would have to refund.
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"The keys are legitimate, but they aren't authorized to resell them"
The moment u payed for those keys,you can sell them to whoever u like. Sites like Kinguin are the same as Ebay,but I don't see anybody around here crying about it...the hypocracy?
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I don't have a problem with it to be honest. Selling a game in a bundle is a trade off. You trade a higher Income:Sale ratio to increase your sales numbers and brand recognition.
The guy made the money off of Proteus that he deemed acceptable, you cant take your ball home because people aren't playing by your rules.
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But you can when said site's ToS is broken and reselling occurs without authorization. That is, if they want to.
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ToS doesn't mean shit. What are they going to do about it? Stop them from buying games on that account in the future?
The ToS only refers to what you can do on that site, not what you can do with purchases from the site. Under law, once something is purchased, it's the buyers property to do with what they want. This is especially true in Europe.
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Exactly. Negating the whole point of these bundles. They've essentially removed any "value" from the game by offering them up for one last pay day on the title.
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What's the issue?
Unless there's a Humble Bundle with Proteus currently running, you don't really have a choice but to either buy the game from resellers or buy it for full price on Steam or from another authorized retailer. The bundles eventually end. Did they not realize that people would stockpile the keys?
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The issue is that while it's profitable in the short-term for both reseller and consumer, it's a long-term problem that will influence the entire industry.
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How? The keys being resold were originally bought from the bundle, so they still serve their purpose.
Unless of course these indie developers intend to go the route of EA and Ubisoft and lock their games down with DRM and restrictions to avoid any kind of piracy/exploitation. Which kind of goes against the original intentions of these Humble Bundles (doing it for the fans, hence why it's called "humble").
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By creating and inserting a middle-man industry of unauthorized key reselling, you begin to undermine the way digital games are distributed-- and those near the bottom (yes, indies) will be hurt first. While initially this results in profits for the reseller and the consumer alike, eventually the foundation of the traditional system begins to crumble, shifting an artificial deflation of digital property prices. Long-term, this leads to less money going to developers and publishers due to the lower perceived value of such goods in the eyes of consumers. Therefore, less incentive for smaller companies leads to a lower number of games released per year and less variety in the ones that are-- as they typically come from the same group of "larger" companies, who are at that point terrified to innovate or "take risks" due to the shrinking fringes of their industry.
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Except unfortunately, most indie devs entered bundle agreements with the understanding that they were "giving their game away for a buck" for a limited time-frame, not permanently decreasing its value by 90%. The reality, of course, is easy to see now; hindsight being 20/20 and all. It's a slippery slope on which we've only begun to tumble.
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The humble bundles have been going on for almost 3 years at this point. I bought my Humble Indie Bundle #1 in August 2011. I'd find it amazing if this trend only started with the Proteus developer, and they can actually claim "Oh, well, hindsight. I had no way to know." on the whole issue. There was plenty of time for research to be done, and honestly, I bet this doesn't come as much of a surprise to most people.
I don't feel bad they signed the agreement to make a quick buck, and it's kind of biting them now. The Humble Bundle shouldn't be about the bottom line.
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And if you had serials that were time sensitive that got destroyed after a month you would have lots of people joining together for a class action lawsuit who spent money on something and then had it revoked just because they didn't use it after X amount of time.
The best way to do it is how Humble is doing it now with their links instead of giving out actual keys. You know where the keys originally came from and you know it was bought from a charity/bundle site. All the bundle sites need to do something like that so that people know where the keys are coming from.
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if humble say up front you have to use this within a month or it goes poof then theirs no cause for a lawsuit, or hell have it be the current system and the url's are valid for a month, so long as its easy to resell keys people will do so to make a quick and easy buck
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Are you kidding me? Are you some sort of fucking idiot? No... really, please answer that. You actually sounded like someone worth talking to up until this.
Tell me where I said we shouldn't even be discussing it. I said I'm not giving the Proteus developer slack because he stupidly signed a contract to make some quick cash off of the Humble Bundle brand... and just now realized, 3 years after the first Humble Bundle (long enough that he could SEE the "20/20 hindsight" clear as fucking day)... that selling unlimited keys, for an extended period of time, for a buck, SOMEHOW devalues his product. I never said "we shouldn't talk about it." Not one god damn time.
Fuck him, and fuck you, you degenerate. I have no patience for you people anymore.
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My wallet is getting hurt when Publishers/Devs sell their games for 30$/euro on Steam and 2 weeks later the game shows up on a bundle.
Remember the Amanita Design incident with HB & GOG? No? Read about it...those guys deserve to lose all the money they made from that bundle,cause of that move...
So far we've seen 5-6 devs(mostly team of 1-5 ppl) complain about this and it is mostly greed not common sence... So yeah I don't feel sorry bout this guy that made Prometheus at all.
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Botanicula was on a pre-order on GOG for a month or so and on the release date,they've made the Amanita Bundle Debut with better bonuses for less money. That was a d**k move by them and they don't realy carred about it.
Same thing with those Early Access games on Indie Gala...
And I'm curious - do ppl around here know how does exactly Kinguin works or Ebay for example?
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Holy shit you are actually NOT a troll. God damnit, this makes my brain hurt.
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I find it actually ok, if people have missed a bundle or just from nowhere want to have this game, they can get it from a cheap but not as cheap price. I, myself bought mark of the ninja from them because i wanted it from recommendations, also these stores are marketplaces, sometimes it's not even the official retailer.
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ooh, euhueh sorry. it's natural for me not getting information first.
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Actually, if you purchase an item under the condition that it is for personal use and not for resale/commercial use, then the EU law would slap you, not humble.
Leaving law and occasional one-offs out of this, we're talking about sites and individuals who buy large quantities of these bundles for the lowest price, then resell the contents individually at a higher value. They are literally combing a profit while giving the developers, the charities and their hosting site less than a fraction of what they're gaining. These people are literally leeching the life out of gaming bundles, which will result in escalating restrictions, higher prices and less availability/less willing participants.
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Interesting point too!
http://savygamer.co.uk/2014/03/29/on-serial-resellers-and-savygamers-role-in-their-use/
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Yes, SG is turning a massive profit from giving away free games. Were you born like this or did you genuinely work hard to turn out like this?
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As is known, cg isn't making a profit by running this site.
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Numerous people saw the opportunity to make money from reselling them as soon as the first bundles were released. Are we to believe that the devs are that stupid and are only figuring this out now? If someone had cared, they could have easily done the same thing before now.
Why are the causing a fuss about this now? Regretting that your game was in a bundle because it's now devalued and are seeking a way to recoup some losses? Losses that they caused by allowing it to be in a bundle?
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HAHAHAHA. I knew this months ago. When fast2play has out of nowhere indiegames in stock for 1 $ when a new HB bundle appears its no surprise where they buy their keys from.....
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It is against humble bundle's policy. Each humble game bundle is licensed for user to activate and use for personal use instead of commercial use. If they are reselling they directly got from humble bundle as normal way of purchase. They cannot and should not sell them again.
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Humble says that the bundles are for personal use only (as in not for commercial use).
Not only that, but the humble bundles are also a partial charity effort. Buying bundles for resale isn't just siphoning money away from the developers, but it is also profiteering from a charity effort.
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Wait, you're saying humble and the developers are profiting... by giving their money away? :V
Buying 100 bundles for $1 each, then reselling each item in a bundle for $3 gives the organisers, the game creators and the charity a measly $100 to share between them, compared to the $1200 the scammers would make assuming the bundle had 4 games in it. They are literally taking a goodwill bundles that also help charities, and then profiteering off it. Even assuming you don't see a moral problem with this (especially considering that the bundles are provided for personal use and not for commercial use), then even the more sociopathic amongst us should be able to appreciate that this will cause tighter restrictions, enforced/higher price-points, and less willing developers / lower quality game contributions.
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im not saying the resellers are laudable angels, im saying theyre making a profit and some of it is getting back to the devs/charities/bundles organisers, thats capitalism at its finest and its rarely fair, random sports company pays 25c an hour for preteens to stitch their footwear in third world sweatshops and sports chain in the west charges 3000 times that if not more to reap in profits and generally speaking we say nothing cause we want the damn shoes for less than it actually takes to make a profit if theyre a decent company,same as people that use resellers want games for a low price, its one step above going to a bay for buccanneers as theyre at least paying something for the games, i wouldnt do it myself for same reason i wouldnt use said bay if i can buy a game somewhere and be fairly certain the devs are getting a cut
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Yet as I said, it's the potential difference between $100 being split more than three ways for charity and good-will, and $1200 being split one way for greed using security oversights that will eventually cause the death of bundle offers.
It's kinda like a burglar leaving you a $10 note and rationalising it as "Burglary isn't a very cool thing to do, but at least you got something for it".
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no its not the resellers arent "stealing" anything, by that logic valve is using steam to steal money of dev's which is essentially what caused EA to throw their toys out of the pram when it comes to putting their new titles on steam, the resellers are exploiting the bundles prices in some cases and exploiting the greed that has a game 10 dollars in one market 30 in another, burglary means you lose items or have your property damaged the resellers arent stealign anything theyre paying at prices the dev's agreed to sell on a bundle site for now if thats not enough either negotiate higher bundle prices or dont bundle the games at all
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You're just splitting hairs now. My point was that just because someone leaves a tiny token behind, it doesn't mean they haven't broken an agreement (and by extension, a lesser law?).
And actually, given that the humble bundles are for personal use and not for commercial use/resale, they kind of -are- performing a virtual degree of piracy. The token they leave behind is largely because they HAVE to, to make their profiteering harder to track while covering their resale behaviour from outright criminal prosecution.
Hence my previous tongue in cheek remark about the burglar. "At least they got something" doesn't really detract from the wrongness of the act. It's not a big deal if someone ends up selling a gift bundle that wasn't actually needed, but it's a bit of a bigger issue when individuals set out to scrape hundreds of bundles for the sole point of profiting at the expense of not only the charity/goodwill/developers, but also at OUR ultimate expense. Killing the golden 'bundle culture' we have going on isn't a good idea.
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i see it as you buy a bundle youve bought licenses to x number of games, and i wonder would half the bundle sites exist if resellers werent jumping on them or the traders using them for much the same purpose, you have a fairly well thought out opinion i just happen to disagree with it so think ill leave it at that
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It's thievery in moral terms. At least in my opinion.
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Yup. I tell people all of the time that these sites don't get their games from publishers. You can probably track all of their cd keys to a retail box in Pazakhazistania or a stolen shipment. But there are so many idiots that think "If it works, it's cool! And that's all I care about."
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The biggest marketplace for humblebundles is steamtrades.com http://www.steamtrades.com/forum/search/humble lol
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Well I too bought hb links/bundle keys on steamtrades for example. I think it's fair if you've missed a bundle or sale and the whole idea of illegal reselling of digital product licenses kills the online second hand market, if you purchase something with your money then you have the right to do with it as you please. Once a Humble Bundle was closed you no longer "steal from a charity" by buying its keys because thats an event that was closed.
In the other hand selling these keys commercially in thousands is just morally wrong, I think the individuals should have the right to sell their property but it shouldn't be done in a "corporate" scale. Humble Bundle and other Bundles shouldn't act surprised because most of the people don't have any sense of morals at all and there will always be exploiters and scammers, although let me tell you that most resellers on kinguin etc were from poor underprivileged countries like Russia, Romania, Ukraine etc. so that's something to think about... (rich western countries parading as good-doers by donating $1 for charity while the poor are just try to make a living somehow.)
I'm not sure how I feel about this whole thing it's a grey area for me.
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The issue here is that Kinguin is no different then Ebay and the same keys are on sale on Ebay. And strangely nobody jumps on them.... The funny thing is that this dev actually makes a good PR for them,cause not so many ppl knew about them :)
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SO you call Russia a poor country ? HAhahaha, i bet that you never seen or read anything about Moscow, one of the most rich capitals in the world.
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Have some more you will make millions!
Dungeons Steam Special Edition Steam Key: 3J6TE-MXIYD-7P3HZ
Dungeons: DLC Pack 1 Steam Key: EJA0B-DI4N0-N227L
Dungeons: The Second DLC Steam Key: DA38Y-8I2L9-PYR53
SkyDrift Steam Key: KWB8B-2DCDM-WDD5Z
Disciples III: Resurrection Steam Key: GINM2-CVALW-49NC7
Sine Mora Steam Key: A97GG-2CN32-IX80P
Tropico 3 Gold Steam Key: FL7WB-X8QNZ-4L8I5
A New Beginning - Final Cut 2KKIV-9GR3L-KW4HI
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totally just read that now. Well, as those shady key stores aren't really legal in germany anyway I don't use them. Besides...they are shady... I always wonder why people still buy from them, but the mix of greed and not knowing better deals seems to work.
I blame Khaaaaaaan
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http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/03/28/retailer-scam-resells-humble-bundle-games-reaps-profit.aspx
Probably something people thought was happening anyway, but now with proof.
"Indie developer Ed Key, one of two people who created Proteus, has confirmed Fast2Play is reselling Steam keys from Humble Bundles. His process involved purchasing his game from Fast2Play’s store, and cross-checking his history of issued Steam keys. The copy that he purchased matched one sold through the Humble Indie Bundle 8 batch of games."
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