Is this a rumour or have you got proof? It's kind of hard tracking where people got their copies.
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Could you explain why they are considered exploited? Evidence links are not necessary, but a basic explanation may be helpful, especially for those who have been affected by the exploit. I found the sheer quantity (pun not intended) of a certain group's Dead Island giveaways rather suspicious. One person was giving away at least 2-5 copies daily (if you count the keys he gave away in Steam chat in addition to the giveaways themselves).
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The members in question were giving away dozens of keys for free and found selling them for $4-5 a piece while advertising a "1% chance Valve would detect these and remove them from your library", while also admitting when questioned that they were not exactly legit. This coupled with the fact members are reporting to have had their Dead Island copies they received from these groups and members removed from their libraries.
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Yeah. With how serious having exploited keys on your account is, I think everyone is going to want a bit more information. I got mine from someone who did a ton of giveaways here and I traded him privately for one. Name started with an R. I can't remember who he was though.
Steam/Valve support will ALWAYS say that your game is not okay to play and remove it from your account if you ask them about it, because they'll say not to accept keys from unknown parties and that it's not legitimate to use that way unless you own the physical boxed copy.
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Was it ever? They did a crap ton of Dead Island giveaways then started asking for donations including real money. It seemed very rainbows and lollipops to begin with but then got very shady. I left when I saw the second load of 3 Dead Island keys go up as I suspected something dodgy.
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not only that, they create group giveaways (their steam group is public) and then explain that the winners must be an active members of their community. Then why make your group public?
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This is really old news. I have not seen a single instance of Valve banning anyone for activating an exploited or stolen Dirt 3 key, let alone all the other leaks and exploits. They have been removing the game from libraries when detected or reported. This Half-Life 2 CD-key situation was a completely different story.
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It not a "completly different story". It's just Valve has changed its policies since then. Now they sell more game than theirs.
I'm not saying that they will ban now or that you're wrong. I'm only pointing out that there have been at last one case. Just that, I don't want to troll/flame/whatever.
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Yeah but how many users activated them ? Have you never seen a steam account getting disabled due using a exploited key ? Just buy one with a hacked cc, activate it, and the next day your account is disabled. Im pretty sure it goes it that way. The Dirt3 thing was another story.
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Reason? probably because you're avoiding the set price for your area. I remember reading somewhere a guy from the UK getting banned, because he kept activating russian keys from the same guy that sold him the keys. He bought the keys through paypal or whatever, but I guess your account gets flagged if you keep activating keys outside of your area? I don't know.
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I never heard someone banned from gifts or pricing localization before, If someone got Suspended account he/she did something in https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519
May be i wrong, Now my account flagged? i don't know but my account activated CD-key via VPN 4 games already.
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Valve is known to ban people that are avoiding prices set for their region. I think it's also in their official terms of use.
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I never said gifts. I said a guy was buying Russian keys often and got banned. He had a bunch of russian keys activated on his account. Remember Russian keys are about half the cost from everywhere else.
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for good reason too... Market research firm IDC and the Business Software Alliance estimate that 87 percent of all software used in Russia is pirated and also there is the lost revenue... basically why let all that money go to waste when you can easily get something out of it (it is a digital copy after all, so the cost of providing the game is minimal and hence the price can easily be lowered to allow for a profit to be made from an otherwise missed oportunity)
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Good to know, thanks for the heads up. Will legit giveaways have the lokonopa seal of approval?
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It is definetly complicated to properly filter the potentially bogus ones from the legitimate ones. So you can't really trust.
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Interesting. Heard of something like this but wasn't expecting that to happen.
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To everyone who is confused, the leak occured on GreenManGaming's servers, where they accidently sent multiple keys for those who pre-ordered, now due to their system, they identified which keys were sent the first time around and marked those as legit, all extra keys sent were given to steam to remove from any account using them. GMG stated, your account cannot get banned because of this, only the game removed!
Da da da... and here's your proof for the skeptics GMG Blog
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No, the GMG dupe key issue was fixed when they realized their mistake.
This was posted above me by YoursifOhEight. Those keys were revoked.
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You are mistaking, bro. If you didn't win it, then speak to yourself :P
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I can't believe this is happenning again, I was so happy with Dirt 3 and now with Dead Island...
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You can get it from the steam store. search for Dead Island (I even did it for you ^^)... you can also buy it from GreenManGaming- it even has an ad on the main page right there ... there was a 20% off coupon but I can' seem to find it right now (it might have expired)...
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CD Keys should be banned from SG all together. Only valid Steam gifts should be accepted. Imho.
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Yeah, the topic is closed though.
I just think that the risk for everyone involved is not worth it.
And I don't want this community to be riddled by scammers and hackers.
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I fully agree with this, with the various ways keys are obtained, the risk to a persons account is too great. You never know if you'll be given a valid key, or given an illegally obtained key until after the fact. Also what if someone goes to steam support with scans of the box/key that was raffled claiming the winner stole his account, what happens then?
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And check the Bulletstorm keys, pretty sure their hacked to.
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Bulletstorm activated as "Bulletstorm WW Comp" as in complimentary. wonder where he got them from... :(
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I personally purchased a copy with tf2 items from someone. He lives in brasil and apparently they have PC gamer there. But since brasil isnt a huge pay for your games community, they offered a promotion in the magazine for a key for dead island. Thier PC Gamer is still like $15 though. Well anyways. They key registers itself as " Eastern Europe" when you activate it. Its been awhile and I havent had any issues with it, but im sure i can only connect with euros though. Either way, sound fishy, but not having any issues with it. Its the full game by the way. Just be careful guys when dealing with CD keys.
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I live in Brazil and i'm pretty sure that there aren't magazines with this CD Key out here.
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I have contacted Steam Support about Dead Island key that I got from ruffield saying that they can remove key, if it's not legit and they replied:
If your CD Key for this game is invalid, it will be revoked at the request of the publisher.
They didn't remove game from my library...
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So we could be pretty sure we won't get ban for this. I think :3
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Well that's even better news. Generally if you contact them to ask if a key is legitimate they'll remove it regardless and say you can't use it unless you have the game disc/cd key and ask you to write your ticket number on a paper and take a photo of it for them.
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Greetings community,
It has been discovered that many Dead Island keys given away lately in the community could have been possibly fraudulent in some way. It has been brought to our attention by several members of the community that received Dead Island keys after contacting Valve to ask if these copies were okay to play. Valve responded with a solid no and removed the DI copies from their libraries.
We take these matters very seriously and will not tolerate this activity in the community. If you were given or have purchased a Dead Island key outside of a legit third-party seller or Steam, then please take this announcement as a warning. Please understand that this is not an isolated incident and no one Steam group or member of SteamGifts in particular is to blame.
Thank you.
-regards
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