But it just adds the game straight into your library... how can you trade it?
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I'm writing this as a Steam Curator myself. The practice of trading those licenses is a most despicable gesture. I guess it was just a matter of time until abuses would surface from the Curator Connect front as well. Greed knows no boundaries, afterall. But rest assured, thieves. Your "review" groups will not survive if you indulge in such vile acts!
Keep fighting the good fight, Peter!
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Maybe the poll should be about how long will it take for Wrath of Gaben to strike down those groups and their admins.
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Is this happening openly on regular trading sites? All it would take is for enough people to report the way they got their traded game if they don't like the idea. Most will of course only ever look at the price tag.
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Unless I misunderstand, it should be easy to track? Just track the total number of accounts that end up with licenses via a particular group. If that number gets unusually high for any reason, investigate or flag them.
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Valve and manual action?
Infinity time I suppose.
They'll probably do some global shit like "Only allow adding to account if 15+ days admin" and call it a day.
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Bump for this crap spreading to gifts here as well
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Nice system they have to prevent scamming dev keys. Only thing that it really changes is that they can't be revoked later when you didn't get a review, only resold.
You cannot ask users to perform any special action in order for their entry to be considered valid, such as liking a Facebook page, or following a Twitter account.
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It's first time I've seen something about this. I thought that sending the game directly to the curator would stop something like this from happening, but I guess some people will always find a way to exploit the system... (ಠ_ಠ)
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I'm not sure it qualifies as "theft," seeing as how the games are being given, but it is definitely a sleazy thing to do and a breech of trust. The games are given so they may be reviewed, not so that they may be sold for a profit.
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As theres presumably (- at least on valves end of things) some form of contract, then if its broken (and valve isnt actually washing its hands of everything like normal), it would be theft.
Much like selling off, copying / redistributing or giving away review dvds or cds from back in the day of that.
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If I'm not mistaken, violation of a contract does not, in and of itself, constitute theft. If the contract stipulates "services in lieu of payment for goods provided," then failure to provide "payment" for the goods received would mean a canceling of the transaction, rendering resale of the good provided "theft."
Whether or not what is being done qualifies as "theft" or not would depend on the lawyer-speak of the agreement, and since I have no idea what that includes, I am still not sure it qualifies as "theft." I am sure, however, that it's sleazy and a breach of trust.
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It does not. It would have to be dealt with on the basis of civil law, rather than criminal law.
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I am a lawyer. I think I know what I am talking about.
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I wish you a long career as a lawayer
EDIT: oh, now you change your spelling.
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If it was true, not paying a mortgage or credit card would be a criminal offence.
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It will be dealt under Steam law where if Gaben gets angry, games, users, devs and whatever just vanish without any right for appeal.
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Yeah, not sure if 're-purposing' counts as 'stealing,' I'm afraid. Sort of should, if the devs wouldn't have given the keys otherwise, but oh well.
And ah, breach? Maybe? :P Unless...
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While it is tempting to insert "buttocks" in my description of the perpetrators, "breach" was the word originally intended.
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What about giving them away here requiring users to do the extra work to get their win?
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If you mean in a GA that would be against the rules.
If you have seen anything report it to support.
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I think "fraud" is the term you are looking for.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
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While I agree it's "unnice", I think most people here fail to realize that this is something reviewers have always done. For instance, my parents used to go to a book shop that had a whole section dedicated to reselling books that were provided by reviewers who received them for free for review. This didn't shock anyone in the physical world. The fact that such a large proportion of digital users (76% at the moment in the poll) consider it "stealing" is very telling of how much people have been brainwashed into not having ownership of something that was given to them digitally.
Also, it can't possibly have a significant financial impact on devs, unless they're giving away way too much copies compared to the amount they expect to sell.
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Trading a game isn't what shocks people here, it's the same scammers abusing the new system that was supposed to prevent them from doing that.
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-quietly-launches-steams-anti-key-scamming-curator-connect-feature/
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The scam was people posing as influential reviewers while they were not in order to get keys, not legit reviewers selling their keys. Unless there is a bunch of fake curators with tons of followers (but then, wouldn't they be at least a bit influential?), there isn't much scamming left in that area...
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They are selling/trading the free promo games instead of doing a review for them, not after it like you seem to imagine. How is it any kind of legit curating when your main purpose is to scam free promo games and sell/trade them for profit? Steam games aren't like books or other physical items you can first try out yourself, write a review and then sell it 2nd hand.
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The point isn't whether or not they are actually doing a review, the point is whether or not they are otherwise legit reviewers. A legit reviewer may have perfectly good reasons for not reviewing a specific game, and I think it's a healthy policy to allow people to accept keys (well, one license) no matter if they do a review or not. Otherwise, sending a key would be like bribery for a review.
As long as keys are only sent to legit and relevant reviewers (who usually will indeed review the game, because that's the way they make their business work), there can't possibly be a significant amount of keys resold on the grey market.
Steam games aren't like books or other physical items you can first try out yourself, write a review and then sell it 2nd hand.
The actual problem there would be that Steam games can't be sold 2nd hand, but that's another topic I guess
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You should stop imagining this is something legit curators do and it would become much clearer.
Only thing you need to do is write couple reviews for cheap bundled games. Then you do couple giveaways to get followers for your group. Then you scam devs into sending you free promotional review games which you will never review, you aren't even activating them on your account which would be fine. You are promoting the buyer into an admin in your group so that they appear to be the curator for the seconds it takes to claim the game. Then the buyer has no interest in writing a review for the game. Give some more of your profit away to followers and you will get thousands more getting you more games etc.
What part of this scam makes you a legit curator that any dev should give free games to? That the devs are foolish enough to trust the scammers doesn't make it right in any way.
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Only thing you need to do is write couple reviews for cheap bundled games. Then you do couple giveaways to get followers for your group
Well now I get it, but that's not what the OP nor you previous comments have been saying.
That the devs are foolish enough to trust the scammers doesn't make it right in any way.
You can't baby-proof the market, though. Each economical actor should do their due diligence to some extent. From what you describe, it should still be pretty obvious to spot such scammers from their review history.
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That's what we have been saying if you take out the silly assumption that they are legit honest curators. Even if they once were, trading/selling free promotional copies that have been given to you for your personal use is still not anything good no matter how you want to twist it.
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Ban the whack of them. Getting a free copy, making money on doing review on yt or somewhere else and selling it? Seriously get some embargo deal with such ppl.
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So, it's a new version of "me reviwr you gib keys" emails?
If Steam was a clothing store or toy store, people wouldn't just walk in pretending to write reviews then re-sell things on Amazon. Or would they? Is it "anonymity" that internet brings that gives them courage, or is it just being lousy human beings who'd do that IRL too?
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Pretty much.
It's quite easy to get ranking up by paying few bucks to one of key giveaway sites. Then start farming & selling keys.
Kinda what it was made to prevent, made easier. gg. valvo.
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Can't blame Valve for people out there running to exploit every good thing for their own profit.
The only thing that could stop it in the tracks is to disable all steam keys forever and everyone simply has to buy games on steam or not have them. Alas, that would hurt smaller stores (Humble, Fanatical, GMG...) more than it would Steam, it would hurt developers, retail distributors and stores, indie media and small youtubers/streamers... Wouldn't really affect big online/print media because they have the money.
And these bad seeds who are abusing keys/curator copies, would simply go and pirate games, while the rest of us would hurt as usual.
So in the end... if you see it, report it. Hope Valve will do something. They are not always blind to problems, as we've seen recently.
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I had someone on my Steam friends list with a curator group. One day he appeared as a giveaway task at some of those shifty giveaway sites (I think this one, in particular, required you to install their addon or something) and he pretty much told me he got a spot there by paying them. Pay for a giveaway task > more curator followers > more free stuff. It's just that easy. I deleted him right after that.
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Steam Curators where a bad idea from the start.
I don't see ANY loss getting rid of them entirely. Does anyone legit uses this system?
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What are the numbers here, are we talking about specific 5-6 traders at most or is it more? Could you mail me with names an details at admirbrkic@capsulecomputers.com
I could write up about it and pass the details to some gaming journalist buddies for more coverage.
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