It's a point I've seen on this opinion article.

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-does-the-games-industry-get-rid-of-g2a-eliminate-game-keys-altogether/

I don't know a thing about game market. I don't know if game keys make things easier or harder for developers, easier or harder for consumers. Though it is definitely making things a lot easier for some stores.
Would a keyless world be better? If so, for who? Still, a doubt remains: how could non-region-restricted giveaways be done without the key market?

Please discuss politely, but try not to do excessive corporate bootlicking. We are mostly consumers, after all.

4 years ago*

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Do you agree game keys should be extinguished?

View Results
Yes
No

I don't think the game industry cares about us being able to make giveaways or not.

4 years ago
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I really don't think that too with the utmost sincerity..

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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+1, it always feels weird whenever I see something and in my head i'm like "lmao, clearly don't do that" and then there's people posting threads of stolen accounts or information and non-functioning keys just to save a couple of bucks. And i'm over here like

View attached image.
4 years ago
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It would be a trash world without keys since a lot of people wouldn't be able to game otherwise due to not being able to afford the full prices.

4 years ago
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Agreed.

4 years ago
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+1

4 years ago
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that's the point of humble bundle, not because keys exist. Can't afford the game? then don't buy it (or pirate it). Buy on shady websites like G2A is worse than pirating because your key can still be deactivated later and you just lost some money and angry against the dev (instead of against the seller/G2A)

4 years ago
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Humble Store sells keys only.

4 years ago
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I know, but their starting point is selling keys for cheaping than on steam. And if Steam remove keys, they would probably still be able to do this with direct activation. (would still need a think to see how gifts could work, if still possible)

4 years ago
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It wouldn't be possible. It would have to go directly through Steam instead if there are no keys. Especially with the new gifting system that Valve fucked everybody over with. They don't even allow you to pay the difference.

4 years ago
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The only reason not to buy from G2A, is that the key can be deactivated?
Any key can be deactivated, including from most trash bundle sites people here really like.
There's a whole thread of key deactivated from various sites...

4 years ago
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If we go keyless, than all websites that sell bundles or even sell games outside of Steam will die off right?
I mean all those websites can only exist because Steam works with keys, if Steam stops that, nobody can sell games outside of Steam anymore.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Yeah, I remember using that before.
IMO, it feels not too bad, with one click of the button, the game automatically redeems into my account.

But I think I used to have a problem where I tried to redeem a game that I already have it in my account, and then the keyless activation kinda "wasted" a key on it.

It also had this problem where if I want to redeem a game into another account, I must remember to logout of Steam first. If not it will automatically redeem into the current logged in account.

Pros and cons I guess.

4 years ago
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Back in 2015 Steam removed support for OAuth that made keyless redemption possible and news sources have been unable to find any official statement or get comment from Valve on it.

I am of the belief it was cancelled because it was originally implemented by a single developer in an outdated/insecure way, and when they stopped developing it for whatever reason no one could or would step up to keep maintaining the API.

4 years ago
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Not really, they just need mandatory platform integration. Humble tried, for a very short while, direct activation only, where all games bought went directly to your account, but people naturally complained ahbout "muh freedom!", but usually only mumbled the second half of the sentence: "to sell these keys on the black market for my own profit!"

4 years ago
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To give them to one of their thousands of friends*

months later

for a small fee

4 years ago
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"black market"

4 years ago
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Gray market is more 'dubious legality'. Black market is illegal.
Terms of humble bundle purchase mentions not for commercial purposes (or resale). I dunno, it fits, if melodramatic sounding and glazing over the wonky complex nature of digital goods vs consumer ownership

4 years ago
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eYes

4 years ago
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Games2gether.com does direct activation with their giveaways. That could work for other sites too if they chose to ignore the reseller complaints about "gifting." In other words, they could still bundle.

To be honest, I wouldn't object to humble doing that with charity bundles AT ALL. Even if just for the Humble Monthly. Look at it this way. We might get a bunch of unwanted games on our accounts, but you can always hide or put into collapsable categories. In fact, you probably wouldn't even have to link individual games at all if you didn't want to, but the option is there. (Same with games2gether giveaways). It would essentially cut out the grey market resellers, and in doing so, better games would show up in those bundles. Afterall, the reason devs/publishers are now refusing to bundle their games even for humble monthly is the grey market.

4 years ago*
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I think a lot of people would stop buying bundles if all the games on that bundle auto go to their account and what to do with rebundled games? I mean usually a bundle has 1 or 2 games I want, I don't want the rest so I rather give them away to a friend that wants the game and if I don't have any I would give them away here, that way I make the most use out of a bundle, if all games would activate on my account I would ask Steam to hide most and so those games just disappear which is a waste really, while others could be very happy with them.

4 years ago
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There's a bigger picture than a few games going to waste. Often times, the Humble Monthly is the only time a game ever gets bundled, BUT... there are so many assholes buying multiple bundles just to sell the games on the grey market. The quality of the monthlies has gone downhill quite a bit. If I thought we'd get better games on a consistent basis for that 12 dollars, I'd totally be behind them doing it for the monthly subscription alone. I wouldn't stop buying it because it makes no difference to me. If a friend wanted something in the early reveal badly enough and couldn't afford it, I'd just gift them a subscription. XD

People continue to exploit such things until they are completely ruined.

4 years ago
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Problem is, no matter what solution you do, people will always complain and there will always be ways for people to exploit it.
If they would force every game on someone account, people will complain and a lot less bundles will be sold, if you make it so there are gift links, it's no different than keys because you can also sell gift links just like you can sell keys I guess?
It's a bit like with the new Steam event, either people farm cards or people complain there are no cards, it will always be like that, sadly.

4 years ago
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Yeah, that's pretty much it.

And if some of them could exploit their grandmothers in some way, some people would do it. XD

4 years ago
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The thing is that the only ones that can really make keys go away are platform owners, not devs. I'm not sure if Valve, EA, Ubi, CD Projekt, etc. are interested in that. After all, the ones losing money are the devs and publishers selling their games outside the main stores.
If keys go away they'd have to be replaced with something else or official 3rd party stores would go poof, and that something is bound to be exploitable in some way.
If you ask me the solution is for devs to not sell keys themselves but instead always use a middle man even if it costs them a percentage of the profits, that way it's the middleman the one that has to deal with the scammers and losses.

4 years ago
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Ubi already got rid of digital keys. If you buy from 3rd party store(Humble,GMG,etc.) you use direct Uplay activation.

4 years ago
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Ah, didn't knew, haven't bought a uplay game in ages.

4 years ago
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I have no idea about ea but GOG and Ubi have keys for sure - and they will have them as long as long they sell boxed copies. I mean - how else can you add game to your account that you bought in form of physical copy in physical shop?

4 years ago
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Origin(aka EA) has keys, I've bought a couple of bundles in the past that gave me keys and that promotion earlier this year from ASUS for a free month of Origin access came as a key that I activated just as if it were a game-key.

4 years ago
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Actually, any 3rd party key stores (HumbleBundle, Fanatical, etc.) "cost" Steam more money than all the grey market stores (G2A, Kinguin, etc.) combined.
So Steam would gain more $$$ from Humble closing, than from G2A closing...

The reason Steam won't do that, is they understand something the game publishers have not.
Market share is more important than immediate profits.
Steam would rather make less money (by letting other stores sells keys), as long as they remain the ruling platform.
While publishers prefer to shoot their own legs by going after the resellers, instead of making sure as many people as possible play their games.

4 years ago
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G2A is a problem... but let's not go crazy. Removing keys all together would be like deploying a nuke to get rid of bedbugs. Yes, they would go away but so would everything else.

4 years ago
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+1

4 years ago
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ˇWe have a problem with bedbugs! wEll leT'S bUrn aLL thE blaNkEtS!!"

4 years ago
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Agreed. I think this whole "let's get rid of G2A" craze might be a bit of an overreaction, anyway, even though it's clear they're kinda shady.

4 years ago
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How is it an overreaction? Have you not seen the news

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Yeah, though key activation was originally intended to make external purchases easy, sadly any accessible or simple system will be proportionally easy to hijack parasite-like for personal gains.

I mean, the steam community inventories gifting and trading was never intended to be gamed and allow for people to turn a profit, but when that emerged it was mutually beneficial for all involved, so was allowed to persist. Then it got taken too far, and people started with gambling mills, soaking up and manipulating the market, taking power away from the host company and lending power to those who hijack accounts or scam others. Then everything got clamped down on when the host company had to go into damage control, and everyone lost out. Never underestimate the capacity for people to ruin a good thing. :/

Though the usage of activation keys is pretty important for ease of steams selling power through external sites, it does make me wonder what it might take to tip the scales and cause them to go back to a 'linked activation only' system. I imagine there would be some kind of downtick in number of sales, but other than costing a bit of time and effort, you would imagine that it would only be a good move overall for the selling parties and Valve. I would even hazard that it would be good for the consumer in terms of ensuring game activation (and avoiding revokes) though it would hurt in terms of flexibility and gifting?

4 years ago*
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I'm pretty sure the dev of that downward biking game said themselves, after looking into how can there be 2x 100 keys for their game that was just released and was not even available outside of steam, that after looking into user comments for those g2a sellers they realized - it's steam gifts.

So, it's not the keys that are the issue, it's the people who'd abuse cup of milk if they found a way to earn from it in a shady way.

And what happens when someone makes an account, deposits a lot of money with a stolen card and buys gifts for "unsuspecting buyers" around the world and then later the funds get refunded by the bank - same as with keys, end buyers lose them from their library.

So, I'd rather educate people NOT to buy from g2a than remove keys altogether.

4 years ago*
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Should we educate people to NOT by from Steam, or any other store as well then since fraud is possible on any of them?

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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eh, developers should focus their games, not in grey market or DRM's like denuvo. Shit games wont be sell even on G2A xD.

4 years ago
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I'm not fan of direct activation because i don't really like the idea of connecting my steam account to external websites. Steamgifts is an exception.

4 years ago
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You're here on Steamgifts and you expect us to wanna banish keys? HAHAHA

People are gonna do stuff other people don't like. As soon as you put restrictions on stuff, they just go elsewhere for their fix.

4 years ago
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They will never get rid of the grey market. You see how much a game costs on Steam or any other client store and then check out the price on the grey market and you will see that you can save some big money on just a game imagine like bundles or even through the year.

4 years ago
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So... we're doing this bullshit again?

Jeesh, it's annoying when people just can't look back at history.

Remember 2011 for the gaming industry?

Have you heard of such a small company as... am I writing this correctly.. Nutflex? Nah, Netflix. Yeah, obscure!

Of course, you remember this one. The current market leader, Blockbuster!

50 examples of why it's better to nuke a concept than to actually adapt. 50 examples of great success!

Look, this is stupid. How the shit are people so fucking dumb that they can't think for a moment? Why do people think that G2A is successful? Do they really think it's because they can pay extra for a "Shield" and because they want to make companies suffer? No. It's because of price. Regional pricing's been fucked for a long time. Yeah, big surprise that a Polish kid chose to spend 5€ instead of the 20€ that the publisher demanded! Big whoop! It's a pricing issue. Like piracy was a service issue, like extreme expansion was an issue for Toys 'R Us, like not going with the times was an issue for Blockbuster and like not focusing on legalities was an issue for Volkswagen.

I'm not even saying that a direct activation through linked accounts couldn't work. But do we want that? Do we need it? Should we really throw the hospital full of babies out with the bathwater in what would culminate in an even more closed market which will undoubtedly end in anti-consumer moves like increased prices and fewer options?

Why does a Norwegian (avg. wage of 3450€) pay exactly as much as a Latvian (average wage of 791€), huh? How fucking twisted is that? This shit doesn't happen in physical markets with the exception of only a couple import brands that also can't move their product. There's a reason Ben & Jerry's ice cream sells almost no stock when their prices are around 2-3x the normal price. There's a reason a can of beans is almost twice as expensive in Finland than it is in Estonia.
Only the video game industry is so greedy and so lazy that they can't make their markets more regional. Even small groupings could work, if for some reason those fat cats can't make individual prices per country.

This is laziness, greed and hubris all rolled up into one ball and they're showing that shit down your throat, hoping that you swallow it, like a good little statistical number.

EDIT: Forgot to say, thanks GrimPhantasia for sharing the article. I wouldn't have spotted it otherwise :D

4 years ago*
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I think it's illegal in Europe to charge different price to customers in different countries. If true, that would explain why entire EU pays the same EUR price. Also, it would mean it's not Valve/developer's fault.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18296527/european-commission-valve-antitrust-objections-games-price

Valve and the five publishers are accused of geo-locking Steam activation keys for games sold primarily in Eastern Europe (Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and in some cases Romania, according to the EC), which runs against the EU’s grand aim of creating a Digital Single Market. The effect of this geo-locking is to prevent people from wealthier nations, such as the UK or Germany, buying games in EU member countries that have cheaper pricing and then playing them back in their home country.

You think I want people in Serbia, which earn $300 net on average to pay the same price as someone in Norway or Germany? I'd rather this are (including surrounding poor countries too, which aren't part of EU btw) to be a separate pricing region in the level of Turkey.

4 years ago
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Simple answer is to not lock it down then. Offer regional prices to those that are down to share their personal information and proof that they live in that specific country.

So basically link the payment info with the provided proof, I'd say.

Anyone else gets the same price.

Not to mention, my suggestion for how to check it isn't the only one. I'm only giving a very primitive idea here. Fact is that they can put a few bucks towards figuring out a less intrusive system.

You think I want people in Serbia, which earn $300 net on average to pay the same price as someone in Norway or Germany?

I never claimed you wanted anything since I responded to the thread, not you. Not sure why you even asked that question.

Basically my point is that killing keys leads to nothing good for the consumer. The current pricing strategy leaves out anyone who isn't in some rich utopia from Norway/Iceland to even Germany. Half of Europe isn't rich enough to indulge in such massive purchases on a regular basis. And if half of Europe isn't rich enough, then I think we can imagine what the rest of the world is. This stuff needs to be fixed.
Once proper regional pricing's in place, no one would even care if publishers revoked G2A keys on a more regular basis. Kill 'em with kindness, not with total eradication of half of your market strategy.

4 years ago
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EU was a good concept, but in practice, it's fucked up. The poorer countries suffer while the higher-ups in Belgium are stuffing their pockets. It's a matter of time until this whole idea falls apart (and the sooner, the better if you ask me).

4 years ago
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The poorer countries suffer from all the money richer countries are forced to pump into them?

4 years ago
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No, they suffer from all the restrictions imposed upon them, and from EU's irresistable urge to try and make pricing equal (because who cares that country X has much lower salaries than country Y). Thank god my country is still refusing the Euro currency, even if some of the shitheads would love to give in.

4 years ago
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So they suffer from getting tons of free money just because they have to pay bit more for some luxury items like games. Meanwhile their companies can make tons of profit from the internal market because they can sell their physical products at a much higher price in richer countries and increased tourism bringing in even more money. All that extra income is helping them to become richer countries of tomorrow. There are always more sides to things than just one and every EU country suffers from silly restrictions.

4 years ago
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But it's also that eastern countries open their weak markets which get trumped by western/northern strong economies, and instead of a local detergent you have expensive brands from tv... local workers get fired... companies close down... then "free money" opens a factory and you should be happy you work in a new detergent factory instead of the old detergent factory, only this one has owners abroad and all revenue gets sucked to another country. Also you pay the same price for detergent as Germans now even if you work for $250 a month net while they do it for $2500.

It's oversimplification, of course, but you are doing it too. There's no free lunch. Mind you, I don't believe Thirteen13 is attacking you, your country... people. No one is like, "People in Finland are evil, they want to keep us down". And sure, with DECADES that "free money" will get Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria... to some level where Germany was in 1995... Or 2005. But it's not done by huge megacorps and politicians because of their good hearts, they get their money quadrupled in the process, don't worry.

4 years ago
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And detergent factory workers in a richer country lost their jobs and homes to unpaid mortgages because their local factory moved to a poorer country and now everyone has to buy poorer quality detergent for the same price. Meanwhile the 1% that actually profit from all the suffering are moving the factories from Eastern EU to China and then from China to Africa just because they so desperately need to make couple billion more.

Of course, I was purely making the opposite oversimplification. I didn't feel attacked in any way or form, but the fact remains that on country level richer ones pay a lot for EU and poorer ones get a lot from EU. People in different countries are just complaining about different aspects of it, don't think the price of games is getting any masses rioting on the streets like the price of gas or food is even now.

4 years ago
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Sure. In the end, only the rich get richer and the poor get enough not to think of starting a revolution (not talking of the countries, just for clarification, but individuals in all sort of countries). That said, the last "revolution" killed more than 40 million of people who disagreed with the leadership in USSR and similar countries. Which brings me to the "eastern poor countries aren't poor because they were lazy these past 50 years, but because they were tortured by communists".

So yeah. Wanna remove the bugbear, need to help out a bit.

If everyone's just gonna be like "they're taking our jobs" and "they're charging us their prices", EU is gonna dissolve like the country I was born in did (you can argue it was nationalism, but nationalism came to prominence only after the money stopped flowing in the 80s... before that, everyone was Yugoslavian and everyone was 300% sure it will never end, we could never fight among ourselves, we were making airplanes and tanks on our own ffs... then when foreign loans stopped, and economy wasn't ready because companies were made to employ people not to make money, people started talking, "why are we giving money for the poor regions" and "we're poor you're not helping enough" and then some were like, "we don't won't these poor people coming here and taking money and jobs, we'll just secede" and... others were like no you can't do that just like that there are rules and they were like f- your rules and.... well, good people stayed quiet for fear, and bad people rose to power and everything went down the hell of civil war from there - and guess who earned billions from that - not the poor working class people for sure) and honestly I don't think that's the best solution, no matter how faulty EU might be. Just saying, it's sort of on the good side so far. But yeah, prevents me from setting different prices in different EU countries for my digital game. Except for Poland, for some reason.

4 years ago*
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And who stood against Soviet Union saying no, that's not a good idea of any kind while beating their ass in a land war? Meanwhile UK, USA and other rich allies thought it's the best idea ever and fully supported taking over half of Europe. Sure it was to beat the nazis but they just got replaced with something far worse. People who got "liberated" from concentration camps to gulags have said it was a change to the worse, as hard as that is to even imagine. At least some of those countries can now be EU rather than USSR.

It's the same everywhere, the rich are complaining that they have to pay a lot for common good and the poor are complaining that they aren't getting enough common good. Personally I like EU as well, every system comes with down and upsides and I haven't yet seen a local government that couldn't screw everything up as badly as anyone in Brussels. But that's the price we pay for democracy.

4 years ago
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Well, unless we wanna go back to direct democracy with one person one vote in local senate in our town-states like in ancient Greece, we have to remember that there are other people in our communities/countries/alliances and they might think differently and want different things. Should find a way to work toward common goals somehow.

So, how can gamers in the poor and rich-er countries work together toward better gaming market?

4 years ago
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They can be on Steamgifts where the rich can give free games to the poor, duh. :)

4 years ago
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Portuguese here. EU has been improving our country a lot so it is blantantly false that the EU doesn't help poor countries. If a poor country isn't improving it is not because of EU it is because the policiticians elected by the public are not doing policies for the poor.
just in my city the EU has:
updated hospital, modernized all schools, new power stations, improved water resedue station, underground parking lot, forced 2 gardens to be built and subsidies for victims of a large scale fire
And that is just what i know, i'm sure if i went to public records there would be more places where the EU invested a shit ton of money.

And it works, thanks to the EU. Portugal is becoming civilized.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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I'm pretty certain an indie dev in the States can't really afford to sell games for Russian prices when they have a U.S. cost of living/maintaining a business, for example.

What's better: to not sell any copies in Russia, because the price is too high, or to sell it at a cheaper price? If you want to sell something all over the world, you need to consider demand and pricing there, too. That's a point of market research, isn't it? If an indie dev can't do this due to missing knowledge/time, then there are publishers who should be able to do that.
The issue is that even big publishers rarely care and thus I can understand the frustration of gamers in "not so wealthy" regions.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Especially considering where most grey market keys come from.

Region locked keys. I don't know if you at some time used or at least searched through Plati, but most bundle keys are ROW. Thus everyone can buy and use them. Humble seems to consider the region and thus provide locked keys. Of course people could still use VPN to activate RU/CIS keys/gifts as well, but this is done by a minority.

If you are in the states, but the bulk of your sales are in Russia where you are getting (let's just say for the sake of argument) a tenth of the money from each sale, then that really isn't benefiting you as a dev overall.

Of course. But why is that? Because it's cheaper in Russia? Then see paragraph above. Or is the game more loved in Russia? Then this should have been detected by market research within the project planning phase (e.g. "We'll sell mostly in Russia, because our game takes place there and doesn't appeal to Western customers. Conclusion: keep the developments costs so low that you can still earn profit). You can't blame anyone for not becoming successful or earning enough money for a living, if you ignore basic economics.

I also think this is where we really dive into luxury items being treated the same as staple items such as food, water, and shelter, conceptually.

I agree with you that games are not staple, but they neither are luxury items. They should be treated as cultural goods (like books, movies, theatre/museum visits etc.). Poor guys (whether due to region or unemployment or anything else) should be able to afford a game as well, not an AAA every week, but one or another indie game and to maybe to save for an AAA within 1-3 months.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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If libraries are that modern and well stocked with video games as well. It's been a few years since I visited a library, but back then there was only a small selection, if any. And that was in Germany, I don't really want to know how many libraries there are in Montenegro e.g. at all and what's in there.

An argument definitely could be made against spending time playing games if such is your lot in life

I agree with you if it's due to (self) caused unemployment, while studying etc. But if you're working full-time in an already good position, but the wage situation in your country is that bad and globally working companies don't offer regional prices: how would you improve your situation? By emigrating?

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Those aren't things you are owed however, and the things that are deemed truly to be cultural goods are typically available to be witnessed and/or enjoyed in museums, libraries and so on, eh?

I think this entire portion's straying away from the original discussion, but I liked reading these and I thought I'd give my own two cents here :)

For most countries, you're not owed basic human "rights" either since all it takes is a country to say "nah" and leave it up to everyone else to pick up their slack. Good example being the US, which barely takes care of its homeless population and even up to now has no real plan on how to give water to its people thanks to their lead pipes which are now corroding almost everywhere, leaving the US population either dying of thirst or literally braindead.

Point being that bigger libraries have video games and board games and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, but it's at a very small scale. Usually one or two shelves for the entire building. While at the same time books get 80% of it, contemporary newspapers and archives get 10% and the rest is for DVDs, BluRays, CDs and other such stuff.

Video games are no doubt culture just as much as books are, just as much as movies are. I'm not saying they should dedicate as much to video games as books and museums, but I think they should include them for sure. Allocate like 5-10% of the library budget for getting some video games and increase the budget a bit for movies and CDs. These things are just as important and heck, I'm pretty sure many local developers would gladly donate a load of copies to libraries and the same probably even goes to foreign ones. The governments need only ask and they'd most likely have 5 copies of The Witcher 1, 2 & 3 in every single library. Microsoft, for example, gives free MS Office to almost all universities and all university students around the world to support education.

If we're going the whole "you're not owed culture" route, then let's actually apply this to all culture and just kill off governmental support of all culture. I personally wouldn't be too scuffed, but I also have no real pull towards what's supported and I'm also not an artist. I just think that we can't just pretend that some culture's fine and some isn't.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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It is worth noting that there are a few hundred games on Steam that are always free as well, including some potato friendly stalwarts like Team Fortress 2 and plenty from pretty much every genre. Which could be viewed as a form of a video game library for people who otherwise couldn't afford games.

Aye, I agree. I'm a stalwart defender of the phrase "being poor doesn't make you more bored". There's always free alternatives and options and we can't just ignore them because the person might say they're bored, but in reality they just want Read Dead Redemption 2 and a console to play it with.

As far as not being owed culture, that was directly related to regional pricing (and the right to own AAA titles) and not curation of cultural history. That curation is typically done by non profit organizations, universities, and such, and available to anybody for free or a nominal fee under most circumstances. Not always, but typically.

That's one way to put it, but for the citizen, the consumer of that culture, it's nothing more than them being provided with those things, like books etc. For them it isn't about preserving culture and it's not about "curating culture". If that actually was the case, the preserving and curating could always be done behind the scenes, as it often actually is. Most countries have a shitload of money pumped into preserving culture as well.

That availability does exist, but it's not from libraries and non profits. The actual curation's done by local archives and, yes, to an extent universities and museums. But libraries are nothing more than educational entertainment. The library portion, I mean, not the often attached archival unit.

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Anyone in the poorer countries can benefit from the people in richer ones by trading stuff on Steam to get all the games they ever wanted for free. Same with unemployed people and others who have more time than money, just do something online that gives you money. It's not that hard to get some Steam wallet, for most richer people it's just too small change to bother with it so they pay $$$$ for the knife and some poorer person buys several AAA games with that money.

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For those that have more time than money I agree.
But someone working full time in a bad region doesn't have more time. Of course he might try trading, but I would probably decline his offers, because I wouldn't have interest in something he got cheap (either because I could get it cheap as well or because he wants something that has also higher value for me).

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Then you need to get a job IT or other office work that allows you to trade all day online. :)

I'm not talking about abusing regional pricing, there is plenty to do on Steam that unrelated to where you live. But the market gets the most income coming from richer countries who can waste money on cosmetics and other vanity stuff. You might take your time to find the best possible deal to save money, others just pay the asked price to not waste time.

As the simplest possible example, on Steam market there are plenty of cards that you can put in a buy offer for 3-4 cents but the cheapest sell offer is 10 cents or more. So you can over time make 3-4 cents profit for each such card. Sounds tiny but if you repeat that 1000 times, you got yourself an AAA game from sale. And this is what you might begin with, there are tons of other ways on top so I didn't mean you only do that and earn thousands. :)

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Yeah, I even see people with full time jobs investing much time into selling cards and stuff, though most probably it isn't worth it if they compared it to their hourly wage. I do it myself with emoticons and most backgrounds.
Yet there are many reports from poorer regions about the regional prices there (especially by big publishers) and the criticism seems to be right from my POV, whether or not they could earn a bit on top by Steam market, (former) Tremorgames etc.

4 years ago
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should the country the developers are in factor into regional pricing?

If the developer deems it to be important. I'm not the one setting the prices at the end of the day. The developer makes that decision. This is exactly why some indie games are 5€ base price, some are 20€, some even 40€. Game development's also a business and they have to take these things into account.

I'm pretty certain an average indie dev in the States can't really afford to sell games for Russian prices when they have a U.S. cost of living/maintaining a business, for example. Conversely, a dev in Russia could make huge profits (potentially) using regional pricing.

For sure, as with any business, the location of your office is important. That's why people are moving out of Silicon Valley, out of San Fran and out of LA. Business expenses will inevitably play a role in business.
If a developer moves to NY and can't afford to run their business there, then that's a failed business and they've done something wrong most likely. It's important to choose your location wisely.

Where is the line between a consumers cost of living and a developers cost of living when it comes to regional pricing? Are developers required to eat the reduced potential profit by using regional pricing (or do they get to profit unfairly from it)?

They're already eating into their profits, but for the completely opposite reason. Games are too expensive and G2A is offering the games for a cheaper price. Which is why the original question was even raised. Right now the prices are too high and people just won't buy their games often enough that it's become such a massive issue.

So in the end, it's the developer's choice to use whatever prices they want. I, as a consumer, shouldn't make compromises to pay for their living when it's their job to begin with. It's their fault if they need to sell the game at 15€ per copy but they put it up for 10€. But right now, it's more of a question of do you want 200 sales at a 10€ profit per sale or instead 500 sales with 5€ profit per sale.

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If it was really a 50% profit but with a substantial hike in actual sales numbers, that would be a no brainer as a dev to take the increased sales. Regional pricing in a lot of areas is substantially less than 50% of EU or NA pricing though.

Which is why you would get a lot out of regional micromanaging. Blanket pricing doesn't work. Consult insert any industry that's not digital here for more tips and tricks. It's a common practice to micromanage these things since the world isn't equal and same goes for its countries. All it takes is a day's travel from Norway to get to a country that earns less than 25% of Norway's income. Yet here we are, in a situation where 60€ games don't cost around 15€ in those poorer countries. Yet other goods do that. That's the point where you get to have your cake (charge more with the richer countries) and eat it too (still get profit from the poorer countries)

It's not really true otherwise though outside of individual perspective on value and some developer outliers.

That's very optimistic of you to think, but I disagree. You have a very good location to live in. A location where you earn 600% more on average than my neighbors a couple hundred kilometers to the south. Do you want to tell them that it's really just a perspective thing? How about me, who earns $0.25 to your dollar on average? Yet, remember, your prices are literally cheaper than mine thanks to currency conversion still being a total ass to deal with and me being compared to a Norwegian citizen.

Pricing with indies generally is on par with what it should be when factoring in the various costs of development and running a business.

If you say so. I'm not the majority of indie developers. When running a business, costs will be involved. Hopefully all those indie developers actually made the right decisions, like living in the cheapest states and the cheapest cities, since they're not bound by things like "wages", since they're self-employed in a digital space.

Point being that they can still make those bad financial decisions and they can still increase their prices and demand 5% of someone's monthly paycheck for a platformer, but they can't just be shocked when those countries go to a place that's cheaper.

A game that sells for a buck probably didn't cost much to develop.

Or maybe it did. Bright Memory is developed by a single dude, with the production quality that exceeds most indies and he only charges a 5.69€ base price.
Coffee Shop Tycoon costs exactly as much and yet it looks like the men's bathroom at a local high school. Mainly shit. The game's not in-depth and everything about it is cheap. Much like the price tag is.

Yet here we have Life is Feudal, which as a base price of 19,99€, developers who have abandoned the game and overall a near-broken experience.

It's cool that games are made and that developers are getting to do this. But right now, I can't see myself buying a game that is 20€. I'm not wealthy enough to blow that amount of money. Doesn't mean I haven't done that. Just a few days ago I bought Factorio for 25€, but that's because the game's beloved and highly recommended by all my friends. The other two games I've paid more than 20€ for are GTA V (30€) and Kingdom Come: Deliverance (25€). That's in my, now, 14 years of gaming (shit, that's way longer than I thought...). Just because I can't afford it.

I hate being all "boo-hoo, woe is me", but this comment needed that.

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4 years ago
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Regional pricing's been fucked for a long time. Yeah, big surprise that a Polish kid chose to spend 5€ instead of the 20€ that the publisher demanded! Big whoop! It's a pricing issue (...)
Only the video game industry is so greedy and so lazy that they can't make their markets more regional. Even small groupings could work, if for some reason those fat cats can't make individual prices per country.

This is laziness, greed and hubris all rolled up into one ball and they're showing that shit down your throat, hoping that you swallow it, like a good little statistical number.

Very much agreed!

4 years ago
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You can't get rid of G2A. There is only one solution. NEVER use that site so they go bankrupt.

I do agree though that pricing must be fixed on the Balkans. Games here should cost like in Russia for example. Our economy here is just as awful as in Russia if not worse.

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How would you register a game as unique without a key or code or etc?

4 years ago
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Games2gether.com does direct activation with their giveaways.

Indiegala and HB also used to do this. You link your Steam account to your store account, press a button, game gets activated. G2G does this even this moment with their games.

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And HB currently does it with Blizzard. See: recent HM with CoD.

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True that. And now that you reminded me of HB, I think the AC Origins activated similarly on uPlay

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Yes, that one, too!

And I should add, gifting works just fine in these cases as well.

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Though if gift links work, aren't we back at the problem that they can be traded on gray markets?

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I would assume so. EDIT Though probably to a lesser degree, since the available options for doing so go down.

4 years ago
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noooo steamgifts will dieeee

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On the one hand, I hate G2a dumb business practice that it even doesn't guarantee your safety against scammers but it sends a clear message to some greedy devs (Paradox, Firaxis, EA, Bethesda) that many people are just not going to pay 200$ for the full game with DLC. Some devs just release their games in half playable states and as time goes on fix them but put them behind a paywall making the original purchase worthless and enticing you to buy the DLC.

4 years ago
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pay 200$ for the full game with DLC

Oh, you're not paying 200$. Don't forget the "optional" microtransaction that will probably bump that price even higher. :D

4 years ago
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I've got no issue with keyless redemption as long as there's some flexibility. Still give the option to create a gift link, where the person can claim the URL and associate it with their platform without a key involved. Humble's done gift links for years and the recent uplay connect thing works alright. Otherwise, I would want to see a pick-and-choose option with bundles, where I could reject games I already own or am not interested in,and get a reduced price.

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It won't happen, too much hussle for sites like HB but there are bundles like pick and mix so some middleground exists.

4 years ago
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Most likely, yeah. But hey, one can hope. I think gift links that the receiver can bind to their account is a happy middle ground personally, but time will tell what happens.

4 years ago
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Carpets can get dirty sometimes. Let's burn down ALL the houses - no carpets, no problem! \o/

4 years ago
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exactly!!! XD

4 years ago
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Yeah, I don't really see the need for CD keys now that we no longer buy games on CDs. By directly purchasing the license integrated into the digital download, we have no need for a key to register the game before playing it, and the games are not supposed to be transferrable so there is no other reason to generate transferrable keys for them.

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For starters look how You activate for example Activision games from HB monthly or event Ubisof. I didn't see any key there. And if steam keys would go same way there is no problem. Only problem will have such sites as G2A, rest of online shops like HB, Fanatical will be connected as official sellers and have connection with database of keyless activation.

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But where do You see problem? I think gift links will always be option even with keyless system and it will reduce only second hand market of keys from giveaways of free games/review keys abused by bots. So even if You split sell bundles such as monthly with giftlinks it'll be still an option. So I don't understand where do You see problem with keyless activation.

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I miss how easy it was to activate keys in the past with HB and IG just clicking a link. Made slightly better with online activation added by Steam but the old system still was superior. So I definitely don't mind it returning. Gifting was just using giftlinks... as we are already doing with Humble anyways...

4 years ago
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this...
no more key, no more drama

jusr click and link, done

4 years ago
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  1. Be an indie dev.
  2. Generate keys so you can sell outside Steam (mostly because you don’t want Steam cut or discount prices/bundle prices).
  3. Offer them to people you don’t know or shouldn’t trust in exchange of their service.
  4. “God damn resellers are ruining this industry!”
  5. Repeat for different outcome this time.
  6. Go to 4.

Unless you give your keys away free in bulk, I can’t see the loss here. Let’s assume you gave it in a bundle. 100 people bought it so you got your money, but 87 wants to resell it because they didn’t buy the bundle for your game. You still get your full cut for 100 purchases, plus your new players when the reseller sells the game. If you’re disturbed you can’t control the prices at all times then stop being an indie developer, or don’t discount it at all, sell it full price, no bundles. It’s not something industry based, it’s what people do to be a “trader”, you buy or manufacture cheap, and sell it with profit. If there were no keys people would get around that too. Plus not to mention the whole thing would kill gifting, or it could even be bad for indie developers, you wouldn’t buy a bundle with fewer than half games weren’t what you wanted.

4 years ago
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If there were no keys people would get around that too.

No? They problem is not keys being keys, but keys being able to be stored and redistributed. It can't be circumvented if they design it with that in mind.
Like I buy bundle at HB. I can only send it to other HB accounts once, and it appears as a claim directly to Steam button, so can't be forwarded yet another time. If the store accounts would have lifelong link to the Steam account, that means that trader's account couldn't be a middle man, and would absolutely prevent buying and stockpiling copies, without preventing sending-and-using the game copies.

4 years ago
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Yeah I'm not sure why people defend the devs so much here. The only legit complaint they have is people doing credit card chargebacks, and that has nothing to do with G2A specifically. There are plenty more key resellers and markets to use out there.

4 years ago
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"100 people bought it so you got your money"
Unless it was from a stolen card, scam seller, or a caught reseller, where they do a chargeback, nailing the dev with a fee, sucking the game out of the buyers account, and often resulting in the dev burning time with an angry customer, and leaving the 'middleman' typically better off and easily able to generate a new account even if they fucked up.

The main issue with grey sites is the proliferation of such shady tactics. Even where chargebacks and revoked keys aren't screwing people over, the knowing mass-purchase abuse of regional pricing intended for countries with huge contrast of income (or gaming bundle sites for mass purchase and resale) is still taking money from the devs. Consider : Is the profit an individual dev makes on mass resold keys from a bundle / regional pricing abuse greater than the charge they recieve for a chargeback?

If a dev generates keys in bulk and then gives them away, then sure. They probably even expect a good slice of those keys to evaporate into the grey market. I don't think they're bemoaning a loss when that happens, especially not when the conversation is talking about popular places like G2A, especially not when recently they've even said they would prefer you to just outright pirate the game instead of allow them to profit and potentially generate fees and angry consumers.

So yeah here's my totally bizarre alternative idea : Bundle games, but still be rightfully annoyed at mass resellers. Allow regional pricing, but still be rightfully annoyed at regional pricing abusers. Use keys, but still be annoyed at G2A. Be a dev, and not be automatically 'greedy' for being annoyed at the state of the such things. ;P

4 years ago*
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I do like how the article says things like, "If Valve does this..."

Forgetting that Valve's corporate strategy is to do nothing at all unless held at gunpoint :P

4 years ago
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I'm sure they have an algorithm for that.

4 years ago
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XD

algorithms > employees.

4 years ago
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Well, I mean, it's hard to hold an algorithm at gunpoint.

4 years ago
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View attached image.
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a keyless system would kill the open ecosystem that steam has created for the pc gaming and made it relevant after pc gamers were being considered a third class gamers so i say no to that , it's just an attemp to kill any pricing competition between legal stores which maintain the same profit margin for developpers and publishers while providing better prices for consumers . keyless option is not being pushed to kill grey market or reduce piracy , the only goal for keyless system is to kill pricing competition between legal stores and reduce the price drop of games during sales and make the pc market a closed ecosystem just like consoles or even worst which will open up more opportunities for 3rd party exclusives and less options to buy keys for others so it would be the worst thing for 3rd world countries in which most individuals does not have access to credit cards and rely on 3rd party key retailers and friends gifts in exchange for local currency that is not supported online . as much as i despite G2A and the grey market as a whole that does not justify a keyless system in any means and will never be the solution as it will only cast more people out of buying legit games and push more to piracy while forcing consumers into pre-determined prices that barely drop during sales and hurt the overall consumer experience and freedom of choice

4 years ago
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i think the best solution for indie devs is if steam provide them with a tool to generate keys with expiration date so that if they giveaway in bulk or use them in bundles or give in bulk to 3rd party retailers during sales they can have like 2-3 months expiration periode and that will solve like 80% of the current problem as it will kill away the mass key reselling for lower prices and limit the amount of keys being bought and resold using fraudulent ways like stolen visa or payment card recharge

4 years ago
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i think the best solution for indie devs is if steam provide them with a tool to generate keys with expiration date so that if they giveaway in bulk or use them in bundles or give in bulk to 3rd party retailers during sales they can have like 2-3 months expiration periode

That would be a great solution. It would make trading and gifting more complicated but it would be a good compromise and no more "key revoked" BS from devs who are getting screwed by resellers either.

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That sound's blooming awful ,i have keys sitting all over the place that are older than that.

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Which is precisely why I think it's great. I also have tons of key. I don't even gift them because I'm not sure they're still okay. Knowing they expire would force me to do something with them instead of sitting on them indefinitely.

4 years ago
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Yeh ,maybe ,i do have a problem with loads of keys sitting on various sites.
You reach that point where it's a bit of a chore to go through them all checking each one and then doing something with them.

Occasionally i'll do a few but then i forget about them again :)

4 years ago*
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That was my idea too. I like Humble's example with the free games it's giving, where you have limited time to activate. Even shorter time would be good in many cases, like a week from purchase to activation, or a day or two if a dev is gifting users keys.

4 years ago
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