Here we go again. -.-
2019 will set off an avalanche of revocations. :o
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Right... They always say that. =/
Like the players are to blame for their decision to sell the keys there.
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i total understand the devs... would do the same...
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Not always! There have been a few devs that have replaced keys from purchasing customers. They've said in threads to email them and sent keys their way. It's easy to tell from responses in these threads which devs came through and which didn't. Sadly, the amount that don't are far more numerous.
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Could there maybe a pattern? If only we could see it... Too bad we can't :p
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I like that this happens so often there's even a curator specially for it https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33370373
LOL
and yes, it's the same bundles all the time.
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I following this curator. There's a lot of revoked games.
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Oh wow. Didn't realise that this was happening so often on Indiegala as well XD.
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sorry for reviving. thanks for the link!
sadly I think it is just the tip of iceberg because some "unused" keys got revoked several months later.
It is only the revoked keys that are 'quite' fresh or when all keys got revoked that it pop up.
I don't blame indiegala ... I had 2 support cases and they tried at least to solve them.
with old dig bundles it was far more worse. I don't blame dig either.
I heard bad stories about hb when this happens with a gift, dunno if true but even with hb it can happen.
with otaku it seems that the dev/publisher often misunderstand the contract. dunno who to blame.
whereas groupees/fanatical usually tell you when a key went stale.
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I like how people mock the devs but still buying keys on Otaku and later wonder about "revoke"... hmmmmmm...^^
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I got Otakus #35 and #36 at the time. Since the game aren't that good I stopped buying there.
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New quote from dev:
If the game really worth it for you, you can buy it via Steam, it's on a huge sale now. If it's not, so be it.
seems this probably won't be an "email me for replacements" kind of guy
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I wouldn't buy from Otaku Bundle, honestly. There's obviously a problem if this is happening on a continuous basis.
I can see why developers are doing this. It's easy for us to say "oh, it's between the dev and Otaku bundle" and in a way, yes it is. That's why they're revoking keys sent to Otaku Bundle. You as the player are not the dev's customer, you are Otaku's customer. That's the way they are looking at it.
Most of these small developers don't have the money to take someone like Otaku bundle to court, so the only way they can get paid is to revoke the keys until they do get paid, then return the keys to Otaku to be distributed again. Yep, it's really inconvenient to the customer to have this happen, but as a creative, I can totally understand the concept of not getting paid for your work and not being able to do much about it.
My friend and I got caught out about 10 years ago. We were both 4th year undergrads at university studying design. Between us, we designed 500 icons for a large company. They paid us the deposit, and would pay us the rest once we handed over the files. Did they ever pay us? No. We had no money to go to court, so we lost out on €1,500. Oh, they most certainly used the icons. We chalked it up to experience and something like that can only happen once. You learn from it. Our professor at the time was like "let it go, but in future, this is what you do" and gave us a set of guidelines to follow to prevent someone doing this.
Companies tend to screw people over all the time in the creative industries, especially independent artists, musicians, designers, developers etc. At some point, something's got to give. You can't just keep chalking things up to experience and letting companies like Otaku get away with not paying people what they are owed.
If I was an Otaku customer, I'd be on the devs side and harassing Otaku with emails about sorting out what they owe me instead of going after the developer. It looks bad for their company that this is happening time and time again. :(
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Always make a contract to protect yourself, and read carefully a company's contract. =]
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Hey, I was wondering what the general steps were to protect yourself as a content creator?
I didn't buy from this bundle, but as someone who does commissions, I do worry such incidents might happen. Do you mind sharing by any chance? If not, that's cool too. Thank you for the informative post!
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I don't know where you live, laws can vary from countries, better check your country laws before making a contract. As a content creator, if you want to sell your work just write what you will do, if you have time limit and permission you will give to the person or company you will do the work. Also fines in case of a breach of contract. Take care with contradictions, since they can be used against you.
If you can, let other people read the contract and ask them if they understood. They may point something you're missing or if they don't understand it you may have to make it more clear.
If you're not an official reseller, you will always be at mercy of incidents. Keep that in mind.
Even Otaku that is suposed to be a "official store" is having problems. =/
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Hmm. Guess I'll have to read up on creating contracts.
Thank you for the information!
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I actually work for studios nowadays and do very little freelance work... but...
As GarlonPR said above, writing up a contract is the most important thing of all. Even if you are just a student and can't afford legal costs of getting all of this looked over by a lawyer, having something written up that looks legal and getting the client to sign it is generally enough to deter them from trying to get one over on you.
ALWAYS get a deposit for 50% of the cost of the project, and this is even more important if it's a large scale thing that's going to cost you multiple hours of work. Give them an estimate of the hours you think it will take, allow them x number of free edits beyond that if necessary, but let them know that additional hours beyond the agreed edits will cost extra. (Some clients like to "take the biscuit" with your time.)
Something else important. Because I often design publications, booklets etc, I have to send my files in .pdf format. Number one rule here is to flatten the pdfs before sending them. The reason for this is that pdfs can be converted back into an .eps and content lifted from them. ESPECIALLY if whatever it is that you're sending contains your own artwork in vector form. When you get paid, send over the high quality unflattened files and printable version if they request it.
On that last point. I've had well-known companies as clients whose marketing teams don't understand the concept of vector logo/.eps/.ai file. Especially when that company was new to the studio, we wouldn't have a logo on file. I found myself going "oh to hell with dealing with these people" going online, finding a pdf of a previous publication of theirs, downloading it, converting to .eps and lifting what is now a scalable/editable vector of the logo off the file. That helps me to do my job, but it can also be used maliciously by assholes with drafts/proofs of artwork. Just be careful :)
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Dang. I never knew about the lifting of assets from certain filetypes, that's very very important.
Thank you for the information, and I appreciate you sharing!
That was very kind of you.
Welcome my my whitelist as well, and have a good week ahead! 💙
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You're most welcome. I learned that one over the years from having to do the logo trick. lol. You wouldn't believe the things clients have tried. This one guy sent me a Microsoft Word file of the company logo containing a gif and told me to put it on a pull-up banner. That's pretty big lol. We had a few back and forths of trying to get him to get a logo from their in-house team. Next thing, I get an email with a .eps attachment. Guess what? He changed the file extension on the .gif. LMAO. I contacted other studios in our company asking them if they had this logo on file from a previous job. One of the designers told me about this pdf trick. Been using it ever since. XD.
💙 from me too. ^^
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That was an interesting read! As someone who wants to do creative work as well, I found it insightful. Thanks for sharing!
(Also got to whitelist you and the other two fine people who did so; the more love the better~)
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There is no simple solution. I have made a mistake giving the keys to this host, you have made a mistake buying from them.
seriously guys, is it really worth the +1 at this point? Just let these games die. stop buying them.
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Lmao this is becoming like a weekly thing for me now
>get home from work
>open Steam
>new account alert
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if people do not learn from mistakes buying this all again ...
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Oh look, another conflict between a developer and OtakuBundle.
Wonder when OtakuBundle's reputation finally becomes tainted enough that they will have to shut down because no-one wants to do business with them anymore.
Yeah, that'll actually never happen. There are enough scummy asset flippers that rely on such bundle sites to shift their trash.
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Enj Oy my wall..
The repeated (vicious) circle of small time developers getting screwed over.. twice.. one from shiftty publishers and one from ..ahem.. "gamers" (who are getting screwed as well, but just once, and..well.. they had an idea about it but kept and keep buying). In this and similar other cases with revoked games, I see people who make a review (thousands of games but only one review.. the mind boggles!) just to cry about it, slander the developer and/or threaten they won't buy again (or worse they use other "big" words).. yet they make no mention of the shady publisher or accept any part of the blame but will still, probably, keep buying from them and the circle goes on..
..And will probably buy "AAA" titles (in AAA prices), even pre-order them but won't complain about any screws when the first DLCs start coming out or even when the wallet dries out..
You (we) all have got it coming anyway because that is exactly the problem with DRM and your rent-"licence" to play..Maybe complain to the ones you should or you'll be left without developers and we all know publishers can't make games..
Frankly if feels a bit like "first" world screwing over "third" and then building walls to keep (the screwed over) "intruders" out, although in this case it's only 1st blaming 3rd for their problems and no walls..yet. And that's the word..
Incidentally, for people who like simple, minimalistic, puzzle games, this is actually quite a nice game and indeed on great discount currently..
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I won't buy from crappy bundle sites, because that's what they are - crappy.
They might have one good game, and then surround it in a pile of crap.
People will drop the $1.50, $2.50, or whatever, to get the bundle without a second-thought.
This sums up Steam as well. They have a few good games, but now they're just surrounding them in crap, without a second thought.
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Wow, I'm so glad I don't buy from them. Wasn't aware this one got revoked too.
Wonder how long they'll stay in business if this keep happening.
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All of the 4 people who ever played the game must be furious.
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I get why developers would be hated for this, and I get why Otaku is hated for this. What I want to make special note of, however, is how this specific developer handled the PR part of it. They came across as callous and rude. That wasn't a smart decision on their part. The least they could do to try and win back customers is be courteous to them.
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What customers? Nobody has ever bought their games from Steam nor will they ever. Everyone bought them in couple cent trash bundles and will buy them as long as they appear in those. That's the whole business model for this trash and if they somehow manage to convince even the people who just buy every cheap trash they see to not buy theirs, they can just change their name and continue pushing trash and everyone will happily buy again.
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They can, sure, but some of those small developers actually stood out to people because they DID replace their keys. I know I've made note of some that I wouldn't have looked twice at due to the mature way they handled their issues.
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And what do you plan to do with those notes? Buy their trash games on Steam for $1? Buy their games on IG etc expensive trash bundles? Not buy OtakuGoGo trash bundles that have games from the MechanoHitlers that didn't replace keys? Or just go on like usual buying every trash bundle with couple cent games that might or might not give +1 but nobody will ever play anyways? That trash only mattered one bit when any game could have cards, now they are just worthless and a stupid thing to buy no matter what the price or quality of customer support.
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I kinda feel that it's the only correct way to handle it.
If let's say he agreed to provide replacement keys to people who bought the bundle - Otaku could simply continue selling his (now canceled) keys as if nothing happened.
The only way to prevent Otaku from profiting from his game, is to cancel these keys altogether.
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It's still a loss for the dev, but I think it's the better way to handle things. That being said, it's merely what I think, and I'm not a business specialist by any means. I'm just commenting as what I see from a consumer point of view.
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I agree... I imagine that developers don't have much power... perhaps it was the only way to handle it.
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In hindsight, now that we know that Otaku and GoGo went bankrupt, and never planned to pay the developers - it was definitely the right decision, and might even have forced Otaku/GoGo show their bluff (declare bankruptcy) earlier than they planned.
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That's at least the 3rd (that I know of) developer recalling his keys after being scammed by Otaku.
When will people realize that it's not the developers scamming them, it's Otaku scamming both the developers and it's customers.
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Just another one. This is from Otaku Bundle #35
Link to store page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/873210/iterform/
Link to discussions:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/873210/discussions/0/2789318172120918152/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/873210/discussions/0/2789318172120941379/
I'm really tired of these developers.
EDIT: What the Developer said:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/873210/announcements/detail/3166494641911991333
There is no simple solution. I have made a mistake giving the keys to this host, you have made a mistake buying from them.
There are a several people in other discussions saying that according to the contract with Otaku Bundle I should have waited a month since the end of the bundle sale, but it was 2 and a half (Oct 2018 to Jan 2019). I have emailed them several times for this extra month, but never had a reply.
If the game really worth it for you, you can buy it via Steam, it's on a huge sale now. If it's not, so be it.
Anyway, I am sorry. Be careful about the bundles. I definitely will.
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