Something like "easily exploited". Someone could buy 10 copies of a 5-game bundle for $1 each, and that would make 50 giveaways which adds a ton to his contributor status.
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But SG permits whole bundles and values them appropriately (as far as I can tell) - so the issue of separate games 'value' doesn't seem to apply??
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Most bundles are $1-4 for 4-8 games that are valued at $5-10 usually. So $1-4 for $20-80 worth of games, that's an 80% discount in the worst cast scenario. Compare that to most normal sales that Steam has and yeah, you're saving a lot more with the bundles
As such, they have to adjust the points accordingly or else everyone would have $20-$80 of giveaways for every $1-4 spent.
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Case one: you buy a bundle on Steam at 92% off. It costs you $10, you get $125 value on Steam gifts.
Case two: you buy an indie bundle for $5. You get $5 value on Steam Gifts.
How is that just?
I'm not saying that the bundle should get the full value of the games (though for $4+ bundles I don't see why not, considering that 90%+ off games on Steam get their full value), but surely the bundle should at least be treated as if you bought it discounted. Make it worth $20 for a $5 bundle, or something like that.
Give bundles a reasonable value and there will also be less incentive to break them apart.
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Agreed!
Exemple one: Saints Row the third franchise pack cost me 13$. Why i should gain almost 130$ on contibutions for it since it isnt reflect the retail price?
If bundles are valored by his games, even a lowered value, it should reduces greatly the spare keys problem, since less ppl will be tempted to cheat the system and get banned for a small privilege.
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Incidentally, on the topic of exploits, it occurs to me that ANY key traded outside of Steam is 'easily exploited' as people can simply come back here and add another giveaway for it (which adds the value of the game EVERY time).
Even trading within Steam gives you (or at least used to give you) something you can choose to re-trade OR put into your Game List - so 'exploitation' is possible with almost everything, in that respect.
If the value of the games is so crucial (and it seems to only really matter to the points system) - perhaps it's time to look again at the points system (although I suspect the lower points cap actually solves the problem).
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I don't get what you are trying to say.
Could you rephrase it?
Are you implying a key can be registered more than once?
And what about exploiting anything if you register a steam-tradeable game to your library!?
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It's because bundle's rules prohibit this behavior, and state that all keys are for personal use and can not be gifted separately. You accepted those rules when you purchased the bundle, SG is only respecting their rules, as any legit website would do.
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Not true at all. There's nothing in the bundle rules about gifting, and at least Groupees are okay with gifting keys from what I was told by their support person.
Edit: I do however think that not being sure about what's allowed by the bundles is a reason this rule was made.
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From Indie Royale Terms of Use page:
"Can I share games / bundle / Desura keys if I already own a game in the bundle?
Indie Royale bundles are strictly for personal use only. Sharing Steam keys because you already own a game in the bundle is not allowed. The same applies for Desura keys. If your friend wants a bundle you should gift them or they can purchase it themselves.
The idea behind Indie Royale bundles is to support indie games, we always offer excellent games at a price you cannot beat - so please recognize this and support the developers participating by buying your own bundle."
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Thanks. That should probably be linked somewhere in the rules. Are there any other bundles you know which have this restriction?
BTW Indie Royale is much less a target for exploitation, because it costs quite a bit ($4 minimum, usually more). Indie Gala is the most likely target, given its happy hours.
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Indie Gala have it written in more legal-mumbo-jumbo then straight Indie Royale answer, quoting their terms: "The Service is only for sales of products or product rights (collectively, "Products") to end user customers for their personal, non-commercial use."
Whoever pays them must use it on his own.
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I don't think that "personal, non-commercial use" implies anything about gifting or even selling. Licenses which don't allow that tend to specify restrictions on reselling or transferring ownership, Most products which are bought for personal use can be gifted or even sold (as a used product) so I think that the condition is meant to prevent commercial use. But I'm not a lawyer and I may be wrong.
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You omitted "sales for end-user" part. You can't buy it and then give or sell it forward, because then you aren't end-user.
But like I said, it's more legal-mumbo-jumbo that doesn't really mean anything because nobody went to court to fight against this terms, and EU-court already said something about this kind of situations (but that's regional law, not world-wide). So in the end, nobody really knows, and everybody are just trying to be safe then sorry.
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I wouldn't consider this selling the key, but I can see how it would be a problem. Contributor giveaways are nothing but trouble.
Steam Gifts disallows the practice anyway. Still, if you want to give it some other way at least you know it's okay, unlike with Indie Royale.
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If that's true I can understand it - BUT - I have numerous games in my Steam Inventory which are 'duplicates' of what I already have for various reasons and it's not, technically, any different?
Under EU/UK law, IR's conditions are illegal anyway. You pay for a bundle, what you do with it is up to you, the codes/games are your property and resale/donation is something the copyright owner cannot control.
It also seems churlish given that they market their own 'gifting' system so prominently...
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It is different though. Much like there's a difference between trading a game you bought on Steam versus one you won on Steamgifts, how you acquire a game and the rules governing that transaction matter.
I think there are 2 big reasons most of the bundles frown upon it. The first is duplication and piracy, especially where bundles that also contain DRM-free copies are concerned. It's way too easy for someone to trade or sell a key and then use the DRM-free version themself, thereby creating a second copy of the game that they end up reaping the profits for instead of the devs/publishers.
The second reason is that I suspect it plays a role in getting devs to agree to put their games in bundles in the first place. Devs obviously get less per copy sold when selling in a big, cheap bundle than they do for games they sell directly to interested customers. I think the big reasons they agree to participate are increased visibility, and a chance to share in the profits from people who are attracted to buy by other games in the bundle rather than their own or from people who already own their game but want the others. If every bundle is divvied up so that the keys go only to people who really want each game, the increased attention is the only reason that's not negated and they lose potential future sales to people who were really interested in their game but managed to get it cheap or free from someone else's bundle.
I'm not all that familiar with the fine print on the EU/UK ownership ruling, so you may be right that the bundles will have to adapt their policy in the future. But even so, there's nothing forcing Steamgifts to allow those keys if they wish to continue to respect the wishes of the devs and bundle creators.
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You're right that SG can decide what is and isn't allowed - it's just the argument that "bundles forbid it" is based on something which isn't really legal (or fair or honest).
I understand people not wanting to 'take advantage of indies' and all that jazz - and that's a fair enough reason to ban it here in itself (although I think it's slightly high-minded to choose who you do and don't support).
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"Under EU/UK law, IR's conditions are illegal anyway. You pay for a bundle, what you do with it is up to you, the codes/games are your property and resale/donation is something the copyright owner cannot control."
I don't know about UK law, but as for EU law, I'm reasonably sure that while a court has indeed ruled companies can't forbid the resale of software licenses, this has not been codified yet, and thus (since the EU does not has a common law system) is not the law yet. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no expert.
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The law already existed - software companies attempted to use "EULA" terms to forbid it - a court recently ruled that they couldn't do that.
EULAs are completely untested, legally - this is the first case which has even remotely tried to test them and they lost. We're talking about ORACLE here too - if they lose, everyone loses (because they're made of money).
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Ask yourself why you came into a thread only to post that??
Did your mum appoint you thread moderator and internet ninja? :)
Tip for making your time more useful - ignore threads you have no useful input to, you'll live longer and achieve more ;)
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I found several threads that echoed the rule that it was illegal - almost none discussed why and precisely none covered the issue that bundles can't actually make rules like that (anymore than your local takeaway can't tell you not to share your food with people).
There are also a tonne of giveaways here for 'free' keys from places like GameStop (worthless and inflating the site value/points enormously - see Rift etc.) - is this just a general case of 'people ignoring the rules' or...
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People have given you several valid reasons. Artificially inflated contributor value, unfair to indie devs, goes against sg rules and bundle TOS, etc. eventually it comes down to "it's against the rules," and that's the bottom line. Hopefully you find an answer that satisfies you, but in the end that's all it comes down to. ;)
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"I found several threads that echoed the rule that it was illegal - almost none discussed why and precisely none covered the issue that bundles "
Completely untrue. If you had spent as much time searching for an answer as you have blathering on in this thread you would have found out why.
And here is the great thing about the rules of this site, CG made the site, he makes the rules and doesn't actually need to justify a single one of them to anyone.
Seriously, I wish there was a 7 day ban on new users posting.
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"Tip for making your time more useful[...]"
I like how you joined one day ago and go handing out tips to someone who's been here a year and has almost 3000 comments to his name. I'm sure he can learn a lot from you about how this forum works ;)
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2998 of his comments are "USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION" most likely :)
Well I do apologise for asking a reasonable question and getting the "because it's the rules" answer - v.useful.
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The problem is that that particular question get asked in the forum 1-2 a week, has been discussed to death over and over again (not just in the forum, but in giveaways, too), and thus is getting really, really, really old. Patience is wearing thin for some, I imagine.
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I never get that argument - is there a rule which says people must read and take part in every thread.
I have the ability to read a thread title and say "not going in that one" - I don't, ever, feel like going in to just tell people the discussion is 'old' or whatever...
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Well, seeing as you have been here exactly 1 day, I applaud your restraint with being frustrated with repeated topics.
General forum etiquette for any forum in existence, is to take the temperature of the community. to watch and listen, before contributing. Your tact of coming in after one day, questioning and insulting long time members is... Rude at the very least.
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I see your point.
For me, however, the issue is that every 'useless' thread (not saying yours is. Or isn't. ^^) bumps a potentially useful thread down a notch, making interesting stuff that hasn't been discussed a hundred times harder to spot.
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Like others have said, the question has been asked dozens of times. And there have always been people referring others to the search bar at the upper left to not only save our time, but your time as well. By simply using the search you wouldn't have to wait for an answer and may improve upon your question to make it unique.
My suggestion was to aid you in finding your solution. It's on SG and has been repeated over and over. So rather than linking you to the original thread that this was asked or ctrl+v the usual response, I decided to roughly say "search it." Which I assume you still haven't. This information is also in the FAQ.
You're welcome and thanks for reminding me that my 3000 mark is coming up.
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If you really wanted the answer, you should have just opened a support ticket and let the mods answer you.
Instead you had to come to the forums and open up the question to the peanut gallery again. This will not end well, as it never ends well.
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You still can give the games to us, just not here x) right?
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I just might yet - but I'd really like to get to the bottom of this idea that you're not allowed to 'give away' yhour spare keys - because in the EU/UK you sure-as-hell are, we have laws for that sort of thing :)
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Oh yes we do - there are laws which specifically define people's right to resell/give away their property/forbid people from adding rules to prevent this.
See why the games industry moans so much about pre-owned - because by law they can't stop it.
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No, we don't have such a law, at least not yet.
Just because the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of UsedSoft in the recent ruling, doesn't mean there is a law or directive for that.
And in fact, even that ruling clearly states:
"The Court points out, however, that if the licence acquired by the first acquirer relates to a greater number of users than he needs, that acquirer is not authorised by the effect of the exhaustion of the distribution right to divide the licence and resell only part of it."
Link to the ruling or the short version as PDF
So, no you are definitely not allowed to split up bundles, the only thing you might be allowed to do in the future, would be to give away, or sell the whole bundle.
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Where they're based is irrelevant - who they're selling to matters.
Consumer law operates on the location of the consumer - NOT the location of the store. To sell things into EU countries you must abide by EU law (even if you're based outside the place). See also Sales Tax/VAT
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"Consumer law operates on the location of the consumer - NOT the location of the store"
Could you provide a source for that statement in regard to the EU ? (I've heard that there's a certain consumer protection act whose name eludes me at the moment for the UK, but all of Europe is news to me)
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It's not as simple as just 1 act (nothing is in the EU) - there are EU directives which specify how member countries should regulate stuff and then each country implements laws which reflect this (but which are often quite different in how they do it).
For example, the EU requires a 2 year guarantee on many consumer goods - the UK implements this as a statutary requirement on the retailer through the Sale of Goods Act but other countries may do this differently (so long as you get 2 years comeback, it doesn't matter).
Oh - and countries are allowed time to implement stuff - so some countries may not cover every directive at any given time (it's a massive pile of paperwork and red tape - basically).
Bottom line tho - the core of consumer law in the EU is that you're entitled to resell/give away anything you buy - regardless of whether it's a physical item or a digital code and regardless of whether you paid money for it or not (the definition of a transaction does not require money).
As with all things - these things can and are frequently legally tested, but I can't see bundle companies wanting to spend the 100s of £1000s that would cost (let alone what enforcing it would cost).
End of the day, if a bundle doesn't want it's keys being resold, offer only 1 key - simples...
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I'm aware of the principle mechanics of how EU directives are put into the individual countryies' laws.
That's precisely the reason why I asked for a source (or sources) for the claim that 'consumer law operates on the location of the consumer' - I know of no such law where I live (yes, it's in the EU ^^), and I haven't heard of any such directives(s). The only example of such a law I have heard about until now was said consumer act in the UK. Of course, that could just be my ignorance - as I said, I'm not an expert on such matters.
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Okay, let's play through your scenario for a moment.
You file a complaint with the appropriate authorities in the appropriate jurisdiction under EU law. Let's say it gets filed against a hypothetical indie bundle program called, say, Super Bundle.
Super Bundle is a small operation and does not have the money to hire a lawyer in that jurisdiction, fly back and forth, and fight the charges. Instead, they close down. Congratulations, you've destroyed a small operation that, if it's like a number of the real bundles, was built to benefit charity.
Or, let's say you make a complaint about SteamGifts. In the best case scenario, you'll get permabanned. Worse scenarios involve SG being forced to block all Eurozone IP ranges to avoid being non-compliant with EU law, or SG just gets killed altogether, and you've ruined a good thing for ~164,000 users AND negatively impacted the game sales of most every game developer that sells through Steam.
Be mindful of the consequences of what you are saying, newbie. And remember that you are getting all worked up about video games. Entertainment. This isn't human rights we're talking about.
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I think it's you who's getting their pants in a bundle (joke intended) - I'm fine with a rule which says "no separate keys from bundles" but there are some issues with the reasoning and practicality of it
1 - saying it's because bundles forbid it is propagating a lie - bundles can't forbid it but they can prevent it by just supplying a single key (e.g. they can solve their own problems)
2 - it's totally and utterly impractical to enforce - there's NO way to stop people listing these keys. My mistake was simply to admit I'd gotten the key from that source - if I'd said nothing, no-one would ever have been wiser.
It's fine to say "it's the rules - live with it" but when it's flagrantly ignored and - indeed - impossible to police, what's the point in having it as a rule?
Rules exist to regulate problems - not to cause them.
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At the end of the day, splitting bundle keys is forbidden because cg and lokonopa say so. This is a private site. You do not have to be here.
And, an overhaul of some sort to the site is already in the works to deal with bundle key problems. The specific details of this change are not public yet, before you ask. At the moment, it's a single-digit staff versus several thousand idiots unintentionally or deliberately ignoring the rules, so, yes, it's going to seem like a lawless wild west. Expect this to change.
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I saw a lot of keys being duplicates mere seconds after being posted, not to say people discussing about scripts/macros to activate keys on a facebook post.
About you getting keys, well, even I did. Using scripts does not mean the guy is omnipresent or anything, but it's kind of a dickish thing to do.
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Well, on threads where I know other keys will be posted, I leave the "Add a game" window open and if I refresh the page at the right moment, I can activate the key in less than one second.
For exemple, on http://www.exosyphen.com/ , I don't know if many people are still trying to get a key, but you HAD to take the key in less than one second, because people are fast. I'm still sure there is no script involved.
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I think most of the items in Steam's catalog were between -50 to -75% making pretty much every game you can gift here belonging into sale group.
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Just remember, if you giveaway your steam key you have to also give the desura key and remove the game from your computer. Giving away a key and keeping the game or giving away a steam key to someone and then giving away the desura key to someone else is copyright infringement.
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I can probably guess why this exists but I thought I'd ask anyway - why is this forbidden?
I have probably 20 games which have come from bundles with individual keys - but which I already own on Steam (or somewhere) and thus would be happy to share with people.
I already listed one by mistake BUT I can give the winner my own (from the developer) key instead of the bundle one and thus 'no foul' - but I wondered why make that distiction?
Esp as there are listings on here for games which don't even have Steam Keys/WHole Bundles where most games aren't Steam games and so on - e.g. the rules appear frequently 'bent'??
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