Is this a rumour or have you got proof? It's kind of hard tracking where people got their copies.
Comment has been collapsed.
Could you explain why they are considered exploited? Evidence links are not necessary, but a basic explanation may be helpful, especially for those who have been affected by the exploit. I found the sheer quantity (pun not intended) of a certain group's Dead Island giveaways rather suspicious. One person was giving away at least 2-5 copies daily (if you count the keys he gave away in Steam chat in addition to the giveaways themselves).
Comment has been collapsed.
The members in question were giving away dozens of keys for free and found selling them for $4-5 a piece while advertising a "1% chance Valve would detect these and remove them from your library", while also admitting when questioned that they were not exactly legit. This coupled with the fact members are reporting to have had their Dead Island copies they received from these groups and members removed from their libraries.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah. With how serious having exploited keys on your account is, I think everyone is going to want a bit more information. I got mine from someone who did a ton of giveaways here and I traded him privately for one. Name started with an R. I can't remember who he was though.
Steam/Valve support will ALWAYS say that your game is not okay to play and remove it from your account if you ask them about it, because they'll say not to accept keys from unknown parties and that it's not legitimate to use that way unless you own the physical boxed copy.
Comment has been collapsed.
Was it ever? They did a crap ton of Dead Island giveaways then started asking for donations including real money. It seemed very rainbows and lollipops to begin with but then got very shady. I left when I saw the second load of 3 Dead Island keys go up as I suspected something dodgy.
Comment has been collapsed.
not only that, they create group giveaways (their steam group is public) and then explain that the winners must be an active members of their community. Then why make your group public?
Comment has been collapsed.
Comment has been collapsed.
This is really old news. I have not seen a single instance of Valve banning anyone for activating an exploited or stolen Dirt 3 key, let alone all the other leaks and exploits. They have been removing the game from libraries when detected or reported. This Half-Life 2 CD-key situation was a completely different story.
Comment has been collapsed.
It not a "completly different story". It's just Valve has changed its policies since then. Now they sell more game than theirs.
I'm not saying that they will ban now or that you're wrong. I'm only pointing out that there have been at last one case. Just that, I don't want to troll/flame/whatever.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah but how many users activated them ? Have you never seen a steam account getting disabled due using a exploited key ? Just buy one with a hacked cc, activate it, and the next day your account is disabled. Im pretty sure it goes it that way. The Dirt3 thing was another story.
Comment has been collapsed.
Reason? probably because you're avoiding the set price for your area. I remember reading somewhere a guy from the UK getting banned, because he kept activating russian keys from the same guy that sold him the keys. He bought the keys through paypal or whatever, but I guess your account gets flagged if you keep activating keys outside of your area? I don't know.
Comment has been collapsed.
I never heard someone banned from gifts or pricing localization before, If someone got Suspended account he/she did something in https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519
May be i wrong, Now my account flagged? i don't know but my account activated CD-key via VPN 4 games already.
Comment has been collapsed.
Valve is known to ban people that are avoiding prices set for their region. I think it's also in their official terms of use.
Comment has been collapsed.
I never said gifts. I said a guy was buying Russian keys often and got banned. He had a bunch of russian keys activated on his account. Remember Russian keys are about half the cost from everywhere else.
Comment has been collapsed.
for good reason too... Market research firm IDC and the Business Software Alliance estimate that 87 percent of all software used in Russia is pirated and also there is the lost revenue... basically why let all that money go to waste when you can easily get something out of it (it is a digital copy after all, so the cost of providing the game is minimal and hence the price can easily be lowered to allow for a profit to be made from an otherwise missed oportunity)
Comment has been collapsed.
Good to know, thanks for the heads up. Will legit giveaways have the lokonopa seal of approval?
Comment has been collapsed.
It is definetly complicated to properly filter the potentially bogus ones from the legitimate ones. So you can't really trust.
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting. Heard of something like this but wasn't expecting that to happen.
Comment has been collapsed.
To everyone who is confused, the leak occured on GreenManGaming's servers, where they accidently sent multiple keys for those who pre-ordered, now due to their system, they identified which keys were sent the first time around and marked those as legit, all extra keys sent were given to steam to remove from any account using them. GMG stated, your account cannot get banned because of this, only the game removed!
Da da da... and here's your proof for the skeptics GMG Blog
Comment has been collapsed.
No, the GMG dupe key issue was fixed when they realized their mistake.
This was posted above me by YoursifOhEight. Those keys were revoked.
Comment has been collapsed.
You are mistaking, bro. If you didn't win it, then speak to yourself :P
Comment has been collapsed.
I can't believe this is happenning again, I was so happy with Dirt 3 and now with Dead Island...
Comment has been collapsed.
You can get it from the steam store. search for Dead Island (I even did it for you ^^)... you can also buy it from GreenManGaming- it even has an ad on the main page right there ... there was a 20% off coupon but I can' seem to find it right now (it might have expired)...
Comment has been collapsed.
CD Keys should be banned from SG all together. Only valid Steam gifts should be accepted. Imho.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, the topic is closed though.
I just think that the risk for everyone involved is not worth it.
And I don't want this community to be riddled by scammers and hackers.
Comment has been collapsed.
I fully agree with this, with the various ways keys are obtained, the risk to a persons account is too great. You never know if you'll be given a valid key, or given an illegally obtained key until after the fact. Also what if someone goes to steam support with scans of the box/key that was raffled claiming the winner stole his account, what happens then?
Comment has been collapsed.
And check the Bulletstorm keys, pretty sure their hacked to.
Comment has been collapsed.
Bulletstorm activated as "Bulletstorm WW Comp" as in complimentary. wonder where he got them from... :(
Comment has been collapsed.
I personally purchased a copy with tf2 items from someone. He lives in brasil and apparently they have PC gamer there. But since brasil isnt a huge pay for your games community, they offered a promotion in the magazine for a key for dead island. Thier PC Gamer is still like $15 though. Well anyways. They key registers itself as " Eastern Europe" when you activate it. Its been awhile and I havent had any issues with it, but im sure i can only connect with euros though. Either way, sound fishy, but not having any issues with it. Its the full game by the way. Just be careful guys when dealing with CD keys.
Comment has been collapsed.
I live in Brazil and i'm pretty sure that there aren't magazines with this CD Key out here.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have contacted Steam Support about Dead Island key that I got from ruffield saying that they can remove key, if it's not legit and they replied:
If your CD Key for this game is invalid, it will be revoked at the request of the publisher.
They didn't remove game from my library...
Comment has been collapsed.
So we could be pretty sure we won't get ban for this. I think :3
Comment has been collapsed.
Well that's even better news. Generally if you contact them to ask if a key is legitimate they'll remove it regardless and say you can't use it unless you have the game disc/cd key and ask you to write your ticket number on a paper and take a photo of it for them.
Comment has been collapsed.
99 Comments - Last post 30 seconds ago by ChrisKutcher
36 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by VahidSlayerOfAll
16,306 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by InSpec
13 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by lostsoul67
888 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by InSpec
1,835 Comments - Last post 6 hours ago by freeFORme1964
15 Comments - Last post 11 hours ago by vlbastos
17 Comments - Last post 45 seconds ago by PapaSmok
8,000 Comments - Last post 9 minutes ago by Codric
37 Comments - Last post 40 minutes ago by MarvashMagalli
2,811 Comments - Last post 49 minutes ago by JMM72
805 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Ritzman101
16,795 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by RDMCz
5 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by VahidSlayerOfAll
Greetings community,
It has been discovered that many Dead Island keys given away lately in the community could have been possibly fraudulent in some way. It has been brought to our attention by several members of the community that received Dead Island keys after contacting Valve to ask if these copies were okay to play. Valve responded with a solid no and removed the DI copies from their libraries.
We take these matters very seriously and will not tolerate this activity in the community. If you were given or have purchased a Dead Island key outside of a legit third-party seller or Steam, then please take this announcement as a warning. Please understand that this is not an isolated incident and no one Steam group or member of SteamGifts in particular is to blame.
Thank you.
-regards
Comment has been collapsed.