Such an appropriately named game though 👀
Edit: after reading stuff posted in the thread, I can understand the dev's frustration though. Not saying they were right, of course, as revoking those keys was a **** move, but I see their point to some extent.
Otaku's contract say they run the bundle, and pay the dev within 30 days after the sale ends.
Problem: nothing says when the sale ends. In this case, the bundle was sold longer than first announced, but anyway it could just be sold forever...
Obvious solution: Otaku could just offer some partial payments to devs before those "30 days after the sale ends". Notably, since a lot of the sales are done during the first few days, they could for instance do a first payment 40 days after the bundle started, with earnings from the first 10 days. And at the very least, they could reply in a timely fashion when a dev asks, quite legitimately, when the sale will end. Or worse, when a dev threatens to revoke keys: ignoring such threats for over a week (while they are able to put up for sale 10k keys received in an e-mail within 48h) just shows they don't care about neither the devs or the customers
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Yeah. It turned out to be the Typical Nightmare for those who bought this bundle. Certainly they must've been thinking, "Not My Day!" before they went Outside to cry.
Forgive my lame attempt at creating a pun out of this. My sympathies to all who were affected by this nasty key revocation incident.
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I've issued a ticket notifying them just a few minutes ago. I expect there will be a thousand such tickets if we just wait long enough, though. :^)
Edit: staff is aware, so I closed my ticket in accordance with this comment and follow-ups.
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I had giveaways for these games. To get a dozen people to agree to deletion is a mess indeed. What can SG support do about this?
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Assuming the dev doesn't replace the keys, I expect they can just unilaterally delete all the affected GAs from their end or something like that. I don't think the whole agreeing thing applies to such a situation, seeing that the gifter is hardly the one at fault for this mess.
Having support know about this is also good for another reason: because otherwise people might otherwise get suspended over an unactivated win that isn't actually their fault. If the SG staff is aware of the problem, that risk disappears (barring human error, that is).
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I posted a link to this thread in the staff discussion boards so everyone will be made aware in case they weren't.
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Ya you can close your ticket.
If you won a GA for a game that is revoked letting the GA creator know the situation would be a good idea. I'd post a link to this thread and talk to them and see if they would agree to delete the GA due to the situation. You would need to leave a comment stating you agree to delete the GA. Without the winner stating they agree to delete in a comment we couldn't delete it.
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So the agreement of every winner is necessary even in such a clear-cut case of the GA creators not being at fault? The more you know. :o
Anyway, alright, I'll close it. With that said, until such a time as the GAs get removed, is it a problem if the feedback stays at received? Seeing that staff is aware, I'm not terribly worried about suspensions (though it's a bit annoying to fail every sgtools gate ever until the games get temporarily whitelisted :P).
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They are games "steam is learning" and already flagged on SGtools. I don't think there will be a problem. It didn't show any inactivated wins for me.
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Oh, good point, that totally went over my head. Then that's not a concern, I guess. Thank you for the heads-up! :D
Edit: Though they're now specifically whitelisted just in case.
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Not My Day and Outside revoked too, all from same dev and same bundle.
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The explanation will be "We got scammed be Otaku Bundle so we scam the gamers, cause we are to greedy for a lawyer"
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Right ... from a bundle that ended a few days ago ...
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But I didn't receive my money within 3 seconds! Surely there must be foul play! :^)
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Yeah, just like that dev that said that IndieGala hadn't paid, a claim that survived for like a day, until IG came forward and showed proof of payment... :P
While I get the reason revoking keys is a thing, Valve really needs to have some form of control/oversight over how it's used.
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Same here, my Outsider and TN keys were from orlygift.
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Oh, orlygift, that explains where my key came from. I couldn't remember how this ended up in my account when I got the revoke notification.
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Never had key replaced for last revoke either, the urban war thing.
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The only ones I think were revoked and replaced out of all the ones I know were Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. All the other devs have pretty much just shrugged and said you’re screwed.
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Indiegala actually has replaced mine. So I still consider them trustworthy.
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Well, you HAD to send a mail to IG support, they didnt issued a replacement automatically to your bundle page.
Groupees DID send auto replacement with notification, they have the best system out there.
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+1 too much drama and too many instances of this, and not enough good games
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They don't spam out as much anymore as before.
Still it's a principle thing, it isn't just tied to Otaku alone.
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Actually, if I get this right, the problem isn't necessarily Otaku itself but someone got keys from Otaku and resold them elsewhere https://steamcommunity.com/app/951320/discussions/0/1742229167228512453/?ctp=2#c1742229167228671712
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If anyone I blame Valve. THEY allow devs to revoke mass amounts of keys with ZERO reason.
ALL keys revoked should be monitored and reviewed by an appropriate Valve employee before the revoke is granted.
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I had the three games revoked today too. I wonder if your game is revoked if buy from Steam directly. >=/
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That's a good question. I wonder if anyone who's bought directly from Steam has ever experienced key revocations?
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I still remember people defending the dev of the first one I heard, the IG one, until IG produced the invoice, and the dev started deleting threads and banning people.
This one, the sale ended a few days ago. Even banks take a little while to transfer money.
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Yea, Valve is to blame - if you take key out for Steam it is your responsibility - if you sell it and you are not happy you shouldn't be allowed to revoke
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So, what should I do? I won one of those, and now it is revoked, so this will now show as an unredeemed. I don't really want to bog down support but I guess that is my only option.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/DblgMVc already done.
Mark it as not received.
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I can't I marked it as received more than 30 days ago. Not by much more than 30, but long enough that it won't let me unmark it.
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Letting the GA creator know the situation would be a good idea. I'd post a link to this thread and talk to them and see if they would agree to delete the GA due to the situation. You would need to leave a comment stating you agree to delete the GA. Without the winner stating they agree to delete in a comment we couldn't delete it.
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Already done, I posted a comment in the thread letting her know, I think she is fine with whatever. I honestly think the only way this can be handled is to delete all giveaways for those 3 games, but we will see how it is handled. It is ridiculous all around.
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I agree it would be a good idea but I'm not sure if that can actually be done because of the guidelines of the site.
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You bastards blaming somebody without proof, and the poor dev without showing proofs himself
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Dev just said that he revoked all keys sent to Otakumaker SARL, used or unused. And he is frantically closing threads in the discussions :)
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By my experience, send support mail to orlygift also is the same of do nothing, so I guess these are lost games for me now.
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I just got message from steam for two games i've won here: Typical nightmare and Outside.They removed them from my acc.
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I dont care about this shitty games, but Valve REALLY needs to change how a dev can masive revoke keys. This hurt more steam than the shitty games itself
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Once again people lost precious +3 that were their favorite games with hundreds of hours of playtime. All time player peaks of 4, 3 and 9 clearly show how good the games are. When do people learn that the only reason to ever have bought from OtakuGoGo was asset flips with cards and since they no longer can have cards at all, there is literally no point in buying them.
And of course we must demand that Steam stop giving devs any keys so they can't get revoked, since that's what they will always do, nothing else.
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Eh, don't totally disagree with you, and I do tend to be somewhat sympathetic to developers in these types of situations.
However, I do want to comment that, at least for me, these were more than +1s. Were they at the top of my list to play? Potential GOTY candidates? No. But the aesthetics, especially of Typical Nightmare, really caught my eye and I wanted to give them a try at some point. Otaku Bundle 36 looked was, in my opinion, unusually good as it had a number of decent, if not great (or perhaps even good) games. And maybe one of them would have been a hidden gem.
I don't think it's really fair to talk about these games in the same breath as asset flips or games for card farming. They're not going to be classics by any means, but they're at least a tier above that shit.
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At least 8 people might agree with you since Typical Nightmare was the one with the highest player count ever, if you ever did play it and not just imagine you will at some distant point while putting it in a huge pile of backlog you will never touch.
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I am making an effort to play all of my backlog, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You can take a look at my recent played games to see I've played some garbage much less deserving of the title "game" than Typical Nightmare.
I'm sure there are people that, like you say, see these as just +1s, but there are probably at least a few of us that thought there might be some redeeming quality to one or more of the games.
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I have to agree with Starwhite but I can see your point and where you're coming from. But you can usually tell if a game is worth your time from the trailer, screenshots & reviews, and sometimes other gamers' playthroughs, if available. It's nice of you to give everything a chance though. :)
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It's all about how you wrap it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruw9fsh3PNY
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I don't think it matters if a bought game is bought for the purpose of hoarding, playing or idling for cards. Someone spent their own hard earned money, one dollar is still one dollar. One might not play it anytime soon but it is your license and it should not be revoked just like that. This is more about buyers getting caught in a crossfire between devs and a bundle seller
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It matters for the amount of raging people should do about the loss. If you order electronics from China for $1 because a brand name one costs $5 in local store, it shouldn't come as a surprise if it's crap and breaks right away. I never said licences should get revoked, but when they do nothing of value was ever lost in cases like this. Just like the problem with payment is between dev and bundle seller, the problem of your purchase getting revoked is between you and the bundle seller, this is the part people always ignore. You complain to the party that you paid money to.
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Exactly. In this case, the developer is in the wrong. Idiot posted a screenshot of his agreement, and it's clear he didn't understand the contract. Let the bundle site deal with him.
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the amount of raging
This is the Internet Hate Machineâ„¢, the only appropriate amount of raging is all the raging people can possibly output. :P But I agree that raging over it is not really the correct course of action, even if it pisses you off.
the problem of your purchase getting revoked is between you and the bundle seller, this is the part people always ignore. You complain to the party that you paid money to.
When your lifetime warranty RAM stick has issues after 5 years, do you complain to the seller or to the maker? The one that willfully "broke the product", so to speak, is the dev, so complaining to the dev is perfectly justified. Of course, given the nature of the issue, you're also justified if you complain to the seller, but that doesn't just give the dev immunity against complaints; if there are multiple people you can complain to, choosing your target (or targets) is your own prerogative. Or, ignoring all that and thinking more pragmatically, you complain at the one pissing you off. :D
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Making fun of the raging ones is also the correct action because it pisses them off even more. :P
I'm so happy I stopped caring about collecting crap the moment they stopped giving cards or even that precious +1.
Steam has no lifetime warranty of any kind, only thing that's guaranteed is that it might work at the moment or then might not. Buying games like that is still more like ordering no-brand RAM sticks from China for $1 and then wondering why most of them break. If you had bought them from a local store, you would have a short warranty for them. And if you bought brand-name sticks from the store, you would have the lifetime warranty.
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Uh, are still we talking about the same thing? Because I'm talking about the fact that being the one responsible for triggering the shitstorm has consequences you can't ignore, but your response seems to be about something else entirely, and I find that moderately confusing.
In any case, it's obvious that Steam has no warranty of any kind, that's a concept for physical products. As for the RAM sticks with lifetime warranty, since the one providing it is the maker, not the seller, you'd also have it if you pulled them out of a hyperspace wormhole. Well, probably. I haven't actually tested that. :P
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You were the one who confused the discussion with lifetime warranties for physical items when we were talking about rented licences. I was merely pointing out that by paying $1 or less you are much more likely to end up with non-working crap than by paying more. In this case buying $0.40 crap bundles and then getting keys revoked is getting what you paid for and equivalent to cheapest possible electronics. And even crap that you didn't need for anything even if it worked, just ordered because it was cheap. Spending couple more dollars on some better bundle site would get you much better games that you could actually play and less hassle about them later, just like with electronics.
So the only one people should be pissed off at is themselves for wasting money like that in the first place.
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You argued that people should complain at the seller, rather than the maker, over a broken non-physical product. I argued that, by that logic, they should complain at the seller, rather than the maker, over a broken physical product. There is no confusion, but rather a parallel.
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And I kept making it more parallel which confused you about what we were talking about. :)
According to any consumer protection laws that I know of, the retailer who got your money is responsible for the product they sold to you and they are who you need to ask for refund or replacement in case of it not working. You can of course rage at anyone you want, but in this case the dev isn't responsible for replacing the key for you, the bundle site is. It's then their job to handle the mess with the dev and get the replacement keys.
If you want to compare it to anything physical, it would more be about the manufacturer using sub-standard parts so that all items break after a week's use. Still not someone breaking into your home and stealing your TV.
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And I kept making it more parallel which confused you about what we were talking about. :)
Or maybe I was just obliquely telling you that you were missing the point. Who's to say? :D
All jest aside, a legit serious question. You actually take your TV back to the shop where you bought it when it breaks in the middle of the warranty period? I don't mean in the first week, but after several months. Because that's 100% not how we do things here.
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You don't take big things like TVs anywhere, but instead you order a repair guy for a home visit and you don't have to pay the bill. But that's just a matter of logistics with items that are too bulky to send by mail, smaller electronics like PC parts I would send to the shop and get a replacement back. A fitting question since that's what I actually need to do for my 1.5 year old TV before the 2 year warranty runs out.
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Ah, I see, the way it works there is quite different from here.
Here we always try to fix things before replacing them. We'd take or send the faulty products in for repair at an authorized repair shop. They fix it and the bill goes to the manufacturer. The annoying part is that this holds for bigger stuff like TVs, and taking them there and back can be quite a handful. If the product is so big and bulky that taking it to the repair shop is downright impossible (fridges, washing machines, that sort of stuff), then they work with home visits. When the product is entirely unfixable for whatever reason (is FUBAR, has issues that you can't fix without highly specialized equipment, etc), then we fall back on replacements, but it's between you the manufacturer. Exception: in the first 30 days, you can send faulty products to the shop for replacement, and they'll do their stuff.
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Here the shop could also repair stuff, but it would usually cost them much more than just asking the manufacturer for a new one after shipping you a replacement. Often they do that and then if it's worth to repair the broken one, they sell it as refurbished with a discount. Also depends a lot on what it is, I guess laptops and expensive phones get repaired more often than single parts. I don't think they could even require anyone to bring or send a TV to the shop, since that's quite difficult to do without breaking it even more and impossible to do without a car. Closest to that is if they get a courier company to get the item from you and then bring it back after repairs, but that still would cost more than just using a local repair guy. Dunno how it works in rural areas, I guess they just bill for more kilometers.
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Ah, yes, there's definitely a cost effectiveness thing there. The relative cost of replacing the product vs fixing it in a repair shop (which is not the seller but a specialized company) is definitely different here and there. We have a logistics nightmare here due to deficient infrastructure and the man-hour for such repair jobs is not all that costly, so shipping a full product instead of its parts isn't really a smart decision most of the time. I guess we'll end up moving to a system similar to yours eventually, if we decide to stop being so backwards in certain ways. :P
And yes, lugging a TV around without breaking it is difficult, cumbersome, and insanely annoying. I've done it a few times with a 39" one and it was hell; I can't even imagine how horrible it must be with those really big ones. Then again, maybe even here they do home repairs with the really big ones.
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https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32009L0125
Only took 9-10 years for EU to investigate enough electronics to start enforcing that directive. But in couple years more anything that sells more than 200k items in EU must be easily repairable as in be easy to open and have spare parts available. So bye bye glued shut iCrap and other nuisances.
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Well this is definitely a step forward. Unfortunately there are parts that are expensive enough to make replacing them not worth it (like a phone screen back when people didn't get new phones every half year), but still.
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But returning to the original subject (sorry about it being on a separate message, the side thing about the broken product kind of distracted me from it), I do agree that it's the bundle site's job to fix the mess. But people don't complain about a need to fix a mess, they complain about the fact that the mess was made to begin with. Which is why the complaint goes to the dev. You might argue that this isn't constructive or useful, and perhaps you'd be right in arguing that, but since when have people been paragons of constructive and useful behavior? ;D Even the very act of complaining is generally neither particularly constructive nor terribly useful.
Speaking specifically of laws again, and speaking in abstract terms, per our law here there is grounds to hold both legally responsible from a customer protection perspective, and they'd have to settle their differences separately, without bothering the consumer about it.
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Like I already said, you are free to rage at anyone you want just as I am free to make fun of it. It still has nothing to do with who is actually responsible for the replacement or refund and that's always the one who you paid your money to.
I'm still waiting for the first one to spend tens of thousands on lawyers over a lost +1, it would provide lots more of entertaining drama. :)
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you are free to rage at anyone you want just as I am free to make fun of it
I couldn't agree more! :D
and that's always the one who you paid your money to
And apparently that is the case there but not here. Well, I'm glad we figured out why we were disagreeing on that. :)
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Where is here BTW, I'm talking about https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/consumer-contracts-guarantees/consumer-guarantees/index_en.htm
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Huh, 2 year minimum... That's kind of impressive, actually. Here it's just 90 days (I know, I know), but electronics and such tend to come with 1 year (the rest of the year being because the manufacturer said that they're giving it, which is customary for those items; while not mandatory, its lack would make anyone suspicious).
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So the only one people should be pissed off at is themselves for wasting money like that in the first place.
Yes. :(
I have only ever bought one bundle from GoGo once and this is something I shall regret for eternity. That dollar could have bought a homeless person a nice cup of coffee. (At least here in Singapore it still can. :))
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On the Devs profile (Steam) are two groups: Electro Stalin Entertainment and Evil gamesâ„¢ both with 1 member. Maybe ppl leave the groups or poor dev was lonely.
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No, as a developer, he probably was and is not sending the right message out hence his failure to represent himself.
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A trustworthy name like Stalin didn't send the right message? Maybe he should restart as Electro Hitler so that people will know he can be trusted.
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Maybe HittlerSoft or Adolf HittlerSoft. But I don't see that happening since he wasn't Russian.
Then again, he could launch a new studio and launch the same games with new name. And for the fun of it, revoke again.
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I noticed the devs name before which made me chuckle but that was not what i was implying. but i can see how someone would come up with such a weird developer name all of a sudden.
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Maybe he's using those groups for dev pages on steam. It wouldn't be uncommon and wouldn't mean anything sinister.
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As a customer, I always pay attention to buy from trusted sources only. There could always be issues even with those, but kind of seems buying anything from Otaku in the last year may lead to getting your key revoked down the line. That's a no-no for me. Because I'm not having anything revoked, I might not have the reason to blame the devs in this or similar instances for anything beyond being kind of blind to what a PR disaster revoking those keys is even if they did get scammed and all of it being 100% true.
As a "developer of sorts" I've refused Otaku, IndieGala, Groupees and similar "legal but kind of unreliable/tiny" websites before and would never work with any of them. That said, I do understand that some devs trusted these websites and then seen their keys floating around, being re-sold, their fees never arriving... and from a pure b2b perspective, revoking the keys is the sort of "hurt you the most" way to deal with it. So I understand when they say "talk to the place that sold you the key". If police came and took my "new" mobile phone because it was stolen yesterday, I wouldn't have any right to be mad at Samsung, I'd have to blame the neighbor who "found it when it fell off the truck but he lied it's new and 100% legal when he sold it to me".
Now, my point is NOT "devs are not to blame", as I said in the first paragraph, they should pay attention to whom they entrust keys for their game and do business with, and certainly they should be more careful toward their community - even if it's the people who bought the keys who knows where. I'd probably try to help a pirate too if they had issues with my game. Might be me being silly.
But my point IS devs are not the only ones to blame here, certainly this is not the first time the same website is involved in these stories (how many keys got revoked after being sold by fanatical or humblebundle? far less, if any! -emphasis on sold) so maybe customers should pay attention as well and not just yell out in anger when they get scammed. Like, maybe avoid that specific website in the future, or at least be careful with purchasing from them. I mean, where there's smoke...
On a lighter note, I can't wait for someone to come up with "Disco Putin Industries" or similar modern variant.
edit: I've been proven partially wrong by developer themselves posting a screenshot apparently, it's all their fault for not understanding the contract. That said, I still wouldn't buy these bundles for the same reason as before - these things keep happening.
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I've refused Otaku, IndieGala, Groupees and similar "legal but kind of unreliable/tiny" websites before and would never work with any of them
Oh, now I know why Goblins and Coins is still full CV. :^) Also, +1 for Disco Putin Industries. :D
On a more serious note, yeah, I don't doubt that Otaku might have done Bad Thingsâ„¢ such as not paying the dev (though there was this one dev that claimed that about IndieGala and that was proven to be a lie), and yet that's seriously the worst way imaginable of dealing with the issue. I guess this is one of those situations where every actor is doing something wrong, except the weakest link in the chain: the customer, who did pay for those keys after all.
P.S.: Keep growing and next it'll be HB knocking at your door. ;)
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and yet that's seriously the worst way imaginable of dealing with the issue. I guess this is one of those situations where every actor is doing something wrong, except the weakest link in the chain: the customer
I agree completely, that was my point. They are all to blame, so blame them all not just the dev (which doesn't save them from being blamed too).
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I tend to lean much more towards sympathizing towards developers in these scenarios than most, but given how this developer has not made a clear statement, seems to refuse to engage in dialogue with people in his forums, and has closed multiple threads related to the revocations, I find it particularly hard to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
If he expects my sympathy and patience he needs to be more transparent, clear, and engaging than he has been up till this point.
Also, while there have been a number of controversies involving Otaku / GoGo, there are far more situations where devs seem to have no problems (or at least don't go the key revocation route). Some of those devs bundle with Otaku / GoGo multiple times in fact. It kind of strains the plausibility that only a handful of devs are being singled out to be scammed and/or most devs are keeping their mouth shut about it.
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I don't care if people sympathize with them, why should they? They gave the keys, they revoked the keys. Even if someone stole their keys, they are the ones who revoked them. Sure, they are terrible at PR (and to explain, by this - in this thread - I mean simply communicating the issue, relating to their community and such) and probably don't even speak English well, but that's hardly a crime, it's only a part of the mess they created to bring themselves down.
My entire point is blame the website that sold the keys too. Because with all the excuses and explanations, this is not the first time so something is obviously going on. And every time a thing like this happens, every forum post and youtube video comes after developers - which is OK - but almost no one says "wait a minute, but how it's that it's always the same few websites that sell these keys that get revoked".
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You may be right, but there are other explanations why it is the same few websites.
As you noted, this developer (like a number of the other developers of these low tier games) does not seem to speak English very well. I don't know how Otaku / GoGo's contact's English is. I have heard that Otaku's contact is pretty slow in responding to things as a rule.
Could it be that the type of developer who makes this type of game (poor English skills, perhaps poor logic skills too) is not likely to be partnered with Humble Bundle (due to poor quality of game and poor communication skills) and therefore there is never the miscommunication (and perhaps assumptions) that might be happening here? The reason it's Otaku / GoGo many times (though still a drop in the bucket compared to the number of games they bundle and devs they deal with) could be because they are the only ones that are willing to deal with this kind of developer.
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OtakuGoGo is the only way their games will ever sell more than 10 copies, that's why they are used to cash in that $100 one time and move on to making the next game.
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Might be, may be, could be. Neither of us knows the developer personally. They could be entitled, or plain stupid. Might be they don't understand what's happening because of inexperience or acting in the moment without thinking first, or some cultural difference prevents them from realizing what they are doing wrong...
Honestly, I've never even heard about any of these 3 games before today. I don't disagree with what you say, mind you, but again as I don't feel sympathy for the dev (I am sad these types of devs don't act a bit smarter and they are basically destroying "low budget indie solo dev" picture for all of us in a way), I don't feel it for the website either. They should both act more professionally.
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How about Novichok Studios, implying both the awesome effect the games will have when played and the way to handle all customer complaints about revoked keys.
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how many keys got revoked after being sold by fanatical or humblebundle?
Enough for me to state that the website doesn't matter, the contract is still between two companies, and it takes just one to light a fuse. It's not the bundling website that revokes the keys, it's the developer. And as a developer, even if I got scammed by Otaku or any other company I signed contract with, I wouldn't hold their customers hostage in my dispute, because they were never at fault and never stole from me, it was the company that broke the contract, and it should be the company paying for that.
Your example is also flawed, because it's not the police taking stolen phone from you, it's the samsung representative himself seizing your property because local shop didn't pay them in time. Have you noticed how that would be illegal to begin with? I didn't buy stolen keys, the developer wasn't scammed out of those keys, he legally and intentionally submitted them to Otaku with intention of selling in a bundle, and he shouldn't be in power to remotely revoke those keys, they should be properly marked by Valve as a property of third-party, and any third-party disputes should be handled appropriately by court. I don't know and I don't care that Otaku didn't pay the developer, it's not my problem and I'm not a party in that dispute, I obtained the key legally from authorized seller and paid him at the time of the transaction, that's the only thing that matters for me. Do not put equality sign between authorized Otaku/other bundle websites and between G2A/gray markets where you have no clue where the keys are from. The only party that is at fault here is the developer, as the payment case is entirely irrelevant to the situation. It's ridiculous for me to even think otherwise, it's classic shit move of "they screwed me so I'll screw you and tell you to go scream at them for screwing me first", there is no any logic in this, just pure revenge on people that are not even at fault to begin with, let alone justified one. Do you see me VAC banning half a million of Steam accounts using ASF because I disagree with the VAC system? I could, and that would be equally dick move for comparison, except I'm not an idiot to take my revenge on people that have nothing to do with it.
The proper way to go about this is doing the thing exactly the same as you'd do in real life, Valve implementing mechanism that allows selling the keys to authorized resellers, both parties confirming the transaction, and only the party that owns the keys being in power to do any kind of revokes with the keys. Whether the developer agreed to some immediate undisclosed amount, delayed one, or offered as a donation does not freaking matter, they can take the case to the court if they want to.
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In what real life has Valve implemented mechanisms that cause more work to them instead of just punishing users by removing features? They would still love nothing more than getting rid of the whole key system that doesn't give them a single cent of income and make people only buy games from Steam.
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Except if they did this then they'd effectively lose monopoly, because literally any other digital platform including freaking itch.io would jump in and offer the replacement. They can't just ignore all websites, stores, bundle sites and literally everything dealing with keys for Steam games, it's too big, I don't have any data to base on but I'd safely say that a good 1/3rd of all sales isn't done in Steam store, and that is a very generous estimation. A lot of developers offer their (Steam) products through their own stores, paradox from top of my head. You can't just erase it all and act like nothing happened, it's like chopping down a tree you're sitting on - it's the developers putting their games on your platform.
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Yet there are plenty of people who refuse to buy games on any other platform than Steam. No other platforms offers cards, trading etc crap to give people free games either. None of these problems involve big publishers or developers like that, they are almost always about single person companies making asset flips and getting the $100 from some bundle site because their game would never sell even a single copy on Steam without cards. So just like they are limiting the amount of keys they give out now based on Steam sales, they could remove it completely unless the game or dev has sold on Steam before. So we would still have Humble Bundles wtih AA(A) games but no OtakuGoGos.
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I am one of those users who ended up on Steam due to purchased retail-copy requiring me to have an account there, and I then spent some on Steam too. The retail-copy key was one of those the publisher had "for free", due to which many publishers started using Steam to begin with and tied players of their games to Steam. By which I mean to point out that the whole concept by Valve was and is a pretty calculated move about it all, where Valve arguably saved a lot more money on marketing (such as for TV ads) then they would have had if they charged e.g. $1 for every key to be used in retail (where publishers ended up promoting Steam on almost the entire PC games shelf without themselves actually taking a cent for bringing many customers to Valve).
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I started using Steam because of Civ 5 I bought on DVD only had a Steam installer. Big games like that are still a totally different thing than shovelware all those bundles consist of that are sold 100-1000 per dollar. Those kind of games don't bring anyone to Steam, they are bought only by people already there and addicted to collecting all the crap they can get their hands on.
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I started using Steam because of Civ 5 I bought on DVD only had a Steam installer.
Good for you! I only started using Steam because one of my PS4 friends asked me to check it out and play with him there.
Those kind of games don't bring anyone to Steam, they are bought only by people already there and addicted to collecting all the crap they can get their hands on.
Yup, the shovelware collectors!
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/shovelwarejunkies
I did wonder who was buying those bundles, but now I know! I seriously thought shovelware would die off once the trading card system changed, but who knew, there's even more of it now on Steam, and there are people actually buying them just to increase their game count!
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Assuming a different situation where middle-man such as as Otaku was in breach of contract, if such situation is applied to e.g. travel agency selling you accommodation in a hotel, where the hotel then refuses to acknowledge the voucher you received from travel agency because the agency didn't make pre-payment as was required of them, would you blame the hotel for not giving you (the right to use) a room?
Or if you are renting a flat and pay the landlord for electricity, who then doesn't pay the bill of the electricity supplier, due to which they turn off the electricity for the flat you live in, would you blame the supplier?
Or if person X would sell the special edition of ASF without you having any $ of it (except for the $ person X paid for one copy), would you blame yourself if you used a means to (just) disable all those perhaps thousands of copies that came from person X (as to at least make customers directly aware that they shouldn't be purchasing from person X anymore) ?
On the other hand, it would be of course nice if a devs couldn't mass-revoke keys "just like that", especially as they actually gave out those keys themselves. But Valve isn't really a notary or judicial court, even if they wanted to be.
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in all honesty those situations don't work in a case like this.. The hotel isn't going to get massive amounts of backlash if they refuse to honor a shady travel agent.. Where as game developers are going to get massive backlash from mass revoking keys.. As for Otaku, maybe they haven't been paying developers who knows.. but I'm reminded of the developer who mass revoked keys a month or so again and swore up and down Indiegala had scammed him out of money. Until they showed a receipt of the payment they made to him.. I'm curious if this is a similiar situation with Otaku, but since Otaku isn't putting people on blast like Indiegala developers are revoking with impunity..
either way bad form from the developer to just mass revoke keys.. I'm glad I got his games from Steam and have no fear of revocation... I can understand his frustration if he really wasn't paid, but this will have no end results other than him getting massive backlash..
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In this case, is more that the owner of the beds kicks everybody, I mean all the guests out of the hotel they legally paid, because the hotel (supposedly) didn't pay them in time.
Also, apparently this time (again) the dev is at fault for not reading the contract, because documents have appeared on Otaku's side, and on the other side the dev is just erasing threads. So, it's the owner of the beds THINKING the hotel broke the contract, and kicking all the guests out, and then realising their mistake too late.
So, people are going to get angry at the one making the mistake.
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I have only ever bought 1 bundle from GoGoBundle. And that will be my last, after reading so many posts saying this isn't the first time keys have got revoked from their bundles. There is no reason why paying customers should have to deal with this kind of drama through no fault of theirs. Also agree with everything you said - nice to get the perspective of a "developer of sorts"! ;)
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Typical Nightmare
Not my Day
Outside
Upcoming games.
Paws and Soul
Mike goes on hike
What bundle it's from.
[Edit]
Official comment
"Evilgamesstudios [developer] 4 minutes ago
Hi, We do not understand why all claims go to us. All revoked keys were seized from Otaku store due to fraud. Write to the store where the key was purchased."
[Edit 2]
Dev closing any related topic and criticism.
[Edit 3]
Dear friends!
Because of the conflict with the store "Otaku" we have blocked all the keys and return the old keys can not. All this week we have been thinking about the solution to the situation. Those who had their keys revoked as: Typical Nightmare, Outside and Not my day.
Please see the application form at email: EvilGamesStudios@yandex.ru.
The application form should consist of the following:
Message subject: Locked keys
In a message to paint the points:
What games were blocked and their number
(for example, Typical Nightmare-1 key)
Proof that your key is locked
(a photo or a message from steam locked games)
Attach a receipt for the purchase of the game
(if you do not have a check, the application will be considered longer)
To speed up the application process, please provide more information about the purchase.
Response time may take some time. Please do not flood in the comments. The application form is mandatory.
The application is accepted only by mail!
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