It's not the end of the world, but it's not fun either. Punters have (so far) been kind to allow me to delete the GA's.
First I though ''F it, Ill just buy new keys on G2A or somewhere where they are dirt cheap'' but perhaps these keys are also from Otaku, or similar...
I've kept all winners e-mails at least, I'll make it up to them somehow. Them possibly feeling cheated is worse to me than lost CV, dropped level, etc.
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From the Steam forum discussion:
"GoGoBundle is a fraudulent website that doesn’t pay the developers. Our multiple emails to them were never answered. Weeks ago, they were warned of potential actions from developers and when we threatened to cancel the keys we’d sent them, we still didn’t hear back from them.
I suggest you contact them for a refund and hope you can get a better outcome than the one we’ve had dealing with them."
Not really surprisred. Fotunately I did not buy too much bundles from them, though I'm worried about the ones I did buy and gave away here now.
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Imagine this: A dev, tries to make some quick money by selling keys themselves (instead of letting the publisher take care of it, whose job it is) and delivers keys out to a re-seller - without getting the financial part of the transaction sorted first? They then wait for almost a year to eventually punish people who bought their game legitimately instead of doing what would be right in such a situation (if what they say is what actually has happened in the first place) and sue the re-seller who allegedly owes them money?
Here's my take on the issue: It wouldn't be the first time that a publisher saw money lost (their share of the sales, adequate to similar numbers in sales for regular prices on steam) after actions by devs trying to make "extra" money outside their partnership. I would assume that Microsoft doesn't let something like that slip and simply withholds profits for as long until losses are square. As a result the dev now sees his hopes dashed trying to get money back/more money or simply all the keys back from the re-seller in an effort to calm the waters. But if the re-seller fulfilled their contract, of course they refuse to pay more or hand keys back to the dev (a year after buying them). Now the dev tries to push pressure on the re-seller by not only threaten to but actually revoking keys already sold and smear the re-sellers reputation by blaming them. (Of course this might not be what has actually happened, but it's not unlikely... not more unlikely than what they said with their general insinuation.)
In summary I am not avoiding the re-seller but the developer that failed to do business right, i.e. get money, then ship keys and be happy about it (or rather let the publisher do their job) and instead punishes now owners (of 8-10 months!) of the game.
Unfortunately people are eager to side with the dev and blame this re-seller but - when I got a duplicate key from them several months back - I got it replaced even without questions being asked, something e.g. Fanatical would never do (and even with questions they wouldn't hand out replacements, as stated by people who got dupes from them). So from personal experience with Otaku/GoGo I simply can't see anything wrong with them, it has rather been a quite positive experience so far - while it was the dev or publisher who pulled the keys at our expense.
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I don't really have much experience with Otaku/GoGo, as I said I only bought a few bundles from them. No experience with the dev either, but your scenerio makes sense. I hope Otaku would make some comment and we can get more information from both sides.
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No offence, I was mainly reacting to the devs reply that you have cited.
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Oh, so that's why indiegala always exactly knows how many keys they need for their bundle. And I was wondering why they never have any keys left, which they could give out for days in mass giveaways. Or opiumpulses with their non-guaranteed giveaways, where they could say something like "WE'RE GIVING AWAY LEFT OVER TROVE KEYS... WE'RE MAKING SURE EVERYONE WHO ENTERS GETS TWO KEYS TO INCREASE THEIR CHANCES OF GETTING A WORKING KEY, BUT WE'RE WARNING YOU NOW... >>> YOUR KEY MIGHT NOT WORK, IT IS POT LUCK! <<<". Or... oh, wait...
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Look, from previous cases I know that these small re-sellers/promoters payed in advance for an exact amount of keys. Also, Europe - where all these shops mentioned are based by the way - is not the US... and books are not game keys.
Developers used to request a high amount of keys from steam to trade them over time to re-sellers/promoters. But Steam changed their guidelines on who can request how many keys when over year ago to avoid artificial manipulation of sales and game rankings in their shop. So nowadays devs typically do not (most can't) request 200.000 or half a million keys and trade with them (or keep them laying around), back and forth as they might have in the past. If today they are going to request a certain number of keys, it's the certain amount of keys they need for their sales to third parties.
Either way, and I'm repeating myself, the point is: In the past GoGo/Otaku has proven to be trustworthy to me as their customer - Shadow Planet Productions did the opposite by amateurishly fighting their battle (whatever it might be) at the expense of their players. Therefore it's absolutely clear which one of the two I'm going to avoid in the future. It's as simple as that.
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The dude at the flea market selling burned DVDs is trustworthy to me as his customer. That doesn't mean it's right to buy movies from him
THIS.
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Would you be the judge convicting the guy on the flea market for selling burnt DVDs or are you the one who gets broken into your house to get back the one DVD that you bought from the guy at the flea market? (Yes, one, because it's the only game from the dev and the only one where a key from GoGo/Otaku got revoked.) I'm the latter - and I don't appreciate stuff being taken from me that I've payed for in a (still) legitimate shop.
By the way, the flea market guy selling burned DVDs indeed stole - it's not clear though at all who in this case stole from whom - the re-seller from the dev or the dev from us.
Keep ignoring the fact that this dev fought his battle on their player's shoulders instead of going after the one responsible (if they're not responsible themselves). They went with the worst possible option and dragged people into this who are not responsible for anything. You simply believe what this dev says... why not believe the shop? Here's what you should do instead: Believe in innocence until proven guilty - then blame the guy actually responsible.
And your cite... you are using a revenue breakdown from a different dev of a different game that was sold three years ago (before steam made their changes) in another single one specific bundle... and not with ingiegala bundles in general where profits nowadays are shared especially not with charities - as long as it's not specific charity bundles (and I can't even remember the last one).
Also lets pretend indiegala would do revenue sharing sales exclusively - indiegala is not GoGo/Otaku!
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You're mixing up arguments - I brought up indiegala (just like opiumpulses) to show that there are left over keys and what happens with them. It was you who made this about up-front payment!
And you are still ignoring the whole original - and to us as affected customers actually relevant - point that has nothing to do with how keys are payed for behind the curtain but with how the dev punished us instead of the re-seller! This wasn't their only option, this was just a very lazy move! If the baker buys flour on credit the doesn't come to us to take the bread away that we bought from the baker when he's not covering his debts!
The dev wants to do business and make money but when it comes to his responsibilities he doesn't want to act like a businessman? Well, then I'm not going to spend my money on his games anymore if that's how he's handling things.
And if you own a company or do any kind of serious business then you do not run for your money for a year without taking legal actions. That's simply laughable and a excuse to cover up their own shortcomings.
But either way,... listen: The devs did this, Otaku did that... you don't know anything about what actually happened but willingly swallow what the dev serves you instead of following the fundamental guideline that is innocence until proven guilty!
The simple facts are that they have some kind of contract to allow us to buy keys which now partially got taken from us by the dev - not the re-seller.
So, I'm not replying to this anymore but will stick with my previous "that's all there is to it.". Have a good day.
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If you only care about things that personally affect you, that's your problem. If it doesn't matter to you whether the developers get paid, why not pirate everything? Piracy is frankly the more practical and ethical alternative to buying from stores that cheat their partners.
It does matter. But the customer isn't to blame when he has to assume that the reseller got the keys legally and is paying for them.
And more has come up while this thread has been going: I found another case of GoGo stiffing a developer, and eldar4k heard from the developer that they've heard from Otaku/GoGo and are going to issue replacement keys once Otaku/GoGo makes things right.
There were several cases with revoked keys in the past. With different bundle sites: IndieRoyale, IndieGala, Otaku/GoGo, BunchofKeys etc. You as customer never get evidence, because you don't have the insight and I haven't heard of one case which led to a lawsuit yet.
But the rumours and the communication from both sides led to different views in these cases. In some it was probably the bundle site who might have done a mistake or intentionally tried to pay later or "forget" it. In other cases there were misunderstandings between devs and their publisher, between dev and partner dev, between dev and bundle site.
Just because there were 2-3 times that this is happening with Otaku/GoGo, it doesn't make them a non legitimate shop. How many other games did they bundle and pay for? This is a really small amount of games, so assuming intended behaviour is far off.
The only other points you can blame GoGo for, is promoting nearly only trash games and selling keys up to 50 times, which is contrary to Valve's latest guidelines to key creation.
And yes, I'm affected. But that's no reason to get full frenzy about the bundle site or the devs, as long as there doesn't seem to be intended fraud. The story has two sides and errare humanum est.
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This is the first time this had happened to me so I honestly don't know what to think, hopefully there will be clarification from Otaku on the dev's comment.
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It happens all the time... third or fourth time for me, first time with a key from Otaku/Gogo. One time no further details were given, the other two times the devs were unhappy about how things went for them and the game, after they agreed to a deal and sold keys to either re-sellers or promoters.
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Well the latest news as stated now is that Developers revoked a bunch of keys cuz of a payment dispute with Otaku/GoGo and calling:
"GoGoBundle is a fraudulent website that doesn’t pay the developers. Our multiple emails to them were never answered. Weeks ago, they were warned of potential actions from developers and when we threatened to cancel the keys we’d sent them, we still didn’t hear back from them."
As Publisher Microsoft has maybe no clue about and the reseller no statement up till now...
We will wait for more to come
If everyone get some news let us know about
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thanks for update.
One more reason to stop buying otaku and go-go-trash bundles
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Otaku and GoGo have always seemed a little "fly-by-night" to me. Amateurish website, quantity discounts, and cheap asset flip games have always pointed toward "sell as many as we can as fast as we can before they pull the plug on us." And it's always been a site for half-assed shady devs to dump their "products" quickly, so none of this is surprising to me.
After Icaio told me his story with them not replacing his keys and ignoring him a while back, I decided to stop purchasing from them as well. It's just bad all around.
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thanks a TON, moppelmurks.
Our multiple emails to them were never answered
French guy behind Otaku/GoGo used to answer emails, cause, yes it may happen something goes wrong with keys.
Not anymore. Still waiting for 10x keys replacement of Luvocious, here. He answered the first one, saying the problem was on developer side, and if ok for me, he could send me another game key.
I've kindly agreed, adding there was no problem, even without getting any replacement. Still waiting. Sent other 2 emails, asking for further infos: no words from him.
I've decided to stop buying from him.
Also: it looks to me he's shutting down the all thing. Those "Undated" bundles, a lot of "Limited" ones that were cut in half the day after he sold them (bunch of games were banned)...
So, now... this. To be really frank, i hope someone/something will make him understand he got "good money" from us, he HAS to give us "good keys".
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Otaku/GoGo has the worst customer support out of any bundle site, good luck getting those keys back
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Is there a way of complaining to Steam about this issue in general? I tried to do it on the ITSP page but since I won it here it just came up with 'contact the person who gave you the key' under help. I really think they need to change the way they let devs just revoke games without even having to submit a valid reason. I don't want to keep spending money building up a 'library' on the platform if devs can just delete my access to their games and I've got no way of appealing that. I know Steam is kind of useless with this stuff in general, but if enough people complain, I'm sure it wouldn't take a genius to see how it could be hurting them as a platform/their bottom line? I mean I know it's hardly like people starving under welfare reforms or whatever, so I doubt if there's much point making a petition or something, but I still think it's something that really needs to be nipped in the bud.
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Even if there will be requested a "valid reason" to do so, developer no getting paid is a valid reason to revoke stolen keys.
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So what, he didn't notice they were stolen for a year? Like the game was in a bundle and advertised heavily and he didn't realise until right now? If he'd come out immediately and said 'these keys are stolen, please don't buy from this bundle, I'll be revoking them' then fair enough. He did not. It's been in at least four bundles so it doesn't seem to me that they can all be 'stolen' keys - I mean, where do they steal them from? He has to have generated them in the first place.
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I'm not sure where did you get this "he didn't notice they were stolen" part.
GoGoBundle is a fraudulent website that doesn’t pay the developers. Our multiple emails to them were never answered. Weeks ago, they were warned of potential actions from developers and when we threatened to cancel the keys we’d sent them, we still didn’t hear back from them.
And the part about "how they can even steal these keys" shows that you clearly never heard about G2A controversies before. Yes, developer being dumb is part of the results of such situations but buying products from untrusted sources is also not the best thing to do.
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I didn't. I won it on a GA here during the community event. Not that it matters, I still think this is something between the dev and the bundle site, he needs to sue them or use whatever legal recourse he has available, not just revoke the keys. I mean, who does it punish? I doubt the bundle site really cares, if they're as dodgy as he says they are, they don't care at all. These sites get shut down they seem to spring up under a different name 5 minutes later. Perhaps another thing Steam itself should be more active about - a big banner on the front page telling people not to buy from these sites and that if they do they risk keys that will be revoked in the future - that would probably stop them overnight. But haven't some people bought them from Humble Bundle or from Steam directly? I'm not sure how he's going to argue those aren't 'legit' places to buy stuff.
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They didn't revoke all copies of the game, only those that were sold to GoGoBundle and were never paid for.
The sad truth is, it's more cost-effective for a small developer to revoke the keys in a couple of clicks than to engage in a costly legal battle.
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Not to mention the possiblity of an international lawsuit which is a special nightmare :|
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You need to complain to reseller - Otakumaker. If people stop buying there bundles they will finally learn something
https://otakubundle.com/contact
OTAKUMAKER's main office is located at:
OTAKUMAKER SARL, 5 Rue Pierre MENDES-FRANCE, 91580 ETRECHY, FRANCE
Also u can report their steam group
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/okmbundles
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Bizarrely there isn't even a thread about it on their Steam group (unless they've been deleting them) so I started one. As I didn't buy the bundle myself I don't think I can really do anything much, it's up to the person who bought the games he gifted on here.
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In the real world, with product that actually has a cost attached to it for everyone you make, when a supplier chooses a distributor and that distributor screws them over with payment later, they don't go months later to everyone who purchased through them and take the product back.
That's because they can't (though stolen property can be confiscated) otherwise they probably would. Such is the nature of the difference between physical and digital. Their recourse normally would be taking legal action against the distributor but it's unclear whether that would even be worth it assuming it were practical enough.
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You are right about there being a business/contractual agreement between two entities that should be of no concern to the consumer but again, physical vs digital. Also, just because something may not be paid for up front does not mean that it has no inherent value. A lot of effort, work, and resources go into putting out a product and it can mean people's livelihood at stake, especially for an indie developer.
On a side note: ignoring the fact that Otaku/Go Go consistently churn out mostly garbage, they were never the sort of party that seemed at all trustworthy of doing business with as a consumer so that's the risk you take.
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Well it's hard to get cheaper than Otaku/Go Go with their business model that pushes volume pricing and quantity over quality. I'm big on consumer rights too but when one chooses to buy from a party like Otaku/Go Go that is of a dubious nature and does business they way they do then I think it's a matter of when, not if, something goes wrong.
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And they will again change names to scam more devs.
Devs have zero legal responsibility to you over your purchase of stolen keys and are fully in their rights to revoke keys if reseller doesn't pay like they agreed with. Entire responsibility lies with seller and you've to take claim with them. If you don't trust site to do that, you probably shouldn't buy there and complain to devs to give keys you didn't pay for.
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It can happen with physical products too. Some products contain code that allows remote bricking of stolen. Surely you technically don't lose product, but you can't use either.
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I bought like 600+ bundle copies from them throughout last year and I just hope no more games will get revoked ;/
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Sorry to hear that, well u seem to met negative criteria onto my script, if that changes it will be corrected
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Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet was revoked from my acc
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Got a message from dev today - "We're currently working things out with Otaku Bundle and you should be getting a replacement key soon" Well, there is a bit of hope =)
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Wow, that is surprisingly good news. Thanks for the info.
I really hope they'll sort it out.
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In the newsfeed you wrote Otaku answered, "they are working on replacements" - but according to eldar4k, that's a reply from the dev, not from Otaku - or am I missing something?
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I regret not having played the game while I had it.
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The 5 keys I got and made GAs from got revoked as well.
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I never bough any outaku bundle so I guess I won it here... :/
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Since we're working in the exact same industry as GoGoBundle (also known as "OtakuMaker Sarl"), we would like to add something to the conversation. After seeing all those comments, we do feel that we could provide substantial proofs about OtakuMaker Sarl shady behavior.
So in the past few months, we had developers reporting us that they contacted "OtakuMaker Sarl" and got their game bundled by this company. However at the end of the bundle once payments were sent to the developers, OtakuMaker Sarl did not respect the agreements and therefore was clearly underpaying them.
We had developers sending us enough proof to confirm that OtakuMaker Sarl (GoGoBundle) had underpaid them by a lot.
We have copies of agreements signed by both parties + emails exchanged between them. After reviewing the evidences, we can vouch for the authenticity of those documents and sadly we can also clearly see that OtakuMaker Sarl underpaid them.
Please note that we will not disclose the identity of the developers concerned, since they're worried that OtakuMaker Sarl might take legal actions against them. However, you can find plenty of reports online about this, just like this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/9sp8fs/one_man_army_indiedev_not_getting_paid_by/ (credit goes to @Movac for finding it).
We would also like to mention 3 things:
-
We, Bunch Keys, always pay to our developers the right amount that we owe to them at the end of the bundle. We want to mention this, so people know that there are still legit businesses in the indie games bundle industry. One bad apple doesn't have to ruin the whole bunch. We always cared about our Partners and their needs, and we will always do.
-
We discourage our customers & our partners to support this kind of behavior. There are currently plenty other alternatives in the bundle market.
-
If you're a user that bought a bundle from OtakuMaker Sarl, got your key wrongfully revoken and paid with PayPal, you can simply go to the related PayPal transaction and open a dispute for a digital good that wasn't corresponding to the description. If they still don't respond with a new key or with an explanation, you can ask for a partial or full refund.
Ps. If any Youtuber wants to run this pretty big story, let us know! We wouldn't mind talking about it.
Thank you.
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I wish SteamGifts had an upvote feature like Reddit at times like these, since this comment definitely should be at the top for everyone to see and think about while they're reacting to this situation.
Thank you for coming forward, and continuing to run an honest business.
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new bundle is out ;) and I c alot of GA flying around xD
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A Steam Product code you activated has been removed from your account.
24 Jan Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet Retail
That a sad story :(
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the biggest fuck you is the fact that things just vanish from your library. i have over 1500 games, 70% of them of got for free and ive had a few games up and vanish on me. most of the time its when beta keys are given away and they dont tell you its going to be revoked.
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You get a notification by Steam, if something gets removed from your library. You have to confirm that you read it, otherwise the notification doesn't disappear. And well, usually beta keys are just for beta testing.
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i know for a fact that at least 3 games have been removed from my library and ive never gotten a notification
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Mine were from Go Go Undated #9...so far, looks like the couple that went out (one to myself :) ) are ok. Won't know about the others until I hand them out.
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It seems that OtakuBundle's representatives are working on replacing the revoked keys.
Kenshin successfully established contact with them, but only by addressing the issue via PayPal (direct messages were left unanswered).
Here's a screenshot of the email he sent, posted here with his consent.
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There's a follow-up email from OtakuBundle: it seems that they are collecting emails now with the purpose of replacing the keys.
screenshot
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XD since the devs revoked em cuz of lack in payments, I dont think we will c any keys soon if ever XD
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Since I haven't got any response after using their contact form a week ago, I filed a problem at PayPal as well.
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Another game just got revoked due to whatever reason.....
(told me b´cuz of a problem with the reseller, so likely Otaku)
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
ITAD
Steam Discussion
Steam removed game Contact
Otaku Contact
Otaku SteamGroup Discussion
Obligatory GA just added for you folks..
Newsfeed
"We already got few tickets from people that game is revoked. So no need to make more tickets :D"
(check your keys if u got any spare left from GoGo/Otaku bundle)
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