Is it related to the surprise maintenance we just had?
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Unrelated. Our server crashed because we didn't reach our quota for cat maintenance photos this month.
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I got one to toss in the pot for next month.
Numbah One
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cats?? don't tell me they're taking over the world!
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Hmm, I liked this dev "The developer has asked Valve to ensure no one is banned, since as I mentioned earlier, a lot of innocent users were unaware the offer had ended during this time."
Seems a good person.
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+1
They know it's their fault (for not properly disabling the key generator) and they don't want any users to be punished for that. Fault can be accepted, if they handle it well. For now, I can say they're doing good.
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the developer said he doesn't blame people like you, just those shmucks.
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The game appears in your library because you have it installed on your PC. Once you uninstall it, poof, it will be gone from your library forever unless you buy it. o
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the problem is most of those keys ended up in a few people's collections of stuff to try to sell or trade. if 30,000 different people actually got keys for themselves AND intended to play it, then yeah that would be awesome and would probably lead to sales of the previous 3 blackwell games and the new one when it comes out. of course it hitting a bunch of news sites today might end up being good publicity for this awesome little studio.
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They provided that many keys, they obviously expected someone to get them
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Then this stuff is buggy as hell :D (only shows 26 on my store).
And yeah i also don't agree with ChibiRobo, Blackwell is far from a low-seller game and the developers doesn't deserve what happened with that giveaway they did, i hope these guys who exploited the keys got some hitback from karma or something.
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I don't see how exploited keys (and potentially lost sales) is such a good thing for business. Publicity, exposure and rapport with customers is a good thing. Lost sales, key-hoarders and profiteers are not. It isn't up to us to determine what they should do. They were giving FREE copies away, so it is entirely up to them how many they give out, and entirely up to them if they wish to have the exploited keys revoked, regardless of how the keys were exploited.
They made sure the accounts that contained revoked keys would not be punished, and they were giving away free games. How can anyone interpret this as a bad thing in any shape or form?
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I claimed mine yesterday before 12am GMT and it was revoked....
-_-
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It was in my library but unplayable, purchase instead of play button. it was way over 10 hours ago that i claimed mine. not very pleased even though it was free, just a 'cock tease' leaving me a little sour.
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EA is a big corporation that moves millions of dollars. This company is a sole guy.
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mainly because on origin you bought the game on your account and unlike steam you are not able of gifting games therefor it's impossible to get them for someone else and because EVERY SINGLE GIVEAWAY SITE was swarmed with giveaways of Blackwell Deception from people using this free game to get points or trading them for games that other people actually bought. Making the EA incident and this one completely different.
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I don't see how this is being hard to understand. Ok you can make origin accounts. Good job, you have 2 copies of the same game for yourself because you still can't gift it to anyone and no one is going to buy an origin account because of one game.
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ok since you are being unreasonable I'll put this in an analogy using candy and kids since you used that on another thread.
Origin: It's halloween and they put a bag on candies outside with a sign saying take 1. After a while they notice people are taking bags full of candy so they take it away and stop giving candy.
WadjetEyeGames: Same case as before but instead of deciding to end it since some kids were innocent they decide to stay out and give candy themselves, 1 candy per mask. And then kids start changing masks to get more candy. Finally they say enough and take the candy inside and go to sleep. Then the following morning they find out that the kids broke their window, got in the house and stole all the candy.
Do you now see the difference between the two cases or do I have to simplify it even more?
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Let me expand on your analogy. There is a bag of candy with a note that says "Take one." Any moron would know not everyone would take just one, but they left the bag anyways because they just cannot be bothered to monitor the bag or not have the ability but still want to make sure some kids got candy. The kids grabbed candy but some took more than one. What happens? WEG takes ALL the candy back after a set time period. No, not just the kids that abused the system, but all of them. Some kids got away with a shit load of candy while some that only took one got none.
Origin:
It is halloween. Some ids bought 30 bags and placed one piece of candy in each.
WEG:
It is Halloween. Some kids brought one bag and placed one piece of candy inside of it.
FYI, disagreeing with you doesn't magically make me unreasonable. I am more than unreasonable, but my perspective of the situation is different than yours. Why not be an adult and accept that instead of playing the ridiculous "you're unreasonable" card and then attempt to sound cute with the "should I simplify it more?" comment.
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it is unreasonable because you are acting on the ideal of "I deserve a copy" and blaming the victim and even though a large amount of people have proved you wrong and explained why your logic is full of fault you keep having your god complex of "I'm right and everyone is wrong" and keep presenting the same point over and over. That is what people do whenever they lose an argument and decide to tire the other person in hopes of having them give up and give you reason.
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The "victim" you speak of did something irresponsible and handled it irresponsibly. I made it clear I do not want the game and I do not know how you got out of it that this whole conversation was about me. It is a fucking game, I not only do not want it but I do not feel I deserve it either, I simply said the business practice he made was a dumb one. I made it clear in my very last post that this was my perspective, which implies I am open minded that everyone's opinion on the matter is different. God forbid I reply to other people's comments and explain why I disagree, I thought this was a forum for DISCUSSIONS. I highly disagree with your last point. What people do when they feel they are losing an argument is start to insult the other individual with comments like saying the user is unreasonable and begin asking if the topic needs to be simplified more. Regardless, you are right in one point, this is no longer a discussion but an argument and I wont waste my time "winning" it. So go you, you own. yay?
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Actually, no. What people do when they lose an argument is start insulting the other person, which I see you doing an aweful lot of here. Who really lost this argument?
And, I wouldn't say "a large amount of people" have proved him wrong - not even close.
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It has been shown that the EA incident and this one is completely different, it has been pointed that EA is more safe economicly as a giant million dollar corporation than this 1 guy, it has been proven that while EA was completely at fault this guy was fucked by steam that gave the entire bundle instead of the game, by the store that removed the link instead of the generator and the assholes that decided to steal games to sell, it has been shown that the EA games could not be user for personal profit while these could, I can keep going if you really wanna defend this guy that by now I deduce is just trolling. Clearly not even close to proving his logic is worng.
PS: please point to when I insulted him directly as I only attacked his logic.
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Except that in your analogy, the Blackwell dude left a bowl of candy out saying "please take one", and once they realised a few people kept just emptying the complete bowl into their pockets, they moved it indoors and stopped giving out candy...
...but then people started reaching in through a cracked-open window and continued taking the candy from inside his house.
While some people didn't realise the offer had ended, and took keys innocently thinking it was still ongoing, there were plenty enough people reaching in just to milk it. While it does suck that some people had their legit keys revoked too, why are you directing your anger towards the person who thought it would be nice to offer free candy, instead of say... the people who caused the callback?
It's a one-man effort. They don't have the extra padding and resources to hand-wave thousands of (potentially) lost sales. As much as I can empathise with the lost opportunity of a free treat, don't forget it is entirely up to the owner to decide how many they are willing to give out, and not up to the receivers.
I wonder if you're going to expend a remote fraction of the time and effort you're spending on this subject on debating/being openly frustrated at keygen abusers? :3c
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It is more like he decided to no longer give out candy, so he seals the bag and removed the notice but the bag still remained outside. Nobody hacked into anything, he left a key generator fully functional and that was his fault for assuming nobody would use it.
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Yes, because WEG's financial situation = EA's financial situation.
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I dunno. But, based on your other post, apparently you do. And EA's too for that matter.
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financial situations have nothing to do with it. Fact is, EA has a bad reputation and lost a lot of money from this, much more than WEG, and still did the right move. If I wanted to, I would do research to express my original point on who were in the same situation and made the right choice, but I honestly shouldn't have to. If WEG wasn't prepared for having x amount of people to get a free copy, then he shouldn't of had the promotion. Instead, he is acting like everyone is "cheating" on participating with the free promotion.
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"financial situations have nothing to do with it."
Yes they do.
Lets say EA did lose more money than WEG would've (I honestly don't know how many "free games" they lost with that coupon fiasco, feel free to tell me if you know). But you said it yourself, they're a big company that publishes popular games and own lots of assets, with probably more money to cope with such loss until this "loss" start turning into profits (from newly acquired customers). Something a one man company that makes niche games is less likely to have.
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This isn't about money, simple as that. Sorry for using an example the normal person would understand, pretend I didn't mention EA and mentioned some other indie game creator. The point still stands that if he didn't intend to have that many keys go out to the public, why not have a limit? The person made a mistake and gave disappointment to people that didn't even abuse the system and shows no sign to resolving it. Not a big deal to me, I am just simply saying it is a dumb business practice.
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The promotion had a time limit. After all the generator was somehow leaked and keys started circulating.
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My god, you are being such a whiny git over this. You lost out on a game you probably weren't going to play anyway (and if you were, BUY the damn thing). Get over it and stop blaming the developer for something that wasn't their fault. If you'd gotten over your own self-importance long enough to wipe those tears away, you'd know that the dev wasn't in control of that page and it was meant not be active, instead of simply having the link removed. People stole 30,000 keys and they're the good guys?
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I'm glad to see the game was indeed removed from my games list. I had no idea i was actually exploiting a key generator, i wish them the best for the future.
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Honestly, I think the dev is blowing this out of proportion a bit and either deliberately or not forget about what AWESOME publicity this is for him and his games. I think giving out free keys for a game is a genious move for any game developer who want to draw attention to themselves and their games. Don't get me wrong, I think it's people who grab hundreds of keys are pathetic, but this dev is making it seem like they're making a huge profit out of it which I highly doubt is the case. If they are making any profit at all from a game most people already know what free at some point we're talking a few dollars, which is a risk/cost that's relatively low compared to costly ad campaigns. Again - I'm not condoning people taking advantage of free game key offers, I'm just saying it's foolish to underestimate the potential financial benefits in the long run when you set these types of offers up.
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That's not what I was saying. I'm saying: 1. Make games! 2. Make great games! When buzz dies down or you feel the need for a little push so that you eventually will reach more people/become more well-known: 3. Give away a free game! 4. Profit in the long run because you are reaching people that normally wouldn't have heard about you or your games in the first place!
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Exactly, you get it! I work in marketing and although I personally never dealt with a game developer/publiser, we have many clients that use this strategy (give free product in hopes of future business) because it's one of the cheapest ways to advertise. We always inform clients about pros and cons of this way of marketing and most companies are already fully aware that their offers will without a doubt be abused in some way by some, but it's still a small price to pay compared to let's say a national magazine ad campaign (and depending on the product also more efficient).
ETA: It's also not uncommon for television networks to deliberately "leak" the pilot episode of a new show on torrent sites because they want to spread buzz, hype and build a bigger audience. Showtime has done this on multiple occasions.
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Yeah, but there is a difference between financially backed studios and companies of organised employees with solid resources... and a one-man effort. In the end, the owner decides exactly how many copies is an allowable 'donation', not the consumers. Yeah there are benefits, but it's not for us to decide how many are given away, and I think that's a point that a lot of people are missing.
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Considering I claimed my copy before midnight GMT time yesterday and it was still revoked I'm leaning towards a publicity stunt.
I commented on the community forums saying this and that some people who claimed after midnight still have theirs. The developer responded "its going to take a long time to revoke all the keys" but didn't address why my key was removed seeing as I got it before midnight.
Not to sound like a dick but I won't be buying any of their games which is a shame as the series looked interesting.
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Publicity stunt my fucking ass. This happens all the time. Someone fucks up, PC leeches get wind of it, spread it like wildfire and exploit the shit out of it, then they try to fix the problem and people get butthurt and cry publicity stunt. NO, it's greedy fucking assholes ruining everything like usual.
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So I'm not allowed to be "butthurt" as you put it, when I'm offered something for free (which I was very grateful for) then because of this mess they say they're going to remove keys activated after midnight, which mine wasn't yet it still got revoked with no explanation. That is why I say I'm leaning towards it being a pr stunt, of course I don't know for sure but considering what happened to me its either that or a fuck up. No need to rage.
Maybe they should manage their key system in a better way. I was unaware of any exploit until my game that was given to me was taken away, then reading here on the forums.
How would people react if I took back the handful (minus a thumb) of games I've given away on SG? theoretically speaking of course.
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That's not the same situation, don't try to compare. If you actually got it, you should have some form of proof of "purchase", no? Contact the dev with that.
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Steam first fucked up by giving their whole collection to key holders. Then the key generator got leaked. Publicity stunt my balls.
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Keys were gathered outside of the promotion period due to an error, so they contacted steam to request the keys be revoked, but specifically stated that they would prefer nobody be banned as they realise the fault lays with themselves.
How exactly are they blowing it out of proportion, again? Their current course of action seems perfectly reasonable, especially given they underlined it was their own fault, so that no steam users would be penalised (even at expense of potential exploiters not being punished). Revoking keys issued outside of the offer period doesn't exactly harm the 'benefits' the company received by being charitable, here. Sure it'll cause some frustrations, but that's still frustration on having missed out on a free offer.
Hey, I was frustrated I missed out on the very first pay-what-you-want offer way back when it was just World of Goo, but even if I was halted due to a site fault, I wouldn't exactly call it a cause for real anger, y'know?
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I personally think it might be possible in the fture, but you will have to go through support before creating it, to ask for permission to create it and with proof of it not being one of the exploited keys.
At least this is the current status of some games that where exploited in the past.
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Why is people thinking the deadline to redeem keys is midnight GMT? The company is from New York so it's most likely on midnight EST. That is why a lot of peoples games was probably removed if they think they got it before the GMT timezone.
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If you mean me that is not what i meant. I meant I claimed mine before midnight GMT so I'm curious as to why it was revoked.
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Only keys generated after midnight are revoked. Makes no difference at what time redeemed.
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That was based on the time of the developer's tweets. At 12:30PM GMT, the ones talking about the closure were 12 hours before.
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Greedy wankers, abusing the kindness of others for their own gain. That's why we can't have nice stuff, and that's what dissuades people from doing things like this in the future. It happens all the time, and it's deeply sad.
Anyone who took advantage of the developers' generosity should feel bad. Unfortunately most won't..
I suppose one upshot is that anyone who thought they'd slipped their giveaways under the radar will not have a heap of "not received" strikes against them, serving as an indelible stain on their reputations.
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It may not be the answer, but it's a perfectly legitimate response under the circumstances.
While it's obvious that it could have been done differently, and better, it is incidents like this that turn other developers off trying to organise something similar. If I was a dev, I wouldn't bother putting myself through the hassle.
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Just wondering, what happends with the deleted giveaways, will they be removed from our profiles in the future? (Please don't be mad at me, just got one key and instead of keeping it myself decided to make a giveaway) :(
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Interesting. They took it out of mine as well. Instead of Play it said Purchase. That's neat and clean.
I didn't exploit anything. I saw a link to a free game, got a key, and redeemed it. Looked like a fun game. But since the promotion was obviously an error, I'm glad they got it fixed and no hard feelings either way, though I kinda wish I'd started it. I used to play games like that all the time. So, maybe I'll buy their game in the future, or, more likely, since someone here said it was the fourth in a series, the first in the series.
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So to sum it all up, what happened is
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Little change on Point 3) Promo was ended sooner than planned because dev saw threads all around the internet with people saying everyone should get as many keys as possible to trade/sell later. To be more specific: The promo continued only giving the drm-free version and no steamkey.
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Was I the only one feeling bad for redeeming a key after figuring out what was going on? Damn.
I contacted the devs and apologized even though I knew it wouldn't make a difference.
So you could say I'm glad the game has been taken out of my library.
I fel 4 dem.
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Just discovered that even though steam removed them from the library, if you installed it before they did, it still runs from the exe. Discovered this when cleaning my steam folder.
I actually redeemed mine before midnight yet it was still removed from my steam library.
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Hey SG, there were a few issues with the release of free Steam keys for Blackwell Deception. I'll try to summarize what I understand happened, and how this affects SG.
Wadjet Eye Games was running a promotion, offering Blackwell Deception for free to reach out to the gaming community and to promote the other titles in their lineup. People love free Steam games, so it's no surprise this caught on like wild fire. Originally, users were sent through their payment processor with the game assigned a zero value. However, as the offer attracted more attention, their servers couldn't keep up with this overhead. The solution was to skip the payment processor, and link the buy button directly to the download page, which also offered the ability to generate a Steam key.
Since their store was running slow during this time, users began to share the direct link to the download page and key generator. A few users were suspended on SG for this, and I apologize, as we now realize these were valid links, and our users were simply trying to help others get access to this wonderful offer.
The offer expired yesterday and was removed from their store, however, the direct links continued to function unintentionally. This led to roughly 30,000 keys disappearing overnight, while some users believed the offer was still valid, and others were trying to receive multiple copies for trading and reselling. The developer has sent a key list to Valve, containing the keys that were generated after the offer expired. These will most likely be revoked from Steam accounts. The developer has asked Valve to ensure no one is banned, since as I mentioned earlier, a lot of innocent users were unaware the offer had ended during this time.
Blackwell Deception giveaways creating during this offer will be removed shortly, since the keys were available for free.
For more information, follow their official twitter:
https://twitter.com/WadjetEyeGames
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