what did IG say? I find it suspicious that the dev just quietly deleted the thread I screenshotted up there....
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So we're supposed to believe they're just gonna inject dozens of keys into the happy hour gift bundles to make them right again?
If you've noticed the devs questions, then the purposefully deleted thread, it really seems like they were intentionally getting rid of spare keys in the community. Like, you know, thieving brigand highwaymen robber burglars.
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No, IG can't fix the existing bundles, rather, they will email you a replacement key when available.
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This is IG's response, email just arrived while I was reading this thread lol:
Hi,
Seemingly the developer removed all the keys from all the Stores and we are waiting for his answer.
As soon as he gets back to us we will make an announcement on the site.
Thank you.
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Same here, exactly the same answer from IG.
Btw, they have deactivated unused AND used keys, at least, mine. My key (activated when I purchased the bundle) now says it's invalid (not used or duplicated). Not sure why they have done this :/
Thanks for posting the screenshots!
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Yeah I think I says somewhere after 60 days of steam keys being up they can't guarantee them or something like that
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But if I pay for a game it has to be redeemable all the time except it is clearly written that the key will expire. So they are not allowed to deactivate the keys...
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The keys still should not expire or be revoked what IG is saying is after 60 days they can no longer help or offer support if the key does not work for some reason.As sometimes bad keys get throwing into the bundle and they can use unsold keys to replace them before they send them back but after 60 days they send them back and have to wait for more.In this case though i doubt the publisher is going to send them fresh keys giving what they have done already.If the publisher revoked keys then even the ones they have i would assume would be invalid.I am just saying i would not blame IG for this.I can say though the better thing from them to due is give a partial refund as a nice gesture of good faith so to speak.
Just another reason i do not bother with bundles much anymore seems like more and more are filled with garbage or shit publishers like this who revoke keys people paid for.Not that it should excuse what they did but it sure does not make me confident in a bundle purchase for later use.
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Two devs/publishers managed to deactivate a large batch of keys in a really short timespan. There might be something faulty on Steam's side, like them deactivating a whole batch of keys rather than just the keys from that batch that should have been deactivated.
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I was thinking of trying to get this game as it looks fun to me, should I hold off on getting? I was probably going to get it in the bundle stars bundle if I didn't win it on here. I'm worried about what this could do to the dev, any feedback would be great. Thanks for your time and help
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This overzealous key revocation trend, because of fear of the grey market, is a real #GamerGate issue that people should focus on.
Stop dehumanizing and terrorizing women and direct that anger at the real enemies.
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Seems like i'll just stop buying the deep discount bundles, they sell happy hour for that extra deep discount, knowing they're purchases they wouldn't otherwise make at all, any money better than no money, was the way it was explained to me...
So they keep proving the bundles aren't a real product, we shouldn't have to deal with this, we pay for it, it should remain valid indefinitely. Why don't we blame esports for the rise of the grey market, g2a and kinguin sponsoring opposing teams of CSGO etc....
I'm sitting on thousands of keys just to give away at my leisure, I've done a few rare trades, and have never sold a key, i hate trading because it's like pulling teeth, i buy extras when they're cheap just to have stuff to give away... they're making enemies of ordinary gamers and sincere gifters.
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sure, been buying bundles for years from all over.
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I make at least one giveaway a day and my key stash still keeps getting bigger and bigger >.<
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wow, i really should start doing at least a giveaway a day or something like that too, i'm very lazy and usually drop them in chat channels because it's less effort, heh...
But as for Thousands yes just a single IG bundle, with 10 games, you buy on happy hour 4x, for $15, that's 10*20=200 keys from one bundle, then there's all the bundles from all the various sites where we only needed a few games and have tons of leftover.
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Because I like having cheap spare steam game keys to give away to friends, family, in chat room drops, etc.
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pretty much what I meant by my comment. It reminds me of how publishers try to fight piracy by always online intrusive DRMs. They try to fight grey market, but came up with an idea that in the process hurts legitemate gamers and buyers who do not try to profit from reselling keys on grey market - same was as trying to fight piracy with intrusive / always online DRMs they hurt in the process people who legitematelly bought their games and then couldn't run them, because verification servers wen't down, or in SecuRom case being able to install your own game just a few times.
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fallout after this year GDC that just ended. A lot was discussed about fighting resellers at grey markets - turn out same as with fighting pirascy bunch of idiots came up with ways to fight grey market that punishes fair users in the process.
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there are already 2 games affected by this (besides AXYOS also Days Under Custody - one by dev one by publisher who also happens to be a bundle site. And strangely enough both tried to come up with "brillint" ideas right after this year GDC. One had an idea that keys that got bought but not activated surely will go to grey market (that's why asked when people bought them and why didn't activated them yet), other claims that wanted to revoke just unsold keys so they don't end up on grey market but in the process accidentally revoked all keys sold on 2 bundle sites.
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the first game was Nekro now AXYOS and Days Under Custody follow
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I'm not sure why are they even doing this.
OK, gray market is bad, blah blah. BUT they made the sale, someone paid for the key (and it's not the buyers fault that they offered it in a cheap bundle - no one forced them to do that, you don't see CoD1/2 in bundles even if they are ~100 years old now) and why would they want to revoke keys that are paid for even if they are on the gray market?
I can understand for stolen keys, fraudulent transactions, but this? I don't think it's up to developer/publisher to fight these things, and certainly not in this way which is ridiculous to say the least. Whose smart idea was it in the first place? Do you have more info?
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in this case - probably stupid idea came from dev himself who got inspired by GDC panels and discussions and came up with his own "brillinad" solution, as I don't think things like revoking sold bundle copies were the ideas discussed at GDC ;) As for revoking I believe the thing discussed were not bundle games but review copies ending up on grey market, as for bundles - limiting amount of available purchases, but it's in the hands of bundle sites themselves, main topic was that industry is partially to blame themselves - they hate Grey Market when it cost them their revenue, but have no problem with irt when it gets them money. Grey Maqrket Sites like Kinguin or G2a being official sponsors of esport teams, esport events, youtubers, streamers, professional press accepting and printing their adds, putting sponsored content, Kinguin and G2A being sponsors of official gaming events, conventions, trades, fares etc.
Like I said - nothing like what is happening was proposed, but I believe it could be simply the case of drawing attention to general Grey Market problem and now stupid people coming up with ideas of their own to fix the problem without thinking them through.
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Exactly, this is fraudulent, THEY are fraudulent, they sold us a product and then took it back, they're trying to leave the resellers holding the bag. They cannot legally expire a key unless they tell you that key has an expiration.
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"Gray Market" is legal, at least in my region, EU. Reselling is acceptable even if they don't like it.
They have no right to do that, and it's completely ridiculous.
I don't think any re-seller is making a noticeable profit from a game that costs pennies anyway. This game has been on Steam for 0.5c.. It's not like resellers are damaging it's value or anything.
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actually it's not. There's a ticket about it going through EU for the last years, but not validated yet. The reason is when buying game digitally you are not buying a product. You are buying a service, a licence, a subscription etc. And these have their own TOS which can legally prohibit you from reselling them saying that you're buying a personal service for you yourself only.
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And do a related search, tons of results will come up.
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Since then there's been court cases in EU where courts ruled that video ga,me licences are out of these regulations.
Sources:
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I like how the dev is clueless and surprised about people activating their keys a month after the bundle ends... Like there is an unwritten rule saying all keys should be activated in a few days for a bundle sold clearly stating that keys will never expire
Your purchased keys never expire and can be activated at any time. However, we strongly advise you to activate your keys within 60 days of purchase as it might be troublesome replacing your keys should there be issues.
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Pretty much. IG uses this as a blanket defense in case they gave you a used key but took too long to notice it. I would image (though not impossible) to keep track of the 100s of indies they deal with and it would be a headache to help replace a key from 1 year ago :P.
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well i made a negative review on steam store outlining the situation with this discussion url in it, but with several hundred reviews it would take a bit of a campaign for them to feel an immediate impact as far as their steam rating goes. I know we have the numbers to bring it way down in this community, but I'd have much preferred the dev/pub just come clean about deleting it, people make mistakes, was it a mistake? was it an overreaction, or was it a poor attempt at covering up?
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Maybe they just want to bring attention to their game?
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I don't get what you mean. You say that if dev of game D is bad dev we should avoid him, not getting his games. But exactly because like you said - bundles are dirt cheap - so cheap that whole Tier 1 of bundle containing A, B, C and D will be cheaper than A, B or C alone. Thus if we want A, B and C we will buy this bundle even if it comes with D we don't really want. What you expect us to do? Resign from buying a bundle with 3 wishlisted games just because theres 4th shitty one in it? Nope. And even if 4th game is shitty - it doesn't matter. Even if we never gonna play it - it doesn't matter. What matters is that we paid for it and it's our. Ofc I would be much more sad if key for A, B or C would get revoked, but nonetheless it doesn't mean I will be ok tif key for D, even if I don't care about it, gets revoked. I paid for this key, it's mine to keep.
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That, like this, could set an uncomfortable precedent. strangers coming up on your porch fiddling with your stuff, what's next? Same here, it's not ok to sell someone something then take it back!
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I am not calling the police - aka I don't intend to take legal action against them for the few cents worth key. But to stay in your example - I won't call the police, but if for some reason I want this can - maybe I sell aluminium when I gather enough? same as I activcate shitty game because I get +1 to lib and may get some cards one day for few extra cents, and this neighbour comes and steal my cans - when talking about him with some other neighbour I will tell him that Jack is stealing my things. Not expensive things, he's not a big thief, but a thief nonetheless.
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So it's ok to go around stealing bits and pieces from anyone, as long as they aren't worth much?
For example, can I go and take a screw from your car, and then someone else can go and take another screw, and so on? They don't have much value individually, so it's ok, right? At least you still have the motor, and that's a more important thing.
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Does it matter if they are important or not, they are only worth less than a dollar each, so no fuss, right? If 20 people take one screw each off of your motherboard (which normally has about 8 or 9, but you had some spares, so I'll count a bit higher), it shouldn't be a problem, because each of them didn't take an important piece, until they are all gone because you have nothing left, and what you paid for isn't working any longer.
If we let one dev remove a key from a bundle package, why not all devs? Each is only a piece, so no big deal, right? You honestly can't see the bigger picture of why things like this can't be allowed?
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But what if you want to make an event? or a train? It's not likely that you will be able to purchase tens of different cheap games at the same time, so if you're preparing something like this you're more or less forced to safe keys for set amount of time to pull it off. Not everyone are capable of spending few hundred dollars at once just because they want to make XY GAs long train.
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Yes, all the burden and fault are on these devs/pubs, the bundle was sold as keys being valid indefinitely, and they knew that going into the deal with IG, and they pulled the keys out from under IG. Now if you try to do a chargeback, it will be IG hurting, not the devs, so perhaps a lawsuit against the devs is in order if they do not promptly return our property. legal costs alone would cost far more than every key they sold IG. I wonder what the possibilities are there, I'm sure it would be easier for some countries than for others.
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I'd say it's IG's responsibility to fight the developer/publisher about this. It may not be their fault, but they did agree to sell the unreliable product. If you have sympathy for them, simply ask for a refund first instead of going straight for the chargeback. It will cost them less that way.
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The key is used. It's used when I buy it. At that point, it belongs to me, and the dev has no right to revoke it. If I feel like activating it in a year, or two, or five, it should make no difference.
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Wow, so a key from a cheap bundle, which makes it an even cheaper game, got unjustified revoked and now this shall be a lesson "for all us kids"?
Like hell I'll activate all inactivated keys now just because of one 30 cent loss. I trade games I don't want for games I want.
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Had one key here, invalid as well.
Will this become a trend? First Days Under Custody, now AXYOS....
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That key is invalid too. But I didn't want Axyos from that bundle anyway. From the 10 games in that Playlist bundle I activated 8 and only Axyos and wolf in autumn not. I already traded the wolf game and was just about to trade Axyos for Blood Rayne and the other party said 'key invalid' and I stumbled over this crap.
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Lost 3 keys then, plus 7 from the Days Under Custody thing until that gets sorted out :(
I remember when the Gearcrack Arena dev removed that game completely from Steam and all unused keys became invalid - http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/FXZag/gearcrack-arena-all-unused-keys-are-now-invalid/search?page=31337 I lost a few of those as well.
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When it comes to game keys it's unauthorised re-sellers. Individuals selling keys on G2A, Kinguin or anywhere else would count. You could probably count traders in there too, at least the ones who buy games just to re-sell them and sites like Tremor Games. They were originally bough legitimately, it's just that the person or company who bought it didn't have a distribution deal in place so redistrbution might be frowned upon by some, not by others.
Black market would be counterfeit (fake) keys, stolen keys, and ones bought with stolen credit cards I suppose. Also people selling pirated games.
White market would be official stores who do deals with distributors and/or publishers and have contracts in place.
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Thank you for the information I didn't know it went this deep
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This is the problem with grey market resellers. While reselling keys that you've bought legitimately is not illegal, a site like G2A or Kinguin makes it far easier for illegally obtained keys to be sold. Funcom & Bethesda have taken steps against grey market sites where keys were purchased and then refunded (through steam mostly, the account key you got was not linked to your steam account). And these are not isolated incidents. I wonder how many cases there are that we don't hear of similar to these.
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Illegal keys are being sold on "grey market" sites, like G2A, Kinguin and so on. They have no way of knowing where the keys are from, if you bought 10 humble bundles with your own credit card or with a stolen one. And the "smart" sellers won't draw any attention to themselves, they will just marginally undercut their competitors, so that it does not look like anything shady is going on, so as a consumer, there's no way of knowing either.
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Just a head's up, if the developer of AYXOS or Days in Custody has invalidated or revoked your keys I'd fully suggest filing a complaint (if you live in the US) against both Indie Gala or whichever other bundlesite you purchased the game from and the Publisher of the game directly to the following website
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection
by invalidating the keys, they violated the consumer protection laws, and as such are open to being fined or forced to compensate people they "stole" from. The price is unimportant but the act of deception and fraud is.
It's pretty much fraud and as such the Government (atleast in the US.. I'm sure the EU has a similar agency) and file a complaint.
I'd assume the complaint would be filed under the online order one.... if enough people report them, the dev will be forced to answer for the fraud and illegal action of removing our keys.. Just an FYI no mention of keys having any chance of being invalidated or revoked exist on IG or any of the other sites.. Even if they did, they can't legally invalidate or revoke legally purchased keys as that is considered Fraud..
@the more you know.. Lets get reporting fellas..
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But IndieGala doesn't have anything to do with the developer revoking the keys. They're as much a victim as the end user in this case and already have to deal with the aftermath of the dev's breach of contract.
If Sony remotely disabled your PS4 consoles because you haven't used it in the last month, would you sue Walmart over it?
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Wow, I stil had a leftover key for AXYOS and finally traded it around 2 weeks ago.
I feel like I dodged a bullet. With this recent wave of developers deactivating keys I'm starting to get worried about the small stash of unactivated keys I have for trade and giveaways, I should do a train or something and flush them away just to be safe.
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Oh, this is a nice quote from the publisher
keep in mind that not us nor Valve aren't answering for the retail keys you get on the side or third-party stores. When you buy a key you're accepting the store's customer agreement.
We hope that IndieGala will give you fresh keys ASAP.
So, screw people that bought it, they see nothing wrong with revoking keys and placing the blame on others.
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What they are saying is that you are supposed to go to the vendor you purchased the game from to get a replacement key.
If you got your key from Indie Gala or any other reputable place, you'll get a new key from them. Indie Gala will talk to the game's publisher on behalf of it's customers. The developer is not interested in having a public conversation directly with end-users about this. It may not even be the developer who revoked the keys, as it is the publisher who normally does that, which is not always the same company.
It's not that they're denying the keys were revoked, but that they did it to invalidate the grey market keys that were not obtained from authorized distributors. This is the new nuclear option that many publishers are using.
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While this is probably true, it's still a dick move that they did - purposely deactivate all the keys that people paid - then send a new batch to stores to "fix it" (if they do this at all) and see who has no access to the source to be left hanging. While this is something bothersome for gray market users, it also makes troubles for good customers, even if they liked your game before. And the dev is a huge dick. I don't have a game and now I'm not going to get anything from them ever.
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I'm not saying what they did was smart, because they're going to feel the backlash, for sure.
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The developer and publisher are the same people in this case It's AXYOS games. They also haven't said they will be providing new keys to indie gala. When you do something shady, you should fully expect customers to call you out on that behavior..
Also I fail to see how doing this will have any effect on resellers as the invalidated keys will just be replaced and resold
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Actually, I just had my revoked Days Under Custody key quietly restored by Valve - which is in fact proper, as it was Valve that revoked them. I haven't activated Axyos, but I've given a key away here, and I checked my winner's profile and he's still got the game. Perhaps he was lucky, or maybe the keys have been restored.
I believe the dev is completely incorrect. We don't complain to Indie Gala, because Indie Gala didn't revoke the keys. He did. He needs to make it right, and his attitude on Steam is not making him any friends.
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Once it's bought, it's used. The dev invalidated massive numbers of properly-purchased keys, for which he had been paid, and now he's trying to point people to Indie Gala for satisfaction. Indie Gala didn't invalidate any keys, they acted properly. He didn't.
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Ah, yes, I see. You're right. And he's right. And so am I. Everyone wins!
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haha, shit... I thought I'd given out an invalid key to someone, then I remembered I'd not given that game away. Anyway, the playlist bundle copy I activated on my account is still listed as being in my library, so I guess it's ok for now. Maybe they cancelled them after a specific date / time?
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I don't know. Some people have claimed that copies they had activated had also been removed from their accounts. To be honest I don't really care - I already farmed the trading cards from it & I don't know if (or when) I'll get round to playing it. Still got plenty of other games on my account / backlog that I'd rather play more.
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Have you tried the game? Is it worth playing? I don't play FPS games that often. I'm more of a puzzle & point & click (adventure) type of gamer, although I do have CS or Battlefield Bad Company 2 to fall back on if I do feel like shooting / blowing some stuff up. ;)
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I was planning on giving it away, but after I read about them voiding the other keys I decided I'd activate it on my own account & if it worked it worked. & yes it has trading cards. They aren't going for much though - like 5 to 6 cents per card at the minute or something, so I wouldn't worry about it.
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as if it wasn't (apparently?!) scummy enough, i've looked around and don't see that the thread was moved or anything, do they think they can just quietly delete it and it will go away?
Any further information welcome, will link this from the original thread in SGifts since the steamcommunity thread was deleted.
I screenshotted the pages of the thread in my buffer:
page 1
http://i.imgur.com/yKiNA4o.png
http://i.imgur.com/FC0Lh5F.png
http://i.imgur.com/SImmuFc.png
http://i.imgur.com/GcEu0bL.png
page 2
http://i.imgur.com/QrItjY4.png
http://i.imgur.com/fDD2ZTD.png
Really not looking for self-promotion here, by all means make your own and post it and I will thumbs it up, buuuut, until we get our keys back, consider contributing to the steam store dissent in some way:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/ColJackONeillSG-1/recommended/318100
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