Xao maybe people should do more research before buying from a non-official source.
Caveat emptor.
You feel very clever until something like this happens to you, then everyone laughs.
And then I would take my lumps and think twice about what I was buying online, and from where. I am in control and have responsibility for my own actions and their consequences, no one else.
"It's all fair and well someone saying UWE should let these people keep the keys but if the Law disagrees with this action from us we can face more complications"
did you not understand?
If UWE do not act, they leave themselves open to all manner of legal problems down the line. That $30,000 sum could wind up being a WHOLE LOT MORE.
While I agree with all of the other arguments being used to try to persuade you why your position is wrong, none of those is necessary when the above is true. Whatever the potential effect on customer morale, no small company can afford to **** with the government/taxman/(insert relevant department/institution here) if it wants to say in business.
I would imagine the law would be satisfied with my proposed solution as well.
Though frankly, the amount of things the law 'may' disagree with is so vast, that operating on the basis of what 'may' be found objectionable is ridiculous.
I'm sure, if people really wanted to, they could find a way the law 'may' disagree with the idea of cutting off service to the 1000+ people who would then be out of pocket. I'm sure if you wanted to you could argue a case where UWE is completely at fault because they didn't adequately advertise the unofficialness of the other sources.
Basically, 'may' is not good enough when you bring up legal concerns.
Precisely, 'may' is not good enough. If you stand the risk of getting slapped with a $0.5m fine for not taking action when you knew that goods had been stolen, you bloody well err on the side of caution.
You 'may' be able to come up with 101 inane theories about how your way is better, but I'm sorry to break it to you: you're not the one who would be in the firing line, UWE is.
In the end it really doesn't matter. You are not a customer of UWE. You are a customer of whatever fucked up site from Eastern Europe you bought the key from. Take it up with them.
The point
< you
No, generally that's how commerce tends to work. If you buy a lamp from Amazon and it's broken, you don't contact the manufacturer of the lamp and complain. You contact Amazon for a refund.
The manufacturer sold the good/service to the retailer (even the quasi-retailer in the case of UWE). You bought from the retailer. You are not a customer of the manufacturer, you are a customer of the retailer.
If said retailer was selling a shipment of product that 'fell off the truck' on its way from the manufacturer, the manufacturer would be within their rights to demand it back as stolen goods, even if you bought it from someone. It's still their property. You would need to take it up with whoever you bought it from. This is similar; the difference is that it's much easier for UWE to go around and 'take' the stolen items.
"It's all fair and well someone saying UWE should let these people keep the keys but if the Law disagrees with this action from us we can face more complications"
did you not understand?
If UWE do not act, they leave themselves open to all manner of legal problems down the line. That $30,000 sum could wind up being a WHOLE LOT MORE.
While I agree with all of the other arguments being used to try to persuade you why your position is wrong, none of those is necessary when the above is true. Whatever the potential effect on customer morale, no small company can afford to **** with the government/taxman/(insert relevant department/institution here) if it wants to say in business.
I would imagine the law would be satisfied with my proposed solution as well.
Though frankly, the amount of things the law 'may' disagree with is so vast, that operating on the basis of what 'may' be found objectionable is ridiculous.
I'm sure, if people really wanted to, they could find a way the law 'may' disagree with the idea of cutting off service to the 1000+ people who would then be out of pocket. I'm sure if you wanted to you could argue a case where UWE is completely at fault because they didn't adequately advertise the unofficialness of the other sources.
Basically, 'may' is not good enough when you bring up legal concerns.
Precisely, 'may' is not good enough. If you stand the risk of getting slapped with a $0.5m fine for not taking action when you knew that goods had been stolen, you bloody well err on the side of caution.
You 'may' be able to come up with 101 inane theories about how your way is better, but I'm sorry to break it to you: you're not the one who would be in the firing line, UWE is.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
strawman arguments just make you look even more of a troll than you already are, and distract from the point I'm trying to make. And yes, the view from my ivory tower is quite lovely too.
Wait, calling out your strawman and false premise ("every person who bought a key from one of these websites is a drug addict/works at mcdonalds") is somehow turned into me making a strawman? lol.
You still haven't made a rebuttal against the point I'm trying to make, that UWE was justified in deactivating those keys to avoid setting a precedent.
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but to restate: companies that engage in shady practices already have it baked in that keys will get disabled at some point. Meaning the act of deactivating the keys isn't really going to deter future malevolent behavior.
I'm sure if you wanted to you could argue a case where UWE is completely at fault because they didn't adequately advertise the unofficialness of the other sources.
Basically, 'may' is not good enough when you bring up legal concerns.
That is baloney of the very first water. You could argue that case but you certainly wouldn't win it. It's utterly ridiculous. You seem to believe that if you talk about something for long enough that makes it true.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
Absolutely it does. Their hands are tied by whichever government agency would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Your issue is with the government agency, take it up with them.
Unless you think UWE should employ YOU as their legal representative, considering you obviously know so much about how they should have done things differently.
I'm sure if you wanted to you could argue a case where UWE is completely at fault because they didn't adequately advertise the unofficialness of the other sources.
Basically, 'may' is not good enough when you bring up legal concerns.
That is baloney of the very first water. You could argue that case but you certainly wouldn't win it. It's utterly ridiculous. You seem to believe that if you talk about something for long enough that makes it true.
It doesn't.
Of course it's baloney, it's a patently ridiculous argument.
As is the idea that working with victims of fraud to inform them of the dangers they're in but trying minimize the amount of loss they incur from the situation, is somehow morally bankrupt, and completely illegal, to the point that UWE could not possibly defend it in court.
But wouldn't you know, people are making it anyway...
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
Absolutely it does. Their hands are tied by whichever government agency would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Your issue is with the government agency, take it up with them.
Unless you think UWE should employ YOU as their legal representative, considering you obviously know so much about how they should have done things differently.
My point is that you're suggesting UWE have to act so they don't possibly end up in court, but people can attempt to sue each other for the most ridiculous things that you can never be free of the danger of ending up in court. The thing to do is make sure your actions are defensible, and I see no reason why the 'deactivate all keys' approach is the only possible defensible approach to the situation.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
(P.S. The idea of, "We had to deactivate the keys to deter future criminals!" is pretty silly. Terrible and shady operations like the one described in the OP are based around smash and grab. Expecting potential bans of their product is already baked into their business plan.)
The point is not to deter criminals.
The point is to deter people from purchasing keys from criminals.
I noticed that greenmangaming.com is also selling NS2 keys. Is this site illegitimate as well? I'm not worried as I preordered when you were in alpha, but I think some of my friends bought from there...
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but to restate: companies that engage in shady practices already have it baked in that keys will get disabled at some point. Meaning the act of deactivating the keys isn't really going to deter future malevolent behavior.
How then do you differentiate between customers who legitimately tried to defraud UWE by issuing a chargeback vs so-called 'innocents' who may have bought from a shady reseller?
UWE as far as i know doesn't have the personal contact information of buyers through steam or through 3rd party resellers so it would be impossible to distinguish. You're in effect saying that no one should have to pay because if they issue a charge-back, UWE should just let them have the game for free.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
Your argument holds no water at all.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but to restate: companies that engage in shady practices already have it baked in that keys will get disabled at some point. Meaning the act of deactivating the keys isn't really going to deter future malevolent behavior.
Only indirectly. As customers who use those sites have their products stop working, they will be less-likely to buy from those sites.
It won't kill the con man, there are always more suckers. But it will reduce the pool at least, if those who buy actually DO end up getting burned. In turn, word of mouth will spread about that particular site selling keys that get yanked. Then the con man opens a new site and the cycle repeats until that consumer wises up and starts buying from a reputable source full-time.
If the keys NEVER get pulled, that never happens. The con man can operate with impunity, and the site gains a measure of respectability even.
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but to restate: companies that engage in shady practices already have it baked in that keys will get disabled at some point. Meaning the act of deactivating the keys isn't really going to deter future malevolent behavior.
How then do you differentiate between customers who legitimately tried to defraud UWE by issuing a chargeback vs so-called 'innocents' who may have bought from a shady reseller?
UWE as far as i know doesn't have the personal contact information of buyers through steam or through 3rd party resellers so it would be impossible to distinguish. You're in effect saying that no one should have to pay because if they issue a charge-back, UWE should just let them have the game for free.
You don't, you assume innocent until proven guilty.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
Your argument holds no water at all.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
What about your moral obligation to buy from a legitimate source?
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
Possibly, but how would UWE contact those people without getting their attention first? If they played NS2 actively, then their account being shut down would immediately lead them to question what happened, and they would seek out that information, at which point UWE could explain and offer a deal. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be affected by the key deactivation anyway.
However, if no deactivation occurred, most of those who played NS2 actively on an illegitimate key wouldn't even notice.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
Your argument holds no water at all.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
What about your moral obligation to buy from a legitimate source?
So far as any of us know, that was being fulfilled, people bought from sites they thought were legit, but weren't. That's the entire point of this thread, to inform people that some sites are not legitimate when they might appear to be.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
Possibly, but how would UWE contact those people without getting their attention first? If they played NS2 actively, then their account being shut down would immediately lead them to question what happened, and they would seek out that information, at which point UWE could explain and offer a deal. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be affected by the key deactivation anyway.
However, if no deactivation occurred, most of those who played NS2 actively on an illegitimate key wouldn't even notice.
Ask valve to send them a message over steam? If you can deactivate the games over steam, you can contact them as well.
Or put it in the next patch, so people have to read it before they start the next game of NS2.
You don't, you assume innocent until proven guilty.
That may work in the legal world but not in the business world. People enter into contracts where they're obligated by the language of the contract to act in good faith because businesses do not automatically assume each other is operating in good faith.
You don't, you assume innocent until proven guilty.
That may work in the legal world but not in the business world. People enter into contracts where they're obligated by the language of the contract to act in good faith because businesses do not automatically assume each other is operating in good faith.
It does work in the general people world however, we're not really talking about business or legality, we're talking about how people act. It is generally best to assume people are not acting constantly out of malice unless there is proof.
So, if people buy from a site, it's probably because they think that site is allowed to sell the things it's selling.
I don't know about you but my first thought is not 'wow this site is selling stolen goods' when I go shopping on the internet because I find something cheaply. I might think 'wow this is a good price' or 'hmm I wonder if there's something wrong with it' (though that doesn't apply so much to software, more things that can be damaged) but not 'I am buying from a fence'.
As I said, there's a strong tradition of ridiculous sales on software. Steam holds two or three a year, you can buy £200 worth of games for about £30 with the bundles. It being cheap doesn't mean it's stolen. It even applies in physical sales, I work in a charity shop and bought a £200 coat for £20, because that's just the price we sell them for, some places can afford to sell things for a ridiculous discount.
What you don't get is, if those people would have just pirated the game, it would have been better for UWE. Them buying the game via a shady reseller cost UWE 30k bucks.
I bought a chivalry key from this site last November and have been playing it ever since until yesterday when it was removed by steam by word from the publisher as the key is fraudulent! When I told G2Play about this they asked me for a boat load of screen shots including shots of my steam library (all of it) and receipts and stuff so that they could rectify this problem. Fair enough I suppose as I could be anyone, once I had sent them all to G2Play and confirmed all they wanted, they then told me they would have to get in touch with their supplier! Just think twice, is all I`m saying!
Update: They are refusing to give me a refund after providing all the evidence they asked for so dropping them a star!
Update: They refunded me by way of points on their website, and upgraded my account to premium user access so I've added them a couple stars.
Update: Had to downgrade this review to 1 star as my Natural Selection 2 key was just revoked by Steam as G2Play are not allowed to resell this game! Twice in a month I have been sold a dodgy key by G2play.net. Just stay away from em!
You see what happens if they dont deactivate the keys? This individual was informed of his purchase being fraudulent, so he decided to buy another game from that shady reseller! Fool me twice.
The only thing we know for certain is that the key was purchased from us and then the purchaser asked for their money back from the credit card company. The original purchaser got their money back, so we closed the loop on this and deactivated the key.
IMO this should put an end to all discussion. Max's statement suggests that from UWE's perspective, all they see is 1300 charge-backs on their game. When someone asks for a refund on your game, you take back the game. You don't say, "Okay, here's your money back, enjoy the game." UWE isn't going to sit there and say, "Well another charge-back, guess we should let this one slide again since it may be a result of fraud." They are completely right to have done what they have done.
The unfortunate part is that a lot of those charge-backs were probably a result of stolen credit cards. It's great that UWE is trying to let affected buyers know what has happened, even though it admittedly doesn't fix things for those buyers.
I like how we have 5 page thread where the discussion boils down to people either defending frauds and credit card thefts and somehow blaming UWE or people thinking that criminal activity might not be OK. Why is this even open for discussion?
The logic and reasoning behind most theft legislation and the actions you take when you are the victim of theft simply do not make sense when applied to software, because the only thing you 'own' is the intellectual property, you don't own any actual things and you're selling information, which by its very nature can be copied indefinitely and near-instantly. You aren't trying to keep control of a finite resource, you're trying to control the propagation of information you created, which is a very different thing.
I get your point but why should the fishy key seller make profit while UWE is charged with a fee? We don't talk about piracy here, we talk about profit on one side (key seller) and loss on the other. It's just the same with Kim Dot Com: he makes money while the producing economy makes losses. And he doesn't even get his hands dirty. The dumb ones are always the people on the receiving ends which are UWE and the people with non working cd keys. Which doesn't mean that UWE should give them free copies. It only means: both sides have lost. It doesn't get better when one side takes all the losses. The only reasonable way would be to sue the key seller or middle man from both sides. What wouldn't work, because that's the internet.
In the long run, I think piracy is crippling the major gaming economy because the only real answer to piracy right now are microtransactions, paid DLC and F2P/Pay2Win games. The companys that produce information should get paid for it. We could argue about the pricing of these informations, but that basic rule just stands there: you make something, you should be able to get a reward.
BTW pirating a indie game like NS2 is straightout robbery in my books.
The key seller is still making a profit and UWE is still being charged with a fee, deactivating the copies just means that 1000+ people no longer have a game on top of that.
That's my point, deactivating the keys achieves no visible good that I can discern.
You're right: there is no visible good. And since we are talking about "sold information" or "no physical existence" there never were any visible good to begin with.
But the invisible good of deactivating the keys is:
1. UWE has to do it as they stated so they don't face any other (legal) consequences.
2. It has a warning/slap in the face function for the people who are affected: "Don't buy keys from fishy resellers! They could be fraud!"
If they didn't do it, they could face legal consequences and have an even greater financial loss due that.
But on top of that, they would say: "Ok, you bought illegal copys on fishy websites, but you don't face any consequences because we are UWE and we are awesome!" In other words: "You can steal from us and we don't even care!" So why should anybody even bother buying at official shops when you can buy it cheaper elsewhere?
In one study about that topic they placed a car with one broken window on an university campus. 4 weeks after, the car was completely empty (radio, ... all gone) and even the car wheels and the engine were removed.
TL:DR UWE has to fix its broken windows because people aren't nice!
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
Your argument holds no water at all.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
What about your moral obligation to buy from a legitimate source?
So far as any of us know, that was being fulfilled, people bought from sites they thought were legit, but weren't. That's the entire point of this thread, to inform people that some sites are not legitimate when they might appear to be.
Yeah, it's UWE's fault that you have zero common sense.
On some level, there's part of me that disagrees with the policy of deactivating all the keys. And the reason for it is directly in the press release:
The owner of the stolen credit card ultimately disputed the charge and we lost the sale. In total, we lose ~$45 per transaction of this kind, due to the charge-back fee (~$22 fee + $25 game price). Meanwhile, the unauthorized key reseller kept the money from the player who ultimately received the bad key.
Deactivating the keys only punishes the innocent people who bought the keys. It doesn't restore the lost money to UWE, and it doesn't punish the person who sold them. The proper response here was to eat the loss and hope the people who obtained the game in this way lead to more sales via positive word of mouth.
heres a scenario
someone stole your wifes/husbands wedding ring, and i bought the stolen wedding ring for my wife to get married, and you find out i have it, what would you do?
let me keep it cause im innocent? i didnt steal it, i thought i bought it legitimate..
or
take it back and tell me its yours, and i should deal with the theif?
i think you would take it back because its yours, i know its two completely different things, but you know what i mean, purchasing anything stolen, even if your innocent does not make it yours, thats with everything you buy from software to goods.
Did you buy the ring from a guy in a parking lot? And not a real business? If so, you have no excuse. Your analogy is flawed.
It's unfortunate for those players who went outside of the official channels for buying the game to skirt paying full price, but that was the risk they took.
how is that flawed? when these innocent customers did the exact same thing example: buying it from a shady rusain site for something like 5-10 dollars a key
the whole concept of buying anything dirt cheap off of any site is flawed
if anything i would RATHER buy something physical from a shady guy at a mall then buy something digital from a shady site, both are stupid, which is what these people got what was eventually coming to them
Reading this leaves me quite furious. Screwing over a large corporation is one thing, but to do it to a great group of indie devs just trying to make a living is beyond reprehensible.
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And then I would take my lumps and think twice about what I was buying online, and from where. I am in control and have responsibility for my own actions and their consequences, no one else.
Precisely, 'may' is not good enough. If you stand the risk of getting slapped with a $0.5m fine for not taking action when you knew that goods had been stolen, you bloody well err on the side of caution.
You 'may' be able to come up with 101 inane theories about how your way is better, but I'm sorry to break it to you: you're not the one who would be in the firing line, UWE is.
The manufacturer sold the good/service to the retailer (even the quasi-retailer in the case of UWE). You bought from the retailer. You are not a customer of the manufacturer, you are a customer of the retailer.
If said retailer was selling a shipment of product that 'fell off the truck' on its way from the manufacturer, the manufacturer would be within their rights to demand it back as stolen goods, even if you bought it from someone. It's still their property. You would need to take it up with whoever you bought it from. This is similar; the difference is that it's much easier for UWE to go around and 'take' the stolen items.
But they 'may' be in trouble from this course of action too is my point. The law argument is meaningless if it's based on what could be argued in a court, you can argue anything in a court, unless it flat out states 'you do not do this' and you do exactly that, you can't really take much else into account.
That UWE has to make the decision does not mean they get a free pass on whether that decision is sensible.
Wait, calling out your strawman and false premise ("every person who bought a key from one of these websites is a drug addict/works at mcdonalds") is somehow turned into me making a strawman? lol.
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but to restate: companies that engage in shady practices already have it baked in that keys will get disabled at some point. Meaning the act of deactivating the keys isn't really going to deter future malevolent behavior.
That is baloney of the very first water. You could argue that case but you certainly wouldn't win it. It's utterly ridiculous. You seem to believe that if you talk about something for long enough that makes it true.
It doesn't.
Absolutely it does. Their hands are tied by whichever government agency would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Your issue is with the government agency, take it up with them.
Unless you think UWE should employ YOU as their legal representative, considering you obviously know so much about how they should have done things differently.
Of course it's baloney, it's a patently ridiculous argument.
As is the idea that working with victims of fraud to inform them of the dangers they're in but trying minimize the amount of loss they incur from the situation, is somehow morally bankrupt, and completely illegal, to the point that UWE could not possibly defend it in court.
But wouldn't you know, people are making it anyway...
My point is that you're suggesting UWE have to act so they don't possibly end up in court, but people can attempt to sue each other for the most ridiculous things that you can never be free of the danger of ending up in court. The thing to do is make sure your actions are defensible, and I see no reason why the 'deactivate all keys' approach is the only possible defensible approach to the situation.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You still haven't shown that it is UWE's moral OR legal obligation to continue providing services (yes, they do provide services in the form of free patches, content, bugfixing, support, and server hosting) to people who have not paid them.
You have not demonstrated that UWE is liable for guarantees that a 3rd party made to the end buyer.
Your argument holds no water at all.
The point is not to deter criminals.
The point is to deter people from purchasing keys from criminals.
How then do you differentiate between customers who legitimately tried to defraud UWE by issuing a chargeback vs so-called 'innocents' who may have bought from a shady reseller?
UWE as far as i know doesn't have the personal contact information of buyers through steam or through 3rd party resellers so it would be impossible to distinguish. You're in effect saying that no one should have to pay because if they issue a charge-back, UWE should just let them have the game for free.
It isn't a legal obligation as far as I'm aware, and calling it a moral obligation is possibly over strong? Depends how utilitarian you are.
But the idea that UWE can take a less aggressive tone towards people who are themselves victims of fraud, is hardly a bad thing?
My argument is simply that UWE gains nothing from the deactivation, but could potentially gain more from just asking people to come forward and offering them some sort of deal to transfer their purchase to UWE, UWE could recoup losses doing that, and everyone is still made aware of the problems of middleman keyselling.
It is not, perhaps, a moral obligation in the conventionally understood definition of the phrase, but it is a nice thing to do? A good thing to do? And potentially a more fiscally sound thing to do.
Basically, does everything you do have to be something you absolutely have to do because you have no other choice? Are nice things too much to ask? Even when it costs you nothing? And possibly gains you something?
Only indirectly. As customers who use those sites have their products stop working, they will be less-likely to buy from those sites.
It won't kill the con man, there are always more suckers. But it will reduce the pool at least, if those who buy actually DO end up getting burned. In turn, word of mouth will spread about that particular site selling keys that get yanked. Then the con man opens a new site and the cycle repeats until that consumer wises up and starts buying from a reputable source full-time.
If the keys NEVER get pulled, that never happens. The con man can operate with impunity, and the site gains a measure of respectability even.
You don't, you assume innocent until proven guilty.
What about your moral obligation to buy from a legitimate source?
Possibly, but how would UWE contact those people without getting their attention first? If they played NS2 actively, then their account being shut down would immediately lead them to question what happened, and they would seek out that information, at which point UWE could explain and offer a deal. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be affected by the key deactivation anyway.
However, if no deactivation occurred, most of those who played NS2 actively on an illegitimate key wouldn't even notice.
So far as any of us know, that was being fulfilled, people bought from sites they thought were legit, but weren't. That's the entire point of this thread, to inform people that some sites are not legitimate when they might appear to be.
Ask valve to send them a message over steam? If you can deactivate the games over steam, you can contact them as well.
Or put it in the next patch, so people have to read it before they start the next game of NS2.
Or ask the card company to contact them.
Lots of ways, really.
That may work in the legal world but not in the business world. People enter into contracts where they're obligated by the language of the contract to act in good faith because businesses do not automatically assume each other is operating in good faith.
It does work in the general people world however, we're not really talking about business or legality, we're talking about how people act. It is generally best to assume people are not acting constantly out of malice unless there is proof.
So, if people buy from a site, it's probably because they think that site is allowed to sell the things it's selling.
I don't know about you but my first thought is not 'wow this site is selling stolen goods' when I go shopping on the internet because I find something cheaply. I might think 'wow this is a good price' or 'hmm I wonder if there's something wrong with it' (though that doesn't apply so much to software, more things that can be damaged) but not 'I am buying from a fence'.
As I said, there's a strong tradition of ridiculous sales on software. Steam holds two or three a year, you can buy £200 worth of games for about £30 with the bundles. It being cheap doesn't mean it's stolen. It even applies in physical sales, I work in a charity shop and bought a £200 coat for £20, because that's just the price we sell them for, some places can afford to sell things for a ridiculous discount.
I did a little internet research and found a nice statement from http://www.trustpilot.com:
You see what happens if they dont deactivate the keys? This individual was informed of his purchase being fraudulent, so he decided to buy another game from that shady reseller! Fool me twice.
IMO this should put an end to all discussion. Max's statement suggests that from UWE's perspective, all they see is 1300 charge-backs on their game. When someone asks for a refund on your game, you take back the game. You don't say, "Okay, here's your money back, enjoy the game." UWE isn't going to sit there and say, "Well another charge-back, guess we should let this one slide again since it may be a result of fraud." They are completely right to have done what they have done.
The unfortunate part is that a lot of those charge-backs were probably a result of stolen credit cards. It's great that UWE is trying to let affected buyers know what has happened, even though it admittedly doesn't fix things for those buyers.
Oh, and by the way:
"00:30 Fraudulent Steam keys cost Unknown Worlds $30k"
You're right: there is no visible good. And since we are talking about "sold information" or "no physical existence" there never were any visible good to begin with.
But the invisible good of deactivating the keys is:
1. UWE has to do it as they stated so they don't face any other (legal) consequences.
2. It has a warning/slap in the face function for the people who are affected: "Don't buy keys from fishy resellers! They could be fraud!"
If they didn't do it, they could face legal consequences and have an even greater financial loss due that.
But on top of that, they would say: "Ok, you bought illegal copys on fishy websites, but you don't face any consequences because we are UWE and we are awesome!" In other words: "You can steal from us and we don't even care!" So why should anybody even bother buying at official shops when you can buy it cheaper elsewhere?
To prove my point, have a look at that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
In one study about that topic they placed a car with one broken window on an university campus. 4 weeks after, the car was completely empty (radio, ... all gone) and even the car wheels and the engine were removed.
TL:DR UWE has to fix its broken windows because people aren't nice!
EDIT: Just read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#Theoretical_explanation and exchange "urban, city, ..." with "internet, web, ..."
Yeah, it's UWE's fault that you have zero common sense.
how is that flawed? when these innocent customers did the exact same thing example: buying it from a shady rusain site for something like 5-10 dollars a key
the whole concept of buying anything dirt cheap off of any site is flawed
if anything i would RATHER buy something physical from a shady guy at a mall then buy something digital from a shady site, both are stupid, which is what these people got what was eventually coming to them