Modern WarFAIL 2

[DaFox]

Spend piles of cash hookers, drugs, and booze.

Not in that order.

So basically pull a 3DRealms?

[Mach1.9pants]

--Post-launch support--

Spend piles of cash hookers, drugs, and booze.

Not in that order.

Hell they are (theoretically) more hip than any Hollywood A lister (if gross first week sales are used as a metric) so they shouldn't have to pay for hookers.... just invite in all the hot CoD groupy girls!

[Tanuki]

Hell they are (theoretically) more hip than any Hollywood A lister (if gross first week sales are used as a metric) so they shouldn't have to pay for hookers.... just invite in all the hot CoD groupy girls!

What about the interns? They should get something, obviously a lower quality than the developers, but they also have less disposable income. Hmmm...what we have here, is a conundrum. :?

[whismerhill]

What is illegitimate about selling anything that you own no matter where it goes in the world?

Nothing... unless it's in violation of trade laws, or embargos, or in this case, the distributor's terms of service. Buying a Steam CD key from an unauthorized distributor violates Steam's terms of service.

the distributor ToS specifically forbids a user from buying anywhere else than in his own country ?

[whismerhill]

by the way, this still pose the problem of people living in several different countries (you may think it's rare but I have family with double nationality ! )
what country should they be allowed to buy in ? hum ? or should they buy it two times, one for each country they play in ?

[DaFox]

[quote]

What is illegitimate about selling anything that you own no matter where it goes in the world?

Nothing... unless it's in violation of trade laws, or embargos, or in this case, the distributor's terms of service. Buying a Steam CD key from an unauthorized distributor violates Steam's terms of service.

the distributor ToS specifically forbids a user from buying anywhere else than in his own country ?

This. There is no feasible way for them to know if someone bought from an unauthorized retailer other than rough key location and the users country. A key is a key.
I mean if you can think of another method for them to track that cranky please I'm all ears. I'm just not seeing it.

[whismerhill]

The more I think about it the more aberrant it seems

so let's think about it :
-buy a Samsung LCD in a shop
-Samsung ask a "repression company" to come to your house, take your screen back because it violated their ToS ?
-when you ask about your money, the answer is: "shouldn't have bought it in this particular shop, sue the shop but the shop won't get the money back either" ?

Is the world becoming dumb or am I the only one to see the obvious theft here ? they get the money, you can't use your product and will be forced to buy another one ...


I said "Samsung" on purpose because some samsung screen in france were of bad quality because some vendors bought some from other countries.(mainly because supply was low and demand was high)


actually shouldn't activision sue the problematic resellers instead ?
yeah of course it's easier to just disable a bunch of keys ...

[GeneralAdmission]

-buy a Samsung LCD in a shop
-Samsung ask a "repression company" to come to your house, take your screen back because it violated their ToS ?
-when you ask about your money, the answer is: "shouldn't have bought it in this particular shop, sue the shop but the shop won't get the money back either" ?

Is the world becoming dumb or am I the only one to see the obvious theft here ? they get the money, you can't use your product and will be forced to buy another one ...

According to what I read, the situation concerned game keys that were resold outside of Activision's preferred design, so yes, Activision was compensated and the customers ended up with nothing. It is humorous that the only advice they offered to said customers is to seek a refund. Gee, Steam games are non-refundable (except in rare circumstances). PC software in general is non-refundable once used. And what exactly do they return to the vendor? An email containing a deactivated code for a game? What Activision's advice amounts to is "We don't give a ****. Buy a new copy of the game."

The software industry operates in it's own special universe. Companies will blatantly and deliberately mistreat their own paying customers simply because they have the power to do so with little to no real consequence.

[The_cranky_hermit]

There is no feasible way for them to know if someone bought from an unauthorized retailer other than rough key location and the users country.

Well, they know the key was initially sold in region A, and they know the key was activated in region B. If there aren't any resellers in region A who are authorized to sell to customers in region B, then that seems like a pretty feasible way to reach that conclusion.

Is the world becoming dumb or am I the only one to see the obvious theft here ? they get the money, you can't use your product and will be forced to buy another one ...

That's life. If you pay for a service and violate the terms, they can cancel your service without obligation to refund your money. The problem with your analogy is that it involves a product, while Steam games operate under the "service" model.

The software industry operates in it's own special universe. Companies will blatantly and deliberately mistreat their own paying customers simply because they have the power to do so with little to no real consequence.

There's actually nothing unusual about this. It would be nice if Activision would go after the unauthorized distributors and then refund the customers, but generally speaking, companies don't do these things unless it's best for their bottom lines or if they are otherwise obligated to. Fact is, the customers broke the ToS that they agreed to willingly, and even if they didn't read it, they should have known better than to buy a "discount" key from some website without any reputation. Activision won't win any loyalty with their behavior, but they don't owe anyone any courtesies either.

Also, suppose Activision does refund everyone's money. Then Activision loses out - whatever amount the customers paid, Activision received less than that in the first place, and the difference went to the unauthorized resellers.

[Anprionsa]

What really being said here.

Side A: Activision sucks! They lie, cheat, and steal

Side B: Yeah, but they can do that.

[The_cranky_hermit]

But they didn't lie, they didn't steal, and it's not cheating if you're allowed to do it. What they did do is deny customers a courtesy that many of us wish they had granted, but fact is, there's no obligation for them to do that.

Now, if it were up to me, I would give customers the option of purchasing a valid CD key at cost difference. It seems like a fair deal to me - Activision gets a sale, the customer gets the game they paid for, as well as a lesson that they can't exploit the regional pricing system to buy games at discount prices meant for people who couldn't afford anything more. But it's not up to me, or any of us.

[Anprionsa]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not siding with anybody. Just stating the two sides here. hehe

[whismerhill]

as you said they could perfectly offer a way to correct the situation

and there's also another possible solution :
deactivate the key for this particular customer or for the whole region

-the key just won't work if you register it in the wrong country
since the key just work you should be in better terms to get a refund

-and also I see another possible way to do things a bit more obviously
include a region code in the Key:
key for france FR-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX & the like ...


also we are talking about two different things here:
case 1 : the keys were resold (which is GeneralAdmission implied)
I don't like Steam ToS on this front but ok, it's against their ToS, let's not talk about that again, I think we talked about it before.
case 2 : the keys were just sold by import resellers, and they don't have the right to sell to another country (according to Steam ToS) and in this case I still wonder where Steam TOS forbids a user from buying not in his country


Finally when you say "they know the key was activated in region B" well no in fact all they know is that the IP region might report this or that country (but it's not always 100% reliable) AND/OR that the user reported his country as being X.
Did you ever saw all those ads which try to provide services (mostly adult rendez-vous) by saying it's available in your specific town or something. well in my case they always get it wrong, and it's not always the same depending on my IP...

of course you may say "ok they get your town wrong but country is a bit larger", to which I'll reply that a bunch of countries are rather small, and quite a bunch of people live near another country...


In the end of lot of this is quite dependent on specific details that we don't know about, it's a shame I don't have enough money on my hands or I would seek out those people that had their key deactivated, get the facts right & depending on the specific details I would challenge the case in court.

[The_cranky_hermit]

the keys were just sold by import resellers, and they don't have the right to sell to another country (according to Steam ToS) and in this case I still wonder where Steam TOS forbids a user from buying not in his country

It doesn't. It forbids a user from buying from an unauthorized distributor. And it just so happens that authorized distributors are restricted to certain regions.

I don't like Steam ToS on this front

Can you find a better way to prevent people from exploiting loopholes in the regional pricing system?

of course you may say "ok they get your town wrong but country is a bit larger", to which I'll reply that a bunch of countries are rather small, and quite a bunch of people live near another country...

It's not necessarily a matter of country, but a matter of region. I doubt they would care much if I bought a key from Ontario, or if you bought one from Belgium, or if Borat bought one from Uzbekistan. But if someone in the Western hemisphere buys a key from China, there's not much concealing this.

[Abram]

Well it's still a cheap move. Buying foreign keys has been around for a log time and this is the first time I've heard of a company actually banned those keys.

It wouldn't be quite to lame is the god damn game wasn't overpriced and half-baked.

Fuck IW and Acitivision, i still say. Right in the ear. Neither of them will see money from me in the future.

[DaFox]

It's not necessarily a matter of country, but a matter of region. I doubt they would care much if I bought a key from Ontario, or if you bought one from Belgium, or if Borat bought one from Uzbekistan. But if someone in the Western hemisphere buys a key from China, there's not much concealing this.

Ontario is a country now eh? ;)

Can you clarify your stance on this cranky? It seems almost like your a robot, where as everyone else actively dislikes it you are basically indifferent.

[The_cranky_hermit]

Well it's still a cheap move. Buying foreign keys has been around for a log time and this is the first time I've heard of a company actually banned those keys.

If people have been successfully cheating the system for a long time, then I say it's about time they did something about it. Half-price keys were meant for people who couldn't afford anything more. Not for you.

Ontario is a country now eh?

It's a region comparable in size to the hypothetical small country that whispermill says are indistinguishable from other nearby small countries.

Can you clarify your stance on this cranky?

Activision wants you to pay $60 for their game. Either pay that, or live without the game until they lower the price (or just live without the game - that's my plan). No sympathy for anyone who tried to cheat the system and got burned.

[DaFox]

Activision wants you to pay $60 for their game. Either pay that, or live without the game until they lower the price (or just live without the game - that's my plan). No sympathy for anyone who tried to cheat the system and got burned.

So what they say is true, you really don't have a soul! Luckily The Wizard of Oz was just recently released on blu-ray, we can go see the wizard to get you one!

I feel no shame for buying my sisters new Ipod from Germany for half the price of a new one in stores here.

[The_cranky_hermit]

So what they say is true, you really don't have a soul! Luckily The Wizard of Oz was just recently released on blu-ray, we can go see the wizard to get you one!

If it's a choice between a brain and a soul, I'll take the brain. It doesn't take much of one to see that these aren't innocent customers being screwed out of their entitlement to cheap games - these are people who tried to cheat the system to save a buck, and it bit them in the ass.

I feel no shame for buying my sisters new Ipod from Germany for half the price of a new one in stores here.

Doing a brief comparison of prices, it would cost me quite a bit more to import an 8GB iPod Touch from Germany (EUR 175 / $265 plus shipping) than to get one here ($190). It's not obvious to me how this anecdote is possible.

[StingingVelvet]

I agree with cranky completely on this.

The real thing getting people in trouble here is the classic idea brought on by the Internet that the entire world is one economy when it is certainly not. People complain about price differences all the time but that is because economies are different... same thing here, cheaper versions of the game exist for certain economies, buying those cheap versions from the US is going around the system and I have no pity for those who did so and now don't have a game.