'Blackwell Deception' Indie Dev Claims 30,000 Steam Keys Stolen in Promotion

[tobalaz]

EA and Ubisoft really turned me off with their draconian DRM, so much so I refuse to buy their games, which I also will not pirate just so they can't complain they lost a sale.
Heck EA is even worse because now a days their games won't even RUN correctly on top of their DRM.
If I like a game or it turns my interest, I buy it.
Steam has sales all the time, so I always keep a few extra bucks back to pounce on deals or new indy titles.
Easy enough for me, fair price, I buy it.
I no longer preorder because of companies like EA.
I wait for reviews and read forums for user experiences instead of just cookie cutter reviews.

 

[ssddx]

the mere fact that someone thinks stealing 30,000 keys is a trivial matter and essentially shouldnt be worried about is the scary part. just because they recovered/deleted/disabled the keys doesnt mean its okay.

let me explain this in a way that hits way too close to home:

you notice on your credit card bill (if you dont have one just imagine) for $2000 which you definitely did not spend. you report it as an unauthorized purchase and it goes away.

are you just going to sit there and do nothing else? you know for sure that it is likely to happen again so are likely going to cancel the card or at least swap the number.

chances are companies with similar strategies as this one are not going to play so nice anymore and the rampant "free advertising" you spoke of has alerted all of them to this act and they may rethink their own strategies. remember for all of the free advertising there is also a good bit of negative advertising as well.

you might not see it today or even tomorrow but if this continues we will all have to deal with it soon enough.

to say otherwise is just lunacy.

 

[jurassic512]

So because game studios have such shitty security, it's our fault? Gotcha.

 

[ssddx]

@jurassic

if you're admitting to being one of the people who stole keys than yes.

whoever commited theft is at fault. i dont care if they were "sitting there for the taking"... wrong is still wrong.

if i swyped your car just because you took your eyes off of it or stole your credit card just because you left it on the kitchen table does that make it your fault that i did it? no it is the fault of the person who stole it. i agree its silly to not have better protection measures but to say its their fault is pretty silly really.

 

[Anaxamenes]

Not all games can be AAA titles. Those are very expensive to make, and a great and vibrant gaming community needs all levels of innovation. Where do the next generation of game designers get their start? Games like this! We need small companies that turn a profit to encourage more investment in quality games for all levels and budgets. You don't encourage innovation by being ambivalent to any form of stealing.

The same goes for film as well!

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

I don't understand what was obviously incorrect about my statement that it deserved a minus score. Do you know something I don't? Do you know that there wasn't a revenue spike for this game because of this news report? If there was a spike, I'm not saying this piracy should have happened, I'm just saying maybe this chain of events can happen and I'm just pointing out how funny it is if that was so in this particular case. It would've been just an interesting bizarre phenomenon. That's all. It's important to find out about these phenomena because if certain things happened the way I suspect then we should be wary of companies in the future trying to stage similar incidents. That's something useful to be knowledgeable about I'm sure you can agree, and no I'm not saying these developers faked it.

 

[alidan]

here is a thought, and a very simple one. DONT HAVE AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR THIS CRAP.

i got a free steam key for Dawn of Fantasy: Kingdom Wars because i participated in a few hour long stream of the game when i was deciding if i wanted to get it. they gave out 50 game keys and other in game items, and asked for a "hay if we give it to you, can you say we did on the steam forums for the game" there, you have an engaged audience who, if your game is good, will sing its praises... if i liked the systems that game offered a bit more, i would talk good about it to, but this was no automated bs, this was they handed me the key personally, THAT is how you give a game out, not a "like us on facebook, tweet at us and sign up for the news letter and we will give you a copy" bs, its exploitable (see here im assuming and shadow warrior) and people like me wont deal with facebook or twitter will get a chance, instead of having us complain about it.