By Kieron Gillen on July 6th, 2009 at 11:22 pm.
It’s a story I’ve been following since, in the aftermath of raising an eyebrow at the forty-quid British Direct-Download sales price of Cyanide’s Blood Bowl, a gentleman mailed me and pointed me in the direction of sites which just sell the serial code for Blood Bowl. Sites like G2Play and Online Key Store, charging fifteen euros and twenty dollars respectively. They’ve both been operating for well over a year, doing it for a variety of games, but I suspect the unusual combination of factors (price difference, smaller size of audience) has given it greater prominence. Cyanide are strongly objecting. LewieP from Savygamer has been doing the heavy lifting on this one, so it’s worth going and reading his hard work, but here’s the situation as I see it…
The sites are buying codes in cheaper territories and selling them in more expensive ones. The comment threads on RPS have often noted the difference between US, European and UK prices – 50 Dollars, 40 Quid and 50 Euros respectively for Blood Bowl – but in other countries with lower earnings, the price of games are often put lower, both in an attempt to match the available cash and as a counter-effect to piracy. So for, say, Starcraft codes for sale, they may buy a load of boxes, rip out the codes, and sell to Westerners.
Clearly, Cyanide aren’t too pleased with seeing this happening. On the forum a spokesperson has said that all keys sold by these websites will be blacklisted and become unusable. To quote a little from the (not in the responders’ native language, it must be stressed) response to LewieP:
“Concerning the serials, we are checking how the website could have the serial.
If they stolen the keys it’s illegal. Furthermore G2play is not a partner so they are not authorized to sell the game.”
Which does cut to the heart of the matter in this case. While apparently there’s boxed copies in parts of Europe, you’d presume that Focus or Cyanide would be aware if they’re selling Blood Bowl considerably cheaper in any territory. Well, you would… but businesses are many legged beasts, and I wouldn’t bet that there isn’t a standard pricing for different countries which they didn’t foresee this happening with. The other alternative would be that the companies have a key-gen for the game and are selling those… except, from my cursory research, I haven’t seen a cracked version of Blood Bowl around and they’ve been in business long enough to make me suspect they’d have be squashed if it was that openly illegal. Certainly the companies in question defend themselves. When asked about the matter on OnlineKeySupport, a spokesperson says…
“We buy keys cheap from Asian countries so they cannot be blacklisted, this is a legitimate company not some cowboy illegal operation”
So… what now? Really, the legalities are beyond me to say to certain, and cut to the heart of both what we’re actually buying when buying a modern game and the nature of the global economy. And, as such, they’re beyond me as a layperson to the law. Can you really object to someone buying a game on holiday and then playing it when they get home? Because, functionally speaking, it’s the same thing as this – just made possible by the internet. Equally, to get this code to work you need a copy of the client, which you could only get via a friend burning it for you or by torrenting the client. But is it a crime to torrent a piece of software you can’t access unless you have a purchased code? And yes, it’s taking advantage of the difference in prices… but surely if it’s okay for companies to send work offshore to maximise their profits, it’s acceptable for a consumer to do likewise? As I said earlier, I honestly don’t know. It clearly feels well into the grey area, but that could mean many things.
I have no idea which way this one will go long-term, if this sort of activity flourishes. There’s two responses, as far as I can see – one which is draconian and will alienate a lot of fans (the blacklisting – even if it’s not illegal, it’s almost certainly against the EULA) and the other which is an incredibly hard line (you have one set price worldwide which is too high for the aforementioned lower-earning territories). With Blood Bowl, if I were Cyanide and a really hard-headed businessman, I suspect I’d go for the latter. Releasing at the higher price point seems to be an attempt to maximise earnings before its real launch later in the year, where I’m sure that it’ll appear as something approaching the normal. As such, you can wait for your money from those territories until later.
Well, there’s a third response: if they know the codes are legit let it go, knowing that they are getting some money, and that banning people will only reduce the size of your community, so reducing the chance of a game’s success long term.
We’ll see how this one goes.
****
Statement of Possible Conflict of Interest: I’ve previously worked for Cyanide, translating their earlier Chaos League. I was approached to do the same on Blood Bowl, to which I expressed interest but said wouldn’t do it for the same fee. Never heard back. So I could be biased positively or negatively, depending.
06/07/2009 at 23:31 Leman says:
I have one of the codes from G2Play. I’ll see what happens.
06/07/2009 at 23:32 Duckmeister says:
I find it hilarious how overly serious Kieron is (potential conflict of interest? whoa!), while quoting a variety of spokespersons who have bad english. The transition between the two just makes me laugh.
Speaking of which, why so serious Kieron?
06/07/2009 at 23:41 Kieron Gillen says:
Because my reputation’s about the only thing I give a toss about, obv.
KG
06/07/2009 at 23:43 Feintlocke says:
If they want my money at all they’d better hope I buy a key from G2Play because £40 for a PC game is a ripoff. I could get 2 recent games for much the same moneys (and I will, hello Anno and Demigod).
06/07/2009 at 23:48 SuperNashwan says:
Issue region specific codes, servers ignore IPs from outside that area, ‘problem’ solved.
06/07/2009 at 23:49 Vinraith says:
$50 for a limited number of installs with no demo. You know, with those latter two stipulations, even $20 from one of these places is too much. Drop the DRM, give me a demo, and they might get $50 from me. If they do neither, they get nothing.
06/07/2009 at 23:49 Kester says:
This seems similar to the case a few years back where one of the online music sellers (CDWow I think) got told to stop selling cheap CDs they bought in the Eastern markets. It was basically the same scheme, and in that instance they were judged to have violated some kind of protectionism laws. Whether that applies over the internet I don’t know.
I never entirely understood why it’s in the government’s interests to allow big multinationals to artificially fix prices this way: maybe someone more economically minded could explain?
06/07/2009 at 23:50 qrter says:
Blacklisting the keys sounds like a stupid and nasty thing to do – besides the website they’re in conflict with, they’d also be hitting the customer, who is genuinely prepared to pay money for their game, eventhough it’s at reduced prices.
06/07/2009 at 23:51 Kieron Gillen says:
SuperNashwan: So if I move house, my game doesn’t work? Or businessmen on holiday? Or are you suggesting that we have a heirarchy, so people from richer countries games work when in poorer countries but not vice versa?
KG
06/07/2009 at 23:53 Dominic White says:
I’m guessing the codes are legit – the thing is, if they ARE standard activation keys from boxed copies, there shouldn’t be anything in the code itself to identify where it’s from.
If you have gotten an OnlineKeyStore/G2Play key, then so long as you don’t go bragging on the Cyanide forums that you’ve gotten one of these cheap keys, then there’s probably nothing anyone can do about it.
So exercise a little caution if you have.
06/07/2009 at 23:54 gulag says:
I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that this perfect storm of high price digital only release, delay on retail release, issue over “grey market” keys, and a host of still to be resolved bugs is going to land Blood Bowl in the “remembered for the stink it caused” chapter of gmaing history. That would be a real shame, because it’s a cracking game, that does exactly what it says on the tin. They just need to get the tin translated a bit better, is all.
06/07/2009 at 23:58 Nobody Important says:
How would they know if your key is from a certain region?
This is the typical Internet reaction. If a game publisher messes something up, the Internet steps in to correct it. Oftentimes this is illegal, and nonsense occurs. Example: DRM.
06/07/2009 at 23:59 Gl3n says:
To be honest, it was a bit of a cheek to charge 40 pounds sterling in the first place. Throwing a hissy that people are finding a way around cyanide’s rather extortionate region pricing isn’t helping their fledgling game’s cause.
£40 isn’t $40.
I can’t think of many other download-only games that charged this much at release, lack of polish aside.
07/07/2009 at 00:00 Wirbelwind says:
I’d say the former option is the best one.
There’s a (good) reason why games are sold cheaper in Poland and Russia. While I disagree with price differences between US/Europe/Similar countries, there’s no use in selling the same price in the troubled areas. Might as well not sell it there. Europeans/Americans will just have to cope with the fact that they’re lucky to be living in decent standards.
07/07/2009 at 00:01 haliotabott says:
In regards to the banning via IP, i have begun to use “Ultra Surf” quite a lot – it’s sort of a proxy. I don’t see why Youtube and Fileplanet betas are restricted for me, just because i live in Europe. so, i adjust.
07/07/2009 at 00:01 Alexander Norris says:
I would totally be down with African CD keys not working in Europe as long as mine work if I ever make the dreadful mistake of setting foot in Africa. Colonialism 2.0! Woo!
More seriously, the £40 digital copy stinks of shameless profiteering which, to be fair, is entirely coincidental with Games Workshop’s regular pricing policies, so I can’t say I’m particularly surprised there.
I really don’t see why buying a CD key in a foreign country should be anything less than fully legal. I know the chaps at Number 10 think 1984 is a user manual and that Sarkozy is looking to follow suite, but I’m not exactly town with being told what I can and can’t buy while on holiday, thank you very much.
What are they going to do next, tell us we’re not allowed to sell our games second-hand or that we can only install them when and where they say so because we don’t own the software, or something?!
07/07/2009 at 00:02 TotalBiscuit says:
Cyanide is in a hole of their own digging. Had the game not been released at such a ridiculously high price and with such a poor distribution model (21 days to download? Seriously guys?), I would not have thought twice about buying it direct. As it stands, I have my copy thanks to G2Play and will take my chances. If it does get blacklisted, then so will Cyanide on my list of developers not to buy from in the future.
For a company involved in blatant copyright infringement with Chaos League, they sure are gung-ho about riding the moral high-horse now.
07/07/2009 at 00:02 jalf says:
Except that
- It’s a bit late now to do that.
- It would alienate a lot of people who bought the game from these sites.
- It would alienate anyone who travels with their computer (perhaps you bought the game on holiday in Asia, then returned home to Europe or America. Or vice versa, you bought the game in Europe, and want to play the game on your laptop on vacation. Should your key get blacklisted for that?)
- IP’s can’t be reliably used to determine location. ISP’s sometimes lease IP ranges from each others, so a German user may appear to be in America based on his IP. Blacklisting legal customers because you’re paranoid doesn’t make you a lot of friends.
Anyway, I’m with Vinraith. I’m not going to fork over anywhere in the region of €50 for a game with limited activations. Especially not if, as is my impression, they don’t tell you it is limited activations until after you bought it. If they want to game the system in this way, I don’t see why customers shouldn’t do the same.
07/07/2009 at 00:04 Thrawny says:
I wouldn’t even pay £40 for a boxed copy, let alone a downloaded version.
Also there’s no way i’m going to buy a game without first trying a demo, even if i am a warhammer nerd, they can bugger off.
07/07/2009 at 00:05 BritishTexan says:
@SuperNashwan
Region specific serial numbers? Really? I emigrated to another country four years ago (Liverpool, England -> Arlington, Texas, USA), your so-called solution would see me prevented from playing all my legitimately purchased games.
07/07/2009 at 00:07 caramelcarrot says:
I wonder if these companies can be done for not paying import duty on the keys? Presumably it’s a grey area of customs law, but it makes sense from a spirit-of-the-law perspective.
07/07/2009 at 00:07 Wisq says:
Aren’t exchange rates supposed to deal with this? Or are they targetting different demographics in different countries?
I could see how a low price in China could get you as much cash as a massive price in some other nation, but is that really fair? You’re saying “it’s okay to not pay us very much for our game, if you’re Chinese“. Discrimination based on wallet size, really.
07/07/2009 at 00:08 jrpz says:
The thing is, the producers are very aware that for many Warhammer nerds, £40 is worth it. Any company would try to set up a tiered pricing strategy to induce those customers to pay the higher price first. Otherwise you are just leaving money on the table.
It makes perfect sense economically, even if it leaves a bad taste.
07/07/2009 at 00:10 BrokenSymmetry says:
Kieron: “So if I move house, my game doesn’t work?”..
Just try moving to another country together with your Xbox (or Games for Windows) Live account. You can not change you Live country of payment, you can not pay with a credit card from your new country, and your only option is to create a new Live account, losing all your games. Or what most people in that situation do, semi-legally importing Microsoft point cards from your original country, and even then, IP restrictions on certain content can block you from re-downloading games you bought in another country.
07/07/2009 at 00:10 Gl3n says:
Maybe they could stop G2play etc selling codes in a similar way that Sony stopped Lik-Sang selling PSP’s. In that they could argue that their sales are damaging Cyanide’s business.
Not that i would condone such an action obviously, but the moment they start attacking those that have, in reality bought keys legally, they’ll lose almost all goodwill towards them and gain the ire of the feared internets.
07/07/2009 at 00:11 luminosity says:
@Kester I think there are two reasons. One, those big multinationals are very big contributors to politicians running for election, and they don’t want to scare the money off, and two, they pay for those dodgy/bogus-sounding surveys where their estimated value to the economy is a bajillion dollars.
This is the reason why you’ll see studies come out saying $100bn lost to Australian software development through piracy, or the like, even though everyone knows that the industry is probably worth only maybe a tenth of that. If you can sell yourself as a potentially massive growth sector if all that needs to be done is get those nasty pirates to pay up… well, politicians like to be able to talk about economic growth and are all too willing to believe it. Never mind that even if the figures were true, that money would only come out of not being spent on other things.
07/07/2009 at 00:13 BritishTexan says:
@BrokenSymmetry
MS do the same thing with Hotmail too, I was paying for some of the extra stuff on there and wasn’t able to renew the account when it expired a few months after my arrival for much the same reasons you state. Hello, Gmail!
07/07/2009 at 00:13 Clovis says:
Ack, this kind of thing is confusing. I don’t want to steal music or games, but now I have to do in depth research to make sure I’m not buying a “hot” copy? You can’t rely on information from the distributor because it is in their interest to enforce idiotic region coding rules.
How am I supposed to know if something is legitimate? What about sites where you can buy someone’s “used” MP3s? The idea seems preposterous, but so is the idea that the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply anymore.
The root of the problem is that the actual worth of a copy is essentially 0. It costs nothing to reproduce. Without destroying the internet it might become increasingly difficult to buy things online legally unless you stick to the major websites, ie the “authorized” sellers. Well, screw that. I don’t want to buy everything from Steam, Impulse, Amazon, and iTunes. I want more competition.
07/07/2009 at 00:16 Mad Doc MacRae says:
Man, I hadn’t even heard of G2play before. Thanks, Cyanide!
07/07/2009 at 00:16 Serondal says:
For those of you asking how they can tell where the CD-keys are from ?Are you serious? They keep track of all their CD-keys it’s like a credit card number. I can tell from your credit card number what country you got it in, what state if your from the US ext (If I’m the credit card company) They know exactly where those CD-keys are coming from and they can tell where you are when you activate them, they can black list them. The problem is how are they going to know which keys were sold to these sites and which keys weren’t? Are they just going to black list all those keys if they’re activated out of the regional area they were sold in?
It isn’t just video games where this happens. DVDs that work in the US probably won’t work on a UK player. All those old arcade games stated it was illegal to play them outside the country they were made for (japan, europe, america ect) So this is nothing new.
This is a group of people that have played to many trading videos and found a way to buy low sell high and didn’t think of the legal problems behind what they were doing. I hope they smashed out of the internets if they are indeed doing something illegal.
It seems rather shady to me just to sell serial numbers any how. If people are buying them how are they getting the client? I could see if they already had a copy and they were buying another key so they could legally play it on two computers> but if they’re downloading the client from illegal torrent sites that seem much more illegal to me ;P
Are these the same kinds of websites that sell MMORPG Cd-keys that they were able to loot from bargin bins and 3rd world countries?
07/07/2009 at 00:17 LewieP says:
Really, the optimal solution in my mind is that if the publisher decides that this grey market is such a big deal that they want to consider blacklist legitimate serials, then they should look more closely at their supply chain.
G2play and Online Key Store are getting these serials from somewhere, and they are getting them in bulk. One of the distributors that Focus have a contract with is responsible for selling these copies of the games to retailers who just gut the serial numbers and pass it on.
If they are not happy with this practise, they should stop dealing with distributors who enable it, and put tighter restrictions on who they will and won’t sell their games to. They should certainly not punish their own customers who are indeed paying their wages instead of deciding to pirate their game.
As far as I am concerned, the publishers response boils down to “We have failed to control how we supply international markets effectively, and are now going to act pissy because we want more money”, simple as that.
07/07/2009 at 00:21 Gl3n says:
So by torrenting a piece of software that is in fact completely defunct without a CD-Key is breaking the law?
What about if you’re forced to download an online game away from the official mirrors and apply a legitimate CD-key?
Are we paying for the CD-Key, or the ‘physical’ data?
07/07/2009 at 00:21 Serondal says:
So what you’re saying LewieP is that this is like going into a store and nabbing an item that has the price mislabeled and getting it for 20 or 30 dollars less than the real price? It is the stores mistake; they’re the ones that should pay for it not their customers who would only have to pay the proper price?
07/07/2009 at 00:21 Kieron Gillen says:
Serondal: I have a 10 quid regionless DVD player you may want to buy.
KG
07/07/2009 at 00:22 Rich_P says:
Back in 2007, Valve deactivated The Orange Box if it was purchased from Thailand but activated in a more expensive region. Since many gamers have lots of money invested in Steam, it’s best not to piss off the people holding the keys, so to speak, which is a potential problem with any such service.
My unprofessional opinion is that, if your leadership is actively promoting a “global economy,” it should work all ways. If megacorporations can ship jobs overseas to cut down on labor costs, why can’t the little guy buy from overseas to cut down on purchase costs?
Cyanide can go join the college textbook publishers in bitching about Americans/Canadians/Europeans taking advantage of cheaper international goods.
07/07/2009 at 00:23 Serondal says:
Sell it to Barack Obama so next time he gives a gift he can make sure it works ;P
07/07/2009 at 00:31 frymaster says:
Equally, to get this code to work you need a copy of the client, which you could only get via a friend burning it for you or by torrenting the client. But is it a crime to torrent a piece of software you can’t access unless you have a purchased code?
Yes, in the UK. (some other countries allow you to exercise your fair use rights with illegal downloads) Is it immoral? Possibly not… I think in the cases where they buy physical copies, it’s possibly dubious (because having all the physical proof of a purchase apart from the key could mean people could possibly get a new key from support
07/07/2009 at 00:31 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
I only get EA games through sites like this…No way I’m paying 50 euros for an EADM download (half a year expiration&zero to none chance to back the files up) with limited installs…about 20 dollars for Mercenaries 2 was a great deal. Mass Effect, on the contrary, was not as I am one of those “lucky” fellas with the General Protection Fault error…AND YES, I do like cheap CD’s from CDWOW sent straight from Hong Kong warehouses. I just like how globalization work both ways, I think they should accept it and SHUT UP already…
07/07/2009 at 00:32 Gap Gen says:
Will we then see programmer farms in Asia, with smaller studios outsourcing the bulk of their coding to other countries, as they do for manufacturing? This is a response I could see to the problem of recouping costs for games sold cheaply – making the production costs cheaper.
Another option would be to persuade governments to heavily tax foreign electronic-only sales, although I’m not sure how this would work in practice.
07/07/2009 at 00:33 Aphotique says:
Isn’t this essentially a ‘used’ market? It just so happens that the product is in ‘like new condition?’ Clearly there is a difference, but personally I see no difference in a company buying the keys and selling it to people and me buying a key and selling it at a frackin’ garage sale. They can complain all they want, and they can even go so far as to utterly crush the resale market, but in the end, its their own fault.
Bring on the tariffs and the cartels!
This is why I buy my absinthe from Germany, and my nudity-censored video games from the rest of Europe.
07/07/2009 at 00:34 SuperNashwan says:
SuperNashwan: So if I move house, my game doesn’t work? Or businessmen on holiday? Or are you suggesting that we have a heirarchy, so people from richer countries games work when in poorer countries but not vice versa?
KG
I’m just saying what will almost certainly happen if selling game codes takes off. Authorisation/multiplayer servers will be region locked, like dvds, only far harder to get around. It’s a much cheaper solution than pulling a Levi’s or a Sony (vs Tesco, Lik Sang, respectively).
07/07/2009 at 00:34 Kieron Gillen says:
GapGen: There already are. Outsourcing is a big thing in the industry for the last few years.
KG
07/07/2009 at 00:34 Serondal says:
Gap Gen – See every Korean MMORPG ever made. You want all our games to look like that? Shame!
07/07/2009 at 00:42 LewieP says:
Apparently part of the reason that there has been so few reviews for this is that they are not giving review copies out to English/USA based sites until it gets a retail release in the UK/USA in September.
07/07/2009 at 00:47 diziet sma says:
OK… so they overprice the game even for a boxed copy, don’t sell boxed copies at retail in the country in which it was created. Don’t release a demo. Overprice the game via DD which is cheaper anyhow AND then ban key codes from gamers who have bought the game ‘on holiday’. Roll on keygen, screw online play. I don’t want to pirate or keygen it but I want to experience the game before I shell out 40 quid, or pay less money. At least with the latter I won’t feel ripped off should it turn out to be not my cup of tea.
Only in computing could you not get to demo a product before purchase. Even shops let you try on clothes, or are PC games now the equivalent of lingerie?
07/07/2009 at 00:48 Gabanski83 says:
I hope this is clarified soon, as I really want to buy this game and join in the league a few mates of mine have started, but for £40 Cyanide can whistle. It’s just priced too far out of the budget I’m prepared to pay these days for a brand new, standard edition PC game.
I mean, £40 for a boxed collector’s edition, with maybe a coupleof the miniatures to paint, a few American Football inspired flags or pennants, or even a studded, scuffed up Orc team helmet or something would possibly justify the £40. But a limited install, digital download only with no extras PC game, for that much? No way Jose, not worth it in the slightest, no matter how much I love the board game.
07/07/2009 at 00:49 Mister Adequate says:
The idea that there can be any sort of regional controls on a global telecommunications network is pretty laughable. As evidenced by things like this and to some degree piracy, people aren’t going to stand for it. The pressures caused by such a contradiction will cause problems like this; the natural state of the Internet is borderless and imposing borders is both bizarre and counterproductive.
07/07/2009 at 00:50 diziet sma says:
Err I replace the or between pirate and keygen with a /. Excuse the ranty style but I really want to play this game. I want to give it the love it no doubt deserves so why is the developer/publisher so intent on alienated their own customer base in this way? RPS, I’ll love you forever if you can get a reasoned response from the horses mouth that explains their actions included the insane distribution channel. Is this GW doing? They are a profiteering bunch after all.
07/07/2009 at 00:50 LewieP says:
To add additional context to how expensive it is. This is cheaper.
07/07/2009 at 00:52 Serondal says:
It sounds like whatever they do they’re going to end up making themselves a good target for pirates (even more so than normal games) They’d be better of just repricing the DD versions of the game to fit the region based on the exchange rate.
07/07/2009 at 00:58 diziet sma says:
Haha this is almost priceless. I was tempted to buy from OnlineKeyStore but this thread, quoted elsewhere:
http://www.onlinekeysupport.com/customer-aftercare/119-bloodbowl-devs-might-blacklisting-serials-online-key-store-2.html
Doesn’t inspire confidence. The admin says this:
“…they will never be blacklisted because we get them from a reliable source”
What isn’t mentioned is his Nic: “ElItE_HaXoR”
Sorry guys, if you’re going to be legitimate and say you buy proper copies from asia etc. don’t doll out advice as anything with hacker in the name.
07/07/2009 at 01:02 JR says:
I have to say, I did think it was a little unfortunately priced for a digital only copy (especially with the various limits set out).
Pity they didn’t just do a standard release without the skimming… and consequently I hope they don’t black list the keys, although, mainly for selfish reasons.
It’s a nice game. =)
07/07/2009 at 01:04 diziet sma says:
Sorry I’m almost spamming but there’s no edit button. A quick whois on the domain, ping check and whois on the IP appears to indicate onlinekeystore is a UK based operation. heartinternet do the DNS and hosting, based up in Nottingham. Sherwood forest anyone? :-P
07/07/2009 at 01:05 wiper says:
There is a fourth ‘solution’ which you’ve not touched on, Kieron. It’s a variant of the first, but rather than blacklisting customers (assuming they can), they could write off this release as a lost cause, and instead for future releases have region-specific keys. Of course, this has the fun side-effect of making a game completely non-portable (unless they instate a ‘key swapping service’ for purchasers, and could presumably be worked around by IP masking, but it’s another option.
Or, a fifth way – only release the title digitally through distribution services with similar security to Steam’s, with its non-transferrable keys. Again, only future-proofing rather than solving their current issues, and limiting their audience significantly, through medium rather than pricing.
(Personally, I’m in the “you’re in a world ostensibly enamoured with free trade – live with it” camp)
07/07/2009 at 01:06 Clovis says:
If they were selling keys that you then stuck into Steam I don’t think there would be a problem. But in the US (and any other country that the Berne Convention or whatever appliess) it would be clearly illegal to torrent the client.
I “backed up” my old cassettes to mp3s by torrenting them. This is clearly illegal, but not immoral so I don’t care. Same thing here as long as you believe it is reasonable that the company selling the game actually bought it somewhere.
07/07/2009 at 01:08 Kieron Gillen says:
Wiper: Yeah, I agree with the variants. I kind of wanted to do the three major things which other solutions sort of mix up.
KG
07/07/2009 at 01:08 wiper says:
^amendment – to be more accurate, I’m in the “you’re in a world ostensibly enamoured with free trade – live with it or change the world” camp.
And I see Nashwan came up with solution four way back when. I really should learn to read these things more thoroughly.
07/07/2009 at 01:10 Dominic White says:
The ridiculous thing in this situation is that if you do buy the ‘legitimate’ version of the game for some ridiculous price, you only have access to your download for a couple of weeks. Once that time is up, if you want to redownload/reinstall, you need to BUY IT AGAIN.
Wheras those people who bought a supposedly legit key from a third-party seller? They can just download the game whenever from any common torrent site.
As others have said, it’s fairly obvious why a lot of people are turning to this potenitally shady third-party – they’re not only offering a much better price, but better service as well.
07/07/2009 at 01:10 wiper says:
Well, actually, the clear solution is, in true RevStu fashion, to price all games down to the lowest point. An argument we can all get behind, yeah?
07/07/2009 at 01:10 dAYBREAKbOY says:
Parallel importing, of which this is an example, is a far greater problem than just video games.
Consider AIDS drugs; they cost millions to develop, the cost of which the drug companies recoup by selling them to Western countries. They also sell them to African countries at a greatly reduced price, (and it’s still all ‘profit’, since the drugs are cheap to manufacture). Reselling African drugs in the Western market would have the eventual result of there being a single drug price, but that price being out of reach of most Africans.
This video games thing is the same. People buying games on holiday is a small market and probably won’t affect the developer’s profit. Organised reselling, however, has the potential to totally erode the sales of Western versions of the game. What’s the developer supposed to do? They will have to charge a single price. That’s great for us, we get lower prices. But it’s not so good for the Chinese, as I would imagine that single price would be higher than what they currently pay – leading to fewer Chinese playing legal copies.
tl;dr – stop being selfish and buy the game at its rrp. Parallel importing invariably harms the poorest consumers.
07/07/2009 at 01:18 jalf says:
Eh, you’re missing one rather important little detail here. We’re customers, we’re supposed to be selfish. That is what free trade is all about. The customer does not have to buy what the customer does not want to buy. If the customer thinks the price on a product is too high, the customer does not buy it.
Apparently, for a lot of people, the choice is between paying $15 or not buying it at all. Which means that your nice little argument falls to pieces. The developer makes more money if we pay a bit of money by buying through the cheapest possible channel, than if we simply decide not to buy the game.
And more importantly, in a free market situation, we as consumers should not care. We buy what we want to buy, and if a company is unable to make a profit on our buying habits, that company will fail and a less incompetent one will take its place.
(wow, I’d never thought I’d honestly argue for free market solutions to problems, but I really don’t feel that the financial situation of a game developer is any of my business. My business as a consumer is buying and playing games and nothing else.)
07/07/2009 at 01:19 yutt says:
@Serondal
Here in Michigan, if a product is mismarked, not only do you get the product for the price as marked, but the retailer is required by law to pay you 10X the price difference (minimum of $1, max of $5).
07/07/2009 at 01:24 wiper says:
Ah, you’ve hit on one of the problems of free trade. But the thing is, as Kieron pointed out way at the beginning, that companies take full advantage of the system, so why shouldn’t consumers?
The full ‘solution’ (ideology dependent) is to remove free trade altogether. The more likely one is to screw the consumer while the companies benefit (note that, despite your pretty argument, third-world countries do suffer massively at the hands of drug companies (and many other foreign industries. Terminator crops, anyone?). Though I suppose that, yes, things could be even worse.
Either way, I’m not sure we’ll find ourselves looking back in an utopian paradise fifty years hence, going:
“Man, remember when the world was divided between rich and poor? Thank God for that computer game developer showing us all the error of our ways!”
07/07/2009 at 01:25 wiper says:
^last post @dAYBREAKbOY
07/07/2009 at 01:40 Kieron Gillen says:
Wiper: “Man, remember when the world was divided between rich and poor? Thank God for that computer game developer showing us all the error of our ways!”
But wouldn’t it be awesome if they did.
KG
07/07/2009 at 01:43 bhlaab says:
Yup
07/07/2009 at 01:48 Thiefsie says:
This all happened with BF2 and COD4 a good while ago to my fellow aussies. Bunches of their cd keys were getting cancelled and then the shop selling them gave them new ones that worked. I’m not sure whether they did that at a loss or just got a different supplier?
Why do blu-ray games (PS3) have no region locking? Because they can I suppose. A fair few 360 games don’t have region locking… it’s great for the countries like Australia that get shafted retail price wise.
I wonder how many people honestly have region locked dvd players? – Depressingly most people I suppose haha.
Then again when it costs $18AUD to go see a movie no wonder I don’t go to the movies much at all anymore.
Does this have anything to do with Bloodbowl? Probably not. I’ll rant in the corner over there.
07/07/2009 at 01:50 Ben says:
“but surely if it’s okay for companies to send work offshore to maximise their profits, it’s acceptable for a consumer to do likewise?”
This is what it’s about. If China has rampant piracy and low wages, and the Chinese government isn’t willing to enforce your IP then you have to drop your prices, if the US has moderate piracy, high wages, and the government is willing to enforce your IP, then you charge more.
Technically, free trade would hamstring region specific pricing: if you can undercut the Euro sellers just by reselling the Chinese product then every market gets priced to the lowest income most piracy-prone market, which would probably bankrupt all but the absolute most successful companies.
This is the primary economic problem with intellectual property: the concept of supply & demand is basically broken by supply being infinite, or nearly so. Prices then get set not based on rarity, but on theoretical demand and operating costs.
07/07/2009 at 02:07 Bellyache says:
Semi-related to this, re: obtaining the game after getting a key from one of these serial sellers.
Colour me confused. A couple of people have mentioned in this thread that downloading an ISO of a game/borrowing it from a friend is “obviously illegal”, even if you’ve purchased a serial. Now I am positive that somewhere back in the mists of time, I read or heard from a reliable source that it wasn’t illegal (even in the UK), if you’ve legitimately purchased the product. So that as well as being morally in the clear, you’re also legally OK if you pay for a legitimate serial key then go ahead and torrent the actual ISO. Or am I wrong?
More directly related: I’m sure this wouldn’t have become nearly so much of an issue if the release of this product had been sane in terms of distribution and pricing. The sods are getting their just deserts.
07/07/2009 at 02:09 Bellyache says:
*Just desserts, even. Though a stint of banishment somewhere barren and cold might well incite them to buck their ideas up in future.
07/07/2009 at 02:09 Mathew Jensterle says:
There is another way they could be obtaining legitimate codes, but it is very dodgy. When I worked in retail a number of the staff would leave the stickered keycode inside the empty games box after removing the disc for ‘security purposes’. The Lich King Expansion to WOW is a good example, the code was shipped in the box as a small sticky label which did not remove easily, client downloadable from Blizzard direct. Left 4 Dead retail version came in a box with no cd, just the Steam code on a piece of printed paper, which just ended up looking like flyers which weren’t valuable. Lesser trained staff ended up putting these out. I noticed some known thieves not much time later popping into store, and after watching them for a while I noticed them photographing the inside of the box, and obviously the keycode. Wasn’t quite sure if I could get them arrested (what charge?) but bullied them into handing over memory cards, and they told us they’d been doing this for a while, across the country, as some stores do use retail boxes on display if they’ve no dummy copies. Nobody had stopped them before. They might still be out there now. Also, unscrupulous staff could remove cd-keys from stock quite without being obvious, and the game would inevitably be sent back to the supplier as “incomplete.”
07/07/2009 at 02:28 Horza says:
One solution is to distribute the game on physical media with DRM that requires the original disk.
ARMA2 is really cheap in g2play but you’d be really buying only the singleplayer game since it needs a crack if you don’t have the original media and I doubt nodvd cracks can keep up with patches.
07/07/2009 at 02:46 Fat says:
I’ve used a similar site a few times to purchase code-only versions of games, mainly MMOs… when i’ve needed a 2nd account and already had the CD/manual from a previous copy, etc. It’s a handy service, me like.
In this case, there wouldn’t be a market for this if they weren’t being a bunch of greedy gits in the first place. In other cases, whenever i see a Dev selling their code-only versions, they always seem to cost more than a boxed version anyway… it’s just in THIS case, £40 is taking the cake a bit. Games haven’t cost that much since, what, 2004?
07/07/2009 at 02:50 bansama says:
I notice that G2Play also sell Steam based CDkeys something Valve have already made clear that they do not tollerate either (meaning that will in all likelyhood disable your account if they find you used such a key). And we all know what Valve did to certain copies of the Orange Box which were bought from Russia/Thailand.
07/07/2009 at 03:04 rocketman71 says:
So if we get ripped off paying in euros, it’s ok, but if we get it cheaper buying it from some eastern country then it’s illegal?.
Fuck you then, Cyanide. You are not getting euros, dollars, yens or whatever from me.
07/07/2009 at 03:17 solipsistnation says:
I just want to note that we have both Horza AND Diziet Sma posting here.
07/07/2009 at 03:20 wiper says:
KG: But wouldn’t it be awesome if they did.
It’s nice to dream. Not in our lifetimes, though. Quite possibly not in the human race’s.
Well, I’m being pleasantly downbeat (and off-topic); think it’s time for bed.
07/07/2009 at 03:27 Jeeva says:
@Bellyache IIRC, I remember seeing something about it being specifically illegal to upload copyrighted materials, so by torrenting, though you may own it, you’d be breakin’ the law with any and all seeding. May well be wrong.
@Bansama Valve don’t seem to specifically say they’ll ban your accounts instantly, they seem to infer that YMMV.
Quote: “You purchase from them at your own risk”
Of course, could be a doctored picture, but seems reasonable.
07/07/2009 at 03:29 Caiman says:
I never buy games or DVDs when I’m travelling anymore due to region coding, DRM and other issues. The net result is that I probably buy less games and DVDs, because when I’m travelling I am specifically looking to buy entertainment and when I get back home I’m back at work again. It’s no wonder most of my gaming these days is now online flash games and other “indie” downloads purchased while on vacation.
07/07/2009 at 03:31 Nakki says:
I bought Anno 1404 from G2Play for 15 euros, which was half of what I was prepared to pay (Play.com would’ve been 32.5 euros with shipping, which was what I was planning).
If they really made a keygen that is good enough to make keys that actually pass as official ones and at that speed, well, congratulations, they deserved my money even if my key gets blacklisted.
On the other hand, if my key is some technically legitimate asian edition and it will be blacklisted I will be flying to France to burn down Ubisoft headquaters.
07/07/2009 at 03:59 Maniac11919 says:
easy fix: sell less keys to the lower-income countries… ???
07/07/2009 at 04:43 Wisq says:
On the one hand, I think it’s key that we discuss these sorts of things, because it helps us figure out who’s right and who’s wrong, and shines light on a confusing grey area of games retail.
On the other hand … seriously, some company is flipping out because people who aren’t willing to pay their (Western) asking price are torrenting the game and then actually paying them money anyway for a serial code? Are we in backwards-land here?
I imagine the number of people who buy the game (locally) and the number of people who pirate the game outright both far dwarf the number of people who use a serial-shifting service. You have to be dissatisfied enough to not buy it, yet moral / law-abiding enough to actually want to pay them for a semi-legitimate copy.
I’m not saying there’s nobody like that. I would qualify, certainly. But really, don’t we have bigger fish to fry here?
07/07/2009 at 04:47 Wisq says:
I should say, you need to be dissatisfied enough to not pay full, technologically literate enough to know you can download a pirate version for free, and moral / “law-abiding” enough to want to buy a serial. And that’s “law-abiding” in quotes because it’s still probably technically illegal.
07/07/2009 at 05:10 Melf_Himself says:
Game buyer: “How much is this game?”
Game seller: “How much ya got?”
That’s effectively the situation here. I understand that Asian countries have more people below the poverty line, and the lower price point makes sense. But there are poor people in other countries, and very rich people in Asia as well.
What we need is some kind of internationally recognized low income card, and the serial number from the card tied to the cd-key when activated. Or something. The necessary international co-operation is maybe 50 years off though, ah well.
07/07/2009 at 06:12 troy says:
I see nothing wrong with this .
the keys on g2 plays site is keys for steam or ea download manager .
its almost like i bought the game form steam or EA but instead i git a discount.
and this is no different than waiting for the game to come down in price at game stop and picking it up for 10 dollars .
the reging it if applicable.
if companies want to prevent this kind of stuff then release the games at a global price point and release them globally.
stop with the stupid attempts at trying to profit more or less by staggering or disjointing or falsely releasing and just release the game at an acceptable price point and let us buy them geesh.
the more complex you make things the easier it is for other companies to game the system. then the the so called gray markets spring up. if they dont want gray markets then prevent them by stopping practices that allow them to grow in the first place.
07/07/2009 at 07:27 the affront says:
I always thought “regional pricing” was just another word for “price gouging because we can, suck it!”, especially regarding pricing of software distributed via downloads, as distribution cost is virtually non-existent in comparison to retail (not like retail clerk wages would make up for a price that’s thrice as high, but still…). And I still do.
I perceive this as a kind of tyranny and lose any desire to let the developer in question have my money utterly – in fact it even makes me want to pirate the game, even if I don’t like it in the first place. I’d do it just for the sake of a “fuck you”.
So, how about the pricing mafia loosens their yoke a little and finds a price that is… uh, I don’t know, MAYBE IN THE DAMN MIDDLE OF THE RANGE?
So that maybe more people in the high-price regions buy your now really attractively cheap product while a few less people in the low-price regions do – thus you avoid making yourself look like a profiteering-at-all-costs asshole and your bottom line still ends up about the same?
How about that? I believe I have just discovered a new theory in rocket science.
But yeah, like THAT will happen. Let’s just exploit our customers some more and hope nobody will notice how shamelessly we’re screwing them over, and if one does and opens a store re-selling from elsewhere, we go apeshit and try to shut it down. We have a plan, gentlemen!
Anyway, about the free trade / drug company arguments: Last I heard games weren’t really essential to your survival. I also don’t believe that no one would bother developing any drugs if prices for them in the “western world” wouldn’t be astronomical.
Even if I did, I’d still favor uniformly low prices and subsidized development instead, hopefully including any health-related companies forced to operate nonprofit, as completely free trade in that sector, especially coupled with patents, kind of sucks – might as well just start slavery again if you can indirectly put a price on a human life via drug cost.
Too bad that will never happen, considering petty human nature, before I for one will be able to welcome our new benevolent AI overlords.
You should also tag this as angry internet men now, Kieron :P
oh and solipsistnation: TENTACLES! AAAH!
07/07/2009 at 07:40 destroy.all.monsters says:
These companies want to have their cake and eat it too. Either you don’t want it pirated and want people to pay or you deserve and earn piracy by your incredibly stupid actions (which you justify by using some byzantine logic that only you can understand). Region locks should be inherently illegal.
/rant mode
07/07/2009 at 07:41 Howard says:
I’m a little confused due to sleep deprevation so aplogies if this is either obvious or already answered but: Once one has purchased ones code, how does one get the game? I notice that some of the codes on offer at those sites can be used on the EA Download Manager or through Steam but some don’t, BloodBowl being an example of the later.
Are people downloading torrented CD Images then just using the code to make it legit?
07/07/2009 at 07:54 mihor_fego says:
What bothers me most about this whole case, is that we should all first and foremost be enraged that publishers consider selling a game for almost 1/3 of the EU & US price on some markets viable, while us getting ridiculous prices here. And then they dare speak against piracy. We know games are overpriced, as music CDs and DVD movies, but this is the real proof.
Here in Greece, all games cost about 20% more than the UK in retail. I’ve bought more than 50 games already this year, but only one from retail here. I’ve ordered all else from UK & US distributors. Is this also illegal? Why would I have to pay more in a country where salaries are half of those in the UK, if not even less?
I might not be one who buys digital downloads of games (except from indies that won’t have a retail version available), but publishers really need to reconsider their pricing policy for this format. I mean, 40 pounds? I’ve paid a lot more for some games, but for collector’s editions (Bioshock, Fallout 3, etc), filled with extras. Otherwise I wait for the game to drop to less than 25 pounds before buying. And this because I believe even for a retail price, 40 quid is too much.
People who bought these keys might have got the game client from shady sources, but most publishers don’t really care as long as you pay for a license. I used to run a pirated copy of windows and then bought a full-price license a few months later, because my budget was pretty tight when I got the hardware. Microsoft really didn’t care! They were pretty glad providing me with a key to activate a pirated copy since I paid them…
If you consider the EULA most games and software come with, it’s actually only a license we buy from the distributors. The physical hard copy (DVD) or digital download is pretty irrelevant. People who bought these keys did nothing really illegal or harmful to the publisher.
As many noted, global economy has to work both ways. As a corporation has the opportunity to exploit the lower wages of a third world country to lower production costs, consumers buying from cheaper markets should also have the right to do so. Not to mention that the first practice should be a lot more criticized for many reasons (let’s not get into the politics here…).
As for blacklisting the keys… this is ridiculous! People use various means to protect their data over the net, such as Tor or other proxy systems, sometimes with good cause (especially when governments restrict internet usage). How could they possibly detect the region in an unquestionable manner?
The only thing that saddens me is that we all have to deal with such issues because of greedy publishers, while the actual development team will also get the shaft if we boycott a product. Perhaps its time for developers to find the means for self-publishing and distribution methods, for us customers to get rid of all the extra cost added by intermediaries. It always felt better paying for an indy game, knowing that the people actually crating it got the profits…
07/07/2009 at 08:14 destroy.all.monsters says:
Also: anyone, particularly CEOs, advocating region locks should be publicly executed without trial. I paid for it – it should be mine to use regardless of where I happen to lay my head.
And what the affront said.
07/07/2009 at 08:20 JM says:
@solipsistnation
At least that bastard Elethiomel hasn’t turned up.
07/07/2009 at 08:37 weegosan says:
It’s good to see globalisation has missed some business brains entirely.
The problem with saying they aren’t allowed to sell games on is rather wider than that. If the multitude of game shops that sell second hand games can sell them, then this place can, afterall the games are “second hand”. It’s just that you know the key on this particular second hand copy will work fine.
07/07/2009 at 08:50 Morph says:
Just noticed a copy of the ‘real’ Blood Bowl will cost you £50. Now I don’t feel so bad for paying £40 for the virtual one.
07/07/2009 at 08:56 MrBejeebus says:
I’ve bought 1 game key for G2Buy, and that was a Diablo 2 key, its was about 2 quid I think, a reasonable price for a game over 10 years old, especially when Blizzard have it on their site for the ridiculous price of £19.99 or something.
I see no problem with this, they are merely taking advantage in a flaw in publishers strategy’s and theres nothing actually illegal about it, I’m sure they’ll make it illegal though…
Unless I’m completely wrong or something, enlighten me.
07/07/2009 at 09:00 MrBejeebus says:
G2Play* sorry
07/07/2009 at 09:02 MrBejeebus says:
I look at my idiocy, G2Buy.com and G2Play.net really are different places..
My point still stands though.
07/07/2009 at 09:17 Gap Gen says:
Serondal: I’m not saying I *want* outsourcing particularly, though I don’t have many objections to it, either. Countries like India are advancing technologically and are much cheaper than the US. When your game costs $X regardless of where it was made, it makes sense to make it somewhere cheaper, especially if that $X is forced to be low through the loss of global market segmentation.
07/07/2009 at 09:29 BigJonno says:
“Either way, I’m not sure we’ll find ourselves looking back in an utopian paradise fifty years hence, going:
“Man, remember when the world was divided between rich and poor? Thank God for that computer game developer showing us all the error of our ways!””
So like Bill & Ted, but with games instead of rock music?
07/07/2009 at 09:40 Elethiomel says:
What if publishers started only releasing the game in markets that can afford the high release price, and then when the price comes down to number more suited to the eastern market make it more widely avalible.
While it would mean some keen eastern players having to import, it’s the most balanced way of not pissing off customers and still making a profit that I can think of.
Either that or I’ll arrange for some more seating around here.
07/07/2009 at 09:40 JB says:
£40 *and* limited install/DRM stuff does make buying the game (fully) legit a bitter pill to swallow. ;)
I’d love to try the game, but no demo + aforementioned DRM etc = no way.
07/07/2009 at 09:42 Tei says:
Maybe I am as poor as russians people, so I doo need that cheap price that exist on the russian territory. Why I sould be screwed because I live in a “rich region”?
07/07/2009 at 09:46 Kommissar Nicko says:
It’s a peculiar world we live in when you have to go through a comprehensive fucking moral exercise any time you want to buy a game about Orcs and Elves beating each other to death in a fantasy (American) football game.
07/07/2009 at 10:07 Bobby says:
That works because they recoup their costs on EU and US sales. Further markets are merely a comparatively small bonus that wouldn’t be sufficient on its own. If they sell everywhere at the cheaper foreign market price they’re headed for bankruptcy, because all costs involved in distribution and production are steeper here. That’s why a whole lot of markets, including the US and the EU, have laws forbidding parallel importing.
07/07/2009 at 10:16 invisiblejesus says:
“It’s a peculiar world we live in when you have to go through a comprehensive fucking moral exercise any time you want to buy a game about Orcs and Elves beating each other to death in a fantasy (American) football game.”
I get where you’re coming from, and I’m not unsympathetic to either side of the argument, especially when it sounds like UK and EU customers are getting soaked so much harder than us Yanks. But on the other hand… I don’t think that anyone going to a third party web site to buy a code for a game whose publisher has explicitly stated will only be available through their download store and which requires them to go through unusual channels (torrents, borrowing a CD) to get the actual software is really in a position to complain. If you want buying software to be simple, either just buy the damn thing, wait until the price comes down, or don’t buy it and let the publisher suffer the consequences of their goofy sales methods.
07/07/2009 at 10:23 M.P. says:
The comments on here make it seem like this cuts to the chase of capitalism, but it doesn’t really: there’s a difference between the principles of tiered pricing and globalised economies and Cyanide’s implementation of tiered pricing.
Cyanide are based in France (I think), so they obviously need to sell at French prices because they have to pay the rent in France and buy that expensive French wine. Sure, they can save some money by contracting Chinese developers or buying a few bottles of Chilean wine, but not as much as you’d think. The outsourcing thing in particular is a nest of adders – I know plenty of companies who tried to save a bit by hiring a few Bulgarian coders or something and ended up wasting time and money dealing with the problems inherent with them being based at the other end of Europe and only speaking broken English.
They have every right to use tiered pricing strategies, because their labour costs are high and they need a proportion of their customers to buy it at full price to make their money back. Sure, dropping the price increases sales up to a point, but only up to the cap of their target market. Some people would pay any amount of money for a Bloodbowl game, others would pay £17-25, others would only buy it for a throwaway amount (say £5 in the bargain bin or on one of Steam’s 75% off sales), but there are billions of people on this Earth who will never be interested in a Bloodbowl game even if you’re selling it for pennies! By using tiered pricing, they’re ensuring that development in rich countries with high wages is still viable: if it weren’t, then every codeshop in Europe would shut down and move thei tents to China tomorrow. Millions of kids who want to grow up to become games devs will not be able to do so, because developers would only be able to afford to pay Chinese wages, and a month’s rent there is about the price of a cheeseburger!
Having said that, there are ways to go about this. If you’re releasing the game at its highest price point 3 months in advance, then you’re not really tiering your price. You’re not offering a choice to people. Tiered pricing means “this gamecosts £40, but you can have the leather seats for £2,000 extra”. If you’re only offering one price point at one point of distribution, people feel cheated and alienated. Gabanski83′s suggestion of how they should have done it, by charging more for a collector’s edition with a miniature in it or something, is the way every sensible company has been doing it for the past 20 years: yes, fleece them for as much as you can, let them pay as much as they can afford, BUT AT LEAST SAY THANKS BY GIVING THEM A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA! The way Cyanide have handled it, by contrast, was to “reward” their premium-pricing point early adopters with a inferior product (download only and limited activations limiting its ease of use), which is unheard of in any business!
I also feel compelled to answer to two points raised earlier in the thread:
a. the BloodBowl game costs £50: yes, but Games Workshop should have been ruling the world by now, and they’re not largely because of their ridiculous pricing policies
b. parallel importing hurts the poorest of consumers: in the case of drugs, yes, because that’s a physical product, so if some corrupt African politician is selling subsidised AIDS drugs back to Western black markets he is causing scarsity in his own country. BloodBowl is a digital product, so a set global price would just leave it to be pirated. Comparing a game to lifesaving drugs is ridiculous on so many levels anyway that I shouldn’t be answering this.
07/07/2009 at 10:26 Gl3n says:
Apparently, trying one of those G2play keys during online activation results in:
Activation process has been terminated
Internal error message: unlock code was revoked
So they can and are turning off these keys. £13 wasted then.
07/07/2009 at 10:29 Kieron Gillen says:
In passing, mine still works. Not that it says it’s not true, but it’s not true they’ve deactivated them all yet.
To be honest, if they deactivate it, I’ll be fine. I’d like to play more, but I’ve got my 12 quids worth out of it.
KG
07/07/2009 at 10:29 The Fanciest of Pants says:
Region specific pricing is an insult to the consumer, no matter what your selling.
If you have a big difference in price depending on region and people want to go to a great effort to buy the cheapest version of your product you should bloody let them.
Anything else is just being greedy, no ifs or buts about it.
07/07/2009 at 10:33 Gl3n says:
G2play will clearly have no interest in refunding me. I wonder if they will cease selling new codes.
Those who shelled out the official price, let us know if things become any quieter in-game.
Grey area aside, Cyanide are now on my own personal ‘blacklist’.
07/07/2009 at 10:38 Dominic White says:
Again, if there is no region code actually embedded in the activation key number itself, then so long as you don’t go bragging about having a G2P/OKS key to the developers/publisher (I know some of you people will do this, because it is stupid and SOMEBODY will always do whatever is the worst thing to do), then you should be fine.
07/07/2009 at 10:39 Dominic White says:
There was a similar mess that happened with Battleforge, and EA said they would crack down on/terminate third-party keys. Only a couple of people got their accounts locked, and that’s because they went and bragged on the official forums and/or advertised the sites.
Do not be stupid. That is the solution.
07/07/2009 at 10:43 Markoff Chaney says:
Full Disclosure – I have used these sites (2 different ones in the last month, actually, for Arma2 and for Blood Bowl) and have been pleased with their service, even if I have to secure the installation media myself. I have no problem not having physical media as I accepted digital distribution a while back. This is just a twist on that methodology whereupon bandwidth costs are not absorbed by the reseller of the license.
The market dictates that the creator sets a price and a consumer that wants a product can choose to purchase it or not. Many times, a product will be sold for more money at first, and then sold for less later on down the road in order to maximize sales as some people will invariably pay more for firsties. Parallel importing is just another way of the market working as it should. It allows some people to legally purchase the license of the product, even if they are not the intended recipient of the license. First sale doctrine also allows this sale to occur, as long as duplicates of legitimate keys are not made.
The market will allow for both pricing schemes to exist. There are really only two options going forward. One is more reasonable pricing across the board, which is equitable to both “emerging” and “established” sales sectors. The other is regional locking, which Valve tends to do and we might be seeing more of. Region locking and blacklisting only hurts legitimate customers who don’t want to spend what they consider to be too much money on a game. I can’t see developers losing their 50$ price point any time soon. Personally, I’d love to stop paying 50$ to beta test though and, as with my 2 choices recently, I seem to be doing so. I could play the recently pregnant one and a half income family so I’m pretty darn poor too, card, but that’s just me. ;)
07/07/2009 at 10:44 diziet sma says:
@solipsistnation
Banks references a gogo…. I have a skaffen amtiskaw if it would help?
07/07/2009 at 10:45 Gl3n says:
Although i’m obviously rather irritated that this has happened and that my money has been wasted, Cyanide seem to have taken a stance wholely opposite to someone like ACE team.
Instead of reaching for a bit of good will, they have price gouged various markets, engaged in pretty dastardly DRM and have now suceeded in alienating even more gamers with this latest decision.
It’ll be rife with heavy pirating whenever the crack goes up.
07/07/2009 at 10:49 diziet sma says:
@Gl3n
I wonder if the keys through the other company are less likely to get terminated? I was almost tempted to buy one until a tiny switch in brain put Heat Internet, a UK registered domain name and an admin of the site called Elite Haxor (or some such) into the Do not bloody trust category.
07/07/2009 at 10:58 Kieron Gillen says:
If anyone drops Use of Weapons spoilers into this thread, I’m deleting their post. Like I’ve just done. And maybe done another post too, as I’m a bloody monkey.
RPS comments threads have one rule: do not spoil the use of weapons.
KG
07/07/2009 at 11:04 Gl3n says:
My response to Dominic? I simply stated in very unspecific terms that the key will not work, as opposed to it being flagged to a certain individual installing.
As the original post refers to a particular site still selling these now locked codes, i thought that might have been rather valuable information.
07/07/2009 at 11:14 Hmm-Hmm. says:
I think this is insane. Maybe they feel they should retain control (but how did they lose it then, if that’s the case?) over their codes, but I mean, they are still making money with this.
And they have a right to ask a whole lot of money for a downloadable version of their game. A not-wholly flawless game, if word of mouth has it right.
But the attitude this all displays from Cyanide concerns me, really. And personally I’d rather that the above websites wouldn’t exist, since I’m far more against region-coding and high prices everywhere than being able to get cheaper codes from a dodgy website.
Because free market or no, if they are greedy bastards, they may very well react in the worst possible way so as to ensure the highest possible cashflow.
Me, I was quite excited about Blood Bowl, but this, more than the not-quite-polished aspect and the money they’re asking us to pay for it, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If it has to be this way, Cyanide, no thanks. Lots of other good games out there.
07/07/2009 at 11:24 rivalin says:
Laypeople are taken in very quickly when a company tells them something is “illegal” but while Cyanide have every right to use differential pricing, price discrimination is not legally enforceable in most cases. Whatever their EULA says is irrelevant, you can’t agree to contracts that contain clauses or terms contrary to consumer protection laws, hence the fact that every company is lying when they inevitably attempt to exclude liability for serious injury or death. It’s quite possible that Cyanide is breaking EU or the national laws of those users banned, because they know there is little chance they will be subject to a legal challenge.
07/07/2009 at 11:24 Carra says:
I was also thinking to just allow keys from ip addresses located in the right region. But how do you see if someone doesn’t use a proxy located in a different country? Steam does it by checking if your credit card matches your country, the bastards. But what if you bought it in a store? I’m not sure you can check that.
The obvious solution is to ask $40 to everyone. Then I wouldn’t have to bother trying to circumvent your protection via proxies. Or like other people do, buy a key online. And reach out to those who find it to expensive with weekend deals for half price.
In any case, those guys buy their copies in Asia. The developers get money, they should be happy. It sure gives them more money then seeing your game pirated. And if you don’t like it, fix your price schemes.
I’ve personally stopped buying games in Belgium years ago, they’re always cheaper to buy online from amazon or play.com, often up to 50% cheaper. Although buying games form play.com (no VAT paid) is also a grey area. Is it legal not to pay tax for my game?
07/07/2009 at 11:28 Seniath says:
@KG Sometimes I wish I was involved in some kind of horrific accident, leaving me with no memory save for the fact that I should really read Use of Weapons.
07/07/2009 at 11:38 diziet sma says:
@Kieron Gillen
Hahaha! Fair enough, never thought it could be a spoiler but then again it’s probably my favourite and most read book, hence the nick.
07/07/2009 at 11:47 Kieron Gillen says:
Well – they were less spoilers, more hints. Even hints ruin the fun.
Use of Weapons remains my favourite Banks, I think.
KG
07/07/2009 at 11:52 Hunam says:
Man, I really don’t want to buy this game at all now.
07/07/2009 at 12:10 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
This could be fixed by having some kind of steam-like-account to something that is linked to your income taxes, so the money you pay depends on the amount of money you’re earning. This way, kids, students and other poor people pay less than rich people.
Although… this sounds a bit weird to me, somewhere…
07/07/2009 at 12:17 Theory says:
Block keys bought in a low-price region from being used in a normal-price region, offering users who fail the check the option to upgrade their license to an “international edition” for the difference between the low and normal prices. Problem over. (Steam does step one of that plan, but not step two.)
This might have already been said, but to argue that developers outsourcing and gamers buying cheap keys are analogous is to switch your playing field halfway through your sentence. The outsourced workers stay in their own economy; they don’t move to France while still receiving the same wages.
07/07/2009 at 12:20 Gl3n says:
I sent a support request to G2play in the off chance that they might be able to do something. So far have asked for a screenshot of the error message and the key that i used.
I was surprised to recieve a response at all to be honest.
07/07/2009 at 12:21 Nafe says:
@RC-1290′Dreadnought’: Funnily enough I’m not to keen on having a computer game developer/publisher access or be even remotely linked to my financial status :).
07/07/2009 at 12:23 Nafe says:
(Sorry for double post)
@Theory – “The outsourced workers stay in their own economy; they don’t move to France while still receiving the same wages.”
But as you said – “outsourced” the developers are still in their own economy and sending the dosh elsewhere to get the work done cheap. We remain in our own economy and also send the dosh elsewhere to get the goods cheap. It’s entirely analogous.
07/07/2009 at 12:39 Theory says:
@Nafe: Hmm. Looks like you consider paying for games to be a matter of buying goods, while I consider it a matter of reimbursing/rewarding the people who put the effort into creating it. For me, the money’s destination is always France no matter where I’ve bought from.
Moving into the theoretical for a moment (as this may or may not apply to Bloodbowl), you might argue next that if significant parts of a game are outsourced the price should reflect that. I agree, but don’t think that’s an excuse to subvert international economics for one’s individual benefit.
07/07/2009 at 12:43 Chicken Dinner says:
Kieron is a fucking badass.
07/07/2009 at 12:46 diziet sma says:
@Kieron Gillen
Yeah, I read it when it came out, on a holiday. I was blown away. I took that and The Player of Games with me. Then proceeded to devour all the books my older sister took (Arc Light was good).
07/07/2009 at 12:48 Nafe says:
Again I think it still comes around to this: why is it OK for them to oursource their development to reduce costs and then reap the benefits but not allow consumers to do the same. When I buy a game, I’ll shop around for the best legitimate (not off the back of a lorry) deal.
I don’t really give a crap about rewarding the developers – if it’s profitable for them to make game software, do so, if not find a better business model. There’s no shortage of interesting games out there and if these companies can’t remain competitive without resorting to bully tactics then they should fold. Or, as will happen in this case – they’ll use those bully tactics, piss off a lot of potential customers, lose sales, get bad PR and end up worse off for all their stupid tactics.
07/07/2009 at 12:49 Hunam says:
Sounds to me like the best solution so far is even worse DRM. I’d say the best solution to this is to give them the fingers and let them stew in the mess they have made.
07/07/2009 at 12:49 Horza says:
Just pointing out that I used this name before reading any Banks books as it was also a cheat code for theme park :)
07/07/2009 at 12:58 gamedoc says:
@Gl3n
Of course they ask.
Send them a screeny – and you´ll get a new code.
They are honest – believe! ;)
07/07/2009 at 13:06 Theory says:
This *is* the “better business model”. Nobody would sell a product for less in one place than in another unless it really was necessary to do so.
This isn’t me defending Bloodbowl’s ludicrously high price in the EU and US, btw.
07/07/2009 at 13:14 Nafe says:
@Theory: Well as someone mentioned earlier there’s the question of whether it’s legal to ban players based on where they bought the game. If it’s a legal copy it’s a legal copy, what gives them the right to say you can’t play it if you’re in a certain country?
07/07/2009 at 13:16 Flappybat says:
I bought a Warcraft 3 serial from a different place for about $4 as I have no idea where my copy is. Unfortunately it didn’t work with Blizzard’s new Battle.net downloader so it was a waste.
07/07/2009 at 13:22 Forak says:
All the legal issues aside; I’m honestly surprised to see Cyanide take such an aggressive stance against what should be considered customers.
I can see them taking steps against these two companies selling the cheaper CD keys but actively blocking a part of your customer base can’t possibly be creating any goodwill. As far as customers are concerned they bought a legit key from what seems to be a UK based company.
It’s really quite outrageous they go as far as saying that these keys are the results of theft while their publisher has clearly sold it to them or to one of their partners in bulk. So they get the money but don’t deliver the product? Seems fishy.
07/07/2009 at 13:25 Flappybat says:
Overall I am amused that we can somehow both have anger over illegally downloading games and at the same time anger about people not buying it in the right way.
07/07/2009 at 13:28 M.P. says:
Unless those keys are totally bogus (ie. made with a keygen), then what Cyanide are doing is illegal. It’s not the consumer’s business to know whom they’ve authorised to resell their game. Those sites were selling keys, and thus genuine lisences to play the game, not some bootlegged pirated copy of the game on a magnetic tape, after all!
I’d urge people with cancelled keys to complain, both to the website they got it from and to Cyanide, and if they’re inflexible, to go to their local consumer protection agency.
07/07/2009 at 13:39 Gl3n says:
@gamedoc
Good news! i couldn’t send them a screenshot though, on account of SecuROM butt-fucking itself into death after more than two attempts at validation.
Hopefully the code will suffice, i suspect their getting a few emails like this at the moment anyway.
07/07/2009 at 13:41 jalf says:
Except that it’s obviously not working.
To be fair, varying prices between regions is fine with me. Everything costs more here than in the rest of the world, I’m used to that. We generally have higher incomes to compensate. Usually it works out because most people find the local price bearable, and so very few people bother to import from cheaper regions.
But the kind of downright price gouging that Cyanide is engaged in tips the balance in favor of importing. Yes, you can vary prices between regions, but you need to know when to stop, or you’re pushing people to import (and once they start doing that, when are they going to stop? You might just be ruining the business model forever)
07/07/2009 at 14:04 MrFake says:
Legality? Pah! There is none on either side of this issue. This is the usual case of two sides trying to congeal their own, new law from the miasma of lawlessness within the global internet.
We’re talking about gaming the system. It’s the age old problem of businesses and consumers skirting or making up their own law, and battling it out over who has the right to do so. At least nowadays it’s not just the bigger muscle or the bigger pocketbook that takes the right, but the bigger voice.
07/07/2009 at 14:10 Tei says:
Comment: IP banning is a hack. Regions are not built-in on the IP protocol, nor is a good idea (probably the oposite: anonymization). You can guest the country (sometimes even area or street) but theres not garanteed. It could wrong, and have false positives. Imho, GeoIP stuff is bordeline a privacy violation. You sould not know what country I am, I am not telling u, you sould not try to hack your way to detect it.
Next thing you know webservers have a nmap installed to analize any visitor…
Theres not way to put “IP banning” as illegal, mostly because you can’t detect a website doing it, but I wish where.
Fortunally enough, seems “IP banning” is done in the “account webpages” so is easy to avoid using proxis and maybe services like tor.
07/07/2009 at 14:34 Gabanski83 says:
Consider Phlebas gets most of my Iain M. Banks lovin’.
07/07/2009 at 14:51 diziet sma says:
@Gabanski83 That would be up there too… I also enjoyed it’s sequel.
@Gl3n Please let us know how you get on with this. The more information I (being selfish for a mo) have before making a decision the better!
07/07/2009 at 14:53 Ingenu says:
Are you sure those websites are selling legit keys ?
When something is too good to be true, it’s often not true.
From a French forum, a Cyanide employee said that they got informations from their publisher (Focus Interactive), and it happens that g2play bought keys before cancelling the order… (You know in business you don’t pay straight as you get a product, you usualy pay later.)
So the keys are being disabled since the transaction between Focus and g2play was canceled…
07/07/2009 at 15:00 diziet sma says:
@Ingenu Surely the keys come in the box? These are retail boxes of the game. Transplanting the scenario to the UK. I walk into my local game and puchase Blood Bowl (if I could, which I can’t). Upon getting home I greedily tear off the flimsy but hard to remove cellophane pawing open the box. Inside I find my CD, Manual and Keys.
If G2Play are buying retail boxes then they have the same thing. If they’re not and they were going to be a digital distribution partner surely Cyanide would come out and say so. In the meantime the other distributor maintains they ARE buying boxed copies. Has anyone used them?
07/07/2009 at 15:02 diziet sma says:
Addendum to the above, the point I was trying to make was if what Cyanide say is true how were retail purchases of the game getting their keys? Or in otherwides, why would Cyanide provide G2Play with batches of keys prior to providing them with boxed copies. It makes zero sense even for a screwed up firm like Cynicalide.
07/07/2009 at 15:07 Morph says:
I have no idea how the tpic came up, but +1 for Use of Weapons being Bank’s best, sci-fi wise at least.
07/07/2009 at 15:11 Gl3n says:
Fantastic!
I supplied the blocked key, screenshot via email and was given a working code within the hour.
Game on.
07/07/2009 at 15:14 Scautura says:
Cyanide don’t publish the boxed copy of the game, they just make the software that goes on the disc. Focus Interactive are the publishers, but the two have to work in concert. Even then, publishers tend to sell to a 3rd party distributor (at least in the UK, when I worked for GAME, it was bought from a 3rd party, not the publisher, such as EA, Take2, etc.)
Cyanide are protecting their property, the only way they see they can. Focus currently doesn’t appear to have any say in the matter (I haven’t read any comments from Focus employees) so we don’t know what’s gone on from their end – did they ship boxes to a 3rd party distributor, who then shipped to G2Play? Or did they ship directly to G2Play? Somewhere down the line, something has gone very amiss, and Cyanide is trying to do something about it.
I don’t necessarily agree with their pricing, or the way they’re protecting their software, but if they didn’t protect it I’d wonder what was going on and why I shelled out 30 smackers.
07/07/2009 at 15:22 Driadan says:
I see the ban more like a FUD in order to stop people from buying the game untill they can legally hunt those two pages
07/07/2009 at 15:31 Pijama says:
I was going to do one of my usual “kick on the balls” comment but then realized that Cyanide is simply full of s***.
Not even worth a careful and elaborated burn.
07/07/2009 at 15:47 diziet sma says:
@Gl3n
Thanks. I might be following in your footsteps to spite them. I’ll post my experience sometime later on if I do. For now I have a few hours left of work to complete.
07/07/2009 at 15:56 Anonymous says:
My ingame account has been disabled and i can’t create a new one.
I’m using a G2play key.
07/07/2009 at 16:16 Fumarole says:
“I also don’t believe that no one would bother developing any drugs if prices for them in the “western world” wouldn’t be astronomical.”
That sentence makes my brain hurt.
07/07/2009 at 16:21 Ingenu says:
@diziet sma
I’m not sure, I don’t see why they couldn’t generate them for online sell…
That said, it’s just a report of someone telling that someone else said something (ie in court worth nothing.).
It would be nice if a real investigation was performed about g2play.net, to know whether I can buy from them ^^
07/07/2009 at 16:21 frymaster says:
a side point: is it confirmed that cyanide are setting the prices? They aren’t the publisher, don’t forget… with some of these deals, the publisher is just a middle man and the developer is in control, and sometimes they aren’t :)
07/07/2009 at 16:24 M.P. says:
Cyanide should really get their act together. They obviously don’t even know how those websites got the keys. If what Ingenu said is true then effectively g2play stole them. If, as they claim, they’re asian imports, then Cyanide are getting royalties from those sales (maybe not full-price, but still) and cancelling the accounts of their legitimate customers. They could find themselves in even more trouble if they keep banning and it turns out they were wrong and g2play were selling real keys.
I haven’t bought the game btw, I’m just angry when I see bad management causing paying customers to suffer.
07/07/2009 at 16:25 Jeremy says:
I think we can view this blunder (because it was a blunder on Cyanide’s part) in the same way we differentiate between “hacks” and “exploits” in video games. If someone goes out of their way to “hack” a game and gain a reward that nobody has access to, that person will generally get banned from the game for a time, or permanently depending on the company, and I agree with that. An exploit simply uses the laws of the game to find a specific way to get ahead of the competition, I may not like it, but I can’t say a person is a cheater for using exploits. Eventually, the company will find a way to get rid of this exploit, and nobody complains too much because they knew they were gaming the system, but the company won’t ban people who figured out how to use its own laws against itself either.
Cyanide should take a similar stance. Nobody has done anything illegal, someone just figured out how to game the system, and make a little green. They should just recognize that they messed up and gave businessmen an in-road to doing what they do best, tweaking supply and demand. Figure out a way to stop future sales of these keys, put some sort of safe-guard in place, but they should not ban keys of games that were lawfully purchased.
07/07/2009 at 16:38 Ingenu says:
For everyone reading french here’s the source I used :
http://forums.jeuxonline.info/showpost.php?p=18775942&postcount=126
07/07/2009 at 17:35 invisiblejesus says:
OK, given the talk of price gouging I have a question. Just how far above the normal, average price is 40 quid? Serious question, I have no idea how much that is in US dollars or for that matter how much a game like this would normally cost in the UK. $50 is about what one would expect to pay for a reasonably high production value game based on an established licensed IP, and while we all know digitally distributed games should cost less than the normal brick-and-mortar price I think we’d all also agree it’s pretty naive to expect that at release. So I don’t think US customers are really in a position to get too overly outraged at paying $50. Just how far outside the norm is 40 quid for you guys on the other side of the pond?
07/07/2009 at 17:44 jalf says:
As far as I know, it is 50 euro here, not 40.
And for the record, £40 = $65, and €50 = $70.
As for whether that is normal, it depends. Many games are (attempted) sold at those prices, but there are also almost always cheaper channels to buy through. In retail stores here in Denmark, 400kr ($75) is a common price for a new game – but I haven’t paid anything near that for a game for years, because sites like Play.com sell at a far lower price, and offer free shipping to almost all of Europe.
So the unusual thing about this game is not so much the price, but the lack of alternative sources for the game. It’s not on Steam, it’s not on Play.com, it’s not in retail stores. If I want it, I have to pay €50.
The reason usually given for why digital distribution is not cheaper is that the publishers do not want to alienate brick-and-mortar stores. But in this case, said stores do not have the game, so the justification for the price no longer works.
So the problem is that they have removed all the usual (legal and uncontroversial) ways to buy the game at a reasonable price, and we’re left with the €50 price tag or nothing. Rather than the usual situation where you can pay anywhere from €25 to €50 depending on where you buy the game.
07/07/2009 at 17:46 Kieron Gillen says:
30 quid is standard PC Game price. Some stuff goes for 35 quid. Clearly, you’re paying less than that from Amazon or another mail order place.
KG
07/07/2009 at 18:06 Archonsod says:
£35 – 40 is usually collector’s edition territory. This on the other hand is pretty much a pay to enter beta pending the actual release in September.
If the blacklisting only locks me out of multiplayer then I can live with it. I might even buy a “proper” version once it hits stores/anywhere but Steam, especially if they manage to add a couple more races.
07/07/2009 at 18:12 invisiblejesus says:
“As far as I know, it is 50 euro here, not 40.
And for the record, £40 = $65, and €50 = $70.
As for whether that is normal, it depends. Many games are (attempted) sold at those prices, but there are also almost always cheaper channels to buy through. In retail stores here in Denmark, 400kr ($75) is a common price for a new game – but I haven’t paid anything near that for a game for years, because sites like Play.com sell at a far lower price, and offer free shipping to almost all of Europe.
So the unusual thing about this game is not so much the price, but the lack of alternative sources for the game. It’s not on Steam, it’s not on Play.com, it’s not in retail stores. If I want it, I have to pay €50.
The reason usually given for why digital distribution is not cheaper is that the publishers do not want to alienate brick-and-mortar stores. But in this case, said stores do not have the game, so the justification for the price no longer works.”
OK, that does clarify the objections some. Over here I wouldn’t expect to get a brand new non-indie game for less than $50 anywhere, so while the lack of other outlets is bizarre to me it isn’t costing me any money if I opt to buy the game; I could go to Amazon, but over here new games are rarely significantly cheaper there this close to release. Knowing more about the market where you guys are makes the whole thing a lot clearer. That, and paying the equivalent of $65-70 seems pretty outrageous to me.
07/07/2009 at 18:27 Serondal says:
Has anyone else noticed the angry internet man seems to be a lot more angry a lot more often as of late?
07/07/2009 at 18:49 GuyIncognito says:
The latest from focus on their forums:
“We are informing you that websites selling Blood Bowl activation keys and player keys alone on internet are in the breach of the law.
These keys have been fraudulently obtained.
These series of keys sold by these websites have been identified and are being invalidated on Securom server.
I will also add that these keys have not been obtained from cheaper, boxed versions of the game as these websites claim.”
So they’re claiming the keys are illegal, but not explaining how or why they are. And how exactly do you get your hands on a bunch of valid securom keys anyway? I find their version of events increasingly hard to buy.
07/07/2009 at 18:52 Abel Beck says:
I know what you may be thinking… that this game is boring because it is just puzzles… but its not. It is one of the most fun online games that I ever played! It was voted one of the most fun and addicting pirate online games.
07/07/2009 at 18:56 LewieP says:
Pretty much all PC games are available for under £30 at or soon after launch. A lot of (even big) PC games can be had for £15-20 at release (although that is going to the cheapest retailer, not at RRP).
I am fairly certain that when Blood Bowl does get a retail release in the UK, it will not be even close to £40.
07/07/2009 at 18:57 Serondal says:
Am I the only one that likes the fact that this company is standing up for their rights and protecting themselves from something like this ?(if it is indeed illegal, if it isn’t then I think they should apologize and give everyone a big ork shaped mug for free) I may be a little crazy but the way they are handling this is actually making me want to buy the game more. Then again I am from the US so the pricing thing doesn’t really effect me. Indeed they’re treating the US like one of the poorer countries and selling the game to us for less then they are selling it over seas so I can’t complain ;P
My question is, is the game itsef any good ? Is it better than Chaos League which seemed to have more races and choices.
07/07/2009 at 19:00 jalf says:
@Serondal: Yes, I think you are the only one who [i]like[/i] that a company is actively banning users who [i]thought[/i] they bought a legal license for the game.
07/07/2009 at 19:02 Alexander Norris says:
I read French, so here’s the definitive (according to Cyanide) truth of things:
So in other words, Cyanide/Focus are claiming that G2P stole the keys and that they are therefore entirely within their right to blacklist these (which if what they claim is true, I would tend to agree with).
Can the original post be updated, pretty please?
07/07/2009 at 19:07 Serondal says:
Jalf If indeed they were buying illegal codes for the game then the blame should lay on the heads of those who sold them the false codes not the company that made the game. That would be like getting angry at nike when you realize the shoes you baught from that guy on the street corner weren’t legal :P
It isn’t that I don’t feel for those who are getting their keys banned now, I just think they should have legal recourse against the companies that sold them these codes.
That, of course, is all invalid if those companies actaully DID get the codes in a legal way and like I said above if that is the case then I retract my support for the company. But if indeed the codes were obtained in an illegal fashion I commend then for standing up for themselves and hope they take further legal action against those websites that stole their codes.
07/07/2009 at 19:10 TRS-80 says:
Steam quietly introduced tiered pricing in Europe – if you’re in Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia you’re paying 60% of what your western European friends do.
07/07/2009 at 19:11 K says:
Stole them.
They’ll be pressing charges then, right?
07/07/2009 at 19:13 TRS-80 says:
Well, except for some games by The Creative Assembly where those countries (Tier 3) pay 150% of the western europe (Tier 1) prices.
07/07/2009 at 19:13 Forak says:
How in the world could they have gained access to these keycodes in any way other then directly from the publisher though? You can’t just guess them… where does the ‘stealing’ come in?
07/07/2009 at 19:16 LewieP says:
@Forak
Hijacking a delivery truck?
07/07/2009 at 19:17 FP says:
@invisiblejesus
You can see some UK prices here:
http://www.play.com/Games/PC/6-/PreOrderChart.html
Every PC game (barring collectors editions) is between £25 and £30 (and that’s for a boxed edition delivered to your door).
07/07/2009 at 19:19 invisiblejesus says:
@jalf: Heh, I suppose you were surprised to find the Rolex you bought from that nice man on the street corner wasn’t real, huh? :P Just ribbing ya, but seriously. Can anyone who bought these keys say with a straight face that they truly, honestly were 100% sure what they were buying was legit? Again, I’m not unsympathetic, I see what Kieron and LewieP mean when they call it a grey area. But that’s what it is, a grey area. It’s hard for me to believe that any reasonable person who bought one of these keys were really that sure that what they were buying was legit.
07/07/2009 at 19:19 GuyIncognito says:
That’s what’s getting me. So they found some legal loophole to steal keys. So how did they even get a chance to get those keys if focus/cyanide claim to have no business with them? Surely if they hacked into the server or something it would have been stated directly and we wouldn’t be having this argument.
The wording’s still incredibly vague and wooly too.
07/07/2009 at 19:23 Serondal says:
Maybe they got a bunch of digital code load codes in a country where the game is cheeper to digitally download and are selling those? Who knows, I’m sure we’ll find out more.
07/07/2009 at 19:23 GuyIncognito says:
And as a follwup to my previous post, I doubt they were physically stolen, as focus themselves have directly stated the keys don’t come from boxed copies.
07/07/2009 at 19:24 Jeremy says:
@Forak, I would question that too, but it seems like there are people far more intelligent than I who might actually be able to accomplish that kind of thing. That still doesn’t make their claim any less suspicious in my mind.
@Serondal, I am definitely a supporter of companies protecting their investment, which is generally an unpopular view, even if the company is completely in the right. However, like you said, it all depends on the authenticity of whether or not these codes were indeed obtained illegally or not. If they are illegal, then I say sue the company, supply the consumers who unknowingly bought those illegal key codes with real ones, and win twice. I also agreed with your analogy, if this company sold illegal key codes, there is no logical way to rage on Cyanide for protecting its interests. Not that rage is ever very logical. Nor the internet.
07/07/2009 at 19:25 GuyIncognito says:
@serondal: But that’s hardly illegal. And it’s certianly not “stealing” as focus have directly accused them of.
Still, you’re right, I’m sure this’ll all become clearer as more details come to light.
07/07/2009 at 19:26 invisiblejesus says:
@Jeremy:
“f they are illegal, then I say sue the company, supply the consumers who unknowingly bought those illegal key codes with real ones, and win twice.”
You’re coming dangerously close to talking sense here, hoss. Tread carefully. :P
07/07/2009 at 19:40 Serondal says:
It could be illegal to buy codes in country A and sell them in country B. who knows, it some states in the US it is illegal to walk down the street with a ice cream cone in your pocket so it is hard to know what is reallly illegal and what isn’t : P
I have to agree with the general statment that consumers should be able to travel over seas or buy from over seas via the internet in order to get the lowest price and that is only fair considering the companies do the same to find cheeper labour. I don’t know if that is the case in this example but I’m certain there are other valid cases where the governments of the world and companies have tried to stop this from happening (say going across the boarder into Canada to get cheeper meds for example)
07/07/2009 at 19:46 Delboy says:
To play this game you need a PC.
What are the relative price comparisons of PCs in teh countries with the cheaper price?
If (a) PC prices are the same as here (currency conversion aside) – then I can’t see how the cheaper game price in those countries work – if they can afford a PC they can afford the game.
If (b) PC prices are cheaper there – then why aren’t we all moaning about that? Sure – there’s the fact that most of the PC kit is made in developing nations/shipping to us adds to costs etc. – but still – just because digital distribution costs less (to transport) – it (probably) costs more to market etc.
So either the game makers are justified – or we should be even angier at the unjust world we live (in where we in rich countries with better standards of living have to pay more for games *wink*)
07/07/2009 at 20:11 Funky Badger says:
Elethiomel: that’s a win.
UoW: first Bank’s I read. Blew me away, obv.
Purchasing the code is grey area legal, but surely torrenting the client is right out?
07/07/2009 at 20:20 AngryInternetman says:
The blog mentions: ” [note: “2 serials” refers to the fact that the game requires two serials, ….”
DRM these days. Two sets of serial keys? Its not easy being a PC only gamer.
07/07/2009 at 20:20 Archonsod says:
Not unless you also upload it.
07/07/2009 at 20:23 Anon says:
Just bought a key from OnlineKeyStore, works fine :)
07/07/2009 at 20:31 Serondal says:
Not sure why’d you would go out of your way to buy a key when there is a chance it is going to be black listed any moment but whatever Anon :P I might have waited until all this cooled down to buy a key that way.
Any how I hope these guys do well. I’d love to see a Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 K game from these guys that is based exactly on the rules and allows you to paint your army ect in game. I’d even go to so far as to say I’d pay for extra units with micropayments and play in online tournaments for additonal rewards (say special tournament only HQ units and the like) DoW and DoW 2 are good and all but I’d really like to see a game as faithful as Blood Bowl for Warhammer 40K
07/07/2009 at 20:51 diziet sma says:
@anon For now, until they’re done with g2play and come after them no doubt. :-(
This entire situation stinks something rotton and I’d love to be in a position to investigate both g2play and the blood bowl distributors. Sadly I’m just a techie and would be able to get no further than identifying the companies/bases of operations I bet.
Also I agree with earlier posts, if g2play have really stolen keys then I am sure they will be seeking damages or pressing charges.
07/07/2009 at 21:26 Forak says:
Let’s not forget that the ‘official’ distribution/DRM model is one of the worst yet for a PC release. Maybe potential players wouldn’t be so encouraged to look for alternatives to purchase the game and thus it wouldn’t be profitable for sites as G2play to offer them through these suspicious means. If Cyanide had offered the game on f.e. Steam (ok bad example with their regional pricing) without the restrictive download and install limit I am nearly a 100% sure they would be getting better results. All this isn’t exactly good publicity for them..
On the other hand, I doubt we will ever get to know the truth behind the ‘stolen keys’ issue. But as there’s no trucks to rob of boxes as it’s purely a digital release, anything other then hacking into the distributors server and copying the keys from there can’t exactly be called stealing. Sounds like they wanted to make a quick profit and are now regretting the results and punishing customers for it.
07/07/2009 at 22:13 Zedd says:
Ha! These publishers need to get with the times. The old global pricing structure obviously does not work. The sooner these media barons realize this, the sooner they’ll increase their profits.
I came across some of these issues when I moved from the UK to New Zealand. First thing I found was games are grossly overpriced here. Importing from Asia and using proxies for digital downloads has become a way of life – although it is a hell of a lot less hassle just to pirate games…
The biggest obstacle I came across was Xbox Live and the fact that MS will not let you change the region your account is based in. I was so outraged at this that I had my 360 modified and no longer buy my Xbox games.
We all went through a similar transition when the record companies were resistant to digital downloads, even then they only allowed this with heavy DRM implemented. Now that we’re finally allowed DRM free music that we can use on our multiple devices I’ve started buying my music again – but it was almost 10 years that I didn’t pay a penny.
07/07/2009 at 22:19 Serondal says:
Media Barons ? lmao
07/07/2009 at 22:25 linfosoma says:
I asked on the Steam forums and this is the reply I got from BurtonJ:
“We do not permit the selling of CD Keys.
The sites in question are unauthorized resellers and you should purchase at your own risk.
When purchasing retail copies of the game, make sure it includes the box, cd key, etc.”
Hope that helps clearing things out.
07/07/2009 at 22:31 EyeMessiah says:
@Abel Beck
Thanks man. That’s a hot tip!
07/07/2009 at 22:52 LewieP says:
I’ve been thinking, would anyone be interested in a service that for a small fee (per transaction) offered to give you access to digital distribution deals from all over the globe?
Say a game costs £30 on steam in the UK, and the equivalent of £20 in the USA. Pay me £21, and I will gift you it from the USA. I’d keep a database of all the games + prices, you say what country you are from, I’ll tell you which games are cheaper for you to buy via me.
07/07/2009 at 22:59 linfosoma says:
Being from a region with tons of region restricted games yes, i would love that kind of service LewieP.
I just feel rather insecure making transactions with regular people instead of an actual company.
07/07/2009 at 23:08 Rôthkildäm says:
Some news:
Hello mate,
recently we have aquired Blood Bowl keys from a supplier who showed up to get them in unlegitimate way.
We had unfortunatley no idea about this since the price offered to us was notcheap and the profit margin for us on these transactions is very low.
We may offer you 3 possible solutions for this issue:
1. Eiether we refund your payment via PayPal
2. We give you any other game in similar value
3. We will recieve another pack of Blood Bowl keys from verified supplier today or tomorrow (48 hours max. from now). We cam then replace you your current key ofcourse.
Best
David
G2PLAY.net Team
07/07/2009 at 23:16 jalf says:
@LewieP: Definitely, as long as there’s no risk (Would this violate Steam’s terms of use? I’m not sure what it says about gifting. )
I don’t think many people would be willing to risk getting their Steam account banned because of an attempt to save a few dollars, but if you can confirm that it’s safe, it could be a big hit. ;)
07/07/2009 at 23:18 Serondal says:
Interesting ! Hopefully this will clear things up and make everyone happy.
07/07/2009 at 23:22 jalf says:
Not gonna happen. GW told Relic to make their own interpretation of the universe, rather than following the tabletop game’s rules. No matter how well Bloodbowl does, the chances of seeing them, or anyone else, making a PC version of the WH/40k tabletop game are somewhere around zero. GW isn’t about to risk their main cash cows.
07/07/2009 at 23:50 Serondal says:
At the same time GW told the makers of Bloodbowl to follow the rules exactly, so who’s to say. Are you saying they don’t want to produce a game based on the rules for fear that they’d stop selling the table top version? I don’t think anyone is going to give up tabletop gaming for a computer game, it just isn’t the same. But they could get new customers who enjoy the computer game into tabletop gaming.
08/07/2009 at 00:22 Serondal says:
Personally I really want to get into Warhammer 40K tabletop gaming but it’s just so expensive and I don’t have any friends . . . seriously since I got married no friends :P the few I do have don’t play. I’ve tried to get my wife to play but she doesn’t seem interested. (She does play DoD, TF2, and Left4Dead MORE than me)
08/07/2009 at 01:48 Markoff Chaney says:
Maybe if they did a bare bones free version to hook people onto the tabletop. Like a core only (yet balanced) version that doesn’t add some of the later Codex and WD stuff. Kind of a gateway drug, if you will.
I’m all for an exchange of code with equitable pricing worldwide and would help however I can here in the uS of A. Amazing there isn’t something set up already… I kind of think Valve would catch on and start banning some accounts before too long though, especially with the whole Thailand Orange Box key thing.
08/07/2009 at 02:18 Dethgar says:
These codes aren’t being tracked, and aren’t going to be region specific. Codes that are region specific are sold on these sites as the region they are for. Companies can’t track third party retailers sales of excess copies, and these sites buy the excess and then sell it for a profit. So essentially, the publisher/developer has no idea what codes are bought from these sites, unless said copies are stolen and reported so.
08/07/2009 at 08:36 Rob S. says:
The fact that they’re retroactively disabling accounts does suggest that it is one batch that they know shouldn’t be in use.
08/07/2009 at 10:23 Agrajag says:
@GuyIncognito: The illegal keys are usually obtained by means of stolen credit card details. Not to mention that these websites are a major target for hackers. This way, a shop somtimes might sell the same key several times.
Have a look at (a href=”http://steamunpowered.eu/page.php?al=altshops”>http://steamunpowered.eu/page.php?al=altshops for a list of similar shops and user feedback.
08/07/2009 at 10:55 diziet sma says:
@Rob S I am inclined to agree with you there.
G2Play certainly appear open and helpful which is a + in the ‘are they honest’ stakes. I wussed out of acquiring a key to the game last night having followed all of the discussion on here. I considered reaching for my wallet and paying the ridiculous 40quid and then thought ‘No’. If I could pirate the game and send the dev’s 20 quid in the post I’d feel happier than buying it officially. They definitely need to be rewarded but I don’t see why I should be gouged for doing so.
GW have probably had somewhere between 500-1000 pounds worth of my money over the years, what with the 40quid boxes, additional manuals, codexes, armys, stand alone models, brushes, cans, paints, washes…. the list goes on.
08/07/2009 at 11:03 Paul Moloney says:
“If (a) PC prices are the same as here (currency conversion aside) – then I can’t see how the cheaper game price in those countries work – if they can afford a PC they can afford the game”
My in-laws live in Malaysia, where people have approximately a fifth of the buying power of someone from the UK/Ireland. Hardware prices are slightly cheaper, but the fact is that people simply buy lower-specced machines compared to Europe or the US.
When I originally started visiting there 10 years ago, there was a huge market in pirated DVDs and games, simply because the cost was way out of whack with people’s incomes; taking average salaries, etc, in account, DVDs were the equivalent of £60. There’s been a large crackdown by the government there, at least on the blatant selling from stalls in shopping malls, but the quid-pro-quo was that distributers lower their prices considerably. Obviously you can still get pirated stuff, as my nephew has a ton of games for his PS2, none of which are original (and yes, like a good uncle, I’ve bought him original PC games and tried to show him the light… managed to get him to play a bit of Dungeon Siege anyway).
P.
08/07/2009 at 20:19 archonsod says:
G2Play refunded me for the key, so I doubt they’re hackers/credit card thieves etc.
Interestingly, the serials are blocked for multiplayer but still work fine for single player, so the end result of their attempt to protect their price gouging is that we now have the game, for free in my case, with an optional £40 multiplayer component. Bit of a facepalm moment there I think.
08/07/2009 at 20:55 ibrez says:
Both sites – g2play and onlinekeystore are owned by the same guy – Viktor Wanli, a czech guy wanted by police in Czech Republik, who lives now in northern part of Poland. Do a google search for viktor wanli or g2play, you will find a lot of interesting stuff. He is a wanted criminal, will do whatever it takes for money
09/07/2009 at 10:04 David says:
Sorry we reached this article a bit late.
Blood Bowl keys on G2PLAY were supplied by diffirent suppliers. One of the suppliers aquired them in unlegitimate way (we can only speculate how) and these keys were getting banned by the publisher.
As i speak for G2PLAY.net now i can confirm the case and that all customers which were supplied by keys from this supplier were offered a refund and most of them are refunded already.
G2PLAY did not make its business based on stolen / illegal keys etc. As spoken above stores like G2PLAY.net make their business thanks to the publishers policies aimed to maximize their own profits by distributing the same product with big price differences around the globe.
We just happen to have the right contacts in the right countries which can be also anyone from you guys and can simply open his sotre on similar basis.
If publishers want to stop shops like G2PLAY.net the simpliest way is to effectivley control their own distribution model and network.
If a distributor offers us cheap price we will continue to sell for cheap because we simply do not have such huge operational costs like retail chains, niether we do have big demands on high profits like big internet stores are under the pressure of their management and shareholders.
As a good example of effective distribution control i can show Blizzard. Look all over the internet and try to find WoW game cards / wow tbc etc. for halfprice than retail… its almost impossible. Why?
But mainly i wanted to address the Blood Bowl issue.
09/07/2009 at 11:07 LewieP says:
I just published an official response from G2play too, clears things up a bit.
09/07/2009 at 17:54 ibrez says:
Viktor Wanli, why g2play.net is registered under fake name, and the “Singapore” company that you claim that runes the store now, doest exist at all ? Why you ask your European customers to deposit money into an account open in Slovakia under your name ? How comes that account is not opened under your “Singapore” company ? That’s what matters most of all.
09/07/2009 at 17:57 ibrez says:
Viktor Wanli, why you shut down your polish company ? Forgot to pay the VAT:
http://dweurope.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=53&lang=en
09/07/2009 at 18:28 Serondal says:
I think this just goes to show you that buying keys from a website like G2Play.net or otherwise is taking a big risk that A) your credit card may be stolen or b) you may be buying a stolen product or buying a legal product but in an illegal way. If half of what IBrez is saing is correct I wouldn’t even go to the website for fear of a virus much less buy something from them ;P
09/07/2009 at 19:01 Kieron Gillen says:
Serondal: I admit, there was no way I was paying with my credit-card, so used the Paypal option instead.
KG
09/07/2009 at 19:29 ibrez says:
Ok, let me show you some more :
http://wwwinfo.mfcr.cz/cgi-bin/ares/darv_or.cgi?ico=25379437&jazyk=en&xml=1
Check what’s written under Viktor Wanli name and use translate.google.com to translate it in english. Basically, the Czech state got ahold of all Viktor Wanli shares in all czech registered companies, until he will be able to pay his debts.
Now, check this blog entry, someone describes his interactions with g2play and his owner:
http://clearpixels.net/2009/01/hot-deal-left-4-dead-less-than-13/
And the so called “unlegitimate supplier” fantasy is a sloppy method to hide the fact they bought those keys using fake credit cards. And the onlinekeystore is his site as well.
He is also very active in the country where he is living now :
http://allegro.pl/sklep/10858820_moonqq_games_shop
On his previous “site engine” he asked European customers to send money to his own account:
Hello:
Bank transfer details:
Bank account number (IBAN): SK1411110000001052610008
Bank account currency: EUR
SWIFT Code: UNCRSKBX
Bank name: UniCredit Bank Slovakia a.s.
Bank address:
Šancová 1/A
813 33 Bratislava, Slovakia
Account holder name: Viktor Wanli
09/07/2009 at 19:34 ibrez says:
He has multiple accounts open under his name, Viktor Wanli, in Poland. Bank accounts can be found here:
http://allegro.pl/item682852699_counter_strike_1_6_8bonusow_cs_steam_key_i_w_10m.html
10/07/2009 at 17:17 Santiago says:
Regarding the legality of purchasing the CD Keys from this companies, AFAIK what you buy when you buy a game is a “Right to Use”, a limited right to use the software that’s included in the box or file that you just downloaded. This right of use is independent of the CD Key as far as I understand it, the CD Key being a means of validation but not the actual usage right clearence. The difference being, you can only buy usage rights through the publisher (who owns such rights) or an authorized dealer (authorized by the owner of such rights). I understand it’s up to the terms of the EULA if you can re-sell such rights or not, and how.
If I’m correct, just selling a CD Key equals to selling the old Lucas Arts carton “spinners” used for copy protection, but not the actual Usage Licence. If I’m correct then, this is just another method of piracy.
With regards to the regional price differences, for example a watermelon in my country would cost 1 dollar, in Japan I could sell it for 6, so regional pricing is not such a novelty since the beginning of commerce. The price for a given item is determined by offer/demand and offer/demand only, with no actual relation whatsoever to the actual production cost.
And outsourcing is a complex thing to be against, if you could buy china-made items at china prices, would there be enough incentive for having those items developed and produced in the first place?
10/07/2009 at 17:22 Serondal says:
The real question here is, is Blood Bowl any good? Are we gonna get a Wot I think? Also is it moddable ? It be very cool if someone modded Blood Bowl into a warhammer 40K game that uses the same turn based/RTS type game play and edited the rules to map Warhammer 40K or Warhammer Fantasy for that matter.
10/07/2009 at 22:30 Markoff Chaney says:
Good? To me it’s better than fantastic, if you don’t mind paying for beta and having to utilize one of the most deplorable interfaces creatable. So far, I feel I’ve underpaid for my current license considering the amount of joy it has brought to my life so far and I will rectify that when the game comes out in box form, hopefully with something I can collect. I’ll even pay more for that hunk of stuff to put on my shelf as I usually do. For more thoughts on the game, and passion it can inspire, feel free to check out the thread that’s going on in the forum. This is a game that can grab you quite strongly and the quality of what is there is fantastic.
The day you can move a watermelon across an already established infrastructure with no loss whatsoever in the transfer and with neither party of the grower or the purchaser having to assume the cost to transport the watermelon is the day a watermelon stops costing 1 dollar in one country and 6 in another.
At least I feel that’s how it should be. I think the key is to understand it is a perfectly replicable environment with the sole cost, now, being able to be incurred by developers and creators. The balance is that those deciding the cost of a good must be fair about pricing or the market WILL balance itself somewhere between the extremes of 0 dollar transactions (piracy) and MSRP.