Rebellion Sniper Elite 3 Bans 7050 Keys
polycounter lvl 11
Interesting story developing, rebellion "claims"
To clarify, one of our PC retail distributors informed us that some of their allotted Steam keys were stolen. We believe these keys were then resold to multiple companies, with no payments going to either Valve or the retail distributor.
Steam were immediately informed and have now revoked that set of keys.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/238090/discussions/0/540744936577983546/#p7
How does someone "steal" keys then sell them to distributors all over world ?
You are a key thief. A elite hacker.You hack the servers from the publsher.
And then... you sell your keys to 50 different key traders.
Every trader buys them from you without checking your background.
And the theft
And the reselling to the game shops
Has all together been done in less then 24 hours.
To clarify, one of our PC retail distributors informed us that some of their allotted Steam keys were stolen. We believe these keys were then resold to multiple companies, with no payments going to either Valve or the retail distributor.
Steam were immediately informed and have now revoked that set of keys.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/238090/discussions/0/540744936577983546/#p7
How does someone "steal" keys then sell them to distributors all over world ?
You are a key thief. A elite hacker.You hack the servers from the publsher.
And then... you sell your keys to 50 different key traders.
Every trader buys them from you without checking your background.
And the theft
And the reselling to the game shops
Has all together been done in less then 24 hours.
Replies
It makes perfect sense to think that some vendors have been selling stolen goods. They may not have realized the keys were stolen or they may not have cared because like I said, at the end of the day, they need to get the cheapest keys that are available.
I don't see why people are hating on Rebellion, they are clearly trying to defuse the situation and are even offering the pre-order DLC for free to those affected. Imagine if you went to ebay and purchased a cheap item only to realize that it was stolen from somebody else. If that person contacted you to reclaim the item, would you tell them to suck it, or would you do the right thing and hand it back?
As for the stealing of the actual keys, such a thing can be pretty common. I know there was a huge theft ring going on with the Origin store a few years ago where people would abuse EA's customer service representatives in order to steal a ton of keys for every game (which would then be re-sold to key retailers). I bought a copy of BF3 for a friend from a key retailer and the account ended up getting banned because it was a stolen key. Luckily EA support was nice enough to unban the account and they even offered me credit for the purchase having to be revoked.
It sucks that there are people out there who do these kinds of things but not much can be done about it at the individual user level. Key retailers need to properly educate their staff and efforts need to be made to prevent any kind of hack attacks.
That being said, I've had great luck with sites like GMG and the Humble Store. I'm not sure if they only get keys directly from game developers but I haven't had a single issue for several years now.
This way around, the retailer is being penalised by having to accept returns on non-working keys, so hopefully it will encourage them (and their customers) to be more careful in future.
The retailers are at fault and owe consumers a refund, people bought the game from retailers in good faith. If I bought a stolen iPad (or game), I'd gladly return it to the original owner (or developer) and demand my money back from the person (or company) I bought it from.
Them banning keys is entirely legitimate... however bad press can crush a company.
If I were in their shoes, I would have not banned the 7050 keys but would have taken steps to prevent further sale of illegal keys.
Perhaps, instead of banning, contact a portion of the gamers that had illegal keys and ask them where they bought from. Then blacklist those retailers or put a notice on their web/Steam page warning against those retailers.
Unfortunate for Rebellion and the gamers both.
They are doing something similar if you read the Steam page news post.
I fully agree with TB, it's common sense, if you're getting a key cheaper than steam or most legitimate license retailers are selling them for, the key you're buying has likely been obtained through less than legitimate means.
And it is a risk you take on yourself if you decide to buy a key through a grey market, there is a chance it's stolen, and there is a chance the key will be revoked, and there is a chance that retailer will not refund you.
These people who bought those keys from grey markets got burnt, and that entirely on themselves.
For many stores the developer provides the keys directly..But for a lot of these more cut throat stores many of these keys come from bundles, at least for indies.
When a game is bundled at pay-what-you-want, other storefronts will swoop in and a stock up with thousands of keys for pennies or a dollar per key with the intention of selling them for 4 bucks each the next week. Weird situation.
I'm not sure HOW those sites get keys for newer AAA games tho--they might have a legit relationship with a publishers, or they might have the means to scrape a retailer who does have a relationship with the pub.
Tough Situation
There are other users using VPNS and Tors to buy the keys from brazilian or indian retailers.