I am okay with gamers “requisitioning” games if they truly can’t afford it. While it is my livelihood, it’s also my attempt at art and I want people to enjoy it. I even plan on releasing a safe cracked copy for the next game.
If you pirate a game, there are ways to help support us starving devs if you like the game.
Spread the word far and wide that you like the game. A little effort on your part can save us marketing budget and trigger new sales.
In the future if you have the financial ability, buy a legit key on sale. Even at 75%+ discount it helps.
But please don’t cost us additional money. It costs time and money to process chargebacks triggered by the key resellers selling keys procurred with stolen credit cards.
Well, it’s not like people that know what they are doing, download from any random site they come across. There are sites that are well regarded and many that are not (like piratebay)
In the future if you have the financial ability, buy a legit key on sale. Even at 75%+ discount it helps.
I’ve been doing this a lot recently. Back when i was a teenager i used to pirate a lot, but now that i’m older and have disposable income i’ve been buying a ton of the games o used to pirate then.
Which unfortunally leads to me having tons of games on steam with barely any hours played (yet), when they should be in the thousands already.
I will also use this excuse to justify my huge backlog of steam games bought on deep discounted sales that I in all likelihood will never ever ever actually play.
I’m just making up for my middle school years That’s the ticket…
But with these old classics it’s even harder to resist for me.
They usually have the biggest discounts, and how can i say this game that gave me so many hours of fun isn’t worth 2 fucking dollars?
I don’t think your opinion is wrong, just misinformed/uninformed. I share your opinion mire generally about blockchain tech, as it’s clearly been used for scams and bullshit.
We’re not talking about Bored Ape fake trading card nonsense. We’re talking about Game Publishers and re-sellers who want to verify provenance of a file. The publisher (creator) wants to get a cut of a forward sale of the game. That’s the speculated way that this would work. Whether it’s tied to Gamestop is irrelevant. NFT technology will serve this purpose for all forms of digital media.
Gamestop is just the only service currently offering this benefit when minting your NFT (or was… Maybe it changed)
I am not really all about NFTs but they are not going away… They are the perfect tool for digital capitalism. They create a kind of artificial scarcity
In the case of the Gamestop policy, at least creators get paid for their work as long as its remains popular/desirable
Only if you can put the license itself on the blockchain, and guarantee the blockchain is robust enough to last beyond Gamestop’s bankruptcy. Or survive past the day Gamestop decides they can make more money by destroying the current blockchain and “upgrading” the system.
I don’t think anyone can say that Gamestop will definitely be around longer than people want to use these licenses they sell. And I hope the license isn’t just a pointer to some Gamestop website that stores the licenses (re: standard NFT). But I don’t trust any corporation to do something like this without building in some sort of backdoor to revoke licenses. Especially Gamestop.
It doesn’t matter if the blockchain is eternal, if this is a traditional NFT, it isn’t stored in the blockchain. All you’re buying is a link to a website where the NFT is stored. It doesn’t matter if it’s a license key, or a shitty computer generated picture of an anthropomorphic ape. When Gamestop decides to shut down the server (it will happen eventually), you lose access to your license key. If Gamestop allows you to copy your license key, you still lose access to your software when Gamestop shuts down the licensing server. I’m not sure the technology works the way you think it works.
Uhm… Sorry but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this tech works.
NFTs are stored in a “wallet”, the address is recorded on the blockchain. As long as you know your seed phrase (or other recovery key) it will be yours eternally. The NFT market is only a place to put buyers and sellers in the same spot. Even “in the market”, the NFT lives at a blockchain address, someone else’s wallet.
That’s why Gamestop can say “we’re shutting down our wallet service. Get your recovery key and restore your NFTs elsewhere”
Gamestop doesn’t run a licensing server and probably won’t. That’s for publishers. Also, NFTs make licensing servers redundant.
It’s silly to assume all (or even the majority imo) of key sellers are fraudulent. How do you know resellers are costing you more money in chargebacks than they make you in legitimate purchases?
Edit: downvote away, but until someone provides some actual evidence of this instead of just “a few devs said so” I’m going to assume this isn’t true.
So, those resellers listed have been known to hold and sell keys that are linked to stolen credit cards and other unauthorised payment methods. The keys are bought up cheap during sales using the stolen credentials then posted on the reseller sites. A few things happen when the victim notifies their bank or institution of the fraud. Steam or whatever site cancels those keys, meaning the person who purchased the key on the reseller site is out a product, the dev/publisher then has to front the cost of the charge back for the fraudulent purchase, or at least the 70% cut they get. Knowing that sometimes the keys you purchase dont work the resellers also offer a service, for an extra fee, to ensure that your key will work.
In essence, the reseller makes money from the purchase of the key, the fraudulent posters of the keys make money from the sale of the key, the legitimate store and the dev lose money due to the chargeback caused by the fraudulent sale, and the user who purchased the key is out money and a product. There are legitimate resellers who dont operate this way but the ones pictured are not those ones.
Thats not even the fact that the reseller wouldn’t be selling the key for less than they bought it so the customer is giving more money to someone else rather then the dev. So sure, the dev may have been paid for the keys at sale price, but the end user is paying more which goes to someone else.
I understand the theory, I’m looking for evidence that this is a problem that makes resellers a net negative income for devs. I’ve used resellers plenty of times for games I otherwise would not have purchased and I have never once had this happen to me, which makes me think that this is an unproven talking point based on outliers.
It’s not like it’s a straightforward calculation, it’s hard to distinguish between regular sales and sales made to resellers, as well as regular chargebacks and chargebacks made to resellers. So until someone actually puts effort into proving this, “because the dev said so” isn’t a good enough answer for me.
G2A made an offer years ago to any video game devs that they would compensate any devs if they and an external investigation could prove that the keys were illegitimate.
Wube the company behind Factorio was the only one that took them up on the offer and they were right, the keys were illegitimate.
Indie solo video game dev here.
I am okay with gamers “requisitioning” games if they truly can’t afford it. While it is my livelihood, it’s also my attempt at art and I want people to enjoy it. I even plan on releasing a safe cracked copy for the next game.
If you pirate a game, there are ways to help support us starving devs if you like the game.
Spread the word far and wide that you like the game. A little effort on your part can save us marketing budget and trigger new sales.
In the future if you have the financial ability, buy a legit key on sale. Even at 75%+ discount it helps.
But please don’t cost us additional money. It costs time and money to process chargebacks triggered by the key resellers selling keys procurred with stolen credit cards.
Unless you plan on implementing any other stronger DRM than the steam provided one. I wouldn’t bother releasing a safe version.
It’s brutally simple to crack steam drm on your own. You just need the clean files from cs.rin.ru/forum or something.
Unsafe cracks will be published elsewhere anyways if your game is popular enough.
I suggest you just don’t add any DRM at all.
Running files you downloaded from a Russian website, what could possibly go wrong
cs.rin.ru is very well regarded in the piracy community and quite a few cracks originate there. You can also learn how to crack yourself on that site.
now you got my attention
“Very well regarded in the piracy community” isn’t a phrase I thought I’d see today 🤣
Why not, after you clicked on a post in a piracy community?
Well, it’s not like people that know what they are doing, download from any random site they come across. There are sites that are well regarded and many that are not (like piratebay)
I’ve been doing this a lot recently. Back when i was a teenager i used to pirate a lot, but now that i’m older and have disposable income i’ve been buying a ton of the games o used to pirate then.
Which unfortunally leads to me having tons of games on steam with barely any hours played (yet), when they should be in the thousands already.
I will also use this excuse to justify my huge backlog of steam games bought on deep discounted sales that I in all likelihood will never ever ever actually play.
I’m just making up for my middle school years That’s the ticket…
Lol, yeah, i do that too…
But with these old classics it’s even harder to resist for me. They usually have the biggest discounts, and how can i say this game that gave me so many hours of fun isn’t worth 2 fucking dollars?
The Gamestop NFT marketplace will hopefully allow creators like you to release games and collect a royalty for each re-sale
Sounds kinda sus man
What’s sus about creators receiving royalties for their own work?
The sus part is the royalties being tied to unregulated, highly risky “assets”
I don’t think your opinion is wrong, just misinformed/uninformed. I share your opinion mire generally about blockchain tech, as it’s clearly been used for scams and bullshit.
We’re not talking about Bored Ape fake trading card nonsense. We’re talking about Game Publishers and re-sellers who want to verify provenance of a file. The publisher (creator) wants to get a cut of a forward sale of the game. That’s the speculated way that this would work. Whether it’s tied to Gamestop is irrelevant. NFT technology will serve this purpose for all forms of digital media.
Gamestop is just the only service currently offering this benefit when minting your NFT (or was… Maybe it changed)
Fuck no. Nobody wants NFTs.
I am not really all about NFTs but they are not going away… They are the perfect tool for digital capitalism. They create a kind of artificial scarcity
In the case of the Gamestop policy, at least creators get paid for their work as long as its remains popular/desirable
Only if you can put the license itself on the blockchain, and guarantee the blockchain is robust enough to last beyond Gamestop’s bankruptcy. Or survive past the day Gamestop decides they can make more money by destroying the current blockchain and “upgrading” the system.
The blockchain has nothing to do with Gamestop’s solvency as a company (which is not in doubt, BTW). It’s Ethereum blockchain.
The last sentence of your comment sounds like you don’t actually understand blockchain technology at all…
I don’t think anyone can say that Gamestop will definitely be around longer than people want to use these licenses they sell. And I hope the license isn’t just a pointer to some Gamestop website that stores the licenses (re: standard NFT). But I don’t trust any corporation to do something like this without building in some sort of backdoor to revoke licenses. Especially Gamestop.
Your comment makes me think you don’t get how the technology works. Ethereum blockchain will continue to exist whether Gamestop does or not…
It doesn’t matter if the blockchain is eternal, if this is a traditional NFT, it isn’t stored in the blockchain. All you’re buying is a link to a website where the NFT is stored. It doesn’t matter if it’s a license key, or a shitty computer generated picture of an anthropomorphic ape. When Gamestop decides to shut down the server (it will happen eventually), you lose access to your license key. If Gamestop allows you to copy your license key, you still lose access to your software when Gamestop shuts down the licensing server. I’m not sure the technology works the way you think it works.
Uhm… Sorry but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this tech works.
NFTs are stored in a “wallet”, the address is recorded on the blockchain. As long as you know your seed phrase (or other recovery key) it will be yours eternally. The NFT market is only a place to put buyers and sellers in the same spot. Even “in the market”, the NFT lives at a blockchain address, someone else’s wallet.
That’s why Gamestop can say “we’re shutting down our wallet service. Get your recovery key and restore your NFTs elsewhere”
Gamestop doesn’t run a licensing server and probably won’t. That’s for publishers. Also, NFTs make licensing servers redundant.
It’s silly to assume all (or even the majority imo) of key sellers are fraudulent. How do you know resellers are costing you more money in chargebacks than they make you in legitimate purchases?
Edit: downvote away, but until someone provides some actual evidence of this instead of just “a few devs said so” I’m going to assume this isn’t true.
So, those resellers listed have been known to hold and sell keys that are linked to stolen credit cards and other unauthorised payment methods. The keys are bought up cheap during sales using the stolen credentials then posted on the reseller sites. A few things happen when the victim notifies their bank or institution of the fraud. Steam or whatever site cancels those keys, meaning the person who purchased the key on the reseller site is out a product, the dev/publisher then has to front the cost of the charge back for the fraudulent purchase, or at least the 70% cut they get. Knowing that sometimes the keys you purchase dont work the resellers also offer a service, for an extra fee, to ensure that your key will work.
In essence, the reseller makes money from the purchase of the key, the fraudulent posters of the keys make money from the sale of the key, the legitimate store and the dev lose money due to the chargeback caused by the fraudulent sale, and the user who purchased the key is out money and a product. There are legitimate resellers who dont operate this way but the ones pictured are not those ones.
Thats not even the fact that the reseller wouldn’t be selling the key for less than they bought it so the customer is giving more money to someone else rather then the dev. So sure, the dev may have been paid for the keys at sale price, but the end user is paying more which goes to someone else.
I understand the theory, I’m looking for evidence that this is a problem that makes resellers a net negative income for devs. I’ve used resellers plenty of times for games I otherwise would not have purchased and I have never once had this happen to me, which makes me think that this is an unproven talking point based on outliers.
It’s not like it’s a straightforward calculation, it’s hard to distinguish between regular sales and sales made to resellers, as well as regular chargebacks and chargebacks made to resellers. So until someone actually puts effort into proving this, “because the dev said so” isn’t a good enough answer for me.
G2A made an offer years ago to any video game devs that they would compensate any devs if they and an external investigation could prove that the keys were illegitimate.
Wube the company behind Factorio was the only one that took them up on the offer and they were right, the keys were illegitimate.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/g2a-and-wube-software-settle-usd40-000-chargeback-dispute
https://www.pcgamer.com/g2a-has-paid-factorio-studio-nearly-dollar40000-over-sale-of-illegitimate-keys/
Official announcement from G2A: https://www.g2a.co/g2a-strikes-anti-fraud-agreement-with-indie-developer-wube-software/
About the issue from Wube: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303
Follow up [last section]: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-348