Widescreen Gaming Forum

Spend piles of cash hookers, drugs, and booze.

Not in that order.

So basically pull a 3DRealms?

--Post-launch support--

Spend piles of cash hookers, drugs, and booze.

Not in that order.

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

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

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

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

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

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

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

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

[quote]

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

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

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

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

The more I think about it the more aberrant it seems

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What really being said here.

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

Side B: Yeah, but they can do that.

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Professional... well I'll figure that out.



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