Widescreen Gaming Forum

But they didn't lie, they didn't steal, and it's not cheating if you're allowed to do it. What they did do is deny customers a courtesy that many of us wish they had granted, but fact is, there's no obligation for them to do that.

Now, if it were up to me, I would give customers the option of purchasing a valid CD key at cost difference. It seems like a fair deal to me - Activision gets a sale, the customer gets the game they paid for, as well as a lesson that they can't exploit the regional pricing system to buy games at discount prices meant for people who couldn't afford anything more. But it's not up to me, or any of us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not siding with anybody. Just stating the two sides here. hehe

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



"I sense something, a presence I've not felt since......."

as you said they could perfectly offer a way to correct the situation

and there's also another possible solution :
deactivate the key for this particular customer or for the whole region

-the key just won't work if you register it in the wrong country
since the key just work you should be in better terms to get a refund

-and also I see another possible way to do things a bit more obviously
include a region code in the Key:
key for france FR-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX & the like ...


also we are talking about two different things here:
case 1 : the keys were resold (which is GeneralAdmission implied)
I don't like Steam ToS on this front but ok, it's against their ToS, let's not talk about that again, I think we talked about it before.
case 2 : the keys were just sold by import resellers, and they don't have the right to sell to another country (according to Steam ToS) and in this case I still wonder where Steam TOS forbids a user from buying not in his country


Finally when you say "they know the key was activated in region B" well no in fact all they know is that the IP region might report this or that country (but it's not always 100% reliable) AND/OR that the user reported his country as being X.
Did you ever saw all those ads which try to provide services (mostly adult rendez-vous) by saying it's available in your specific town or something. well in my case they always get it wrong, and it's not always the same depending on my IP...

of course you may say "ok they get your town wrong but country is a bit larger", to which I'll reply that a bunch of countries are rather small, and quite a bunch of people live near another country...


In the end of lot of this is quite dependent on specific details that we don't know about, it's a shame I don't have enough money on my hands or I would seek out those people that had their key deactivated, get the facts right & depending on the specific details I would challenge the case in court.

the keys were just sold by import resellers, and they don't have the right to sell to another country (according to Steam ToS) and in this case I still wonder where Steam TOS forbids a user from buying not in his country

It doesn't. It forbids a user from buying from an unauthorized distributor. And it just so happens that authorized distributors are restricted to certain regions.

I don't like Steam ToS on this front

Can you find a better way to prevent people from exploiting loopholes in the regional pricing system?

of course you may say "ok they get your town wrong but country is a bit larger", to which I'll reply that a bunch of countries are rather small, and quite a bunch of people live near another country...

It's not necessarily a matter of country, but a matter of region. I doubt they would care much if I bought a key from Ontario, or if you bought one from Belgium, or if Borat bought one from Uzbekistan. But if someone in the Western hemisphere buys a key from China, there's not much concealing this.

Well it's still a cheap move. Buying foreign keys has been around for a log time and this is the first time I've heard of a company actually banned those keys.

It wouldn't be quite to lame is the god damn game wasn't overpriced and half-baked.

Fuck IW and Acitivision, i still say. Right in the ear. Neither of them will see money from me in the future.

It's not necessarily a matter of country, but a matter of region. I doubt they would care much if I bought a key from Ontario, or if you bought one from Belgium, or if Borat bought one from Uzbekistan. But if someone in the Western hemisphere buys a key from China, there's not much concealing this.

Ontario is a country now eh? ;)

Can you clarify your stance on this cranky? It seems almost like your a robot, where as everyone else actively dislikes it you are basically indifferent.

Well it's still a cheap move. Buying foreign keys has been around for a log time and this is the first time I've heard of a company actually banned those keys.

If people have been successfully cheating the system for a long time, then I say it's about time they did something about it. Half-price keys were meant for people who couldn't afford anything more. Not for you.

Ontario is a country now eh?

It's a region comparable in size to the hypothetical small country that whispermill says are indistinguishable from other nearby small countries.

Can you clarify your stance on this cranky?

Activision wants you to pay $60 for their game. Either pay that, or live without the game until they lower the price (or just live without the game - that's my plan). No sympathy for anyone who tried to cheat the system and got burned.

Activision wants you to pay $60 for their game. Either pay that, or live without the game until they lower the price (or just live without the game - that's my plan). No sympathy for anyone who tried to cheat the system and got burned.

So what they say is true, you really don't have a soul! Luckily The Wizard of Oz was just recently released on blu-ray, we can go see the wizard to get you one!

I feel no shame for buying my sisters new Ipod from Germany for half the price of a new one in stores here.

So what they say is true, you really don't have a soul! Luckily The Wizard of Oz was just recently released on blu-ray, we can go see the wizard to get you one!

If it's a choice between a brain and a soul, I'll take the brain. It doesn't take much of one to see that these aren't innocent customers being screwed out of their entitlement to cheap games - these are people who tried to cheat the system to save a buck, and it bit them in the ass.

I feel no shame for buying my sisters new Ipod from Germany for half the price of a new one in stores here.

Doing a brief comparison of prices, it would cost me quite a bit more to import an 8GB iPod Touch from Germany (EUR 175 / $265 plus shipping) than to get one here ($190). It's not obvious to me how this anecdote is possible.

I agree with cranky completely on this.

The real thing getting people in trouble here is the classic idea brought on by the Internet that the entire world is one economy when it is certainly not. People complain about price differences all the time but that is because economies are different... same thing here, cheaper versions of the game exist for certain economies, buying those cheap versions from the US is going around the system and I have no pity for those who did so and now don't have a game.