"Illegitimate" Modern Warfare 2 Keys Being Banned on Steam

[iHap]

People who bought legit cdkeys on a discount over at websites that sell these cdkeys from other countries are getting their cdkeys revoked and MW2 taken away from them on Steam, only because they bought it for around $10 cheaper.

There are a few threads that are popping up complaining about this, and the Greens respond:

If you purchased just a cd key for the game then you purchased from an illegitimate seller and the game has been revoked.

I am sorry but you all did not purchase from a legitimate retailer. It is recommended that you contact the seller to request a refund.

In the future, you should only buy unopened retail boxed copies from legitimate retailers or purchase via legitimate digital download services such as Steam and Direct2Drive.

Future threads on the issue will be closed. If you have any questions/comments, please contact Steam Support.

Threads: Thread 1 Thread 2

[OUX]

How is this bad PR? Pretty standard "you-bought-an-illegal-copy-of-the-game-no-game-for-you" stuff.

[Vigil80]

Maybe on it's own it wouldn't be bad PR, but it's coming at the worst possible time, adding on the pile.

Also, with the amount of money they're making, they could let this slide if they wanted to.

[Grifter]

So we're blaming stupid people on Infinity Ward now?
I think someone needs a reality check.

[iHap]

Originally Posted by OUX

How is this bad PR? Pretty standard "you-bought-an-illegal-copy-of-the-game-no-game-for-you" stuff.

Originally Posted by Prizefighter

Maybe on it's own it wouldn't be bad PR, but it's coming at the worst possible time, adding on the pile.

It's bad PR because what Prizefighter has said, also because the cdkeys are legal, legit keys. Their just from a different country. IW sold games to B country from A country then B country resold just the cdkeys for a little bit less money. How is that illegal?

[OUX]

The have very stringent rule on how these kinds of products are sold. If they sold them outside of the agreement it would be an illegal sale.

[Deadend]

Originally Posted by OUX

The have very stringent rule on how these kinds of products are sold. If they sold them outside of the agreement it would be an illegal sale.

No no no, it's not illegal. It's EULA bullshit.

[OUX]

Originally Posted by Deadend

No no no, it's not illegal. It's EULA bullshit.

...which makes it illegal?

[Chaos Machine]

Originally Posted by OUX

...which makes it illegal?

apparently you need to look up the definition of illegal, as the police do not enforce EULAs. if i signed a EULA that said activision could seize my computer if i talked shit about them on cog the police wouldn't come knocking on my door. granted we are talking semantics here, but i think this does bring up an interesting situation regarding the need to protect the consumer before the business. This is kind of a grey area, I think that the correct course of action would be for activision to implement some sort of flag that requires the consumer to produce a receipt of some sort verifying their purchase as well as giving activision a target to sue for violating their region lock as a compromise as opposed to doing what basically amounts to theft.

[OUX]

To start no police wouldn't but they would be entitled to take your computer and if you refused them the computer on request thy would then have the option of either making it a criminal or civil suit.
To finish it wasn't a matter of EULA the distributor broke the agreement they had with the publisher and that probably means they have lost the right to sell the game. Any copy of the game they sold would be illegal just like a gas station that doesn't have a liquor license selling beer. The distributor was essentially selling pirated keys at that point. I believe piracy is still illegal, but if you want, I can check.

[Chaos Machine]

Originally Posted by OUX

To start no police wouldn't but they would be entitled to take your computer and if you refused them the computer on request thy would then have the option of either making it a criminal or civil suit.
To finish it wasn't a matter of EULA the distributor broke the agreement they had with the publisher and that probably means they have lost the right to sell the game. Any copy of the game they sold would be illegal just like a gas station that doesn't have a liquor license selling beer. The distributor was essentially selling pirated keys at that point. I believe piracy is still illegal, but if you want, I can check.

they would not be entitled to take your computer, as i said before, eula's are unenforceable in court. you are not violating ANY laws when you break a EULA. Blizzard cant have my computer taken from me because i was speed hacking in the game. They can however ban my account without fear of me suing them. this is different though because the consumer does not sign or agree to any EULA prior to purchasing the game. the violation is with the seller, not the buyer.

also, this isnt piracy, these are legitimate copies of the game that were sold to a different country at a lower price point to fit their economy and monetary exchange rate, the vendors from these countries are seeing that this game can sell for much more in america than their locality so they decide to just sell it here. Obviously international shipping will cut into their margins so instead they just sell the cdkey instead and mark a little more off the price to compensate. Again, its not piracy. Because they are violating their seller agreement with activision they could in theory go after each of these vendors in court to get monetary damages, but many of these operations are fly-by-night and as a result, they would likely have very limited success getting compensation. It is easier for them to just ban all non-legit copies of the games and force consumers to rebuy a legit copy.

[Chris_D]

It's no more illegal than someone ordering the Japanese version of a game off Play-Asia. Or the fact that I still buy stuff off the iTunes Australian Store even though I no longer live in Australia.

Anyway, this is nothing specific to MW2, and has been happening for quite some time with various games sold on Steam. I've seen a lot of complaints from Australians, who rather than getting reamed by the Australian steam prices, try and save some money buying a boxed copy of the game from places like Thailand. Now, even though these are boxed copies, not just codes, the games were still getting disabled on steam.

I personally think it's complete bullshit and I feel sorry for anyone that loses out over this. But, it's a Valve/Steam issue not an Infinity Ward issue.

[Chaos Machine]

imo it is morally reprehensible to do something like this to a paying customer, you dont go after the person that bought stolen shit from a pawn shop, you go after the pawn shop for selling stolen merchandise in the first place. Thats the way i look at it, even though everything technically is on the level, I mean activision did get paid for the original copy just not as much as if the consumer had bought it through their "prescribed" retail channels. now they are trying to double dip.

[Spectre-7]

Originally Posted by OUX

To finish it wasn't a matter of EULA the distributor broke the agreement they had with the publisher and that probably means they have lost the right to sell the game. Any copy of the game they sold would be illegal just like a gas station that doesn't have a liquor license selling beer. The distributor was essentially selling pirated keys at that point. I believe piracy is still illegal, but if you want, I can check.

As far as I'm aware, first sale doctrine gives you the right to sell any games you've legally come into possession of, and generally speaking, the only agreements publishers have with retailers are regular old procurement agreements (i.e. cash for product), and occasionally a street date agreement. The situation with a gas station isn't at all analogous, as it is actually illegal (ya know, against laws) to sell alcohol without a liquor license, whereas any hypothetical disagreement here would only be a breach of contract, and thus subject to civil proceedings. None of this constitutes copyright infringement, so piracy has nothing to do with it.

IANAL. Caveat emptor. Carpe diem.

[BLeeP]

Originally Posted by Chaos Machine

imo it is morally reprehensible to do something like this to a paying customer, you dont go after the person that bought stolen shit from a pawn shop, you go after the pawn shop for selling stolen merchandise in the first place. Thats the way i look at it, even though everything technically is on the level, I mean activision did get paid for the original copy just not as much as if the consumer had bought it through their "prescribed" retail channels. now they are trying to double dip.

Actually, that really depends on how you look at it as far as Activision making more money one way or the other. I mean, if I buy it from one store for 20 dollars and then turn around and buy a copy from another store for 100 dollars, Activision isn't seeing any of that, only what that store paid them for the copies in the first place.

[Chaos Machine]

Originally Posted by Katslover

Actually, that really depends on how you look at it as far as Activision making more money one way or the other. I mean, if I buy it from one store for 20 dollars and then turn around and buy a copy from another store for 100 dollars, Activision isn't seeing any of that, only what that store paid them for the copies in the first place.

right like i said before though, activision sells the game to stores at different prices depending on location as noone in china is going to pay 60USD for a video game because thats what they make in a week. they might sell copies in thailand for 10 usd per unit, with stores selling it for the equivilent of 15usd. the stores are just saying hey what the shit! we have a price advantage over retail in america, this is the internet, lets sell it for a higher price there while still lowballing the competition!

[Cactaur]

Same thing happened with the Half Life Orange Box.

[J Arcane]

You bought a cd-key off a shady dealer, and you're surprised when you get banned for it?

Cry me a goddamn river.

Most of these keys are NOT legal in anyway. Frequently they're keys licensed to cyber cafes and the like that have already been sold, and the ones that aren't are ripped from retail boxes that are then turned around and sold to unsuspecting consumers.

You bought pirated software, and suffered the consequences. Boo fucking hoo.

I remain utterly baffled that there are honestly people who don't understand what the hell is wrong with sites like that.

You should all feel lucky your whole account didn't get banned for piracy.

[Chris_D]

If the key had been installed at a cyber cafe it would never work after someone else bought it. As for keys being ripped from boxes, well it's the seller who is committing the crime there and the crime is when they try and sell on the box to the consumer once the key has already been sold. The key being sold is the legitimate transaction as far as I'm concerned. The way this banning works seems to allow Valve to make out like bandits. They sell a copy of the game and take the money yet no user actually ends up with a copy. I'm sure other industries wish they could reproduce this!

I think living in North America allows some people to be pretty blase about this kind of problem, or even in the J's post, accuse us of being thieves. Of course, we wish we didn't suffer from release date delays, price jacking, or even just not speaking the local language and wanting to buy a damn game in English.

[J Arcane]

Cyber cafe accounts are essentially a volume license, and these sites are buying those licenses and then illegally selling the provided keys to a third party. The same thing will happen to you if you turn around and try to sell that AutoCAD license (in fact, there was a fairly high profile case recently when it was discovered a company was doing just that and Autodesk sued the crap out of them).

And really, what kind of naivete do you have to possess to go to one of these sites and not at least have the red flag go up that something shady's going on, when they're essentially running a business that is effectively the for-pay equivalent of a serials dump, especially when this is far from the first time a company has retaliated against one of these sites and those who buy from them?

This has nothing to do with import gaming, it has to do with people buying shit from shady websites and then being surprised when there are actual consequences for doing so.