4 ms·

Please can someone explain to me this: Why cant game developers just make a key retroactively invalid if it was found to be stolen?

by dreen 6y ago

Jonnax 6y ago
Because the game developer had to pay the credit card company a chargeback fee so they're out of money.
- dreen 6y ago
  Thats not what Im asking though. Lets assume the thefts go on as they do with no changes, if devs made the keys invalid it would starve g2a's business.
CivBase 6y ago
They could, but it wont hurt the person who purchases the codes with a stolen credit card or the reseller who already offloaded the stolen goods. It just hurts the people who unwittingly bought the stolen keys.
- dreen 6y ago
  Perhaps but they wont make that same mistake again right? At least they would never buy anything from g2a again
  - NoodleIncident 6y ago
    Usually they blame the developer and then go buy someone else's games on G2A
csharptwdec19 6y ago
Likely that the cost/benefit isn't there for such a system if you're a smaller pub. An MVP Implementation would require Something to determine if a key was stolen. Let's just imagine it's something that keeps a Key tied to a given Order number, and can mark a key as invalid if there's a chargeback on the order. You probably need another subsystem to periodically re-check the key if you weren't already doing that. You'll also need additional CS / PR staff to deal with the eventual case of people who bought keys complaining and blowing your company up on Social media. Pulling numbers out of the air, I'd guess that this would add 50-100k to the overall budget of the game. Possibly a high number but I'm assuming at least one additional staff member would be required to deal with the potential fallout of such a move. But even then the catch rate would be limited; within the first 1-3 months it will likely be cracked anyway and your protection mechanism will be meaningless to the people who really want to steal your software. Assuming your thieves buy the keys day 1, it would likely take a good 2-3 months for the chargeback to happen...
beckingz 6y ago
Wube was doing this, but the people who bought the keys of G2A didn't know they were stolen and got sad/mad. Great factorio blog post on the topic: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303

Please can someone explain to me this: Why cant game developers just make a key retroactively invalid if it was found to be stolen?

by dreen 6y ago

Please can someone explain to me this: Why cant game developers just make a key retroactively invalid if it was found to be stolen?

Jonnax 6y ago

Because the game developer had to pay the credit card company a chargeback fee so they're out of money.

dreen 6y ago
Thats not what Im asking though. Lets assume the thefts go on as they do with no changes, if devs made the keys invalid it would starve g2a's business.

CivBase 6y ago

They could, but it wont hurt the person who purchases the codes with a stolen credit card or the reseller who already offloaded the stolen goods. It just hurts the people who unwittingly bought the stolen keys.

dreen 6y ago
Perhaps but they wont make that same mistake again right? At least they would never buy anything from g2a again
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  Usually they blame the developer and then go buy someone else's games on G2A

csharptwdec19 6y ago

Likely that the cost/benefit isn't there for such a system if you're a smaller pub. An MVP Implementation would require Something to determine if a key was stolen. Let's just imagine it's something that keeps a Key tied to a given Order number, and can mark a key as invalid if there's a chargeback on the order. You probably need another subsystem to periodically re-check the key if you weren't already doing that. You'll also need additional CS / PR staff to deal with the eventual case of people who bought keys complaining and blowing your company up on Social media. Pulling numbers out of the air, I'd guess that this would add 50-100k to the overall budget of the game. Possibly a high number but I'm assuming at least one additional staff member would be required to deal with the potential fallout of such a move. But even then the catch rate would be limited; within the first 1-3 months it will likely be cracked anyway and your protection mechanism will be meaningless to the people who really want to steal your software. Assuming your thieves buy the keys day 1, it would likely take a good 2-3 months for the chargeback to happen...

beckingz 6y ago

Wube was doing this, but the people who bought the keys of G2A didn't know they were stolen and got sad/mad. Great factorio blog post on the topic: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303