When you send keys to reviewers, say that you're sending them keys with expiration dates on the redemption window and include the date you'll invalidate the keys. Set a date 2 weeks out, and invalidate the keys then. You don't need more then a week to grab a key out of your email, and add it to your steam account. Even if you don't review the game for a few weeks, all you need to do is add it before the key expires. Anyone that emails you back with an angry or upset response gets perma-blacklisted.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg Note the wording: Emails you _back._ A person who bought the invalidated code from a third-party source wouldn't be emailing the developer back, as there would have been no contact between them prior to that point. Furthermore, the issue that consumer has- an invalid code- is the fault of the site that sold them an invalid code, not the developer. It's not the developer's problem.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg What "consumers" are you on? Those review keys are for reviewers, NOT for fcking retail. Also, if you think those sites are real "stores" with 100% legitimacy... good luck out there. Buy from Steam, hell, even those Rstar bs.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg Yeah no. That's literally the traditional, for-profit software piracy of selling "copies" of a game that the seller paid little to nothing to obtain. Just because the pirate has a storefront and charges money from their customers doesn't make it not piracy.
Yeah review keys should really just be temporary. If this stuff is a big issue, steam should really have review keys for this purpose that expire automatically if it hasn't already and/or some way for the dev to gift/lend the game to an account directly.
I got scammed by fake streamers/reviewrs, so after noticing the inconsistency in the emails I blocked all keys and got a very angry email from the scammer later. Fun times.
@@oneblacksun I don't think that It'll be that easy to create an account with more than 6k reviews just to sell the whole thing, I believe that the current issue is that it's a very easy scam to do
Valve could give dev an option to convert steam keys into item inventory so that when any devs send out the item to the specific reviewer the reviewer can only claim the item for themself and unable to trade to sell it. Maybe even add exp date.
@@zenovak5177There are no separate review keys in the current system, review keys are just generated like any other CD key for your game. They are all single use, as per the emails those review groups were requesting 3-5 keys at a time and so he would send them 5 keys and they resold them. I don't think Steam allows you to generate infinite use keys.
I can recommend giving review keys to (smaller to midsized) streamers on twitch or similar sites with a somewhat established community... you can easily assure that your game is actually played by them... you can interact with the community while your game is played via the chat and answer questions and stuff. Make each individual key count, make it an event for someone. it is also pretty easy to spot scammers in this setting (in comparison to those faceless review accounts on steam). I assure you that each key will be highly valued and not be sold off for profit on some re-selling site. I'm sad you had to experience this, but I hope you don't give up on people.
Based on how he described himself as socially inept (8:25) his interaction (8:30) with the crazy old man who sends tons of emojis and suspicious clip art, I doubt he will be that mindful or involved with the community. He is just angry with the fact that someone sold his key for money when those keys were provided to get more traction and money for him. Look at his face (13:49) you can tell that he's really angry about is people who buy on reseller sites, and he actually encourages people to commit a crime. Who is the one ruining the fun here, everyone has their answer.
Might also be worth offering a single key, and offering more keys upon proof of redemption of previous key, and/or for giveaway only on release of the review. Giving keys otherwise is just inviting the dark trade of it.
That's why would be the best solution from Valve, if they easily add an option for developers to give licence directly to steam users, so they can't sell keys as they only received it instantly.
@@Korato01 people are far less willing to buy whole steam accounts that they need to know the login for and for multiplayer games, re-add all the friends they want to play with, so while not completely fool proof, this would be a great system and most likely dry out the gray/black market resellers over time.
I appreciate that you didn't blur out the names of the scammers in question. Thieves shouldn't have the privilege of privacy and should be exposed in order to protect the public.
@@ShaCaro "Thieves shouldn't have the privilege of privacy " Thieves (aka someone who might have committed a crime) shouldn't have the (right) of privacy So yes, there is written that you should lose your right as soon you are suspected of a crime.
@@MrKolaros The difference between "right" and "rights" is huge though. If a criminal gets caught he gets put and jail and therefore loses his right for freedom. Do you think that is immoral? We are not talking about stripping them of every right, but certain crimes justify taking away certain rights. We would all be majorly screwed if we never did that.
as far as REASONING goes only PROVEN guilty persons should have their personal data become publicly known. If SUSPECTED person is proved to be innocent then his info shouldn't be publiced. Innocent people should've NEVER experience any backlash just for being suspected of something.
I've only ever bought one key off of kingquin and it was a game that was out of print. It's actually a pretty good trick. The keys are still honored even if the game is pulled from steam because it's considered a sold copy. This is also how I got the GTA original trilogy when Rockstar pulled it from steam.
@@Zedgnar so modern times windows keys *pro keys atleast i think* are bound to the account, so you can reactivate the same key more then once going via your account, so im useing the same key i got for free like 8 years ago as my key got upgraded all the way to 10
Make sure to put "Do not distribute without consent from owner" in your legal lines. I told kinguin I could sue them as well as the other sites, they took my games down and havent touched my products since.
If someone PAID your game and decided to resell it instead of claiming it by himself then that person has every right to do so as that person became the owner of that particular key.
@Quessen no it doesn't, keys can be given out freely, that doesn't give you the right to sell them to other vendors. You cant resell music you didn't make, can you, genius?
@@TegridyMadeGames "You can resell music you didn't make, can you, genius?" You can genius. How do you think iTunes and other services local stores work? They buy it from creator and resell it. Thats how trading goes. You buy and then you resell...
These scams have indeed been called out before, but I've never seen a developer go into this much detail as to how they work. You're doing god's work man. In all seriousness, reaching out to these services usually does work. There was some drama a few years back where some devs were upset about these companies so now they shit the bed whenever they get an angry email from a dev.
well digital goods are handled differently then physical goods, the digital license is to a sol person and if you sell the account with them odds are you broke that platforms TOS, and if the account is banned or locked you can sue the person/platform that sold you the account the keys were not meant for sale as a digital good, depending on how hard someone might want to try, they can probably claim the steam keys are stolen since they were review copies
In Europe, in european law, digital goods have to be able to be handled exactly like physical goods. It means the access keys, or the licence to play a game, can be sold exactly like a videogame on a cd of past times It may break the TOS, but TOS cannot be above the law, meaning, if the TOS forbids you to do something perfectly legal and tries to enforce penalties, those can be fought under LOCAL law, and not some US ones, as the competent jurisdiction is the one you reside in, or, an european one.
@@peulleieoyukino6369 im not talking about a tos lawsuit, its sueing the person/site that game you a key that was unusable due to it not being permited by the actual license holder (in this case it would be steam and the game devs)
@@peulleieoyukino6369 Well, the examle you're giving (which would also mean a lot of game practices regarding games-as-a-service would be illegal) has never been tried in court properly for video games.
@@GGG_gaming First sale doctrine (and equivalent EU/UK law) applies to keys. If a key is sold legally, and that person doesn't redeem it but sells it on later, that's legal. If it's bought with stolen cards, or scammed from the dev (pls give keys emails), etc then that doesn't apply. I had this with Ubisoft a few years ago over a Watch Dogs key that I had chain of sale for... they ended up readding it to my account as they had no evidence of any wrong doing on my part and could not prove anything.
I kind of just figured that anybody asking me for my keys was a scam, so I always just said "I don't give out keys". Seeing this video makes me glad I was so paranoid.
That's sad, as there can definitely be some legit people asking for them to help and review a game. Maybe setting a one week deadline for the key and invalidate it then would be an option?
Possibly, but invalidating managing a bunch of keys would be a big hassle, and it's honestly not worth the potential return of a reviewer reviewing your game. Besides that, most reviewers won't review your game unless it's already popular anyway.@@Korne127
best way to go is probably either offering discounts/ giving them to established youtubers/streamers that would be interested in it. ( i'm not a dev , i got no idea what's happening on the dev side )
@@Korne127there really isn't. If they're not a well known youtuber or twitch streamer their review isn't worth giving them a free copy. Any reviewer with a decent following will have enough income that begging for a review copy isn't necessary, especially of an indie game.
@@MrFlarespeed Eh, some of the more niche parts of gaming aren't popular enough to make the content creators so rich they can just buy a 100 games a year. So I do think there's reason in giving out review codes, but only to established creators.
Yeah good luck finding decent cracks lately. Most of the Scene is a joke as the better crackers gets hired to work for Denuvo. For example, the latest two sonic games still haven't been cracked. I get it that getting key resellers for indies is bad, but it's never when it's about AAA games. Considering how creatively bankrupt they are these days. And the people here acting all high and mighty, they clearly have never had financial issues in their lives.
Worst case: The key was bought with a stolen credit card or similar, then the bank was infromed and they do a chargeback, resulting in chargeback fees for the developer.
it's amazing how my comment disappeared. either stick in with the status quo or disappear, huh? anyways, this video is as disingenuous as it can get. I cannot go too much into details because TH-cam will delete my comment again, but "do your research"
TH-camrs are the only people worth giving keys to, because 1 hour of gameplay footage showing off your mechanics does A LOT more than any amount of text wall reviews on steam ever could. With that said, your steam page has to interest people to seek out said footage. Don't bother with steam curators to boost you, because they are literal nobodies (anyone can become 1 in minutes). You as an indie dev have more effective reach than a 10k steam curator. Even if curator reaches those 10k followers (generally doesn't) odds are most of those people will never play the genre you're offering (unless it's a specialized curator). Finally, If you want a quality feedback/reviews seek out people who gave good feedback to similar games in the past (accurate, detailed and not necessarily positive). Don't expect genuine reviewers to fall into your lap, care about you (a stranger), your projects or have your interests in mind. Find them yourself and ask for feedback/review.
As another indie game developer, the norm is to only send a single key because only resellers will ask for multiple. The only exception would be if your game is online multiplayer in which case, only provide at most the same number of keys as the max number of player that there can be in a game together. The extra keys would be for their friends that they want to play your game with in their review of your game.
I don't know how common it is for bigger companies / publications that do reviews to let a whole team do it. Like, let a few people in the office play the game and talk it out while writing the review. In the days of now sharing a pc would be seen as hugely archaic, so even for a singleplayer game, asking for multiple keys might have a valid reason behind it.
This is 99% why Kinguin was helping. They don't want a dev to cancel all their keys and the resellers not know and make Kinguin look like shit with "fake" keys. They'd rather help the dev figure it out for a game like this and save face by actively cancelling the listings on the site.
@@MrWhiskey1 The problem is that he didn't specifically set any terms on the keys, so when he gave those keys to the curators, they were legitimate keys that could be resold regardless if the developer later amended the terms & conditions.
Really hope this video blows up and leads to more traction for your game and next game! Now that you have an audience you should test out your new ideas before fully developing them!
I've gotten hundreds of those curator emails in the past, I never sent any keys because in the past I used to shop at websites like G2A (which is basically the same as Kinguin). So when I started getting those emails asking for keys, I connected the dots and realized that that was most likely how games ended up on those websites. Also, pro tip for fighting piracy: Don't email the pirates, email the file hosting services that the pirates use to distribute the game. They have automated systems that automatically remove any uploads if an email is sent to them saying "copyright infringement" "piracy" or whatever else, and include a link to the pirate download. Awesome video btw! Very interesting to see my suspicions confirmed. As you said, it makes legit curators less trustworthy and less likely to receive review copies as a result. I hope Valve will take action, but I understand they are limited in what they can do.
dude, pirates just upload that shit again, changing a little part of the md5 checksum in the .rar or .zip archives so the automated system can go f*ck itself when trying to find files with the md5 checksum that are marked as illegal, lol.
"please, if you want to play my game and you cannot support me directly, pirate it." Such a strong message. I will buy your game just for that even tho i don't really use my pc and i'm poor af
Some of us want to play delisted games and don't want to deal with shady executables uploaded anonymously. So, I used Kinguin to get Origin keys for some Need For Speed titles I had missed.
@@Δημήτρης-θ7θ I'd accept the extremely low risk of dealing with "shady executable" getting the game from well known pirates than support scammers with money. I mean, you don't just pirate from anywhere. Places like fitgirl repacks, empress or so on are well known and they actually care a fair bit about their reputation. Unless its a small time game you can't find there, I don't see the risk.
Agreed. Even though it doesn't look *great* in terms of artstyle, it doesn't necessarily HAVE to look good. If your gameplay is good enough, which based of the trailers, looks like it is, then it's a fun looking game. Look at Undertale, the graphics can looks simple or goofy at times, but then you get to the battle system which is a mixture of turn based AND dodging attacks. Not to mention the rare occasions where the fights work differently, whether through small changes like "soul has gravity" or "soul have shield" or through big changes like "HERE'S 500 BOMBS, FLIES, AND PELLETS, HAVE FUN!" or "i'ma attack you in the menu now, okay?" Edit : Heck, even Undertale Yellow shakes things up a bit, without changing your soul's color to reflect how it operates in battle. You can have a lasso pulling you towards the center, or be playing a rhythm game (Hey look!), or doing what the yellow soul is known for, "Soul is gun"
I bought keys for a game called "Duck Game". They have a 4-pack on Steam and was on sale sometimes, so my initial thought to why the keys were cheaper on other sites was because they had bought the 4-pack on sale and later put them up for sale for cheaper than the original price.
Yeah, in the best case scenario the keys in reseller sites come from those kinds of packs or more commonly limited time bundles that were bought legitimately. If you buy in those sites, do your research and find out where they could've gotten their keys and if it makes sense
But you can't really buy steam keys on steam. Only the developer can do that directly and I REALLY doubt anyone willingly sells keys to kinguin or g2a or any other shit like that.
@@ErnieZeeDepends tbh. While I personally prefer to give duplicate keys away to friends and acquaintances, I've ended up with quite the number of duplicate keys over the years from buying humble bundles and other similar bundle deals from legitimate retailers. Even if I don't wish to sell them on and just give them our, others might decide to recoup some of their spending money by putting their dupes up for sale.
TBF that can also be a reason. The 4 most common cited reasons for how these private sellers obtain keys to resell on sites like Kinguin are: 1. What was stated in the video, review keys 2. Unwanted bundle games from like Humble 3. Packs like 4 Packs, "Share with a friend", etc. 4. Currency differences, many devs adjust their currency to better fit region standards (so like a $60 USD game one place might be a $30 USD equivalent elsewhere since nobody in that region buys $60 games usually). They take advantage of this buy buying in a lower currency but there's such a big gap that they can offer a discount and still be able to sell it for a profit
99% of curators are just bots like in the video. it's just an old system valve has never done anything about. there's no point anymore since this isn't 2004 and i can watch tons of real people actually review a game
Steam has system that allows devs to add games directly on account. And i have really no idea why this feature is so underutilized. Last time when i saw it work was Endless Legend giveaway by Sega half a month ago, you register on their site then connect your steam account and game appear in your library. And other cases of this feature being used were so long ago that i don't even remember them.
Hey there Boot Cat, I just purchased the game (On Steam) after randomly seeing this video on my reccommended (and watching the trailers on the store page). This video has definitely changed my views on those key reseller sites. Wishing you all the best for the future.
Years ago I used to enter a bunch of giveaways for free steam keys. Most of the games suck, I just wanted them to get the steam cards and sell them. One of the things I had to do in most giveaways was to follow/like a curator on steam. I'm probably still following them because I never cared to unfollow tbh, and I pretty sure many others did the same, so that's probably one of the reasons they have thousands of followers.
I have seen Skr being used in the past, but it is somewhat uncommon. The kr in this case should not be seen as a letter K and a letter R, it is one single symbol, like £ or $. So Skr is kind of the same as NZ$. Btw. for Norway nkr is also sometimes used. The only thing is, you should really never use capital letters for the kr.
Thanks for this video. I've heard plenty of times before that these sites are shady at best, but nobody could actually say how they source the keys. Many people claim credit card fraud and the like, but I've never seen evidence of that. This video shows clear evidence how the fraud works (at least in your case), which can hopefully help with awareness. Next time this topic comes up on Reddit (which happens often enough on the subs I frequent), I'll definitely link this video.
I'm so sorry you've been through this. I've only just started looking into game dev and it sucks to see someone like yourself who worked for so many years on your project. Thanks for sharing your story.
I might have an idea about why the currency is listed as SKR. I've seen SKr being used to differentiate between Swedish Krona (SKr) and Faroese Krona (FKr). I believe Iceland currency is also sometimes written as Kr but have never seen anyone write IKr. Good on you for revealing one way these people steal keys. It's bloody sneaky, I know I'd fall for it.
There is a Spanish youtuber who has done 2 deep dives on this subject, interviewing devs and publishers, the name of the channel is BaityBait, maybe your story could be worth having on that channel as well.
le llevo diciendo ya en los dos videos que voy a seguir comprando claves estafadas de todas las compañías de mierda que metan denuvo en sus juegos, y por extension todos aquellos que tengan microtransacciones de mierda y mierda totalmente anticonsumidor, las dos cosas suelen ir de la mano, y eso si alguna vez siento la necesidad imperiosa de jugar a sus juegos... comprarse un indie de 5€ para ahorrarse 2€ en una pagina de estas, hay que estar borracho, pero antes le financio dos yates de 2 millones de euros a gaminggrandma y a oldmangaming que darle 30€ a ubisoft en rebaja ni mucho menos 60€ en lanzamiento (que hay que ser suicida para comprarse un "AAA" en lanzamiento estos dias)
le llevo diciendo ya en los dos videos que voy a seguir comprando claves estafadas de todas las compañías de mierda que metan denuvo en sus juegos, y por extension todos aquellos que tengan microtransacciones de mierda y mierda totalmente anticonsumidor, las dos cosas suelen ir de la mano, y eso si alguna vez siento la necesidad imperiosa de jugar a sus juegos... comprarse un indie de 5€ para ahorrarse 2€ en una pagina de estas, hay que estar borracho, pero antes le financio dos yates de 2 millones de euros a gaminggrandma y a oldmangaming que darle 30€ a ubisoft en rebaja ni mucho menos 60€ en lanzamiento (que hay que estar loco para comprarse un "AAA" en lanzamiento estos dias) Reposteado por takedown de youtube
You're really telling him his story is "worth" being on some other guy's youtube channel? It's already on youtube, you know. Right here. On his own channel.
@@ShaCaro if it is on a bigger channel, that has worked with game publishers in the past while reporting this issue, adding witnesses and victims to give shape to the story and have the authorities take action, it would be worth the shot.
Assuming they bought the key from one of those sites, it doesn't really help the developer unless they specifically reach out and tell the developer to try and help them
Send them instructions that say "Click here for your code" but have a lengthy email with a lot of links, and the real link for the code is called "Developer's Story, from rags to riches" and you have to read carefully to know you have to click it.
Thanks for sharing actual interesting game dev investigations, and not just click bait like some other dev logs tend to do... And glad to hear that you are making a new project!
Valve should change their review code system so that developers can put their game directly into the library of the curator requesting a review copy. This way, there is no key to resell in the first place. Seems like the only way to really combat this sort of thing.
Isn't this is what Curator Connect system is already doing? And curator pages didn't like them bc they cant resell. Also as a dev, you wont' get many review either, so still a lose-lose business...
most of the keys work though lol - ive never had issues with G2A at least and I bought maybe 16 copies of CS:GO ($1.49 each but it was $15 or $20 at that time) as for why i needed 16 keys i was a dev for cheats
@@mem7806 as a gamedev who makes multiplayer games and had to waste time on anti-cheat that I could've spent actually making the game better: you are the scum of the earth. You do realize you not only make the game worse because you bring cheaters, but you also waste the time of the devs, making the games worse for everybody, not only the one experimenting cheaters. Get a life, be of any use to society.
@@mem7806 Doing shady work like that I guess you didn't care if a key stopped working after a while. Friend of mine got 1 month of progress deleted in BF3 because of a too good to be true cheap key.
@@mem7806no shot the keys for CSGO are being obtained this way though. I don't think the success rate of keys for games that are already huge could possibly be relevant in exploring the nuance of small, niche, indie games that are looking for coverage.
Wow this is very valuable information for consumers and devs alike. I've seen a bunch of articles about key resellers, but none of them were half as informative as this video. I always wondered how they manage to get keys in the first place and always thought they'd buy them in bulk during sales or in low-price regions. Yet it always seemed shady how they often had keys on day-0 after release. I know it's not much, but I bought your game as a tip.
it all depends on the website, some of the time it is shady people stealing keys or review keys to sell them or purchasing during a massive sale. other times however, on websites such as humble bundle its developers that are selling the keys (steam lets devs generate as many keys as they want to sell off site with only the condition that the price can not be lower then steams price)
So, one thing I have noticed some devs doing is giving out private demo codes before release that auto-expire once the actual game comes out. Although, the solution of having the keys expire rather than the whole game seems a bit better.
Yes, you can label keys so they can expire at the push of one button at release. But most of the mails we got (basically the same than in the video) were after release so it wouldn't change much.
2:25 Skr is the currency sign of Swedish Krona when used in international context (to distinguish from other currencies that are also using "kr"), whereas SEK is the ISO-4717 code. "Skr" shouldn't be capitalized though.
Skr was an abbreviation used before 1978 when it was officially replaced with SEK. So there's nothing official about it today and it has no place in being used for anything except when reviewing historical documents.
Wrong. SKR has never been used as an abbreviation for the Swedish Krona. I'm Swedish and if you google "SKR", even on the Swedish internet there is absolutely no single mention of Swedish crowns. There is no mention of "SKR" on the official wikipedia page in English, and the only mention of it in the Swedish wikipedia page states that it was used sporidacally before 1978, but since 1978, the formal shortening of Swedish crown is SEK. In Swedish absolutely nobody will understand what you're talking about if you say "SKR".
@@tsoii "Abbreviation" was a bit misleading (I'm not a native speaker); it's actually called the currency sign or currency symbol. Other code / symbol examples would be EUR / € and USD / $. In domestic applications, the sign is used as it is. In international applications however (like an online shop) this could lead to ambiguities when more than one currency is using the same sign. The Danish Krone (DKK), Swedish Krona (SEK), Norwegian Krone (NOK), and Islandic Króna (ISK) all use the currency sign "kr". To distinguish them, a letter (usually the first letter of the ISO code) is added in front of the sign, resulting in "dkr", "skr", "nkr", and "ikr". The same is done with other currency symbols also. The sign of the Australian Dollar is $, but to distinguish it from US-Dollar, A$ or AU$ is used. I know that because part of my job is literally to use currency libraries for various programming languages to format monetary amounts for display on websites and other media.
I’m a steam game developer I haven’t released my game yet but I’m glad you brought this to my attention and I also just buyed your game on Steam to check out great work
Not a game dev, but I had always assumed the review codes would expire at some point or it'd add a nag screen like "you're playing a review copy of this game, not for public sale"
depends on the dev. to do that you need to make a separate version of the game on steam (like how there are demo versions or alpha version that appear on your library as a separate game). the timer however i think you can just disable the key yourself and just have to keep track of time
Guess I never really thought about "how" these websites got their keys. It's pretty scummy when you really get into it. Glad you're pointing this out though so we can avoid scams like this, especially when the keys don't even work half the time. Better to just wait for the game to go on sale and actually support the devs.
Exactly. Acquiring the game in ANY WAY is better than going through a shady key reseller. Every game is sold dirt cheap on steam on a sale eventually, just need patience.
@@Dice-ZWhat if you don’t want to wait but can’t afford the game unless a key site. I don’t feel sorry for devs when a game costs 80$ and is most likely not even finished.
You should reveal the keys to the public, so that random people who want to play the game for free can use the keys before they are sold on a shadey site
One of my friends talked me into buying a game off of a similar site ages ago for half the Steam price. They sent me a photograph of an open case containing the game's CD and the game's manual with the Steam key printed on the back. The code worked and I still have the game, but whole thing still feels shady af and I still can't help but wonder how they procured their stock or what they did with the physical copy of the game.
This may have been CJSCDKEYS. before steam Introduced stricter geo restrictions around games you could effectively get physical copies of games in somewhere like Russia at a fraction of the cost of the rest of Europe and they would resell them at discounted prices. Not sure if they are into selling the scammed review copies now or not, but they were legit back in the day.
That's how it's supposed to be done legitimately, the seller buys a game from a retail shop with an overstock of used copies of a particular title, then sells it for a higher price than they bought it (but less than Steam price). But that requires luck, time, and effort, so it's not true for the vast majority of keys on "reseller" sites. And such bargains don't exist for new titles anyway.
@@ZawaOnTH-camsame! I can understand the frustration that these devs are talking about. But I and a lot of other people are not rich. I’m looking into dragons dogma 2 right now. The game is 65. But you can get a key for 40 Euros. If people start pricing games properly there won’t be a need for key sites.
i'm very grateful you put it the way you did. I try to not, and almost never, pirate games, even if they're big titles. I've bought a game via one of these sites in the past (i forget which) and I never understood why exactly even the devs say to just pirate - now I understand thanks to your explanation. You're awesome!
Total biscuit was a left wing sjw gamergate supporter feminist. And an all round disgusting person. Were all better off without voices like that ruining the industry.
I don't know why this video came up on my feed, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain these resale sites. I added your game to my Steam wishlist and will support your work as soon as I'm able to.
Its probably not a They issue. I'ed be willing to bet that many of them are the same person and has realized that they can turn this into a business. I think that is a great message from a dev. Either buy it legit or steal it because buying it from a 3rd party is actually just hurting Dev's more than just stealing the game would. It encourages these scammers to continue what they are doing.
Great video, thanks! And I can see that it has been watched just a wee bit more often than usual for your channel, so hopefully it'll generate some nice compensation (in your bank account) for all the trouble the scammers caused 🙂
Fwiw, your game now no longer shows up in the search results and the google result now 404s. Additionally, those low-res screenshots seem to be either upscaled versions of Steam's low-res screenshots or downscaled versions of the normal screenshots. The same artifacts being present in both seem to point to the former
Finally, someone is talking about something something I've been saying for years. These keys have to come from somewhere, and that place is ultimately the developer. Scam artists will always exist if people allow themselves to be taken!
I always thought they got keys from countries where they are cheaper, One thing that's confusing is that this method surely isn't what used for AAA games as they seem to 1,000s of those keys?
Can you manually go and invalidate the keys so that their no longer available? Sure the ones that are redeemed most likely can't be invalidated but the ones still unused might be?
If they could say, invalidate any keys not used before xxx date. Then when those clowns try and sell the key, its invalid, and they get dinged for it. It's really shi--y that you give someone a key and immediately they attempt to flip it online for cash. @@RRKS
Thank you for your message! I need to express the pacing of this video is just perfect. The way you convey and how each segments is its own thing. It's like reading a well formatted essay, but in video format. Also, ta hand om dig!
The video quality had me having nostolgia feels from old school youtube I have never smashed that like button and sub button as hard as I've smashed a watermelon. goddamn great video
TLDR: Don't give away your game for free if you want people to buy it. Seriously, EVEN IF the curators actually gave it away to their community as they promised, whoever got it could have still sold it...
Great video! Very informative, yet concise and with a nice bit of editing. One thing to note though is that the video volume is really low throughout and the narration isn't much louder than the music in some segments, which made it difficult to hear and could be unpleasant for viewers once they move onto a different video with the volume cranked up to max.
Ok I understand you. I would never buy an indie game from one of these stores but I have bought from Kinguin games from Ubisoft and EA to get the "ULTIMATE version" or some shit like that with the price of the normal version.
Had to go out and buy Disharmony after watching this. Can't wait to try it out. Thank you for your work on games like this and I hope you continue making them in the future.
This needs more coverage, scammy Steam curators selling free keys have been a problem for years and nothing systematic was done to fix that. Indie developers are especially vulnerable because they don't always have enough experience to realize they're being scammed.
Also kind of off topic but your volume is very low, I think you want to mix it higher since I had YT volume at 100% and had to turn everything else lower and increase the system volume a lot to be able to listen while playing a game.
Yeah we know longer give steam keys out to anyone asking anymore because of this exact issue, we also noticed a lot of twitch streamers asking for keys but upon looking at the channels we'd see they haven't even streamed in 4 years etc.
@@kyuutesneeze The dev for "BROK the InvestiGator" had this sort of thing happen with fake Steam curators. He sent some of them keys for the Prologue (demo) version of the game, reviews changed to negative when they noticed (got complaints from people they sold those keys to).
About the currency code SKR. Before ISO 4217 (international currency standards) was implemented in Sweden in 1978, the Swedish Krona was officially abbreviated "Skr".
When I was younger (teenager) I had no money so I pirated almost all my games (except for what little my parents could afford, I have made well for myself, and once I had a chance to game again I have gone a purchased all my games from official sources, It feels great to be able to give back to those who have made us have great times and memories. So if you can't afford a game, pirate it and buy it when you have a chance, I've been bought some extra copies to loved ones I've wanted to share these games with.
I remember another developer saying they can deactive a whole batch of keys, but not individual keys, but possibly invalidating even legitimely obtained keys in that batch.
They can. But it takes a lot of work to keep track of every key they've sent. (And if I sent keys to 10 reviewers, how could I tell which of them sold the keys?)
8 หลายเดือนก่อน +1
i cant believe gaming grandma betrayed us like this
When you send keys to reviewers, say that you're sending them keys with expiration dates on the redemption window and include the date you'll invalidate the keys. Set a date 2 weeks out, and invalidate the keys then.
You don't need more then a week to grab a key out of your email, and add it to your steam account. Even if you don't review the game for a few weeks, all you need to do is add it before the key expires. Anyone that emails you back with an angry or upset response gets perma-blacklisted.
Perma blacklisting consumers who paid for a copy of your game from a store instead of pirating it? What a shitty, scumbag thing to do.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg Note the wording: Emails you _back._
A person who bought the invalidated code from a third-party source wouldn't be emailing the developer back, as there would have been no contact between them prior to that point.
Furthermore, the issue that consumer has- an invalid code- is the fault of the site that sold them an invalid code, not the developer. It's not the developer's problem.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg What "consumers" are you on? Those review keys are for reviewers, NOT for fcking retail. Also, if you think those sites are real "stores" with 100% legitimacy... good luck out there. Buy from Steam, hell, even those Rstar bs.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rg Yeah no. That's literally the traditional, for-profit software piracy of selling "copies" of a game that the seller paid little to nothing to obtain. Just because the pirate has a storefront and charges money from their customers doesn't make it not piracy.
Yeah review keys should really just be temporary.
If this stuff is a big issue, steam should really have review keys for this purpose that expire automatically if it hasn't already and/or some way for the dev to gift/lend the game to an account directly.
I got scammed by fake streamers/reviewrs, so after noticing the inconsistency in the emails I blocked all keys and got a very angry email from the scammer later. Fun times.
fck 'em up!
Bro. I got a warm feeling from reading that.
There's just something about making scammers angry that makes me feel extremly happy
That's one way to get a response. Perhaps the only way.
What game?
Steam could create a "reviewer key", where a key could only be active by a specific account
Taht's a good idea
Can't this already be done if the reviewer gives you their steam account name and you gift the game to them directly in Steam?
People are selling Steam accounts with the games on them, so this wouldn't solve all that much.
@@oneblacksun I don't think that It'll be that easy to create an account with more than 6k reviews just to sell the whole thing, I believe that the current issue is that it's a very easy scam to do
@@Malthan it works for normal account, not sure how the dev account works on Steam
Valve could give dev an option to convert steam keys into item inventory so that when any devs send out the item to the specific reviewer the reviewer can only claim the item for themself and unable to trade to sell it. Maybe even add exp date.
Better, make review keys single used.
whenever you have a product on steam it has a key even if youre using it, the key should be made one use
@@zenovak5177There are no separate review keys in the current system, review keys are just generated like any other CD key for your game. They are all single use, as per the emails those review groups were requesting 3-5 keys at a time and so he would send them 5 keys and they resold them. I don't think Steam allows you to generate infinite use keys.
Just send it as a gift?
Valve already has that. You can send curation copies directly to curators via the steam curation page
I know this is unrelated but I love the Sonata Arctica t-shirt!
When is the vampire masquerade bloodlines video
I was just thinking this feels like an hbomberguy video.
Came to say the same. Love sonata
holy shit its h bomber guy
arent you the extremely racist dude from the metokur forums?
I can recommend giving review keys to (smaller to midsized) streamers on twitch or similar sites with a somewhat established community... you can easily assure that your game is actually played by them... you can interact with the community while your game is played via the chat and answer questions and stuff. Make each individual key count, make it an event for someone. it is also pretty easy to spot scammers in this setting (in comparison to those faceless review accounts on steam). I assure you that each key will be highly valued and not be sold off for profit on some re-selling site. I'm sad you had to experience this, but I hope you don't give up on people.
This is the best advice that one could possibly have put out here.
Based on how he described himself as socially inept (8:25) his interaction (8:30) with the crazy old man who sends tons of emojis and suspicious clip art, I doubt he will be that mindful or involved with the community. He is just angry with the fact that someone sold his key for money when those keys were provided to get more traction and money for him. Look at his face (13:49) you can tell that he's really angry about is people who buy on reseller sites, and he actually encourages people to commit a crime. Who is the one ruining the fun here, everyone has their answer.
Might also be worth offering a single key, and offering more keys upon proof of redemption of previous key, and/or for giveaway only on release of the review. Giving keys otherwise is just inviting the dark trade of it.
@@sooo0kie well, he encourages them to commit a lesser evil basically, both are crimes.
This is indeed, the only answer to this kind of thing. And don't just call them scammers, this is pure theft.
That's why would be the best solution from Valve, if they easily add an option for developers to give licence directly to steam users, so they can't sell keys as they only received it instantly.
That would be a good solution for curators and devs.
If you're a curator, surely Steam can set up a system where you directly give an entitlement to that curator group specifically?
Kinguin also sells steam accounts. So I don't think that will work.
@@Korato01 then they would need to sell their curater profiles right? I don't think that is worth the
@@Korato01 people are far less willing to buy whole steam accounts that they need to know the login for and for multiplayer games, re-add all the friends they want to play with, so while not completely fool proof, this would be a great system and most likely dry out the gray/black market resellers over time.
I appreciate that you didn't blur out the names of the scammers in question. Thieves shouldn't have the privilege of privacy and should be exposed in order to protect the public.
i mean in this case its public information but "ppl who might have committed crimes shouldnt have rights actually" is a hell of a tak man
@@DimT670 The only 'hell of a take" here is you reading "Scammers should be exposed" as "criminals shouldn't have rights".
@@ShaCaro "Thieves shouldn't have the privilege of privacy "
Thieves (aka someone who might have committed a crime) shouldn't have the (right) of privacy
So yes, there is written that you should lose your right as soon you are suspected of a crime.
@@MrKolaros The difference between "right" and "rights" is huge though.
If a criminal gets caught he gets put and jail and therefore loses his right for freedom. Do you think that is immoral?
We are not talking about stripping them of every right, but certain crimes justify taking away certain rights. We would all be majorly screwed if we never did that.
as far as REASONING goes only PROVEN guilty persons should have their personal data become publicly known. If SUSPECTED person is proved to be innocent then his info shouldn't be publiced. Innocent people should've NEVER experience any backlash just for being suspected of something.
I've only ever bought one key off of kingquin and it was a game that was out of print. It's actually a pretty good trick. The keys are still honored even if the game is pulled from steam because it's considered a sold copy. This is also how I got the GTA original trilogy when Rockstar pulled it from steam.
Having seen how bad the remasters were, you're probably a hero to some people out there. lol
That's understandable.
only keys i've ever bought are windows keys lol. i'm not paying $100 for an operating system everytime i swap motherboards.
Hey just so you know you can just pirate them and then shitty people don't get your money and it's free.
@@Zedgnar so modern times windows keys *pro keys atleast i think* are bound to the account, so you can reactivate the same key more then once going via your account, so im useing the same key i got for free like 8 years ago as my key got upgraded all the way to 10
Make sure to put "Do not distribute without consent from owner" in your legal lines. I told kinguin I could sue them as well as the other sites, they took my games down and havent touched my products since.
If someone PAID your game and decided to resell it instead of claiming it by himself then that person has every right to do so as that person became the owner of that particular key.
@Quessen no it doesn't, keys can be given out freely, that doesn't give you the right to sell them to other vendors.
You cant resell music you didn't make, can you, genius?
@@Quessen This is not how licensing works lmao
@@TegridyMadeGames "You can resell music you didn't make, can you, genius?" You can genius. How do you think iTunes and other services local stores work? They buy it from creator and resell it. Thats how trading goes. You buy and then you resell...
@@LZeugirdor yah this guys never sold anything online other than the facebook market place or craigslist and he thinks hes a e-commerce expert.
These scams have indeed been called out before, but I've never seen a developer go into this much detail as to how they work. You're doing god's work man.
In all seriousness, reaching out to these services usually does work. There was some drama a few years back where some devs were upset about these companies so now they shit the bed whenever they get an angry email from a dev.
well digital goods are handled differently then physical goods, the digital license is to a sol person and if you sell the account with them odds are you broke that platforms TOS, and if the account is banned or locked you can sue the person/platform that sold you the account
the keys were not meant for sale as a digital good, depending on how hard someone might want to try, they can probably claim the steam keys are stolen since they were review copies
In Europe, in european law, digital goods have to be able to be handled exactly like physical goods.
It means the access keys, or the licence to play a game, can be sold exactly like a videogame on a cd of past times
It may break the TOS, but TOS cannot be above the law, meaning, if the TOS forbids you to do something perfectly legal and tries to enforce penalties, those can be fought under LOCAL law, and not some US ones, as the competent jurisdiction is the one you reside in, or, an european one.
@@peulleieoyukino6369 im not talking about a tos lawsuit, its sueing the person/site that game you a key that was unusable due to it not being permited by the actual license holder (in this case it would be steam and the game devs)
@@peulleieoyukino6369 Well, the examle you're giving (which would also mean a lot of game practices regarding games-as-a-service would be illegal) has never been tried in court properly for video games.
@@GGG_gaming First sale doctrine (and equivalent EU/UK law) applies to keys. If a key is sold legally, and that person doesn't redeem it but sells it on later, that's legal. If it's bought with stolen cards, or scammed from the dev (pls give keys emails), etc then that doesn't apply.
I had this with Ubisoft a few years ago over a Watch Dogs key that I had chain of sale for... they ended up readding it to my account as they had no evidence of any wrong doing on my part and could not prove anything.
I kind of just figured that anybody asking me for my keys was a scam, so I always just said "I don't give out keys". Seeing this video makes me glad I was so paranoid.
That's sad, as there can definitely be some legit people asking for them to help and review a game. Maybe setting a one week deadline for the key and invalidate it then would be an option?
Possibly, but invalidating managing a bunch of keys would be a big hassle, and it's honestly not worth the potential return of a reviewer reviewing your game. Besides that, most reviewers won't review your game unless it's already popular anyway.@@Korne127
best way to go is probably either offering discounts/ giving them to established youtubers/streamers that would be interested in it. ( i'm not a dev , i got no idea what's happening on the dev side )
@@Korne127there really isn't. If they're not a well known youtuber or twitch streamer their review isn't worth giving them a free copy. Any reviewer with a decent following will have enough income that begging for a review copy isn't necessary, especially of an indie game.
@@MrFlarespeed Eh, some of the more niche parts of gaming aren't popular enough to make the content creators so rich they can just buy a 100 games a year. So I do think there's reason in giving out review codes, but only to established creators.
"why do people say just to pirate?"
"oh."
Yeah good luck finding decent cracks lately. Most of the Scene is a joke as the better crackers gets hired to work for Denuvo. For example, the latest two sonic games still haven't been cracked. I get it that getting key resellers for indies is bad, but it's never when it's about AAA games. Considering how creatively bankrupt they are these days. And the people here acting all high and mighty, they clearly have never had financial issues in their lives.
Worst case: The key was bought with a stolen credit card or similar, then the bank was infromed and they do a chargeback, resulting in chargeback fees for the developer.
@@XSamsaX I am honestly baffled that the merchant is getting the fees for the charge back like it would be the merchant's fault.
it's amazing how my comment disappeared. either stick in with the status quo or disappear, huh?
anyways, this video is as disingenuous as it can get. I cannot go too much into details because TH-cam will delete my comment again, but "do your research"
Pirating is less harmful than supporting grey market. It's sad, but I think it's more ethical way to go about it.
This is why im making a demo version of my game to have on store pages that anyone can download for free and being like "here review this"
Yeah, if I ever end up releasing something, I'm not giving keys to any rando who asks, only those who I *know* without a doubt can be trusted.
TH-camrs are the only people worth giving keys to, because 1 hour of gameplay footage showing off your mechanics does A LOT more than any amount of text wall reviews on steam ever could. With that said, your steam page has to interest people to seek out said footage.
Don't bother with steam curators to boost you, because they are literal nobodies (anyone can become 1 in minutes). You as an indie dev have more effective reach than a 10k steam curator. Even if curator reaches those 10k followers (generally doesn't) odds are most of those people will never play the genre you're offering (unless it's a specialized curator).
Finally, If you want a quality feedback/reviews seek out people who gave good feedback to similar games in the past (accurate, detailed and not necessarily positive).
Don't expect genuine reviewers to fall into your lap, care about you (a stranger), your projects or have your interests in mind. Find them yourself and ask for feedback/review.
As another indie game developer, the norm is to only send a single key because only resellers will ask for multiple.
The only exception would be if your game is online multiplayer in which case, only provide at most the same number of keys as the max number of player that there can be in a game together. The extra keys would be for their friends that they want to play your game with in their review of your game.
I don't know how common it is for bigger companies / publications that do reviews to let a whole team do it. Like, let a few people in the office play the game and talk it out while writing the review. In the days of now sharing a pc would be seen as hugely archaic, so even for a singleplayer game, asking for multiple keys might have a valid reason behind it.
If possible you should send over curator connect so they can’t resell the key (if they were the ones who reached out to you)
@@CidVeldoril Tbh, that can be easily solved (assuming they don't play the singleplayer game at the same time) with Steam's library share function.
Use curator connect, I'm a curator and the system doesn't even display a key for the games given through the interface.
We send multiple keys to influencers if 1) as payment for their work, 2) they do a giveaway at their place.
we truly live in the worst timeline where Gaming Grandma would do this
Gaming Grandmather
Gaming Gramma is actually Kinguin in disguise. So is Cute Shop and Crazy Old Manner.
Gaming Grandma IS the same group of people (maybe Kingun): Wrecker/Abstract/Antoine/gt4/Lilly
She’s on a very fixed income!
cancel the keys you sent out to shady steam curators
This is 99% why Kinguin was helping. They don't want a dev to cancel all their keys and the resellers not know and make Kinguin look like shit with "fake" keys. They'd rather help the dev figure it out for a game like this and save face by actively cancelling the listings on the site.
@@MrWhiskey1
The problem is that he didn't specifically set any terms on the keys, so when he gave those keys to the curators, they were legitimate keys that could be resold regardless if the developer later amended the terms & conditions.
Damn. I've been spending money and writing reviews for years and you're telling me people give it away to scammers?
At least in this scam the Dev doesn't lose any money as they were keys already given away for free.
@@bazahaza yeah but what would you feel if you give somone a gift and you found out they sell it later for profit
Really hope this video blows up and leads to more traction for your game and next game! Now that you have an audience you should test out your new ideas before fully developing them!
I've gotten hundreds of those curator emails in the past, I never sent any keys because in the past I used to shop at websites like G2A (which is basically the same as Kinguin). So when I started getting those emails asking for keys, I connected the dots and realized that that was most likely how games ended up on those websites. Also, pro tip for fighting piracy: Don't email the pirates, email the file hosting services that the pirates use to distribute the game. They have automated systems that automatically remove any uploads if an email is sent to them saying "copyright infringement" "piracy" or whatever else, and include a link to the pirate download.
Awesome video btw! Very interesting to see my suspicions confirmed. As you said, it makes legit curators less trustworthy and less likely to receive review copies as a result. I hope Valve will take action, but I understand they are limited in what they can do.
dude, pirates just upload that shit again, changing a little part of the md5 checksum in the .rar or .zip archives so the automated system can go f*ck itself when trying to find files with the md5 checksum that are marked as illegal, lol.
@@PaSP_YT_DE Very true, but for smaller indie titles, they usually don't bother
im sure it will work on an upload site that literally links to another pirated download for internet download manager to download faster :)
"Just Pirate it"... That's was a big uh-oh for me. That video really shed a light for me in a very important problem...
Thanks for making it.
"please, if you want to play my game and you cannot support me directly, pirate it." Such a strong message. I will buy your game just for that even tho i don't really use my pc and i'm poor af
Dont waste ur money bro
His game does not look good lol
@@devilvocano420Are you the sort of person who thinks 'graphics are everything'?
Game can be good while looking quite bad at first glance.
Some of us want to play delisted games and don't want to deal with shady executables uploaded anonymously. So, I used Kinguin to get Origin keys for some Need For Speed titles I had missed.
@@Δημήτρης-θ7θ I'd accept the extremely low risk of dealing with "shady executable" getting the game from well known pirates than support scammers with money. I mean, you don't just pirate from anywhere. Places like fitgirl repacks, empress or so on are well known and they actually care a fair bit about their reputation. Unless its a small time game you can't find there, I don't see the risk.
Agreed. Even though it doesn't look *great* in terms of artstyle, it doesn't necessarily HAVE to look good.
If your gameplay is good enough, which based of the trailers, looks like it is, then it's a fun looking game.
Look at Undertale, the graphics can looks simple or goofy at times, but then you get to the battle system which is a mixture of turn based AND dodging attacks. Not to mention the rare occasions where the fights work differently, whether through small changes like "soul has gravity" or "soul have shield" or through big changes like "HERE'S 500 BOMBS, FLIES, AND PELLETS, HAVE FUN!" or "i'ma attack you in the menu now, okay?"
Edit : Heck, even Undertale Yellow shakes things up a bit, without changing your soul's color to reflect how it operates in battle. You can have a lasso pulling you towards the center, or be playing a rhythm game (Hey look!), or doing what the yellow soul is known for, "Soul is gun"
It's a good thing the TH-cam algorithm boosted this video. I hope more people see it and bigger influencers promote it.
Algorithm coming in clutch
I bought keys for a game called "Duck Game". They have a 4-pack on Steam and was on sale sometimes, so my initial thought to why the keys were cheaper on other sites was because they had bought the 4-pack on sale and later put them up for sale for cheaper than the original price.
Yeah, in the best case scenario the keys in reseller sites come from those kinds of packs or more commonly limited time bundles that were bought legitimately. If you buy in those sites, do your research and find out where they could've gotten their keys and if it makes sense
But you can't really buy steam keys on steam. Only the developer can do that directly and I REALLY doubt anyone willingly sells keys to kinguin or g2a or any other shit like that.
@@ErnieZee the 4 packs was some kind of buying keys tho, that's why they're no longer a thing
@@ErnieZeeDepends tbh. While I personally prefer to give duplicate keys away to friends and acquaintances, I've ended up with quite the number of duplicate keys over the years from buying humble bundles and other similar bundle deals from legitimate retailers. Even if I don't wish to sell them on and just give them our, others might decide to recoup some of their spending money by putting their dupes up for sale.
TBF that can also be a reason. The 4 most common cited reasons for how these private sellers obtain keys to resell on sites like Kinguin are:
1. What was stated in the video, review keys
2. Unwanted bundle games from like Humble
3. Packs like 4 Packs, "Share with a friend", etc.
4. Currency differences, many devs adjust their currency to better fit region standards (so like a $60 USD game one place might be a $30 USD equivalent elsewhere since nobody in that region buys $60 games usually). They take advantage of this buy buying in a lower currency but there's such a big gap that they can offer a discount and still be able to sell it for a profit
Wasn't aware of the game but after watching your video I went and bought a copy to help support you.
Fantastic video, keep up the good work :) . In addition to that, I bought your game since I wanted to help support you!
idk why steam doesn't have a system for devs to just add their game to the curators accounts directly
99% of curators are just bots like in the video. it's just an old system valve has never done anything about. there's no point anymore since this isn't 2004 and i can watch tons of real people actually review a game
Steam has system that allows devs to add games directly on account.
And i have really no idea why this feature is so underutilized.
Last time when i saw it work was Endless Legend giveaway by Sega half a month ago, you register on their site then connect your steam account and game appear in your library.
And other cases of this feature being used were so long ago that i don't even remember them.
this was a poor researched comment cause it does
@@FunkeymonkeyTTR Then it's bad that people are sending out keys instead of using it.
@@olnnn Exactly, I don't wanna say its entirely the devs fault but there is a system in place to avoid this
Hope a bigger channel sees this. Needs more traction and to be known.
Hey there Boot Cat, I just purchased the game (On Steam) after randomly seeing this video on my reccommended (and watching the trailers on the store page). This video has definitely changed my views on those key reseller sites. Wishing you all the best for the future.
Years ago I used to enter a bunch of giveaways for free steam keys. Most of the games suck, I just wanted them to get the steam cards and sell them. One of the things I had to do in most giveaways was to follow/like a curator on steam. I'm probably still following them because I never cared to unfollow tbh, and I pretty sure many others did the same, so that's probably one of the reasons they have thousands of followers.
Hustlers all the way down
Thanks a lot for making this video, you are a hero
A hero to dumbasses
I have seen Skr being used in the past, but it is somewhat uncommon. The kr in this case should not be seen as a letter K and a letter R, it is one single symbol, like £ or $.
So Skr is kind of the same as NZ$.
Btw. for Norway nkr is also sometimes used. The only thing is, you should really never use capital letters for the kr.
so it's just a copy paste of someone elses text
Skr is the abbreviation, SEK the ISO-code
Thanks for this video. I've heard plenty of times before that these sites are shady at best, but nobody could actually say how they source the keys. Many people claim credit card fraud and the like, but I've never seen evidence of that. This video shows clear evidence how the fraud works (at least in your case), which can hopefully help with awareness. Next time this topic comes up on Reddit (which happens often enough on the subs I frequent), I'll definitely link this video.
But the credit card argument makes sense if you get to know that selling keys is a way to wash money
I'm so sorry you've been through this. I've only just started looking into game dev and it sucks to see someone like yourself who worked for so many years on your project. Thanks for sharing your story.
I might have an idea about why the currency is listed as SKR. I've seen SKr being used to differentiate between Swedish Krona (SKr) and Faroese Krona (FKr). I believe Iceland currency is also sometimes written as Kr but have never seen anyone write IKr.
Good on you for revealing one way these people steal keys. It's bloody sneaky, I know I'd fall for it.
Thank you for this video, I finally understand how these sites get their keys…
There is a Spanish youtuber who has done 2 deep dives on this subject, interviewing devs and publishers, the name of the channel is BaityBait, maybe your story could be worth having on that channel as well.
le llevo diciendo ya en los dos videos que voy a seguir comprando claves estafadas de todas las compañías de mierda que metan denuvo en sus juegos, y por extension todos aquellos que tengan microtransacciones de mierda y mierda totalmente anticonsumidor, las dos cosas suelen ir de la mano, y eso si alguna vez siento la necesidad imperiosa de jugar a sus juegos... comprarse un indie de 5€ para ahorrarse 2€ en una pagina de estas, hay que estar borracho, pero antes le financio dos yates de 2 millones de euros a gaminggrandma y a oldmangaming que darle 30€ a ubisoft en rebaja ni mucho menos 60€ en lanzamiento (que hay que ser suicida para comprarse un "AAA" en lanzamiento estos dias)
le llevo diciendo ya en los dos videos que voy a seguir comprando claves estafadas de todas las compañías de mierda que metan denuvo en sus juegos, y por extension todos aquellos que tengan microtransacciones de mierda y mierda totalmente anticonsumidor, las dos cosas suelen ir de la mano, y eso si alguna vez siento la necesidad imperiosa de jugar a sus juegos... comprarse un indie de 5€ para ahorrarse 2€ en una pagina de estas, hay que estar borracho, pero antes le financio dos yates de 2 millones de euros a gaminggrandma y a oldmangaming que darle 30€ a ubisoft en rebaja ni mucho menos 60€ en lanzamiento (que hay que estar loco para comprarse un "AAA" en lanzamiento estos dias)
Reposteado por takedown de youtube
You're really telling him his story is "worth" being on some other guy's youtube channel? It's already on youtube, you know. Right here. On his own channel.
@@ShaCaro if it is on a bigger channel, that has worked with game publishers in the past while reporting this issue, adding witnesses and victims to give shape to the story and have the authorities take action, it would be worth the shot.
Thank you for the video!
I bought a copy to help out a fellow dev.
Looking forward to playing it.
bro wasting his money lol
@@devilvocano420 Money you enjoyed giving aint wasting.
Assuming they bought the key from one of those sites, it doesn't really help the developer unless they specifically reach out and tell the developer to try and help them
@@justpassingby298 I bought it from steam. Felt appropriate.
It’s a small price, but it feels like a good deed.
@@justpassingby298 Assuming they bought the game on steam, as their comment is implying it.
Next time someone asks you for keys send them a long email they'll have to read by hand, and end it with "ligma balls"
Tell them that the key its on the text scrambled everywhere but actually dont put it in.
sounds like a fun dev.
o hey a cool indie dev. can i get a key?
dev: lick my balls fuckwad.
uhm okay? sheesh.
Send them instructions that say "Click here for your code" but have a lengthy email with a lot of links, and the real link for the code is called "Developer's Story, from rags to riches" and you have to read carefully to know you have to click it.
You DO realize they don’t actually read the emails right…
The only people you’d be offending are the ones who actually are legitimate.
@@jakemartinez6894 did you even watch the video?
I was not expecting him to support the idea of piracy over scamming in the end.
I figured most of the keys were from bundles, rather than outright scam artists. Thanks for making this video.
Thanks for sharing actual interesting game dev investigations, and not just click bait like some other dev logs tend to do... And glad to hear that you are making a new project!
Valve should change their review code system so that developers can put their game directly into the library of the curator requesting a review copy. This way, there is no key to resell in the first place. Seems like the only way to really combat this sort of thing.
Smart!
Isn't this is what Curator Connect system is already doing?
And curator pages didn't like them bc they cant resell.
Also as a dev, you wont' get many review either, so still a lose-lose business...
@@paponwappen7165 uh.
wait what?
whats curator connect? (never heard of it..)
This is what steam already do lol, these people are asking in email on purpose to bypass that
I don't get it; does one key grant multiple activations? Or do they simply sell the keys once?
I'm kinda surprised Kinguin still exists. They have been known to sell stolen keys that get banned or cannot be activated for a decade now.
most of the keys work though lol - ive never had issues with G2A at least and I bought maybe 16 copies of CS:GO ($1.49 each but it was $15 or $20 at that time)
as for why i needed 16 keys i was a dev for cheats
i do live in the US though im guessing we have more game keys available
@@mem7806 as a gamedev who makes multiplayer games and had to waste time on anti-cheat that I could've spent actually making the game better: you are the scum of the earth. You do realize you not only make the game worse because you bring cheaters, but you also waste the time of the devs, making the games worse for everybody, not only the one experimenting cheaters. Get a life, be of any use to society.
@@mem7806 Doing shady work like that I guess you didn't care if a key stopped working after a while. Friend of mine got 1 month of progress deleted in BF3 because of a too good to be true cheap key.
@@mem7806no shot the keys for CSGO are being obtained this way though. I don't think the success rate of keys for games that are already huge could possibly be relevant in exploring the nuance of small, niche, indie games that are looking for coverage.
serves you right for wearing cat ears
Bro is the biggest indie dev hater 🤣
so do all indie devs wear cat ears?@@gasmonkeyyy4749
Just purchased DISHARMONY from the Steam store. Good on you for a quality video and investigation!
Wow this is very valuable information for consumers and devs alike. I've seen a bunch of articles about key resellers, but none of them were half as informative as this video. I always wondered how they manage to get keys in the first place and always thought they'd buy them in bulk during sales or in low-price regions. Yet it always seemed shady how they often had keys on day-0 after release.
I know it's not much, but I bought your game as a tip.
I'd say it's both, either from sales or currency differences for global keys, plus the review keys
it all depends on the website, some of the time it is shady people stealing keys or review keys to sell them or purchasing during a massive sale.
other times however, on websites such as humble bundle its developers that are selling the keys (steam lets devs generate as many keys as they want to sell off site with only the condition that the price can not be lower then steams price)
So, one thing I have noticed some devs doing is giving out private demo codes before release that auto-expire once the actual game comes out. Although, the solution of having the keys expire rather than the whole game seems a bit better.
Yes, you can label keys so they can expire at the push of one button at release.
But most of the mails we got (basically the same than in the video) were after release so it wouldn't change much.
2:25 Skr is the currency sign of Swedish Krona when used in international context (to distinguish from other currencies that are also using "kr"), whereas SEK is the ISO-4717 code. "Skr" shouldn't be capitalized though.
Skr was an abbreviation used before 1978 when it was officially replaced with SEK. So there's nothing official about it today and it has no place in being used for anything except when reviewing historical documents.
Wrong. SKR has never been used as an abbreviation for the Swedish Krona. I'm Swedish and if you google "SKR", even on the Swedish internet there is absolutely no single mention of Swedish crowns. There is no mention of "SKR" on the official wikipedia page in English, and the only mention of it in the Swedish wikipedia page states that it was used sporidacally before 1978, but since 1978, the formal shortening of Swedish crown is SEK.
In Swedish absolutely nobody will understand what you're talking about if you say "SKR".
@@tsoii "Abbreviation" was a bit misleading (I'm not a native speaker); it's actually called the currency sign or currency symbol. Other code / symbol examples would be EUR / € and USD / $.
In domestic applications, the sign is used as it is. In international applications however (like an online shop) this could lead to ambiguities when more than one currency is using the same sign. The Danish Krone (DKK), Swedish Krona (SEK), Norwegian Krone (NOK), and Islandic Króna (ISK) all use the currency sign "kr". To distinguish them, a letter (usually the first letter of the ISO code) is added in front of the sign, resulting in "dkr", "skr", "nkr", and "ikr".
The same is done with other currency symbols also. The sign of the Australian Dollar is $, but to distinguish it from US-Dollar, A$ or AU$ is used.
I know that because part of my job is literally to use currency libraries for various programming languages to format monetary amounts for display on websites and other media.
@@NeovanGoth If it's not explicitly specified in an ISO (or in the case of sweden, an SIS standard), it's not official.
Ah I see you are a fellow Whovian according to the poster in the background of that webcam. Good to see quite a lot of people have good taste.
I've reviewed about 80 games in my life time and could never fathom selling keys given to me, dishonest reviewers.
I’m a steam game developer I haven’t released my game yet but I’m glad you brought this to my attention and I also just buyed your game on Steam to check out great work
Bought
Excellent investigation! This will be my go-to video to point at from now on when other gamedevs ask about Steam curators.
Not a game dev, but I had always assumed the review codes would expire at some point or it'd add a nag screen like "you're playing a review copy of this game, not for public sale"
depends on the dev.
to do that you need to make a separate version of the game on steam (like how there are demo versions or alpha version that appear on your library as a separate game).
the timer however i think you can just disable the key yourself and just have to keep track of time
Guess I never really thought about "how" these websites got their keys. It's pretty scummy when you really get into it. Glad you're pointing this out though so we can avoid scams like this, especially when the keys don't even work half the time.
Better to just wait for the game to go on sale and actually support the devs.
Very true, only thing that could be a wrench in this is unlisted games like the transformers games or something like Tron evolution.
Exactly. Acquiring the game in ANY WAY is better than going through a shady key reseller. Every game is sold dirt cheap on steam on a sale eventually, just need patience.
@@Dice-ZWhat if you don’t want to wait but can’t afford the game unless a key site.
I don’t feel sorry for devs when a game costs 80$ and is most likely not even finished.
@@kevineis9088 pirate it then buy it later, you aren't supporting the scammers that way
You should reveal the keys to the public, so that random people who want to play the game for free can use the keys before they are sold on a shadey site
This sounds like the start of a rabbit hole that no-clip can get into.
One of my friends talked me into buying a game off of a similar site ages ago for half the Steam price. They sent me a photograph of an open case containing the game's CD and the game's manual with the Steam key printed on the back. The code worked and I still have the game, but whole thing still feels shady af and I still can't help but wonder how they procured their stock or what they did with the physical copy of the game.
This may have been CJSCDKEYS. before steam
Introduced stricter geo restrictions around games you could effectively get physical copies of games in somewhere like Russia at a fraction of the cost of the rest of Europe and they would resell them at discounted prices. Not sure if they are into selling the scammed review copies now or not, but they were legit back in the day.
That's how it's supposed to be done legitimately, the seller buys a game from a retail shop with an overstock of used copies of a particular title, then sells it for a higher price than they bought it (but less than Steam price). But that requires luck, time, and effort, so it's not true for the vast majority of keys on "reseller" sites. And such bargains don't exist for new titles anyway.
I've bought dozens of games off sites like this and never had an issue and afaik nothing been taken off my account before.😊
@@ZawaOnTH-camsame! I can understand the frustration that these devs are talking about.
But I and a lot of other people are not rich. I’m looking into dragons dogma 2 right now. The game is 65. But you can get a key for 40 Euros.
If people start pricing games properly there won’t be a need for key sites.
8:19 TOUHOU 6 DVD OMG AWESOME
This is the kind of journalism the world needs. Thank you for investigating and sharing this story.
i'm very grateful you put it the way you did. I try to not, and almost never, pirate games, even if they're big titles. I've bought a game via one of these sites in the past (i forget which) and I never understood why exactly even the devs say to just pirate - now I understand thanks to your explanation. You're awesome!
Total Biscuit has talked about this many years ago.
Yes, steam curators has always been used for this shit, I'm shocked more people aren't aware of this, because it's been known for years.
Total biscuit was a left wing sjw gamergate supporter feminist. And an all round disgusting person. Were all better off without voices like that ruining the industry.
i think you should give time limited key, if they didnt claimed it before time or add it, it would get expired. maybe a week or so would be great!
I don't know why this video came up on my feed, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain these resale sites. I added your game to my Steam wishlist and will support your work as soon as I'm able to.
Its probably not a They issue. I'ed be willing to bet that many of them are the same person and has realized that they can turn this into a business.
I think that is a great message from a dev. Either buy it legit or steal it because buying it from a 3rd party is actually just hurting Dev's more than just stealing the game would. It encourages these scammers to continue what they are doing.
Great video, thanks! And I can see that it has been watched just a wee bit more often than usual for your channel, so hopefully it'll generate some nice compensation (in your bank account) for all the trouble the scammers caused 🙂
Fwiw, your game now no longer shows up in the search results and the google result now 404s. Additionally, those low-res screenshots seem to be either upscaled versions of Steam's low-res screenshots or downscaled versions of the normal screenshots. The same artifacts being present in both seem to point to the former
Finally, someone is talking about something something I've been saying for years. These keys have to come from somewhere, and that place is ultimately the developer. Scam artists will always exist if people allow themselves to be taken!
As a developer, recommending people to pirate instead of buying from frauds deserves utmost respect.
This is a video every gamer should watch. Thanks for making it.
I always thought they got keys from countries where they are cheaper, One thing that's confusing is that this method surely isn't what used for AAA games as they seem to 1,000s of those keys?
Can you manually go and invalidate the keys so that their no longer available? Sure the ones that are redeemed most likely can't be invalidated but the ones still unused might be?
I'm pretty sure that they can actually. But i'd suspect that it takes some work in getting to talk with someone on steam.
If they could say, invalidate any keys not used before xxx date. Then when those clowns try and sell the key, its invalid, and they get dinged for it. It's really shi--y that you give someone a key and immediately they attempt to flip it online for cash. @@RRKS
Through the dev portal you can ban keys, which makes them not be able to be used and or removes access to the user if already redeemed
If it was me, I would invalidate the keys, and no longer deal with those people.@@Ragdoll00
Thank you for your message!
I need to express the pacing of this video is just perfect. The way you convey and how each segments is its own thing. It's like reading a well formatted essay, but in video format. Also, ta hand om dig!
Good to know, thank you for sharing your experience, also awesome Sonata Artica shirt!
The video quality had me having nostolgia feels from old school youtube I have never smashed that like button and sub button as hard as I've smashed a watermelon. goddamn great video
I saw a video like this 2 or 3 years ago when the whole g2a thing blew up. It seems nothing has changed since
TLDR: Don't give away your game for free if you want people to buy it. Seriously, EVEN IF the curators actually gave it away to their community as they promised, whoever got it could have still sold it...
Guess ill comment to help boost interactions
When you said "just pirate it" I legitimately cried. Life is rough man.
this is a surprisingly deep video, good work for the investigations you did you might actually be on to something,
I would say that I bought dozens, perhaps hundreds of keys. I only remember having an issue of a non-working key only once.
why dont make a demo version and problem solved?
Because people want the full game, because demos are restricted
Great video! Very informative, yet concise and with a nice bit of editing. One thing to note though is that the video volume is really low throughout and the narration isn't much louder than the music in some segments, which made it difficult to hear and could be unpleasant for viewers once they move onto a different video with the volume cranked up to max.
Ok I understand you.
I would never buy an indie game from one of these stores but I have bought from Kinguin games from Ubisoft and EA to get the "ULTIMATE version" or some shit like that with the price of the normal version.
Had to go out and buy Disharmony after watching this. Can't wait to try it out. Thank you for your work on games like this and I hope you continue making them in the future.
This needs more coverage, scammy Steam curators selling free keys have been a problem for years and nothing systematic was done to fix that. Indie developers are especially vulnerable because they don't always have enough experience to realize they're being scammed.
Also kind of off topic but your volume is very low, I think you want to mix it higher since I had YT volume at 100% and had to turn everything else lower and increase the system volume a lot to be able to listen while playing a game.
Man I sincerwly hope your games get pushed to the top of the Steam discovery queue so you get the exposure you deserve.
Yeah we know longer give steam keys out to anyone asking anymore because of this exact issue, we also noticed a lot of twitch streamers asking for keys but upon looking at the channels we'd see they haven't even streamed in 4 years etc.
pls up your volume, i had to turn up my usually used volume by 100% and almost got a heartattack after i forgott it and startet another video xD
Same, the audio was really quiet.
Wish youtube had some sort of standardized volume levels to help creators balance their audio.
@@1un4cyI think they used to normalise, but that's even worse as it ruins the audio for anyone who carefully mastered it.
You're not even the first person pointing out this issue.
(I'm not expecting you to be the first)
Do you maybe remember who else has had this happen to them?
@@kyuutesneeze I remember that the other video had a section where they showed that people were impersonating youtubers, while asking for steam codes.
@@kyuutesneeze The dev for "BROK the InvestiGator" had this sort of thing happen with fake Steam curators. He sent some of them keys for the Prologue (demo) version of the game, reviews changed to negative when they noticed (got complaints from people they sold those keys to).
This is such an eye-opener, I remember seeing my game Alien Scumbags come up on a Russian key site once.
I'm sorry to hear this happened to you.
James, is this you? If so: hello! :D
@constantly-confused5736 hiya, yep it's me :)
Schala's Theme may be the best outro theme. Very fitting
About the currency code SKR. Before ISO 4217 (international currency standards) was implemented in Sweden in 1978, the Swedish Krona was officially abbreviated "Skr".
cool to see the background of how it really happens though man
When I was younger (teenager) I had no money so I pirated almost all my games (except for what little my parents could afford, I have made well for myself, and once I had a chance to game again I have gone a purchased all my games from official sources, It feels great to be able to give back to those who have made us have great times and memories.
So if you can't afford a game, pirate it and buy it when you have a chance, I've been bought some extra copies to loved ones I've wanted to share these games with.
Is it possible to mark those keys as invalid so they can never be redeemed?
I remember another developer saying they can deactive a whole batch of keys, but not individual keys, but possibly invalidating even legitimely obtained keys in that batch.
@@Karak-_- I see that's unfortunate.
They can. But it takes a lot of work to keep track of every key they've sent. (And if I sent keys to 10 reviewers, how could I tell which of them sold the keys?)
i cant believe gaming grandma betrayed us like this
Thanks for the video, I had shared this in Discord groups with other game devs in hopes to pass the message on.
Thanks for calling these scammers out. Both the curators and the resellers.
You heard him folks. Pirate the game. End of story. Cheers 🍻