Lol... Oh steam... Games for windows live for the win... Wait a sec....

I'm tempted to blame Steam and Activision equally for this.

This would be a good news article if it dealt with anything resembling facts.

This IS piracy, these people are distributing a game they did not buy from the publisher. It's a case of the middleman cutting out the production company, which is pretty damn illegal.

What's that? Buy Bad Company 2 instead? Okay.

There was a furore over CD key vendors with Blood Bowl too while it was a download-only title.

Let's just ban all active Xbox Live Gold users, problem solved.

@Suprore

It is not piracy. The CD keys would not work if they weren't legitimate. The vendors are buying the keys (at lower bulk rates) from (formerly) authorized distribution channels set up by publishers in deals with local distributors hoping to sell games globally.

A retail-based example would be the Asian PC release of the original Operation Flashpoint. It sold for roughly $15 US (versus a higher price in North America and the UK), but came without a box or manual. The distributor was a local company licensed by Codemasters.

Way to go there, Jacktivision. Valve is equally repsonsible for this little stunt.

Every time I feel like getting this, they keep giving me reasons not to.

Valve did nothing wrong guys. As a Valve customer, you have no right to play the game you bought. From the EULA:
"Valve has the right to terminate or cancel your Account or a particular Subscription at any time."

@Suprore This isn't pirating, this is just buying from an online Costco of CD Keys.

Dick move.

What makes it even worse are the idiots on the Valve forums spouting off crap about them having no right to complain.

I'd also like to mention that until Valve lifts these bans, they're joining Activision in my own personal embargo zone. By doing this, they've also called the trustworthiness Steam into question.

Randy Pitchford is looking less crazy everyday.

If this were a grad school accounting/finance hypothetical, and your task was to understand all the liability issues involved, I would address it by first asking what seems to be a major bit of information lacking from these reports.

#1. Who sold the keys originally?

Because we have a situation here where the first thing that happened was - a batch of keys were sold.

A batch of wholesale keys.

Who sells wholesale keys in a batch?

Activision and/or Steam?

You have a wholesale seller unnamed in this fact pattern.

Is the original sale TO the 'digital CD key vendor' legal?

Does the 'digital CD key vendor' get their money refunded?

Did Activision sell the keys, and then refuse to honor them?

I understand the reason the reporting at a game site might be centered around the issue of the gamer getting their money back for the key bought in good faith.

To digress - I think it is way to easy for CD key vendors, steam included, hardware mfgs., and publishers to give gamers the run around - and preemptively ban revoke keys, before actually proving anything in a court of law.

The company that SOLD the keys to this "illegitimate" online 'digital CD key vendor' might ultimately be liable for committing the fraud of selling wholesale batches of keys to an "illegitimate" online 'digital CD key vendor'.

What a shit storm.

Speaks clearly that digital key sales themselves as a concept are themselves the problem.

They inevitably lead to gamers getting defrauded, and game companies getting paid for not providing games.

Which is probably the reason I went to the ps3.

Disc in hand, stick it in, automatic registration through PSN for MP if you want.

And no BS about having to register a single player game and have an internet connection BEFORE I get to play a single player game (steam).

I simply caution that if you allow a company to preemptively ban keys and game-play for a "good reason" you also allow them to preemptively ban anyone for ANY reason.

They could simply be banning people to lower server loads.

Banning keys is in short, extremely profitable. And because we as gamers think it is reasonable for bans to occur before they prove their case in court, it requires individual gamers wait for class action suits to happen, or to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees just to prove they were robbed of $50 dollars for a game.

So game Co.s can pull this stuff with very little chance of it ever seeing the inside of a court room.

Ps. Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah - no one reads more than 1 paragraph responses.

Or the mouseclickers of the world can get with the times and buy a fuckin console already.

Wow this sucks big time for the people effetced.

If this were a grad school accounting/finance hypothetical, and your task was to understand all the liability issues involved, I would address it by first asking what seems to be a major bit of information lacking from these reports.

#1. Who sold the keys originally?

Because we have a situation here where the first thing that happened was - a batch of keys were sold.

A batch of wholesale keys.

Who sells wholesale keys in a batch?

Activision and/or Steam?

You have a wholesale seller unnamed in this fact pattern.

Is the original sale TO the 'digital CD key vendor' legal?

Does the 'digital CD key vendor' get their money refunded?

Did Activision sell the keys, and then refuse to honor them?

I understand the reason the reporting at a game site might be centered around the issue of the gamer getting their money back for the key bought in good faith.

To digress - I think it is way to easy for CD key vendors, steam included, hardware mfgs., and publishers to give gamers the run around - and preemptively ban revoke keys, before actually proving anything in a court of law.

The company that SOLD the keys to this "illegitimate" online 'digital CD key vendor' might ultimately be liable for committing the fraud of selling wholesale batches of keys to an "illegitimate" online 'digital CD key vendor'.

What a shit storm.

Speaks clearly that digital key sales themselves as a concept are themselves the problem.

They inevitably lead to gamers getting defrauded, and game companies getting paid for not providing games.

Which is probably the reason I went to the ps3.

Disc in hand, stick it in, automatic registration through PSN for MP if you want.

And no BS about having to register a single player game and have an internet connection BEFORE I get to play a single player game (steam).

I simply caution that if you allow a company to preemptively ban keys and game-play for a "good reason" you also allow them to preemptively ban anyone for ANY reason.

They could simply be banning people to lower server loads.

Banning keys is in short, extremely profitable. And because we as gamers think it is reasonable for bans to occur before they prove their case in court, it requires individual gamers wait for class action suits to happen, or to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees just to prove they were robbed of $50 dollars for a game.

So game Co.s can pull this stuff with very little chance of it ever seeing the inside of a court room.

Ps. Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah - no one reads more than 1 paragraph responses.

@Cainraw:

Please, Xboxs and PS3s are already so far behind the tech curve that I fear it might physically hurt me to look at such low res textures and games.

@Muetank - that's not the most important thing here. What is really serious is the fact that the only ones who suffered were the end users who did nothing wrong.

I've been following the many threads on the steam forums regarding this issue. A Valve mod greenie posted if you didn't buy it from Steamstore, or an authorized retailer then you're screwed. The poster above saying these were stolen is incorrect. They were purchased by a company/website from asian markets legally. They in turn resell them to people outside the asian markets, like US/UK buyers. They are legit keys that activate, but when Valve/Activision see the IP of people playing are from US using keys that were marked to be sold in Asian regions they banned them. No stealing was done. Only thing is selling outside of your market, but what's wrong with that? I cannot go on vacation somewhere, buy a game at their price and come to play it?

I don't blame Valve as much as Activision since I have bought online key for Dawn of War II and it's still fine. Also many users of L4D and TF2 have bought keys that are still working. I believe Activision made sure to have any non-region key banned, which is very selfish and unfortunate. I bought my game at a retail store, but I'd much rather play with other key buyers than pirates that can get into the servers....sigh

Sounds like Valve wants you off MW2 and on their game, L4D2. :P

@Hcapt

By "logic" I meant the reasoning behind Activision attempting to close a distribution channel that could undermine their pricing schemes.

Of course, that pretty much screwed everyone using the channel that was closed, which sucks. It's a shameful and selfish maneuver, but the logic behind it is sound. On paper, at any rate. Activision hasn't proven to keep customer satisfaction at a high enough priority that they'd factor in people who go "f*ck this* and open up a torrent tracker.