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[sainraja]

Humble Bundle's revoked all those Indiana Jones keys it gave away for free (even if it was already in your Steam library)​

If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is, especially if the item in question is a digital key for a brand-new game that can be swiped away using DRM witchcraft just as swiftly as it can be activated. That's what happened with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which Humble Bundle had labelled as 'free' two days ago, prompting a good number of people to pounce on the irresistible bargain.

Sadly, Humble Bundle has now revoked all those keys, releasing a statement saying that "due to a mistake in the provided pricing for this game, the game was incorrectly marked as 'free.'" In a move that's understandable but also reminds us of the ethereal nature of digital ownership, Humble not only deactivated the Steam keys it had given away, but revoked the game even after it had already been activated in players' Steam libraries. Some disappointed players on Redditeven said they'd started playing the game on Steam, only to log in later and find that it had been pulled from their library.

Intriguingly, at the time of writing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has been delisted from Humble Bundle altogether, so maybe some stern words were had with Microsoft or Zenimax about their latest flagship title being given away for nothing.

The laws behind buying mispriced items vary from country to country. In the UK, for instance, if you buy an item in a shop for a lower cost than the vendor intended to sell it, you're entitled to keep that item, assuming you were unaware of the correct price. Online, if a seller realises they mispriced the item before sending it, they can cancel the order, but usually once it's in your hands it's yours to keep.

But in Indiana Jones' case, those keys are just licenses to play the game under the Steam Subscriber Agreement, and as we can see, you don't have that much control if a seller or publisher decides they don't want you playing that game on Steam. The joys of DRM, eh? If it's any consolation, you can play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle within your PC Game Pass subscription, which is still a pretty good deal for what our review deems to be a great game.

Source:

Humble Bundle's revoked all those Indiana Jones keys it gave away for free (even if it was already in your Steam library)

A friendly reminder that you don't own anything on Steam.

www.pcgamer.com

Should have been gog keys. If you downloaded it, you’d get to keep it at least lol. I know, I know, the game wasn’t released there.

 

[BennyBlanco]

They could’ve used the concurrent numbers tbh

 

[jshackles]

It's a stark reminder that you don't actually own anything in your Steam library. You're just renting it. That rental can be revoked at any time, for any reason.

 

[sainraja]

It's a stark reminder that you don't actually own anything in your Steam library. You're just renting it. That rental can be revoked at any time, for any reason.

Yeah, pretty much. I know this was a mistake and they are simply correcting it, but they could have let the people who got the keys keep them; I guess the number of people that got the keys were many?

 

[IFireflyl]

It's a stark reminder that you don't actually own anything in your Steam library. You're just renting it. That rental can be revoked at any time, for any reason.

This is extremely hyperbolic. They cannot revoke your purchases for any reason, whenever they feel like it.

EDIT:

Sure they can. The technology is in place. The question is whether they will survive the inevitable court battle.

It should be quite obvious based on my post that I am saying they cannot "legally" revoke your purchases for any reason. If I say people can't shoot someone for no reason, I don't mean they are physically incapable of doing so, but rather that doing so would be a crime.

 

[//DEVIL//]

jokes on them. i finished it in one session


I didn't even know there was a mistake of free codes. wtf GAF? why no one brought this up ? greedy bastards -_- lol

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

This is extremely hyperbolic. They cannot revoke your purchases for any reason, whenever they feel like it.

Sure they can. The technology is in place. The question is whether they will survive the inevitable court battle.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Sure they can. The technology is in place. The question is whether they will survive the inevitable court battle.

Could but won't is a lot different than won't because can't.

 

[jshackles]

Yeah, pretty much. I know this was a mistake and they are simply correcting it, but they could have let the people who got the keys keep them; I guess, the number of people that got the keys were many?

Enough that it took Humble's purchase processor offline for a couple of hours. So I'd say at the very least tens of thousands of copies(?) distributed. Most were probably snatched up by key resellers looking to make bank, honestly I'd be surprised if more than 50% of the keys that were distributed were actually redeemed.

Sales estimates put this game at around 150k units sold on Steam. Letting another 10k+ users have it for free might not have mattered much overall, but I'm sure Microsoft saw it as 10k+ lost unit sales. It's also not a good look when your new AAA game is given out for free, as it will make people think twice about spending $70 on it. It might have also been Humble themselves that pulled the plug on the keys, as sometimes their contracts with publishers read something like "we'll give you $xx.xx for each key we distribute". Microsoft might have said "okay, you distributed 10,000 keys, now pay up the $500,000 you owe us".

Humble:

*presses "revoke keys" button

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

jokes on them. i finished it in one session


I didn't even know there was a mistake of free codes. wtf GAF? why no one brought this up ? greedy bastards -_- lol

i saw wario64 or something tweet about it,
i thought it was a troll/fake.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

i saw wario64 or something tweet about it,
i thought it was a troll/fake.

Totally believable. Googling it, it looks like a longplay run is about 12 hours (give or take an hour), and speedrunners can do it in an hour and a half.

 

[jshackles]

This is extremely hyperbolic. They cannot revoke your purchases for any reason, whenever they feel like it.

Steam Subscriber Agreement

store.steampowered.com

Section 2A:

Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services.

Section 3F:

You may order a Subscription through an authorized reseller of Valve. The "Product Key" accompanying such order will be used to activate your Subscription. Further instructions will be provided along with the respective product. If you order a Subscription from an authorized reseller of Valve, you agree to direct all questions regarding the Product Key to that reseller.

Valve basically saying: "you don't own the game, and if you buy a subscription to a game from a reseller (not Valve) then take any issues you have with your product up with them". Valve also gives publishers (who provide keys to resellers) the ability to revoke license keys. The only time you're actually entitled to any protections whatsoever with a product on Steam, is when you buy it directly from Valve. And even then, they can still remove your product if you do something to violate their terms (though, to be fair, their terms are pretty generous as we'll soon see).

OK, cool. Now that's out of the way, let's look at Humble's terms of service.

Terms of Service

www.humblebundle.com

Section 1(b)

YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT HUMBLE BUNDLE HAS THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION, WITHOUT ANY LIABILITY TO YOU OF ANY KIND AND IN ADDITION TO ALL OF ITS OTHER RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, IN LAW AND AT EQUITY, TO CANCEL ANY AND ALL DOWNLOAD PAGES, PRODUCT KEYS OR REDEMPTION CODES FOR PRODUCTS YOU HAVE PURCHASED

Also Section 2(j)

Humble Bundle and its licensors reserve the right, without liability to you, to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of or sold through the Service at any time without notice

So when you're provided a key from Humble Bundle, you have no course of remedy from Valve as per the subscriber agreement. As per Humble's terms of service, they have the right to revoke your product key at any time and for any reason they want. It's obviously not good business to go around revoking keys that have been purchased (but they could - and you agree to arbitration, so you'll never even have your case seen by a judge!). However, they're well within their legal rights to revoke these keys which were erroneously given out for free.

 

[hemo memo]

So if I went to GameStop and an employee mistakenly gave a game away for free, that's like them coming to my house to take that game back. How is that my fault? It's their system's fault.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

To be fair, they made a mistake and are trying to revoke it.

As the article says, every country has different laws regarding mistaken prices, but it's one of those things where you can expect the company to try to get it back if they can do so. If you buy a toaster and get away with it buying it for 25 cents instead of real $25 price, nobody is going to come to your house and grab it from your kitchen. But with digital stuff, it makes sense they can try to disable it.

If you deposit $100 into your bank and they accidentally process it as $1,000 and catch the mistake, you cant expect to keep the $900 difference as a freebie. Of course you pay it back. In fact they'll probably just debit it from your account as a mistaken over-deposit.

 

[bender]

Seems like Humble makes this mistake a few times a year. Greenmangaming has also done this with pricing mistakes and not just accidentally giving a product away for free but rather offering too much of a discount.

 

[Gamerguy84]

WTF

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Sure they can. The technology is in place. The question is whether they will survive the inevitable court battle.

I read somewhere that Sony can remotely brick your console if they want.
If its connected to the internet any device is out of your hands.

 

[MikeM]

This is extremely hyperbolic. They cannot revoke your purchases for any reason, whenever they feel like it.

EDIT:



It should be quite obvious based on my post that I am saying they cannot "legally" revoke your purchases for any reason. If I say people can't shoot someone for no reason, I don't mean they are physically incapable of doing so, but rather that doing so would be a crime.

You have a license which is designed to allow removal regardless of your purchase of it.

Closest thing to owning a game these days is physical and even then its debatable.

 

[adamsapple]

jokes on them. i finished it in one session


I didn't even know there was a mistake of free codes. wtf GAF? why no one brought this up ? greedy bastards -_- lol

It wasn't up for long, Humble caught the fuck up pretty quickly.

 

[newtypepilot]

lol must be a lot of keys then since they would rather take the PR hit.

 

[poppabk]

So if I went to GameStop and an employee mistakenly gave a game away for free, that's like them coming to my house to take that game back. How is that my fault? It's their system's fault.

They can't give out 10000 accidentally in 20 minutes.

 

[Ribi]

Probably already finished the game. Cheaper than game pass

 

[schaft0620]

Not legal in some states.