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STEAM | February 2017 - Giveaways are back

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tmarg

Member
That's true, but it's not as simple because there are multiple parties who can put keys in bundles, so that's something that can take some investigation. We've seen several instances of games getting put into bundles by publishers without the developer's knowledge or consent.

The claim "directly from the devs" is pretty specific, and would give them plenty of room to speak out if it was false.
Still the whole thing seems way too good to be true.
 

Lomax

Member
Maybe no-one is talking because they are too ashamed to admit they partnered with G2A. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

The whole boycotting sites, Devs, games situation leads to an interesting philosophical debate. Can your actions as an individual lead to any real, systemic change? I think over the last decade, many have seen the power of social media, the internet, grass roots activism as a way of actually making a difference.

But as the events of the last 6 months have shown, hmm, maybe not so much.

Anyway, boycott G2A, don't boycott G2A, aren't there steam games to talk about?!

I think it's a legitimate discussion point for a community like ours. In the grand scheme of things, 10-20k sales isn't that much, and we know even now bundle purchasers aren't the norm, most games still sell far and away the most copies directly on Steam. But G2A is taking a pretty active role in the online gaming community and to me it's very similar to seeing Stubhub on a NBA jersey.

In fairness, I'm sure I wouldn't have given it a second thought if Lords of the Fallen and Superhot were games I actually wanted to own and play. I don't really care that much about either and probably won't ever get around to playing either, which makes it easier to look at the moral side of things and choose to pass on it. But this whole conversation goes hand in hand with how we discuss the Humble Monthly and the overall impact on the industry. I look at a game like Atelier Sophie, something I know now I'm really interested in, and there's no way I'll ever pay $30 for it, even though I have $89 in steam credit right now, because I just have too much to play already and every month $12 gets me several more great games. So you could make the argument that on the whole, the Humble Monthly is bad for the industry, and that's something I certainly contribute to.

The claim "directly from the devs" is pretty specific, and would give them plenty of room to speak out if it was false.
Still the whole thing seems way too good to be true.

Except keys come from publishers, not developers, so even if the keys are legitimate, the statement isn't accurate.

My theories:

Lords of the Fallen keys came in bulk from IndieGala who had them from a prior promotion.
Dirt 3 keys came from retail and the GWFL conversion that created a bunch of keys.
Siberia keys came from previous bundles.
Superhot I'm not sure about, perhaps a Russian publisher or another group that has publishing rights in a low priced country.

None of those things would be illegal or likely to get revoked. But none would be particularly legitimate either.

Now's the time to panic if you bought it or gloat if you didn't.

Doesn't really change anything, that's just the developer, we know if it is "legitimate" it comes from the publisher.
 

Lomax

Member
Do we have a source on that that isn't G2A?

Not sure what you mean, but that's just how it works, CI Games is the publisher on Steam, Deck 13 is just a developer of the game. Deck 13 wouldn't have anything to do with any bundle one way or the other. They might know from their publisher about promotions, and they might not.
 
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line from the message below containing the game you want to enter for. Confused? Watch this GIF tutorial or ask for help.
Want to make your own ModBot giveaway? Click here for a quick tutorial thread. Please give generously.

ModBot Basics:
- This giveaway has a manual blocklist. The giver has identified members who abuse giveaways and restricted them from participating.
- I really appreciate thank you messages, but please send them to me (pantsattack, not ModBot!) via PM instead of in thread.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible



Shot Shot Tactic -- MB-C8925743066ACF12 - Taken by rainking187
.
 

Wok

Member
I think G2A has a pretty solid loophole regarding where they got the keys from (in bulk from IndieGala perhaps, or retail keys) which is enough to mean publishers can't stop them, but also means the publishers aren't going to help either.

I think you are on the right track with your explanation.

Remember, we know that:
  • G2A would offer Steam key protection to Indie Gala in exchange of them offering G2A Pay as an alternative payment method,
  • Indie Gala is experimenting G2A Pay, which offers reduced fees compared to Paypal.
So G2A Pay should help Indie Gala save tons of money (fees) and get better negotiation deals with publishers & devs (protection).

G2A might be in a position to negotiate cheap keys for a game such as SUPERHOT from the people running Indie Gala, based on the fact Indie Gala should be able to tank and recoup the cost in the long run. If the people running Indie Gala refuse, G2A continues to sell their keys, which ruin their deals with publishers. It is like the mafia: you want their protection or they burn your shop.
 
If games from g2a bundle aren't region locked then it's more consumer friendly than hb.
Actually, I'm agree with this point. HB is completely fucked up in therms of region locking. I was in Germany when Namco bundle started and tried to purchase it, but after paying with Paypal HB suddenly refunded my purchase because "this bundle is not available in my region". At first i thought this happened because i was in Germany since it's regular practice to censor or even block some games in this country. But after confirmations from other people, i realized that bundle was indeed available in Germany, but for some absolutely crazy reason Namco blocked whole bundle in my country (Belarus). HB automatically checked that my credit card is from Belarus and simply said "fuck off with your dirty money, non-ROW peasant!". Funny thing that bundle is available to purchase everywhere in the world, except Japan and Belarus. I'm impressed that somebody actually knows about existing of my country outside ex-USSR region, but it's still very annoying that HB doesn't want to get my money.

And while i CAN understand the reasoning of region locking bundle purchase, maybe some dumb licensing or even distribution things. But HB giving region locked keys to region locked buyers without warning is beyond ridiculous, this is simple scam and they should be sued for doing this. Buyers from region locked regions are paying same prices as ROW buyers but getting inferior product, and HB still don't even properly warning about such region locks BEFORE purchase. The whole purpose of region locks was to prevent selling cheap keys from locked regions to ROW buyers, but by twisted HB logic it's all conversely, region locked buyers are getting locked keys for higher prices. If i knew english better, i would definitely created separate thread about this situation, but i'll just hope that this recent investigation by EU commission about region locks on Steam keys will force HB to step in right direction and at least warn buyers about region locks before purchase. I really don't understand why they still didn't applied such basic function in their store. Such behavior is forcing people from non-ROW regions to use shady resellers like G2A just to be 100% sure that key they are going to purchase will not have any region locks and will be ROW. It's hard to care about how shady is G2A and other "gray market" sites when publishers and official keys sellers doesn't care about you either.

Sorry for small angry rant, this topic is very sensitive for me since I'm quite frequently dealing with problems because of sudden region locks on keys that i giving away on Steamgifts
 
Censorship of games is super uncommon at this point here...
From recent examples I remember that some buyers from Germany complained about "low-violence" versions of some games from last Capcom HB bundle, and also about special version of new Wolfenstein without nazi swastikas. But i agree that censored versions of steam games is very rare thing now
 

Ruruja

Member
You don't want to pay Steam prices for this game, trust me, it takes forever to go on sale and there are discounts on the new expansion already outside of Steam.

One benefit of having it on Steam is that you can pay the sub through Steam Wallet. Admittedly it's not as easy to get decent money with selling trading cards these days, but I've paid for a few months before just through trading cards.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
One benefit of having it on Steam is that you can pay the sub through Steam Wallet. Admittedly it's not as easy to get decent money with selling trading cards these days, but I've paid for a few months before just through trading cards.

this, and, you know, its common cortesy to make sure people know its not the steam version when you link a product in the steam thread. Just sayin
 

Ozium

Member
decided to play the Hollow Knight demo since everyone is squawking about it and... it looks nice and the jumping physics are good

however the knockback when you hit enemies is annoying especially in a platformer and the way the map system seemingly works (use coins to buy maps that are basic sketches of an area with nothing in the way of landmarks and doesn't show your location) have me wondering what the hype is all about

disgusting
 
decided to play the Hollow Knight demo since everyone is squawking about it and... it looks nice and the jumping physics are good

however the knockback when you hit enemies is annoying especially in a platformer and the way the map system seemingly works (use coins to buy maps that are basic sketches of an area with nothing in the way of landmarks and doesn't show your location) have me wondering what the hype is all about

disgusting
Go back to the map shop at the well.
 

Nillansan

Member
Just make sure that you're not the only one doing that.

Okay.

First just to be clear i am always for supporting devs. But people often scream left and right think about devs. Meanwhile Valve and most of those devs simply don't care about parts of their userbase. Year or two ago when there was EU2 region on Steam only handful of devs used it and those were mostly ones from EU2 region. For majority of them EU2 region didn't exist so prices were same as in the rest of the Europe. What if i tell you that average salary in my country is lower than in Russia but because we are small market nobody cares and we have full prices here. Even though i personally really care about supporting devs, i care more for my life and as much as i try to use stores that i know got keys from devs or official distributors you bet that i will occasionally take some good deals from shady places.

Sorry for the late reply. I am well aware that salaries vary drastically across Europe, I am sorry to hear that you are severely hit by unreasonable regional pricing. This is a game that was recently priced at 10 euro, which was it's historically lowest pricing point. I find it highly unlikely that the developers gave their consent to have their game de-valued in such a drastic manner, especially given that the game has already sold pretty well. Why would the developers green-light a fire sale at this point?

Games development is already a fairly volatile business endeavor especially within the indie scene. If you want to buy it at a deep discount, why not wait for it appear in a Humble Bundle, which we all know it eventually will? Many developers have been pretty outspoken about how damaging G2A's practices are. Developers got to eat too.
 

Lomax

Member
I think you are on the right track with your explanation.

Remember, we know that:
  • G2A would offer Steam key protection to Indie Gala in exchange of them offering G2A Pay as an alternative payment method,
  • Indie Gala is experimenting G2A Pay, which offers reduced fees compared to Paypal.
So G2A Pay should help Indie Gala save tons of money (fees) and get better negotiation deals with publishers & devs (protection).

G2A might be in a position to negotiate cheap keys for a game such as SUPERHOT from the people running Indie Gala, based on the fact Indie Gala should be able to tank and recoup the cost in the long run. If the people running Indie Gala refuse, G2A continues to sell their keys, which ruin their deals with publishers. It is like the mafia: you want their protection or they burn your shop.

And lest us forget, IndieGala has done some pretty sketchy things in the past, from being less than upfront with publishers about happy hours, to directly copying web site code from Humble Bundle, to bundling games from publishers directly against developer's wishes. They are hardly without sin themselves.
 

Wok

Member
decided to play the Hollow Knight demo since everyone is squawking about it and... it looks nice and the jumping physics are good

however the knockback when you hit enemies is annoying especially in a platformer and the way the map system seemingly works (use coins to buy maps that are basic sketches of an area with nothing in the way of landmarks and doesn't show your location) have me wondering what the hype is all about

disgusting

Have you beaten all the bosses of the demo?
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
decided to play the Hollow Knight demo since everyone is squawking about it and... it looks nice and the jumping physics are good

however the knockback when you hit enemies is annoying especially in a platformer and the way the map system seemingly works (use coins to buy maps that are basic sketches of an area with nothing in the way of landmarks and doesn't show your location) have me wondering what the hype is all about

disgusting

Reading simple instructions is hard I tells ya, best to just dismiss the whole thing as broken!

Who's better, Gust Sound Team or Falcom Sound Team jdk?

I dunno about Atelier but since you're talking Gust music, the music on Azure is pretty bawling.
 
Small little game of mine, Red Haze, releases on Monday only for $1.99. Here's a little giveaway, only one I'll do for it for now.


Red Haze


You know, my dear, it isn't safe... To wander and creep while oh so weak. In the abandoned, the rotten, the decayed. Society has forgotten you; it won't lift a finger for that which is tossed away. You're just prey that the true prowlers who lay in shadows await to feast upon.

Falling into the dark pits of society, Rockette turned to drugs to give meaning to her miserable existence. Squatting in an old apartment complex, she finds herself at her last pump, and decides to venture from her shanty abode to locate her dealer, an older woman by the name of Aunti G. However, a creeping feeling takes hold; something is following her. A voice begins to talk to her from within the walls...

A semi-sequel to Close Your Eyes, something of a loose retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Featuring a cryptic, surreal, and morbid story where not everything is as it seems, perception is important, and choice matters.

-Something always watches you in the dark places of your mind; different people may perceive things differently.
-A harrowing experience featuring an original soundtrack & art.
-An unsettling and slowly-building atmosphere, paced to keep things interesting.
-A cryptic and harrowing tale exploring the dark corners of society.
-Voice acting that may be turned on or off.
-Multiple endings, many secrets, and multiple pathways support replayability.

What soft skin you have, my child...

---

Does have my doodily style for graphics, be happy when getting to a project an artist I'm working with tackles it more fully.
Nice work. Wishing the best for your future project(s).
 

Lomax

Member
Started playing Steamworld Heist some, chose the second highest difficulty (the one marked as preferred for people with strategy experience) and I've already failed an early mission three times. It's pretty unforgiving with low health amounts when I've only got two team members. It lets you adjust on the fly so I guess I'll bump it down for a mission or two and see how it goes but I swear finding the balance between "challenging enough to be interesting" and "requiring near perfection and maybe some luck" is just not one that most developers seem to be any good at finding.
 

Endruen

Member
Started playing Steamworld Heist some, chose the second highest difficulty (the one marked as preferred for people with strategy experience) and I've already failed an early mission three times. It's pretty unforgiving with low health amounts when I've only got two team members. It lets you adjust on the fly so I guess I'll bump it down for a mission or two and see how it goes but I swear finding the balance between "challenging enough to be interesting" and "requiring near perfection and maybe some luck" is just not one that most developers seem to be any good at finding.

I remember starting as normal and then using that difficulty setting you're talking about until now. It gets pretty easy once you start getting gear.
 

duppolo

Member
Started playing Steamworld Heist some, chose the second highest difficulty (the one marked as preferred for people with strategy experience) and I've already failed an early mission three times. It's pretty unforgiving with low health amounts when I've only got two team members. It lets you adjust on the fly so I guess I'll bump it down for a mission or two and see how it goes but I swear finding the balance between "challenging enough to be interesting" and "requiring near perfection and maybe some luck" is just not one that most developers seem to be any good at finding.

you need to farm
 
i guess it's to late to mention that g2a has scummed me over money before and that site is trash

avoid at all costs

SteamGAF has failed the zkylon.
~80 turns if Bretonnia stay strong, otherwise I don't even think is possible to stop them with the malus of Eight Peaks. It's really important to keep their army count as low as possible, even if you need to trade 50-50 in a battle do it and find a way to recoup your army as fast as possible to keep them busy. If you get one army into their territory capable of doing this sort of guerrilla warfare you can control their grow and, if someone else help you, even kill them

Oh man, I forgot about their faction effects. Now I'm really in awe! That's really brutal with current Wood Elves.

The good news is, Wood Elves are getting tuned next patch. Like, I don't understand why they shipped the Wood Elf AI in its current state, because it's completely ridiculous how much they break the game. They ignore amber restrictions, which breaks their tech tree, infrastructure tiers, and unit comp, and the AI bonuses mean that they're fielding huge armies that overrun other factions nearby. It's not unusual to see them with 1/5 to 1/3 of the map by midgame, at a minimum.

The worst part is that even if you demolish their 5 or so stacks, you either need to destroy their forest mmediately or wait, and demolish them all over again a couple dozen turns later. They always come back--they're what one would expect the Greenskins or maybe Vampire Counts to be...
 

Lain

Member
decided to play the Hollow Knight demo since everyone is squawking about it and... it looks nice and the jumping physics are good

however the knockback when you hit enemies is annoying especially in a platformer and the way the map system seemingly works (use coins to buy maps that are basic sketches of an area with nothing in the way of landmarks and doesn't show your location) have me wondering what the hype is all about

disgusting

Since I just played the demo too, I'll say that I found it pretty fun and engaging, with my only (technical) issue being with screen tearing despite v-sync being on (I'm not sure why 2D games often times show screen tearing for me).

My issue with the map is that the updates to it get made when you sit on a bench and not as you explore. I didn't have a problem with having to buy the tools to get the various points of interest to show though.

Also the demo feels pretty meaty, which isn't something I was expecting.
 
I've been watching my young brother playing games lately, and it's nice to see his evolution since he got interested in gaming. He mainly play Roblox on an old laptop and one year ago he couldn't even use keyboard and mouse properly but nowadays he got used.

He getting all excited while playing something fill my heart with joy and bring back memories of my own childhood playing video games.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Hmm apparently I missed a
Chainsaw
for Edgar in Zozo. Welp :/
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Hmm apparently I missed a
Chainsaw
for Edgar in Zozo. Welp :/

You missed one of the best things in the game that's basically OP til late-game, and even then pretty awesome.
 

BiggNife

Member
Feels like a lot of people here don't realize cdkeys and g2a are not remotely the same thing

Cdkeys gets official legal keys from publishers, they're just from territories other than the US

G2A is a marketplace for cd keys where anyone can put keys up for sale and G2A does not vouch for the validity of them. They claim to have a "money back guarantee" but I have heard multiple stories of people getting an invalid key from G2A only to be denied a refund on some stupid technicality.

I am okay with buying from cdkeys but not G2A. That bundle rubs me the wrong way because it says "in cooperation with developers" yet as far as I know none of these devs have actually confirmed working with G2A.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Cdkeys gets official legal keys from publishers, they're just from territories other than the US

CD Keys isn't affiliated with any publishers; it sells keys taken from physical stock purchased in bulk. That's not to say the keys are fraudulently obtained, but it does mean that CD Keys isn't an authorised distributor of the products it offers, which is generally the detail people are after when they ask if the site is legitimate.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
You missed one of the best things in the game that's basically OP til late-game, and even then pretty awesome.

got it, was a bit of a pain because Zozo seems to have a random battle every fucking 2 steps you make, but I was still able to backtrack to where it was...except it wasnt even needed because after you do what you went there to do, it puts you back at the start and the
chainsaw
was near the stat sigh >_>

oh well. Should I grind out to learn these esper spells or continue on normally? I remember ppl saying not to grind until later (or is this the later?) but guides are saying its better to get all the spells before moving on, which is it?

Not to mention the fact that
he looks hilarious with the goalie mask.

he also looks hilarious spinning around attacking
 

Momentary

Banned
I don't deal with CDKeys or G2A. Their business practices are super sketchy/ But then again I'm not hurting in the funds department. I'm sure I'd probably dabble in them if I was back in college or high school.
 
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