PC-thieves reselling 30k steam keys after free giveaway

How an attempt to give away free copies of Wadjet Eye's Blackwell Deception went haywire, and tens of thousands of keys disappeared into the night.

At first, Gilbert was offering Blackwell Deception on the Wadjet Eye Games web store. Users entered a code, the price would adjust to zero, and players would gain access to a DRM-free copy of the game to play on their desktop. Every one of those came with a Steam key to redeem, as well. But, somehow, users were able to acquire multiple copies at once, amassing an army of Steam keys to resell. We’re not just talking about three or four keys, either. Some users were able to grab hundreds.

Gilbert was quickly pointed towards websites that were bragging about their ability to sell cheap Steam keys for Blackwell Deception. His response was to nix Steam keys from the equation, which still meant he was offering players a free copy of Blackwell Deception. That didn’t go over very well.

But the PC thieves got angry.
“The backlash was immediate,” he said. “People really wanted to play this game in their Steam client, even though it was a freebie. They didn’t like the non-DRM version, which they could play on their desktop. They wanted it on Steam. I was getting a lot of angry emails about this, even though it was free! So I thought ‘okay, maybe there’s something I can do.’”

Rather than dropping the whole plan entirely, Gilbert spoke with BIT Micro, the payment processing company he regularly works with. BMT had the ability to set up a page where free copies of the game, now again with bundled Steam keys, would be distributed on a per IP basis--one game per IP.

You can probably guess what happens next: this was exploited, too. Through IP masking and other exploits, some users were running away with hundreds of keys at a time. Gilbert was tired.

When Gilbert went to sleep, he was sitting on 30,000 keys. In the morning, they were all gone.

It turns out BMT had removed the link to the key generator, but it hadn’t taken down the page with the generator on it. Some people figured this out, the link was quickly passed around, and as Gilbert tried to recover from the previous day’s madness, yet another problem was brewing.

R.I.P. aother indie dev
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What did you think would happen if you gave away free game keys to the internet? As soon as something like slickdeals hears of this, it's all over

This wasn't PC gamers. These were small operations who specialize in grabbing cheap keys and re-selling, often illegally.

If you're giving stuff away... people will take it all.

Don't apologize for scum behaviour. If PC gamers were willing to pay normal retail prices for games, shady key reselling stores would not have blown up like this.

I don't think they've "blown up"

If I had to wager, I would say most PC gamers in the western world get there games from legitimate digital distributors like Steam, Amazon, GMG which have very good sales on games.

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves

This. Basically organized crime outfits.

That's why people should only buy PC games from big or known sites since it's like in the real world, if it's way cheaper than the stores it most be stolen goods.

I'm cautious of these "CD key" sites. More often than not, those keys are nicked from the back of game boxes in Russia.

The people doing this aren't PC gamers, just people trying to scam people.

Wouldn't call this "thieving"... it's more about taking advantage of a situation.

Not really fair, but hey, that's life for you.

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A group of people on the PC is willing to go for a cheaper, yet fully functional product, even though the dev won't be seeing any money from the purchase... kinda reminds me of... used game sales on consoles!

It's a fairly similar situation, so drop the moral high ground routine.

yeah, as soon as i see a .ru domain, i have a bad feeling

This is no surprise, why not just sell it on steam for $1 or free^^

Pretty disgusting. But... I expect no less of pc gamers. Claim to be the master race, the pinnacle of games but alot of developers (this one as well as guessing) don't give them the time of day.

Happens with everything, look at people selling off their next gen console pre-orders with a huge mark up

People want their silly Steam list of games filled as some kind of collection. gtfo.

Weird. You were in a Forza thread bitching because Turn 10 wouldn't give away DLC and yet now you give a shit about a developer getting paid for their work?

People build pc and sell online with huge markup. THat not same as this. PC gamer steal key and sell and cut out developer of all profit from these key. No wonder indie dev are so anxious to develop on ps4 and blockbuster dev like Rockstar treat pc like 2nd class.

OTher poster are excusing this, by passing blame to mafia haha. Dev say some people were able to grab hundreds, so most were grab less than that. This is no organize crime responsible for all this.

Giovela, what you opine of that as a PC Gamer ? XD

If organized crime isn't done by people who is it done by, robots???

This is no different from used game sales. Both are perfectly legal, and devs/publishers get a cent out of neither.

It remembers me that episode when EA has lost a shit load of 20$ games. And nobody batted an eye back then as it was EA who lost.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/10/14/ea-accidentally-gives-away-free-games-with-origin-store-coupon-glitch/

Consolites have absolutely nothing on PC so they have to start shit up to make PC gamers look bad.

PC gamers are greedy no doubt. Killing the industries. one stolen [object] at a time.

There is a difference between buying PC parts to build a PC to sell on as this is general practise in any business but what those guys did was a scam. You'd be surprised at who is involved in selling CD keys. Its well know that it is orgranised crime that profit from types of crime like this.

Sounds like their system fucked and when people found out. They took advantage of the situation. Just like when this one gas station's computer glitched and charged $1.50 per gallon, instead of $4.00. Once people took notice a huge line wrapping around several blocks formed and the station was out of a considerable amount of money. Nothing wrong or illegal in both cases.

No one buy it!!!!

Instead go and buy this poor dev's game!

Oh you mean like used games sales or console games being leaked and pirated before release?

Lets be fair here. EA has billions. This was just a small operation. It's a pretty shitty situation.They certainly didn't deserve it. I really can't say the same about EA.

how come nearly every anti-pc post (if not all) is a lie/troll?

Did you not bother reading the whole article yourself? No indie dev died here.

Use game sale help go toward next game purchase. Gamer trade in last year madden for new one. Piracy is much bigger issue of pc, this why blockbuster developer alway treating pc gamer as 2nd class unfortunately.

@Mr-Kutaragi: Indie have been the most successful on pc a perfect example was minecraft. Don't forget all the console focus developers that went under compared to PC which has more successful independent studios.

As a PC Gamer, I am embarrassed by these actions

GG My fellow hermits, GG

At least they didn't kill anyone

Except in order to use Forza 5 DLC, you need to have spent $50 on either retail or the digital storefront. Reselling free steam keys is theft.

@jhonMalcovich: When you're as dirty as EA, then no one should feel sorry for you.

You sound butt-hurt!

I don't know how. I was the guy who got over $200 in free games.

@xhawk27:

Why shouldn't he be they closed down the Burnout 3 servers :(

Stuff like this is why consoles receive preferential treatment from game companies.