Friday Facts #181 - Calm before the storm

[masneoquil]

I disagree with this argument that revoking keys only hurts the final buyer.

It's because final buyers choose to purchase from shady sellers that this happens. Educate them and you fix the issue.

You mean hit the customers to the head hard enough that they learn what exactly? I dont think you know what you are talking about.

Do you ?
When you buy a key on a website that sales insurance against getting ban for having a stolen key, you know that your doing somethin shady...

I think what he means is that they already know that they are doing something shady, they just don't care, or felt justified somehow.
Or at least that's what I think he means.

[ledow]

Surely the word customers, in itself, gives him away?

These people aren't customers. They haven't paid a penny to the creators of Factorio. They've paid them to a scam artist selling something that's not theirs to sell.

[super_aardvark]

It seems to me that review keys should be disabled 30 or 60 days after they're handed out, regardless of what the reviewer does with it. Either they wrote a review, in which case they don't need the review copy anymore, or they didn't write a review, in which case they never needed a review copy in the first place.

[bulldog98]

It seems to me that review keys should be disabled 30 or 60 days after they're handed out, regardless of what the reviewer does with it. Either they wrote a review, in which case they don't need the review copy anymore, or they didn't write a review, in which case they never needed a review copy in the first place.

I think that is a reasonable solution to this problem. If you want to review a game, in my opinion you should not ask for a key if you do not intent to review within a month. As factorio is also inexpensive as a youtuber it should be ok to pay the money for the key, it will pay back in just one or two videos (depending on popularity). But you should also keep in mind that changing how it works with keys already given out is more challenging.

[Albrat]

Guy ask for key to make a video on youtube or a press review Ok.
Guy get the key Ok.
Guy didn't do any video or any press review ... desactivate the key and kindly ask him to go f... himself.

The problem with this method is cost versus time. The time it would take to do any system like this and check any system like this would mean that development would slow to a crawl.
It is actually better (in some ways) to accept the loss of a game key and move on than it is to chase down individual keys all the time. You could spend more working hours chasing down the key and checking if they were used, aka it would cost more, than if you just lost the key. 1 hour chasing down the key would probably cost more than a game purchase.

I am currently un-employed. (unless you count youtube. I moved to a new country and am taking training courses etc.) So I understand how getting a review copy of a game would be beneficial to youtubers and reviewers. But if I can afford to buy a game I would rather purchase a copy than ask for a review copy. (so far I have not done a single review key request anywhere. I had a large steam library from my purchases while i was in full time work... 7 years ago.)

[brunzenstein]

There is always a demo version right available from the Factorio developers website - thats pretty good enough to review the game.
Besides there are several mechanics which allow very easily reviewers for a certain time to evaluate a program.
The problem arises only if a software house has no resources to care for a professional PR.
Thats not necessarily a negative statement but a given fact.
Indeed the loss through thieves can be considerable as the developers have to reimburse the intermediary (Steam) for a not existent transaction.
So the loss is twice the price of the sw plus the bureaucratic effort.

[The Eriksonn]

I would assume that they also update the fire that is ontop of the refinery so that is looks as cool as the fire from the flamethrower. Fire = Fire you know..

[selkathguy]

It seems to me that review keys should be disabled 30 or 60 days after they're handed out, regardless of what the reviewer does with it. Either they wrote a review, in which case they don't need the review copy anymore, or they didn't write a review, in which case they never needed a review copy in the first place.

This seems like the best way to handle this. It discourages abuse, disables theft (via the 'review' pretense), and promotes fairness. It has the added benefit of making your marketing cheaper (albeit slightly) as well. A win by all measures.

[bripi]

The new HD graphics for refineries and chem plants look awesome! That's some nice work!

[Jelmergu]

Is it just me or do the chemical plants that have the 'liquid barrel' seem to float a little. Especially the top most one (with the green 'lubricant' liquid). Or does it seem to float because there is no terrain underneath it.

Either way looking really good and can't wait for 0.15 experimental

[Deadly-Bagel]

Not sure but I can't work out what the shadow's supposed to be for the Chemical Plant under the Refinery in the top left. It's like shadows for some pipes that don't seem to be there? If that's the one you mean then it's probably that weird shadow that's giving the floating impression.

[Jelmergu]

Not sure but I can't work out what the shadow's supposed to be for the Chemical Plant under the Refinery in the top left. It's like shadows for some pipes that don't seem to be there? If that's the one you mean then it's probably that weird shadow that's giving the floating impression.

Yeah that is the one that I noticed it most in, the same row but the last one (Plastic) does appear to have the same, It apears to be floating above the inserter slightly

[Unique_Pineapple]

HD graphics look really good!

[MINIMAN10000]

These cases have raised some moral question in me about whether it is acceptable to deactivate a review key. If a channel writes in and asks to cover our game, and even 6 months later they haven't shown the game at all, do they deserve to keep their free copy?

There is a similar issue being faced in the grey market game marketplaces. Developers are dealing with fraudulent game purchases sold to people.

I can find 3 cases of companies revoking keys.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments ... ld_by_g2a/
Turns out this one never actually revoked the key source below
https://lockesjourney.wordpress.com/201 ... rket-keys/

https://unknownworlds.com/blog/beware-s ... team-keys/
https://www.reddit.com/r/g2a/comments/4 ... voked_key/
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/divin ... ed_i_think

So there is precedent for it

I enjoyed this read where they investigated a key

http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/8006693 ... game-codes

Particularly this quote

"My thoughts on the gray market are similar to my thoughts on piracy," Robinson wrote Polygon. "Which is that it's better for us to focus on creating good experiences for our paying customers."

But in general it sounds like most companies do not revoke keys or go out of their way to combat piracy. But they hold the right to do so.

[daniel34]

These cases have raised some moral question in me about whether it is acceptable to deactivate a review key. If a channel writes in and asks to cover our game, and even 6 months later they haven't shown the game at all, do they deserve to keep their free copy?

There is a similar issue being faced in the grey market game marketplaces. Developers are dealing with fraudulent game purchases sold to people.

I can find 3 cases of companies revoking keys.

[...]

The Factorio devs have written about their experience with the grey market in FFF #171.
A small snippet about revoking keys:

A common saying I hear is that this isn't a problem, because 'The devs just revoke the keys', well that simply isn't true, we don't get notice of a fraudulent payment right away, it can take upwards of 8 weeks for the chargeback to be issued, at which time the key is obviously going to be already sold for profit and forgotten. We still revoke these keys, often to the dismay of the purchaser.

[JaredCR]

Great graphics, I can´t wait to have version 0.15 and see this in the game!

[Damaskox]

"These cases have raised some moral question in me about whether it is acceptable to deactivate a review key. If a channel writes in and asks to cover our game, and even 6 months later they haven't shown the game at all, do they deserve to keep their free copy?"

I think it is fine and okay to deactivate access to anything which has been gotten by lies or in any other, not-so-nice way.

[ratchetfreak]

"These cases have raised some moral question in me about whether it is acceptable to deactivate a review key. If a channel writes in and asks to cover our game, and even 6 months later they haven't shown the game at all, do they deserve to keep their free copy?"

I think it is fine and okay to deactivate access to anything which has been gotten by lies or in any other, not-so-nice way.

Everyone who says that ignores that those review keys are sold to third parties, if you deactivate a key then the seller doesn't get a bad rep but the game does.

The only way of avoiding that is by explicitly stating on startup that the key they have is a press key and may be deactivated. but even then...