Sniper Elite 3 - CD Keys revoked by Rebellion

"One of the biggest scams to hit the game industry is unfolding as I type this article. You may already be aware of it. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Sniper Elite Steam 3 CD Keys have been Illegally revoked and de-activated, by the game’s own developer, Rebellion"

[hiredhelp]

Yeh mine got revoked it is iffy... Ive never had problem before bought many games just like other people on steam fourums.
Strange thing is it let you activate it even pre install some even been able play it then second time get message say problem with the key..
If this was the case why did it register the key in first place my theory there keys being sold third party too cheap they decided revoke them.

[rdgneoz3]

Yep. Pretty much what the article / comments say. A lot of companies were selling for half off or so and Rebellion got pissed, so they cancelled all the keys that were from steam / full price.

[TheMapleNerd]

The problem is that some people don't have the money to buy full price.
But of course they could just wait, but if i can get a game for 70% of the normal price, then why would i pay full?

[frostypants]

Sounds like the keys in question were unlicensed/unsanctioned. Blame the seller. They know what they did was wrong.

If someone sells you an impossibly cheap Samsung TV off the back of a van at the gas station, who do you blame if the police confiscate it because it turns out to be hot?

[hiredhelp]

Frosty these sites in question bozo are legit traders buy from developers.
Have used for long time been going even longer never had problem steam uplay or origin. All fake keys are picked up right away like copys..
These were legit even registerd as one untill rebellion called upon steam to revoke any keys that get put in other than ones bought directly from steam..

[awi5951]

That is not true allot of these guys buy retail copies for cheap then sell the key. Or they buy from another country that is cheap. The fact is these guys didnt like the game being bought cheap what they did was illegal. It's just like EA didnt like people buying Premium battlefield through proxy from india and mexico. What they did wasnt illegal taking away the customers copy and not giving them a free refund is bad and if those sale's already sent the developers their cut of the money and they have to take the loss i see a massive class action lawsuit coming.

[1nsomniac]

Developers have been trying to stop cd keys being sold at lower prices for the past year now. What distributors are doing is bulk buying region free keys from cheaper regions & then selling them on again cheap in countries that charge more for games.

This is perfectly fine (customers are obviously happy & retailer gets more customers so they're happy) & it's acceptable in any other industry accept for the energy industry which team up together so they can monotonize & control the market. However as usual the gaming industry/developers are throwing the toys out their prams because it still hasn't grown up & thinks it should be treated differently to everyone else! - all this while they also try to avoid paying tax. It's a shame that the gaming industry has turned into such a joke!

In my opinion what Rebellion has done is illegal. They're price fixing, it's as simple as that!

[frostypants]

"customers are obviously happy & retailer gets more customers so they're happy"

But the dev isn't happy, and ultimately they're the ones spending huge money to develop the product in question. You can't say there's no problem simply because 2 of the 3 parties are better off.

The only other alternative is they stop selling region free keys entirely, but I imagine you people would be angry about that, too. It's as if you think that they have no right to determine how much to sell their product for. I don't understand the sense of entitlement of some of you.

[awi5951]

This is dirty there is no excuse for it. Its just like people would get xbox live cards for cheap when they were about to expire its not the consumers fault so this developer will get sued and will loose.

[WalterWJR]

Does this mean my £15 is down the drain?

[TheMapleNerd]

Really depends on where you brought it.
CjsCdKeys(Where this is from) is giving people another key from another place if their key isn't working.

[bumnut]

I bought from Simply and am getting a refund, I then bought from CJS Keys for £16.99.

The second key worked fine

[frostypants]

Stop buying stuff from obviously sketchy sources.

[WalterWJR]

https://www.trustpilot.co.u...

What you talking bout willis

[mydyingparadiselost]

That all digital future still has way to many problems.
This is scummy, even scummier than micro transactions. I hope people let this dev die, die a slow and painful death or at least fire the people that made this decision in the first place. Blatant BS.

[frostypants]

Sorry. The only scum are the sites involved in selling these.

[mydyingparadiselost]

"The situation is currently unfolding, but it appears that over 60+ retailers have been affected by the scam. An interesting point is that the issue is not unique to companies dedicated to selling CD Keys. There are also many reports that customers who purchased from official outlets such as GreenManGaming were also affected by the scam."

When companies and official outlets are both having their keys revoked you should know this is a problem with the company and not the retailers. This Dev is revoking legitimate keys that were already bought because they don't like the price some people paid for them. That's BS. This isn't like buying stolen goods from some dude, this is going to Wal Mart and buying a toaster and then that toaster being taken away by the manufacturer because you didn't pay the website price. BS scummy business tactics.

[OculusRift]

And you folks are still pushing for an all digital future. lol

[rdgneoz3]

Yep, an all digital age where if the publisher doesn't like how much the retailers are charging for their game, they can revoke the key and claim it was a stolen copy...

[Harmonizer]

No way Rebellion would do this if they didnt know for sure they had the law on their side. If it is so, i applaud them for doing this.

They are just trying to uphold their rights.

[1nsomniac]

I suggest u do some research before applauding them. It's not illegal however it's not legal either. It's a very grey area which has publishers/developers pushing a price fixing agenda. It seems that unfortunately it's only Europe that are taking this serious & have already stopped some devs from pushing this agenda through already! But we will all pay the price if other countries don't uphold the consumer rights that they are legally obligated to do.

[Harmonizer]

I applaud them IF it's legal, use your eyes.

They are selling their games at lower prices to meet demand and supply elsewhere in the world, and some of us westerners are trying to exploit that.

THAT is why i applaud them for cracking down on it.

[1nsomniac]

I used my eyes... Like I said, there is absolutely nothing to applaud them for. The simple black & white to it is common sense.

All I suggested was if you didn't understand that then just do some simple research on the matter if you need to.

[Somebody]

Look at that. The all-digital naysayers are having a field day with this news. I'm sure they'll bring up this issue again in future physical vs digital debates.

[Muadiib]

It's a brand new full sized game receiving above average reviews and you expected to pay £15 for it and didn't suspect something fishy was going on?! How naive.

[Dubaman]

Rebellion sell the CD keys to these retailers as well as Steam in order to maximise it's consumer base. The problem is that the price is fixed on Steam where as the CD Key stores can have more flexibility and charge at a lower price, thus increasing competition in the market place, driving down prices for the consumer, while still maintaining profits.
That right there is capitalism at work.

This is either a really bitchy move by Rebellion in order to stop people getting discounts on their games and forcing them to buy from Steam, or one batch of codes was stolen, distributed to over 60 retailers then sold to hundreds of thousands of people. How big many codes are there in a single batch?

Also, what's so wrong to expect to pay £15 for this game on release? Rebellion expected people to pay full price (£40+) for a completely stripped down, feature lacking, DLC void, piss poor and a year late port of Sniper Elite 2 on the WiiU.

This issue is just the start of something bigger though. If those keys were bought legitimately by the retailers, 505 Games will be in deep doo-doo. If there are nefarious activities behind the keys getting into the public's hands, it will set a precedent for other publishers to just stick with one line of digital distribution; Steam, meaning fixed standardised game prices.

[ocelot07]

The game is getting pretty decent reviews. Personally am getting this on PS4. But I do think this is very scummy of Rebellion if this is true.

If they are revoking keys because the reseller sold them for a lot less than Rebellion wanted then this is absolute disgusting.

This is the problem with all digital. Don't get me wrong I love Steam and Origin and to a extent Uplay. But a all digital future is way way off. This is why I mainly stick to consoles. I can wait for a game to become cheap buy it on disc without the worry the publisher banning me from playing the game because I bought it second hand or to cheap. If the game sucks then I can simply trade it in or sell it on. Where on Steam if the game sucks then there is noting I can do to get my money back. All I could do is uninstall it and pretend I never bought it or lost money.