Re: CSIPGA Holiday Extravaganza Is Coming

On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 06:20:11 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 02:17 this Thursday (GMT):

What a key hoarder. /s ;) I hope those keys don't expire. I hate that! :(

>
>
Why do they make keys expire?? That's so frustrating :(

Either so they can be re-used (often Steam gives developers only a
small block of keys to be given away for free) or because the offer
was either time limited or restricted to certain users (for instance,
if a publisher gives a key to a magazine so they can review a game,
that key will probably expire if its not used within a couple of
months). Storefronts also support it because it makes it harder for
websites that resell keys.

It's dubiously legal when it comes to keys sold to individual
customers, however. If money has passed hands, the customer owns that
key --representative of the license-- even if they don't make
immediate use of it. There are ways for publishers to cancel the
license (take away the key) but they need to be spelled out before the
purchase. At the very least, they need to give customers a heads up
that the keys will expire at some time. As far as I know, though, this
practice has never been challenged in court so until it does
publishers can -and do- cancel purchased keys without consequence.

Unfortunately, there's no way I am aware of for end-users to test keys
for validity without actually, you know, claiming the game. So with
keys posted on Usenet, if they do not work is it because they expired
or because somebody already claimed the game? There's no way to find
out (Steam gives the same error message regardless).

My solution is to just throw out so many keys that eventually SOME of
them will have to work ;-)

Tomorrow's the first day of the 2024 c.s.i.p.g.action Holiday
Give-Away. I can't say we have a lot of GREAT games (although there
are some)... but there are a lot of 'em.