Question House of Ashes Steam keys revoked 'in error'

[Zaznibar]

So how come nobody is reporting on the fact Namco Bandai have revoked people's game keys for House of Ashes 'by mistake' and don't seem to be in any hurry to fix it?

All we've had is a note on the 30th September admitting the issue and nothing since, if Steam doesn't allow them to unrevoke the keys they need to put a replacement program in place and send keys to people affected.

 

[Lutfij]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkPicturesAnthology/comments/xs0q7x/comment/iqve94w/?context=3

post made 4 days ago by their Community Manager.

 

[Zaznibar]

What point are you trying to make? That reply was to an issue on the PS4, nothing to do with incorrectly revoked Steam keys.
From what they've posted on Steam there is nothing to monitor, they know what they've done wrong and that they need to correct it.

We are aware that some owners of House of Ashes on Steam, who purchased their key from one of our partners, have had their game key revoked on the platform. This is a mistake and we apologise for the inconvenience . We are currently working to
resolve this issue as soon as possible in order to restore access to all impacted players. We’ll keep you informed.

If, as it seems to be the case, Steam has no means to undo the revocation then they need to be honest with the people who've bought the game and confirm what steps they are taking to provide replacement keys, not sit silently for a week saying nothing.

I come back to my original question, why is no site reporting on the fact a company can revoke keys on a whim, with no right of appeal for the customer?

Especially when the company responsible is then sitting there saying nothing when there is an obvious and relatively easy solution, e.g. providing a replacement key program that could be implemented quickly.

 

[Colif]

We can bring it to that attention of admin as we can't do anything about it ourselves. All we can do is point it out to them. Moderators don't control front page.

 

[Zloth]

Did you hear what happened with Sword of the Stars? The keys for everyone broke for old and new players alike. The only way to play the game was to use some special key that was posted on the forums and do a registry hack - and even then, you couldn't use the multiplayer. This state persisted for MONTHS, and not just a few of them! Meanwhile, Steam continued to sell the game. Paradox wasn't giving us the time of day. The original developers had broken away from Paradox under not-so-friendly-circumstances, so they were in no position to help.

At least this game is a relatively big-name game. Sword of the Stars is an old 4X that wasn't all that incredibly popular back in its day, which was a long time back. House of Ashes is even on PC Gamer's curation list!

The topic on it is interesting. People are reporting this from key resellers: CDKeys and Instant Gaming. I wonder if they tried to revoke a bunch of keys from Instant Gaming and accidentally hit some of CDKeys's keys?

P.S. The last post mentions getting a replacement key, so this may be all over.

 

[Zed Clampet]

What point are you trying to make? That reply was to an issue on the PS4, nothing to do with incorrectly revoked Steam keys.
From what they've posted on Steam there is nothing to monitor, they know what they've done wrong and that they need to correct it.


If, as it seems to be the case, Steam has no means to undo the revocation then they need to be honest with the people who've bought the game and confirm what steps they are taking to provide replacement keys, not sit silently for a week saying nothing.

I come back to my original question, why is no site reporting on the fact a company can revoke keys on a whim, with no right of appeal for the customer?

Especially when the company responsible is then sitting there saying nothing when there is an obvious and relatively easy solution, e.g. providing a replacement key program that could be implemented quickly.

Per the publisher, you are supposed to contact the company you bought the key from, and they will give you another one. People are reporting getting their new keys without any problems.

 

[Brian Boru]

Welcome to the forum 🙂

a company can revoke keys on a whim, with no right of appeal for the customer

Similar things happen all the time in other industries. Products are withdrawn for fixing, roads or bridges are closed, areas are cordoned off, etc etc.

why is no site reporting

If what others are saying—that people are getting new keys without a problem—is true, then there's nothing to report on. Sites don't want to waste their visitors' time on non-events.

 

[Zloth]

If what others are saying—that people are getting new keys without a problem—is true, then there's nothing to report on. Sites don't want to waste their visitors' time on non-events.

Oh, I wouldn't say nothing. You could go beyond just the particular event and take note of just what can happen in the system we've got. What if some hacker managed to get into the system and tell Steam that a huge number of keys were invalid? Is the system being used a secure one? It wouldn't be smart to get into the details about how all that works, but maybe interview Steam and some game companies about how secure they think it is.

Then there's the question of the keys that the publisher DID intend to invalidate. What's the story on those? Were stolen credit cards used to get them? Bought in a country that was being given a discount then re-sold? We've had stories on this problem before, has anything changed on that front?