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Those are all grey market sites, i.e., unauthorized sellers, so you should complain to them because the devs/publishers have nothing to do with them being listed as global keys.
The sellers you've been buying from are also mislabeling the keys because 99% chance they got the key from Humble Bundle and didn't bother to check the region locks, so that's on them. If you want a Dome Keeper key that will activate in LATAM, you need to find a LATAM-locked key because no key from any other region would activate there (there's no true "global" key for this game from Humble Bundle).
If you are an apple farmer and sell boxes of apples to a supermarket, but the supermarket labels them as pears - would it make sense for angry customers to show up on your farm and complain that the pears are not really apples?
In this case it's even worse, because we didn't even sell the keys to the people you buy them from.
Although I would dissagree with statment from devs about not selling kyes to them. They did not sell keys to them directly, thats true. It's not official resell sales channel. But they acquire them indirectly as there is no other way to create steam key other then by devs/publisher, so in the end devs sold them keys (indirectly) or were given for free.
Also not all games do setup the region locks. For dome keeper it looks like there are 3 packages that let you play in your region. (581541) The steam shop version (global one) and some cd-key that looks like south america region (777059) + same but with dlcs (777053)
It's more in the context that someone bought apples from market who in turn bought it from wholseler who bought it from multiple farms. Here you would be claiming this apples (pears) are not from our farm.
That case leave me to complain if there is something wrong with apples by themselfs and not that there are wrong labels. If apples would turn out toxic, sure I could complain to seller but more logical in this case would be to complain to farmer, as it's not about transaction itself but product.
You buy 1, then go home to install it, then realize this disc won't work because it is region locked to somewhere else. What you did here was to then complain to the game developers instead of the random shop you went and bought it from.
How does any of that make sense? You made the decision to not buy it from Steam, or other reputable storefronts that sell Steam keys such as GOG or HumbleBundle. Other games working but this one not isn't a valid argument. It's still on you and the store you bought it form.
"we don't know how they got the keys" is actually correct. We don't. How would i know how "PowerSeller12" on Kinguin got their key? It can be anything from running a scam, over something breaking the terms of service of another party, to actually being a legit key reseller (those exist too, but probably not on Kinguin).
Your analogy does not hold either, as toxic apples are an unusable, faulty product, with the creator at fault. A region locked key is a valid product intended for a purpose and perfectly usable within that purpose. If that is sold with wrong information for a different purpose and then does not work, the seller is to blame. It seems to me this must ber very obvious, no?
It is even more laughable when you get a message from steam store like "this game is not available in your region"... Yeah sure, we'll see about that lol, this just sends people to the nearest sharing site to get the game.
This game is USD$18. In Brazil, it is R$55, which is about USD$10. They can't let copies sold in Brazil to be used in other places since it just devalues the game, but a universal price would be unfair for lower income countries.
This game is being sold cheaper where you at, and there would have been no issues if had just bought it from Steam, or any other reputable storefront. Your complaining is really unflattering.
1st Point
It’s possible, but we shouldn’t assume the worst. The best-case scenario is that they bought it during a sale and are now reselling it at a lower price. But to be honest it's probably 99% case of eula breaking.
2a: Introducing Bug
Original point was more about the scenario where, for example, I buy a game from Humble Bundle, and then, a month later, a bug is introduced that prevents me from playing game, even though it worked perfectly at first. It’s possible that if I’m part of a very small group affected, the issue might never be addressed or could be difficult to reproduce. In that case, it seems more logical to address complaints to the publisher or developers.
2b: Region Locking after the fact
I think I’ve only seen this situation come up once in my life, and that’s not the case here. When you buy a game "key", the key itself isn’t directly associated with the game, it’s linked to a package ID (at least, that’s my understanding since Steam doesn’t provide that information). A package ID can include multiple games or games with DLCs. The issue is that region locks can be applied to this package after the key is sold. So, theoretically, you could buy a key that wasn’t region-locked at first, only to have the publisher apply region restrictions later. The situation I remember it happen was connented with huge backlash/hate they faced from that practice explaining why I haven’t seen it happen again. This was probably more than ten years ago, so I’m not sure if it’s still possible or if things work differently now.
The situation was that about let's say 10 000+ people (don't know the amount at all, it's just to represent the scale that it was quite a lot of people) bought the game from diffrent region market, by 3rd sellers. Publisher introduce retro region lock, but the backlash they recive was so huge that they roll it back.
2c: Key Revocation
There’s also a third possibility that I’ve only heard about but never seen happen, that developers can revoke keys. However, I doubt this would happen without solid evidence, as it would likely lead to major backlash or even lawsuit.
About 2nd points
- 2a is the publisher to blame. The point I was reffering to.
- 2b, 2c is more seller to blame, but publisher will recive backlash as it's not black and white. While in point 2c we can assume it's all seller fault publisher will get backlash too. Point 2b is more a gray area as region locked areas should have been set before. This points are as additional curiosities that I'm not reffering in this case
I fear you lost track of what the argument was about. I have no idea where all the points are coming from, they are unrelated to the discussion and this argument. You are arguing against things no one said.
Honestly, that's the risk with key reselling sites. When i was young i bought keys there too, and had problematic keys from time to time too. Just complain in the platform and usually you'll get a replacement key or your money back.
If you don't want any issues, buy on steam. If you want to go cheap then you also risk buying keys from scammers or people breaking some terms of service or region locked keys that are sold as global keys.
Im surprised you are not understanding as you are suppose to be a smart developer.
Your company + publisher sell the keys. You are the origin of the keys. If you only allowed steam to have keys, then that would make sense but this is clearly not the case. For you to allow your keys to be sold everywhere like that is your issue. Also, the region locking is also your issue.
If the seller fraudulently sold a region locked key, its the sellers fault, but its still partially your fault for allowing these sellers to get the keys in the first place.
Its mainly the selling websites fault, but for you to throw your hands up is lazy cause your company/publisher allow these keys to be sold on 3rd party sites.
The most reasonable approach is to stop working together with resellers who are halfway fraudulent, which is exactly what we do.
I'm equally surprised this seems to be so obscure.
This is all supposing the keys were obtained lawfully through regular channels, which absolutely will not be true for every key.
In any case, this is a necro of a "finished" thread in which everything has been said. Nothing new will be added or was added with this, so i'm locking it. If you think devs or publishers are responsible if a key reseller does sell a region locked key as a non-region locked key, you will remain unobstructed to keep this thought. Keys and selling fo keys are a whole rabbit hole which you are free to dive in and research if you like.