Revoked Keys from Humble Store

[Mythos]

Call of Cthulhu was placed on sale in the Humble Store, I purchased it, and the key was sent to me and redeemed. I put three hours into the game. Humble later claimed they priced it incorrectly, refunded the amount, and revoked the key. Steam removed it from my account. The sale price should be honored for those who purchased a copy while it was active.

The notice I received from Steam was a lie:

"Account Alert for --------- Nov 23, 2018
A Steam Product code you activated has been removed from your account.
Nov 21 Call of Cthulhu®

Your recent Product code activation has been revoked due to a problem processing payment for this item. The games associated with this product code can no longer be played as a result. This could be due a problem with the payment methods you used to acquire this item from a third-party seller; or a problem with how the third-party seller acquired the Product code. Please contact the seller you acquired the Product code from for assistance.

If you would like to purchase the item, please visit the Steam Store. Otherwise you may choose to delete the local content associated with these games."

The key was legitimate purchased from a "legitimate" (if not trustworthy) retailer, the transaction was completed and I have an electronic paper trail to prove it, the retailer screwed up and revoked the key. Whether this was driven by Humble Bundle, Inc., Cyanide Studies, or Focus Home Interactive, the practice was wholly unacceptable and a breach of consumer trust. I cannot recommend this game or the companies involved unless they make it right.

I'm curious to know how many other people this affected and if anyone has had any luck fixing it.

[chrissilein]

The same happened to me... my key was revoked by Steam and my money is gone. I still haven't got the money back, which Humble claimed to have refunded. I am disappointed.

[Mythos]

I did get the refunds back but they promised $5 in credit which has not been received. I don't want the credit though - I want the game. I opened tickets with both Humble and Steam. Also tried calling Valve directly but I'm not surprised no one is in today.

[chrissilein]

I got the coupon. You'll find it in the upper right, click on your account -> Coupons. But yes, i want my game back.

[EATGREEPS]

same, if you had the game open you could of finished it

[Mythos]

Originally posted by EATGREEPS:

same, if you had the game open you could of finished it

True. I did get to play through the beginning but had Thanksgiving plans and then they revoked it this morning.

What they did may have been illegal since a purchase/contract had been completed and the product delivered. I don't think they had a right to take it back after that point. But I can't pretend to know the law well enough or how it applies with a digital product.

Either way, makes me not want to do business with Humble again. Fanatical and Green Man Gaming are just two other sites that are great sources of discounts too.

[DakotaThrice]

Humble have a contract with Focus which may stipulate they can only sell the game at up to a certain discount level or require that they sell it for at least a certain price per copy. If so then Humble honoring that price error would be breach of contract.

Only a publisher van revoke keys so in this case what happens is Humble passed on a list of keys that were sold during the price error so that they could in turn go to Valve to request the revokation.

This was obviously a pricong error and Humble were under no obligation to honor it. They also have a history of revoking keys for errors so it should have been expected.

Sure it sucks you don't get to keep the game buy you got your money back and a coupon on top of that. It's not like you've been left out of pocket.

[DeadScreenSky]

I don't understand why you're posting on Steam when you should be deep in discussion with your lawyers, figuring out how to best fight this grave injustice.

[Arbiter Libera]

Trick was to stay in offline mode until you finished the game, guys. Can't revoke if they can't access it.

/smart guy image

[EATGREEPS]

its on the publisher at this point, i dont think we will get them back but it is very shady

[Alveriel]

there is a difference between canceling a sale in progress and actually taking back a product. It's like they went into my living room or on my computer and stole it without my consent. In most regions there are laws around this. It's not like it was a 10k computer set at 2$, this was something that was actually believable for a sale and im pretty sure it was illegal the way they went about it. However..steam is so generous in their refund policy that i can't be too mad, but ill be reconsidering my humble bundle subscription..

[[N63] chrisragnar]

They could just give it a sale sins its a consol port..

[Irx]

Things like this are illegal pretty much everywhere in the world, as soon as a shop puts a price tag on a product or ad it is obliged to sell it for that price, and revoking an already bought product is absurd. Of course, games are software thus it is handled by a license agreement, but I'm pretty sure that a shop changing their mind about a price is not a valid reason to cancel it.

Also things like this have happened on steam many times and never ever were those purchases cancelled. This particular case should be handled with humble though, good luck with that since they are likely registed at some offshore pseudo country. Though stuff like this can seriously hurt their "charity" business since it's their main gimmick.

[Mythos]

My understanding is that it depends on whether or not the transaction has been completed and the product has been delivered as was the case for anyone who actually bought the game and received their key.

Humble Bundle, Inc. is based in California.

I spoke to a couple people with more knowledge on the subject than me. Because games are licensed products, the rules are tricky. A $45 game is not worth suing over so the only way to possibly fix the issue and prevent it from happening again is to complain to the right people so if there was a breach of the law, it can be addressed. The CA Dept. of Consumer Protection 800-952-5210 and CA Attorney General 800-952-5225 were suggested based on Humble's location. The WA Attorney General for Valve is 800-551-4636. Complaining to the FTC is another option. This may seem extreme or silly to some, but I'm sharing as others who were burned may be feel better to try to do something about an unfair and possibly illegal practice.

[Vampire Detective]

Happened to me too. Don't mind. They refunded me. But I remember the good ole days when publishers would honor the pricing error anyway. I thought that was cool.

I am just annoyed that they haven't discounted the game at all. Not even 25-33%. Other games that were released in October are discounted.

This publisher rarely puts their games on sale. I want to support developers that make games like Call of Cthulhu, but their publishers are pretty cutthroat. Would have gladly purchased the game at a 33% discount but I'm going to wait for at least a 50-60% discount. Gotta vote with our wallets.