Time to say...?

[Godofhellfire]

t would be the right time to make an official statement, what's happening with Indiegamestand and our keys! We all wait for the relaunch for months now! Don't treat your customers like dumb persons!

[MIDIManNI]

Originally posted by Player Review:

I'd probably be doing the same, to make life not as easy for the current owners. I'd issue a chargeback on my card (payment option) for goods not received. I'd report them to Better Business Bureau (BBB) and would make posts bringing to light the injustices. I wasn't an elite member, so my investment isn't enough for me to do so, but if I put myself in your shoes... I'd probably do the things you're mentioning. I'm overly nice, so I probably wouldn't be posting mean stuff, but I'd certainly make sure the facts were out there. Maybe even contact some YouTubers, like Jim Sterling and see if he'd do a Jimquisition on it.

I certainly would not post anything that was untrue or was "rude" about them...but I do feel justified in pointing out just how vile they have been to many customers...people like this need to be "outed" to make sure they don't/can't do it again!!!

I checked out the BBB but they require Valid E-Mail and Postal Addresses for members of the Company or they cannot send a complaint to them....

[artcepse]

I'm a game dev and had built up enough sales to get close to the payout threshold on IndieGameStand. The site hasn't worked for what, two or three months?

I sent off an email to this Ben guy using the email address Tex listed up-thread. Haven't heard anything back.

So I guess I'm screwed out of that money.

[MIDIManNI]

So we are NO further forward and the thieves and scumbags of this Company are getting away with our money...makes me so mad!

[Player Review]

'IGS Defunct' - http://indiegamestand.com/

I'm of course not affiliated with IGS and this is an old group from the good old days. Wanted to update this thread with a post that is on the webserver at the moment from the site owners. While not what we want to hear, at least we're hearing something. The following is what the site says as of Nov 20, 2017 (in case the web server is taken back down before others get a chance or before it is archived):




"IGS is no longer operational since many months ago, due to the following reasons

Operational costs were too high - we were losing money every month, for over 1.5 years.

We couldn't make enough deals with developers with strong games. It was really hard and expensive to convince strong devs to list games on our platform with a small audience.

This caused sales to be very low. Each PWYW (Pay What You Want) only resulted in less than 100 USD total sales on average. With only 4-5 PWYWs per month, you can imagine the sales we make. Plus, a big percentage of that gets paid back to the developers.

Besides PWYWs, almost nobody bought the regular games. Everyone was just going after PWYW. After looking at the data for a long time, we had the feeling that almost nobody wanted to pay for anything with Steam games.

After our server provider got acquired, they upgraded and our entire infrastructure broke.

We didn't have enough technical skills to recover the broken website and database (it's not as easy as fixing PHP scripts. It went down to core infrastructure level, because of fundamental upgrades to certain libraries). This explains the downtime you saw.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we could do to recover it. We tried communicating with the server provider, but we just weren't good enough technically to solve the problem together. After failing to pay the bills, we lost access to the server.

We saw some speculation online alleging that we resold the keys. This is NOT true. We can confirm, that we DID NOT sell any keys to any third party. There was no instruction to sell any keys whatsoever.

We are not angry at the parties that speculated. After all, everyone is allowed to have an opinion online, and we respect that.

To be honest, we have no idea what happened to the keys. We can only blame ourselves for not handling this properly, after losing access to our server.

We do agree with what others have said, that the best solution for developers is to revoke their steam keys.

We have also given refunds to many developers and buyers for PWYW payouts / any remaining balances.

If there is anything we can do to help, please email support at indiegamestand dot com. This will be our single communication channel, since we have nothing else left.

Again, we truly apologize for all this. It sucks. We tried various ways to revive IGS after it changed management multiple times. We lost a lot of money doing so, and ultimately it just didn't work financially and technically for us.

Thank you for reading this.

IGS Support

Note: If you're a consumer, and want better options and deals, please try other websites such as Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, Indie Gala, etc."

[Need a Teleporter]

Wow

[Godofhellfire]

Thank you for the information. There was still a little hope in me, but now I can take it to rest, it seems.

[devotee]

TLDR; It was someone else's fault: developers, our server provider and you, our customers, because you didn't want to pay for anything with Steam games.

Each PWYW (Pay What You Want) only resulted in less than 100 USD total sales on average. With only 4-5 PWYWs per month, you can imagine the sales we make. Plus, a big percentage of that gets paid back to the developers.

Bullpoop. Sales decreased because the PWYW deals were not that great and for a long time they've been always repeats.

Last I heard the developers had not been paid by IGS.

After looking at the data for a long time, we had the feeling that almost nobody wanted to pay for anything with Steam games.

Bullpoop. Let's put the blame on our customers because they don't seem to want to buy Steam games (it's not like Humble raised $1,460,899 with their latest Care Package Bundle).

After our server provider got acquired, they upgraded and our entire infrastructure broke.

Bullpoop. Now let's blame our server provider (I'm wondering if they left unpaid bills to them, too).

We didn't have enough technical skills to recover the broken website and database (it's not as easy as fixing PHP scripts. It went down to core infrastructure level, because of fundamental upgrades to certain libraries). This explains the downtime you saw.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we could do to recover it. We tried communicating with the server provider, but we just weren't good enough technically to solve the problem together.

Bullpoop. While I do understand that a (very badly developed) website can break due to PHP versions upgrades, system libraries have been updated, it's mainly your fault if you wouldn't keep up with the website maintenance since the release of Debian 1.0 and PHP3.

Plus I remember a few people (mainly developers who had their games on IGS) offering their help to fix the site. I'm guessing they were never contacted.

After failing to pay the bills, we lost access to the server.

Ah, that answers my question above.

We saw some speculation online alleging that we resold the keys. This is NOT true. We can confirm, that we DID NOT sell any keys to any third party. There was no instruction to sell any keys whatsoever.

My guess is that all the speculations came from:

1. Your silence
2. People who still had keys LEGALLY purchased on IGS and redeeming these recently.

I have to look a bit more to those articles, but I still have a number of UNUSED keys from IGS (remember: the PWYW deals were almost repeats lately) that I'll be pissed to lose because of your incompetence and developers not understanding the full picture.

And I'm not even accounting for all the Steam keys I couldn't save from my wallet before the site was destroyed (your flipping limits to reveal a few keys per day didn't help).

We are not angry at the parties that speculated. After all, everyone is allowed to have an opinion online, and we respect that.

Oh, I'm glad that you're not angry. You should ask your customers and the developers that were left unpaid and with no explanation of IGS' demise for months if they're angry.

To be honest, we have no idea what happened to the keys. We can only blame ourselves for not handling this properly, after losing access to our server.

AKA as "fvck you, customers".

We do agree with what others have said, that the best solution for developers is to revoke their steam keys.

Even after you're dead you're going to screw a lot of people who still have UNUSED keys that were LEGALLY purchased on your site.

I guess this is very convenient for you. Instead of emailing the Steam keys to your customers (something you should have done months ago), now you can just wash your hands and leave the problem to the developers. Even encouraging them to do what will ultimately damage your old customers, who will lose Steam keys that will be revoked because (again) of your incompetence.

Even if the website was destroyed, if you had the database (or a backup of it -which you MUST have-) it's "technically" (that word you don't seem to like) easy to e-mail the Steam keys to your customers. Many failed bundle sites have done that in the past, but I guess you're lazy and (again) incompetent to do it (plus I'm sure you don't care at all).

If there is anything we can do to help, please email support at indiegamestand dot com. This will be our single communication channel, since we have nothing else left.

Well, I guess I'll contact you there if any of my LEGALLY purchased Steam keys is revoked in order to get a replacement.

Again, we truly apologize for all this. It sucks. We tried various ways to revive IGS after it changed management multiple times. We lost a lot of money doing so, and ultimately it just didn't work financially and technically for us.

Stop whining and send us the Steam keys from our wallets.

[Player Review]

Originally posted by devotee:

TLDR; It was someone else's fault: developers, our server provider and you, our customers, because you didn't want to pay for anything with Steam games.

Each PWYW (Pay What You Want) only resulted in less than 100 USD total sales on average. With only 4-5 PWYWs per month, you can imagine the sales we make. Plus, a big percentage of that gets paid back to the developers.

Bullpoop. Sales decreased because the PWYW deals were not that great and for a long time they've been always repeats.

Last I heard the developers had not been paid by IGS.

After looking at the data for a long time, we had the feeling that almost nobody wanted to pay for anything with Steam games.

Bullpoop. Let's put the blame on our customers because they don't seem to want to buy Steam games (it's not like Humble raised $1,460,899 with their latest Care Package Bundle).

After our server provider got acquired, they upgraded and our entire infrastructure broke.

Bullpoop. Now let's blame our server provider (I'm wondering if they left unpaid bills to them, too).

We didn't have enough technical skills to recover the broken website and database (it's not as easy as fixing PHP scripts. It went down to core infrastructure level, because of fundamental upgrades to certain libraries). This explains the downtime you saw.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we could do to recover it. We tried communicating with the server provider, but we just weren't good enough technically to solve the problem together.

Bullpoop. While I do understand that a (very badly developed) website can break due to PHP versions upgrades, system libraries have been updated, it's mainly your fault if you wouldn't keep up with the website maintenance since the release of Debian 1.0 and PHP3.

Plus I remember a few people (mainly developers who had their games on IGS) offering their help to fix the site. I'm guessing they were never contacted.

After failing to pay the bills, we lost access to the server.

Ah, that answers my question above.

We saw some speculation online alleging that we resold the keys. This is NOT true. We can confirm, that we DID NOT sell any keys to any third party. There was no instruction to sell any keys whatsoever.

My guess is that all the speculations came from:

1. Your silence
2. People who still had keys LEGALLY purchased on IGS and redeeming these recently.

I have to look a bit more to those articles, but I still have a number of UNUSED keys from IGS (remember: the PWYW deals were almost repeats lately) that I'll be pissed to lose because of your incompetence and developers not understanding the full picture.

And I'm not even accounting for all the Steam keys I couldn't save from my wallet before the site was destroyed (your flipping limits to reveal a few keys per day didn't help).

We are not angry at the parties that speculated. After all, everyone is allowed to have an opinion online, and we respect that.

Oh, I'm glad that you're not angry. You should ask your customers and the developers that were left unpaid and with no explanation of IGS' demise for months if they're angry.

To be honest, we have no idea what happened to the keys. We can only blame ourselves for not handling this properly, after losing access to our server.

AKA as "fvck you, customers".

We do agree with what others have said, that the best solution for developers is to revoke their steam keys.

Even after you're dead you're going to screw a lot of people who still have UNUSED keys that were LEGALLY purchased on your site.

I guess this is very convenient for you. Instead of emailing the Steam keys to your customers (something you should have done months ago), now you can just wash your hands and leave the problem to the developers. Even encouraging them to do what will ultimately damage your old customers, who will lose Steam keys that will be revoked because (again) of your incompetence.

Even if the website was destroyed, if you had the database (or a backup of it -which you MUST have-) it's "technically" (that word you don't seem to like) easy to e-mail the Steam keys to your customers. Many failed bundle sites have done that in the past, but I guess you're lazy and (again) incompetent to do it (plus I'm sure you don't care at all).

If there is anything we can do to help, please email support at indiegamestand dot com. This will be our single communication channel, since we have nothing else left.

Well, I guess I'll contact you there if any of my LEGALLY purchased Steam keys is revoked in order to get a replacement.

Again, we truly apologize for all this. It sucks. We tried various ways to revive IGS after it changed management multiple times. We lost a lot of money doing so, and ultimately it just didn't work financially and technically for us.

Stop whining and send us the Steam keys from our wallets.

The main thing I thought reading about it and having worked with databases is, why didn't they just do a database dump? We obviously had identifiers for our accounts, even without a database dump, all that would likely need to have been done is a select statement for those users and output product (keys) owned. Granted, hosting space for the DRM-free content may have not been something econimically feasible, but a one line query/dump shouldn't have been very difficult. Not sure what they were using, but if Oracle/Postgres/MSSQL Server, should have been so easy. Even if they didn't know how to write a query like that, it'd take 5 minutes on Google search to get all the info you need to know to write the command and it'd run real fast and give you output. If it was a flat database, still shouldn't have been too difficult to do a file level copy or use API to extract the info.

But yeah, I don't know the whole story, but that is the main thing I have a hard time rolling with, is that they didn't have the technical knowledge to Google an answer on how to run a DB query to get the 'username|games owned|keys for those games (if applicable)|email addresses'. May have been a join query, since games by username/identifier may have been its own table, but still. Maybe they were afraid to send emails to everyone with a list of all the games in their libraries and keys where applicable because then we'd see all the games that didn't have keys and get upset about our losses as consumers. I hate to be judgemental, but it really does come off as either too lazy to spend 5 minutes to extract info and then either script it to email customers or even painstakinly email every customer their data.

I'm still glad they said something at all and I'm sure most of us would have felt we owed it to our customers to do more. We weren't their customers for very long, mainly during the ship sinking. Maybe they didn't feel like they were part of our community and forgot that we're people that are generally very passionate about gaming and taking care of the indie scene, supporting gamers and devs.

What's done is done, unless the DB hasn't been wiped and they can get access to it on payment for a quick query or dump. Worst possible scenario if the DB is intact and you don't want to spend the time to get the data, give the hosts or some consultant/freelancer $300 for them to get the data. The data dump or query wouldn't take much time at all...

Oh well, we just have another scenario where indie gamers/devs got screwed over. Perhaps it is too late to get access to the DB. I'll still feed Humble Bundle, though with IGN having bought them, I'm not sure if they'll keep up the model they have in the past. I won't trust any other bundle site after this fiasco. Really sad to see something that was great for 3 years or so just die and take everyone down with it. The folks that bought IGS from the original owners just weren't capable of keeping the ship afloat and it had already gotten stagnant by that time.

I hope everyone's lifes go well, especially gamers and devs. Got to watch out when these sites get acquired by new parties, since you never know if they care more about the indie scene or if it is more about the money. You never know if owners and publishers just see you as a dollar symbol or as a human being. Still glad they came forward with a statement though, definitely better than nothing in my opinion, even if it was just to come forward and admit they failed us. I imagine it took some courage to do that after leaving us in the dark for over half a year. So, kudos to them for saying something at all. I'll bear little ill will toward them and chalk this up to a learning experience (hopefully for them too, so they can either not take over something they can't do, or learn how to do it properly next time).

[DeltaBladeX]

I'm rather annoyed about it since another dev released a Steam only game with a convoluted method of getting a key. Start with a itch.io gift link where you get a IndieGameStand gift link and then get your Steam key. Sadly I obviously can't collect on that, and the devs delete my tickets on their site and ignore their Steam forum. They don't care, current IGS don't care, and I have nothing to show for the cash spent on the game early on.