Do NOT Craft Free To Play (F2P) Game Badges

[mcnichoj]

This thread is made as a warning and is a followup to my previous thread.

This issue was first noticed by me in October 2015 (over a year ago) and contacting support just led them to telling me to post in these forums. The trading card devs from Steam have long since stopped posting here so that accomplished nothing.

As it is, any devs of a free to play game can shut the game down and then essentially the publisher can delete your badge. I think the XP will remain but you can't set the badge as your favorite or see it anywhere on your profile.
Cards can still be sold and turned into gems but can't be used for creating badges. You will get an error if you click "check badge progress".

At least three examples exist of this issue:
Dark Blood Online
Heavenstrike Rivals
Nosgoth

Although I need to point out that one game actually did have its badge made private "The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot" after its shutdown but then shortly after was made public again. So it's up to each games publisher whether or not we can craft their games badge despite paying money for the cards, said money they still get from marketplace transactions.

So with that said here is the publisher ♥♥♥♥ list:
Nexon
Square-Enix

TL;DR
It's not worth creating free to play game badges. Cheaper badges exist from cheap games and you'll always get to keep those.

[mcnichoj]

Immediate games to be weary of:

Other games to avoid:
Everything Nexon
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexon]
(Minus the current version of Dungeon Fighters Online, it's self published by the developer neople)

• Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies
  
• Dirty Bomb
  
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online IS SHUTTING DOWN! (See shutdown list below.)
  
• LawBreakers *This game is pay to play i.e you buy it and own it, so it may be safe unless it goes free down the line*
  
• MapleStory
  
• Mabinogi

**No cards**

• Atlantica Online
  
• Elsword
  
• Tree of Savior
  
• Vindictus

EVE Online **They only pubished in Japan so should be safe**


Square-Enix

• Final Fantasy: Mobius

Future shutdowns:

• Loadout (Edge of Reality) - Might go down at any time
  
• Marvel Heroes Omega - Any time from now till the end of December 2017
  
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online (Nexon) - Shutting down December 2017
  
• Hawken (505 Games) - Jan 2018

This post will list all the games that have been shutdown with their badges remaining public.
I already know of a bunch that I'll add later but feel free to contribute if you know of other games.

Shutdown games that have badges still craftable:

• Deadbreed
  
• Dead Island: Epidemic
  
• Firefall
  
• Happy Wars
  
• Infinite Crisis
  
• Magicka: Wizard Wars
  
• The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot **Was made private for a brief time.**

Untested:

[Ganger]

Originally posted by mcnichoj (Lvl 300 SA badge):

As it is, any devs of a free to play game can shut it down and then esentially delete your badge. I think the XP will remain

Are you sure about this because I never heard of this before ? if true then it does make buying of cards for free to play games abit dodgy.

[mcnichoj]

Originally posted by Ganger:

Are you sure about this because I never heard of this before ? if true then it does make buying of cards for free to play games abit dodgy.

Do you mean them removing the badge or the XP? You can test the removal thing by just buying a couple cards from either of the two games mentioned then trying to create teh badge or check progress and people that have already had the badge crafted have told me they can't find it on their profile anymore. As for the level XP your badge is made private, so it's technically there but not viewable.
Yes it does seem dodgy which is why this has become a fairly big issue with me. I paid a bunch of money on cards I can't do anything with. I could try to resell the cards to some other sap but for an obscure deleted game I doubt I can make much money and it's also a scummy thing to do selling someone something you know is useless.

Because Steam doesn't care all I can do on my part is raise awareness.

[Jerma Rat]

apart from tf2?

[mcnichoj]

Originally posted by Free_:

apart from tf2?

Goes without sayng that all Valve games should be safe.

[Jerma Rat]

Originally posted by mcnichoj (Lvl 300 SA badge):

Originally posted by Free_:

apart from tf2?

Goes without sayng that all Valve games should be safe. :balloonicorn:

tru

[mcnichoj]

Please don't spam my thread.

[mcnichoj]

Posts have been updated, Magicka free to play game badge works but surprise-surprise the free to play Square-Enix game Heavenstrike doesn't. New Final Fantasy game has cards so that should be avoided.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Ganger:

Originally posted by mcnichoj (Lvl 300 SA badge):

As it is, any devs of a free to play game can shut it down and then esentially delete your badge. I think the XP will remain

Are you sure about this because I never heard of this before ? if true then it does make buying of cards for free to play games abit dodgy.

I didn't believe his thread at first, to be honest, but I had the Nosgoth Lv.5 badge and now it's gone. Just checked its badge link ( http://steamcommunity.com/id/azure_fang/gamecards/200110 ) and it's been invalidated. So yes, OP is sure, this can happen.

[mcnichoj]

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

I didn't believe his thread at first, to be honest, but I had the Nosgoth Lv.5 badge and now it's gone. Just checked its badge link ( http://steamcommunity.com/id/azure_fang/gamecards/200110 ) and it's been invalidated. So yes, OP is sure, this can happen.

One person in the Nosgoth reddit said they still had the badge but they didn't post their Steam account.
So either...
a. Liar
b. Mistaken
c. Didn't bother to actually check

Gonna keep my eye on Happy Wars over the next couple weeks to see what happens. The other recent shutdown; Deadbreed, is still craftable.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by mcnichoj:

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

I didn't believe his thread at first, to be honest, but I had the Nosgoth Lv.5 badge and now it's gone. Just checked its badge link ( http://steamcommunity.com/id/azure_fang/gamecards/200110 ) and it's been invalidated. So yes, OP is sure, this can happen.

One person in the Nosgoth reddit said they still had the badge but they didn't post their Steam account.
So either...
a. Liar
b. Mistaken
c. Didn't bother to actually check

Gonna keep my eye on Happy Wars over the next couple weeks to see what happens. The other recent shutdown; Deadbreed, is still craftable.

Worse yet is that Nosgoth cards are still in inventory, are still tradable, and are still marketable. You can find some on the http://www.steamcardexchange.net bot for confirmation. I have a theory behind the total removal, though.

Badges are tied to the steamcommunity domain. Normally, when a game is removed, the steamcommunity assets, primarily the discussion board, remain for owners. If the steamcommunity assets for a game are wiped, a rarity but it happens, then the badges go with it. If this theory proves true, any game removed from Steam would be suceptible to badge revocation, F2P and purchase alike. Now that I type this I seem to remember a game that had badge progress "reset" because they had to move to a new appid and the old community was deleted - seems to be similar.

[mcnichoj]

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Worse yet is that Nosgoth cards are still in inventory, are still tradable, and are still marketable. You can find some on the http://www.steamcardexchange.net bot for confirmation. I have a theory behind the total removal, though.

Badges are tied to the steamcommunity domain. Normally, when a game is removed, the steamcommunity assets, primarily the discussion board, remain for owners. If the steamcommunity assets for a game are wiped, a rarity but it happens, then the badges go with it. If this theory proves true, any game removed from Steam would be suceptible to badge revocation, F2P and purchase alike. Now that I type this I seem to remember a game that had badge progress "reset" because they had to move to a new appid and the old community was deleted - seems to be similar.

I collect removed games and I've yet to see a paid one that has had its community deleted. They even retroactively added communities to games that have long since been removed prior to the addition of communities. If the base game was buyable at any point then it is required to always have a community. I assume this is Steams way of always having an area where someone can ask for or look for help with their product.

Although I am interested in that ID changing incident. If you could recall what game that was for then that would help a lot.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by mcnichoj:

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Worse yet is that Nosgoth cards are still in inventory, are still tradable, and are still marketable. You can find some on the http://www.steamcardexchange.net bot for confirmation. I have a theory behind the total removal, though.

Badges are tied to the steamcommunity domain. Normally, when a game is removed, the steamcommunity assets, primarily the discussion board, remain for owners. If the steamcommunity assets for a game are wiped, a rarity but it happens, then the badges go with it. If this theory proves true, any game removed from Steam would be suceptible to badge revocation, F2P and purchase alike. Now that I type this I seem to remember a game that had badge progress "reset" because they had to move to a new appid and the old community was deleted - seems to be similar.

I collect removed games and I've yet to see a paid one that has had its community deleted. They even retroactively added communities to games that have long since been removed prior to the addition of communities. If the base game was buyable at any point then it is required to always have a community. I assume this is Steams way of always having an area where someone can ask for or look for help with their product.

Although I am interested in that ID changing incident. If you could recall what game that was for then that would help a lot.

Sadly, I cannot. All I can remember was that it was just after cards left beta (tells you how long it's been). As to paid games having their hubs removed, like I said it's rare. I can remember having run across it only once in my entire history on Steam, but again it's been so long ago that the memory has been lost to time, I'm afraid. It may have been associated with a total license revocation (dev pulls game and requests all owners have licenses revoked - this is sadly legal under copyright law, though recent EU consumer protections ensure refunds come with such blanket revocations).

[mcnichoj]

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Sadly, I cannot. All I can remember was that it was just after cards left beta (tells you how long it's been). As to paid games having their hubs removed, like I said it's rare. I can remember having run across it only once in my entire history on Steam, but again it's been so long ago that the memory has been lost to time, I'm afraid. It may have been associated with a total license revocation (dev pulls game and requests all owners have licenses revoked - this is sadly legal under copyright law, though recent EU consumer protections ensure refunds come with such blanket revocations).

According to this thread no game has ever been purchase revoked:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RemGC/discussions/9/135509024338980195/
Games activated via key have been revoked and keys have been invalidated but never a purchase.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by mcnichoj:

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Sadly, I cannot. All I can remember was that it was just after cards left beta (tells you how long it's been). As to paid games having their hubs removed, like I said it's rare. I can remember having run across it only once in my entire history on Steam, but again it's been so long ago that the memory has been lost to time, I'm afraid. It may have been associated with a total license revocation (dev pulls game and requests all owners have licenses revoked - this is sadly legal under copyright law, though recent EU consumer protections ensure refunds come with such blanket revocations).

According to this thread no game has ever been purchase revoked:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RemGC/discussions/9/135509024338980195/
Games activated via key have been revoked and keys have been invalidated but never a purchase.

That group also disavows removed games when it's convenient for them. The first game ever recorded to be blanket revoked was Order of War: Challenge by Square-Enix in 2013. No refunds were default issued, but harassing support eventually gave refunds to those bothering to ask. So yes, games have been blanket revoked regardless of what the self-proclaimed experts of removed games believe.