AI War 6.0 and Ancient Shadows Expansion Materialize on Steam

[zespri]

Also your key isn't safer because you wrote it down. Again, they are getting these through a random generator so they could still potentially get your key. However, this shouldn't impact you in any way as the legitimate owner unless you want to register that key on Steam.

There are different degrees of randomness. Imagine that there are 10 total valid keys in universe. A generator would randomly generate a key that a pirate registers. Do you think it's likely that your key will be produced? What about if pirate does it 10 times?

Ok, 10 is ridiculous. Let's say there are 100 legit keys. No. 100 does not sound right either. 1000. No, there are probably more then 1000 people bought AI Wars. Let's say 10000. 10000 legit keys in total. With the number of pirates out there, how do you think is likely that *someone* will keygen and register on steam *your* one key out of these 10000? I think it's pretty damn likely.

And if you think that there are many more than 10000 keys possible, we can simply ask Arcen if this is the case or not, instead of guessing.

[Faulty Logic]

Also your key isn't safer because you wrote it down. Again, they are getting these through a random generator so they could still potentially get your key. However, this shouldn't impact you in any way as the legitimate owner unless you want to register that key on Steam.

Sure it is. There was always a much higher chance of me forgetting/losing it than a pirate getting it
I said I hate steam because it makes this kind of unnecessary, pirate-difficulty-decreasing bureaucracy even more common, without giving any worthwhile benefit.

[doctorfrog]

The funny thing is that pirates also don't need to register the game with Steam to get it to work, but they do anyway.

Let's stop worrying about the sanctity of imaginary online store libraries and invisible hoards of pirates and play some video games.

[zespri]

The funny thing is that pirates also don't need to register the game with Steam to get it to work, but they do anyway.

Let's stop worrying about the sanctity of imaginary online store libraries and invisible hoards of pirates and play some video games.

Obviously, the issue does not affect you personally, so you don't care. Well, I do.

[doctorfrog]

Why?

[prot0mega]

Why is the "accidentally" in quotations lol?

Long story short, I got an assignment in some random ass-end of nowhere with no internet, so I told my buddy to get it for me. Then when I came back, BAM, gamersgate key in my inbox...

[Mánagarmr]

I hope so.

Part of the reason I was a little miffed was all my keys except the spire expansion was already claimed by random key gens when I finally tried to claim it on Steam.

I was hoping I could avoid that problem by claiming my own key on day 1, but since it is not recognized, it is now my responsibility to check the key frequently to ensure my key is not claimed by pirates.

Arfgh! I would've been miffed by that too. Funnily enough, none of mine were ever claimed and I've bought everyting but the stock game in beta, and they're all registered on Steam. (Aside from AS, which isn't recognized yet). I call bad luck on ya mate

[keith.lamothe]

@zespri: we do desire to solve the problem, but the solution hasn't been obvious in the past, and we did not want to take much time from "make our games better for all our players" to "modify business model so that pirates cannot steal 3rd-party services from subset of customers".

It doesn't mean that the latter doesn't matter to us at all, it's just a question of priorities.

I think Shadow's approach is better, albeit apparently more cumbersome.  Also I'm not sure I understand it: when someone with a non-steam key asks him for a steam key does he:

1) Give them one of the keys he sent to valve as "don't sell these, but allow them to register" when he released the game.

or

2) Send a key to steam as "don't sell this, but allow it to register" and then send the same key to the person requesting the steam key?

or something else?

[x4000]

There are only three approaches, and only one of these is immune to piracy:

1. Generate a batch of secret keys which are stored on a server somewhere (Steam or otherwise).  In order for a client to validate their game, the game has to check with the central server to find out if it is valid.  This requires an Internet connection at the time (which bugs a lot of people), and causes problems if the server goes away in the future or is offline temporarily.  However, with a "you can only check this many keys in this sort of time interval" rule, and sufficiently complex keys, nobody can just guess keys.

2. Generate a batch of secret keys and embed them in the game, then give those to places like Steam for registration.  Anyone can just decompile the game and pull the keys directly out, plus anytime more keys are needed to be generated the game must be recompiled.  Plus it uses more RAM and takes longer to check the keys in this fashion.

3. Algorithmic key checks.  These are much more common than #2.  Basically a key is generated by an algorithm, and the game itself is able to look at a key and know "is this a valid key" by doing the reverse of the algorithm (or something along those lines, but that's the simple explanation).  You then generate a number of these keys and give them to Steam or whatever.


We take option 3.  Unless you want us to start taking the route that everybody moans over of more restrictive online-checked DRM, there's not much we can really do about the pirates.  Though one good solution would also be to stop letting anyone register their non-Steam keys with Steam.

It's kind of a stinky situation all around.  Freedom versus security is always the sliding scale, and we lean heavily toward the freedom end compared to, say, Ubisoft.

[zespri]

I don't want to argue, all I want is to resolve the situation, even though, you guys, many time declared, that there is nothing you can do. So I simply suggest two things:

- Do the same thing Shadow does. Keith mentioned above he is not sure what exactly it is, but surely you can find out? Shadow was able to work this out, so can you. (And I apologise if this sounds condescending, it is not meant to. I re-wrote this sentence a couple of times, this is the best I can come up with.)

- Use key generating algorithm, that produce several order of magnitudes more valid keys. The goal is not making it harder to keygen - this is pointless, the goal is to reduce probability, that when keygenned a key belonging to real customer is generated. As it stands now, the chances are too high. Of course the ratio of all valid keys to all possible keys still has to stay low. Can you do that? I mean for future games and expansions.

[x4000]

Sorry, but I've said my piece. I'm not here to argue either, but I explained our thought process. Between this and online activation, we have chosen this.

In terms of key density, or any other such thing, it's far too late for that as we cannot reissue keys.   There are 2 billion possible keys per game, and we could make an effprt to choose more broadly from them in future titles if this were reslly a major issue.  However, it hardly matters: anyone who has their key blocked by a pirate -- and we're talking dozens of people so far out of hundreds of thousands of copies sold -- just has to contact steam support with their proof of purchase. Fact is, most of our customers but direct through steam in the first place.

[zespri]

just has to contact steam support with their proof of purchase.

I did. I was told that I purchased too long ago and that because of this my request can't be actioned. Can you help?

[keith.lamothe]

just has to contact steam support with their proof of purchase.

Not exactly; if the purchase was long enough in the past steam support has said no.

But yea, there's only so much we can do about a situation where one third party (a pirate) does something that interferes with a customer receiving services from another third party (steam).  The only truly solid way to solve the problem is just not offer the registration of non-steam keys in steam.  Then it would be crystal clear that if you want steam's services with the game, buy it from steam.  But it wouldn't be the best customer service, and it would cut into our beta populations a bit, which would impact the quality of the games to some degree.

@zespri As for what Shadow did, if you don't know the details, why would you suggest that we emulate it?  I mean: what do you know about it that makes you think it's superior to our approach?

[keith.lamothe]

just has to contact steam support with their proof of purchase.

I did. I was told that I purchased too long ago and that because of this my request can't be actioned. Can you help?

What product(s), specifically, can you not register?

[zespri]

just has to contact steam support with their proof of purchase.

I did. I was told that I purchased too long ago and that because of this my request can't be actioned. Can you help?

What product(s), specifically, can you not register?

AI War.