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How do?

So RA2 is clearly the best game ever, but I’m currently at a loss on how to get my fix.

See, my PC doesn’t have a CD drive, and it doesn’t seem to be on Steam.

HALP!

Options:

1) Buy a Blueray drive so that you can play Blueray, DVD and CDs in your computer.

2) Get the game on Origin https://www.origin.com/gbr/en-us/store/command-and-conquer/command-and-conquer-the-ultimate-collection

That's the only way they sell it now as part of that collection as far as I can tell. You get EVERYTHING released for CnC up to Tiberium 4. This includes the FPS game Renegade as well so it is basically all the CnC stuff in one bundle. They did sell it on its own in the past and also gave it away free with their "On the House" but I don't think they do that any more.

It's in EA's Origin Store (under "Command & Conquer™ The Ultimate Collection", which includes everything).

Cheers all

Something to remember is that if EA sells it, then it's on their Origin store. And a lot of EA's products *only* turn up there if you're looking for a non-physical format.

Another good resource is GOG(good old games)

But they will sell you games not compatible with new windows (why nobody patched Empire Earth whyyyyyyyy!!!???)

If you haven't made the purchase already I can highly recommend CDKeys, which has the complete C&C collection for a bargain price: https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/command-and-conquer-the-ultimate-edition-pc

I'd recommend AGAINST using cdkeys.com (as well as G2A, Kinguin, other resellers), as they are considered 'gray-market'.

Source:
https://thelegality.com/reviews/is-cdkeys-legit/

What is the gray market:
an unofficial market in goods that have not been obtained from an official supplier. Keys paid for with stolen cards or bought for cheap price from areas where games are cheaper, so local people can afford them (less developed countries in general). Those, however, come in limited numbers, unlike those full-priced.

Meh, I've had no issues ever with either cdkeys or kinguin.

Are we talking about this from a moral perspective? or just protecting oneself from getting ones credit card ripped off etc?

If the latter, I've had zero issues with both sites and customer service has actually been darn good.

Both.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/developers-tell-people-to-pirate-their-games-instead-of-using-g2a/

The Factorio developers in their blog on the site have spoken of this issue before. The chargebacks and issues with banks on the key-resellers really hits them hard. It's something customers never think of, but it happens a lot and the reality is that the developer gets money taken off them by the card companies and such and by time lost dealing with stolen keys etc....

Whilst pirated games are not an ideal option, they at least don't sting the developer with charge back fees and the like.

considering however it is EA's money and they destroyed the maker of Red alert.


Is that really Morally grey ?

Both.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/developers-tell-people-to-pirate-their-games-instead-of-using-g2a/

My reading of that article is that it relates to buying the games through advert sites?
If you buy directly from the kinguin or g2a store front how is the developer losing money?

Developer launches a game.
Developer decides to sell game in ireland for 60 quid. I either buy it or dont.
Developer decides to sell the game in timbucktoo for 40 quid.
Kinguin buy the game/key in timbucktoo for 40 quid.
Kinguin sell the timbucktoo game key to me (in Ireland) for 30 quid.

I don't want to derail this more, so my last post on this topic:

If you invested some time in searching, you would find out enough information.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/g2a-controversy-indie-game-developers-calling-out-illegal-key-resellers/

Also, in your post, Kinguin somehow loses 10 quid in the sale.

There's more insight here:

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-145

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-171

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303


Basically it works with money laundering. A stolen card is used to buy game keys which are then resold on. The card transactions are later cancelled when the card owner finds its stolen. The developer then gets a chargeback which not only takes the money originally paid off them, but also comes with a fee ($20 in Factorio's case) and other issues. The Developer then has to revoke the CD key bought with the stolen card which results in the game not working for the person who innocently bought the game with a stolen card.

So in the end everyone ends up out of pocket except the creditcard thief.

 Ratius wrote:
If you buy directly from the kinguin or g2a store front how is the developer losing money?

The problem is places like G2A or CDKeys don't do any checks on HOW someone who sells the keys got said keys.

So a great portion of those keys are obtained fraudulently, through stolen credit card information.

So the way developers lose money through it is this:
1: Seller obtains stolen credit card information
2: Seller uses this stolen information to buy game keys
3: Rightful owner of the information realizes their credit card information is stolen
4: Rightful owner demands a refund from the credit card company
5: Developer is forced to refund at a loss because of the credit card company doing a chargeback
6: Thief makes off with money, at the cost of everyone else.

G2A, and sites like it, do absolutely nothing to stop this, and indeed carefully craft their websites to allow or even encourage it through allowing massive levels of anonymity and a lack of accountability for key sellers. These sites cost developers a lot of money, particularly smaller developers, and you have no way to know whether or not you have effectively stolen from a developer at an actual monetary loss to the developer any time you buy a key on their site.

Ok gotcha, interesting info there.

I didnt realise the developers got hit in relation to the stolen credit cards.

 Ratius wrote:
Ok gotcha, interesting info there.

I didnt realise the developers got hit in relation to the stolen credit cards.

Oh yeah. G2A is basically a money laundering site for credit card info.

 Ratius wrote:
Ok gotcha, interesting info there.

I didnt realise the developers got hit in relation to the stolen credit cards.

Yeah this is the part that's baffling to me. Everyone's depicting the resellers as scum of the earth, and sure, OK, but to my mind the actual villains of the piece here are the massive multi-billion-dollar banks and credit card firms who're insured out the arse against fraud demanding that developers pay their costs for dealing with fraud.

Is it just that people have given up expecting or trying to enforce fairness from bankers, and so feel the need to focus their ire on the next link in the chain?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cheers all

Be warned though, Windows 10 DOES NOT like RA:2. Yuri's Revenge will not run on mine right now. RA:2 on its own will freeze randomly at times and the game will crash. Something about that OS does not like that game. It's not just me too, some people have posted workarounds on how to get it to run on Windows 10 which you can easily find on Google; but even with them it is touch and go sometimes.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Ok gotcha, interesting info there.

I didnt realise the developers got hit in relation to the stolen credit cards.

Yeah this is the part that's baffling to me. Everyone's depicting the resellers as scum of the earth, and sure, OK, but to my mind the actual villains of the piece here are the massive multi-billion-dollar banks and credit card firms who're insured out the arse against fraud demanding that developers pay their costs for dealing with fraud.

Is it just that people have given up expecting or trying to enforce fairness from bankers, and so feel the need to focus their ire on the next link in the chain?

I think the chargeback costs might well be there to discourage people simply setting up their own company and running stolen cards through it without any penalty. There might also be other legitimate and sensible reasons. I think the key is that whatever the reasoning for the policy its hurting game companies more than it should because of how easy it is for the card thieves to use the key reseller sites with little comeback risk to themselves. The site also appears to operate with low risk (at present) so in the end the ones that suffer are developers and those gamers who spend their money and lose out.



These days there are also other good legitimate ways to get games cheaper. You can wait for a sale like Steam Sales; you can get them on legitimate sites like Humble Bundle or Fantaticals.

 Overread wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Ok gotcha, interesting info there.

I didnt realise the developers got hit in relation to the stolen credit cards.

Yeah this is the part that's baffling to me. Everyone's depicting the resellers as scum of the earth, and sure, OK, but to my mind the actual villains of the piece here are the massive multi-billion-dollar banks and credit card firms who're insured out the arse against fraud demanding that developers pay their costs for dealing with fraud.

Is it just that people have given up expecting or trying to enforce fairness from bankers, and so feel the need to focus their ire on the next link in the chain?

I think the chargeback costs might well be there to discourage people simply setting up their own company and running stolen cards through it without any penalty. There might also be other legitimate and sensible reasons. I think the key is that whatever the reasoning for the policy its hurting game companies more than it should because of how easy it is for the card thieves to use the key reseller sites with little comeback risk to themselves. The site also appears to operate with low risk (at present) so in the end the ones that suffer are developers and those gamers who spend their money and lose out.



These days there are also other good legitimate ways to get games cheaper. You can wait for a sale like Steam Sales; you can get them on legitimate sites like Humble Bundle or Fantaticals.

You can, but that doesn't really apply for, for example, a multiplayer game, which often get only one or two good years of population before too many people move on to the newshiny, and you won't usually find those meaningfully discounted on Humble or Steam until the tail end of that period at the earliest. By contrast, if your mates are all playing a new game that costs 60 quid, and you have 35 quid, your choices are to miss out on playing that game with your mates, possibly altogether, or go to a key reseller.

And, while there's clearly a big(in ethical terms) problem with these companies not seriously trying to prevent fraudulent sales, logically those can only really be a small percentage of the overall sales they make, or else their business would collapse - most of the people using the service must necessarily be buying and receiving legit keys, or there wouldn't be enough repeat custom and positive word of mouth to keep them going. It just seems to me that we have to be careful of letting the industry use indie devs and a legitimate issue - failure to adequately prevent fraudulent sales - to crush something that's of great value to consumers that the industry despises - entirely legitimate resales of a product you own at a price which is a profit to you and also a discount to the customer, because of sales or regional pricing.

As to the reasons behind how the card companies are operating - I can't speak with any authority on the issue, but I've certainly never heard of this being a problem anywhere else. There doesn't seem to be an epidemic of small businesses on ebay or Amazon Marketplace being driven into the ground because they're being charged a fortune for fraudulent card charges, which makes me suspect either the charges in other industry sectors are far smaller, or my previous impression that it's not common practice in other sectors to charge the makers of a product a fee for handling fraud involving their products on a platform they neither own nor administer was accurate.

I do recall a card charges situation to do with small businesses in the UK - a few years ago it was common in small shops to have either a minimum purchase or an additional charge for purchases under a certain amount, because of the transaction fees the card companies imposed on the business for the privilege of being able to take money from their customers. There was a bit of pushback, but the card companies swore up and down, left and right, and completely blind that to remove those charges would mean the ruin of their companies, the end of card transactions altogether, that it was simply impossible for them to permit small payments without surcharges attached and remain profitable. And they kept up that line right up to the point that Contactless became a thing and would only gain serious traction if people were able to use it for small transactions, and suddenly it was possible to devise a structure of fees for small businesses that no longer crippled them with surcharges for small purchases. So personally, I'm extremely hesitant to take anything bankers and financiers say about the supposed necessity of things that just happen to enrich them at other people's expense at face value.

 Yodhrin wrote:
And, while there's clearly a big(in ethical terms) problem with these companies not seriously trying to prevent fraudulent sales, logically those can only really be a small percentage of the overall sales they make, or else their business would collapse

Why? Wrongly or not, it's the dev teams that get the anger when someone's purchased key gets revoked (they are after all the ones that have to do the revoking).

It's not G2A that gets the anger, even though they deserve it. G2A is basically a black market. Grey market at the most generous.

Even if its only a small percentage of G2A's sales, its still a noticeably significant percentage of developers individual sales. Enough that even several big names (as noted above) have openly said to pirate their product rather than buy from G2A stores. That's a BIG thing for a company to say - to openly say steal our product and don't pay anything.

Honestly if developers are feeling a serious sting then I'm going to guess that G2A is making quite significant sales of keys bought with stolen card details. It doesn't really matter if those running G2A are honest or not, their system is openly being abused in a very significant fashion to the detriment of the gaming world.


Thing is the big names will survive this, they lose profits but they will still make good profit. The ones that really get hurt hard are smaller developers who often have smaller markets; far less to almost no advertising budget and who often charge less for their product to start with. They really get hurt hard by the refunds, the chargeback fees and the time spent on tech support and dealing with the whole issue in a man hours element (something that likely has noticeable impact on their ability to patch and develop further game assets since many of those small dev teams won't have a "support department" )

If a businessperson is honest and finds people are using their service to screw over other people in what basically amounts to scams and fraud, they'd put in methods to prevent the fraud.

G2A refuses to do so, because they're NOT honest. They profit from the fraud just as much as they do from the honest sales, so they do not care. Until an outside entity forces their hand, they won't change for the better.

You seem to have decided that I'm somehow in favour of fraud and screwing indie devs, which I'm not.

I'm also not in favour of dancing to the AAA industry's tune and rabble rabbling so hard we throw the baby out with the bathwater. They've used "but muh poor indie devs" plenty of times before to justify, excuse, or indiewash their more gratuitous BS and it's time we stopped falling for it.

If people want to argue G2A et al should be pressured to do better to prevent fraudulent transactions, sure, cool, great. But most of what I've seen in terms of the industry press has been - intentionally or otherwise - conflating the very existence of key resellers with the idea of fraudulent key sales. There also doesn't seem to be very much actual journalism going on - they're happy to get sad quotes from indie devs, but where's the effort to actually quantify what's going on? How many indie devs have been seriously impacted. What was the actual value of those transactions. How many copies does that imply were sold. What percentage of the total copies sold were sold there, and what percentage of those were fraudulent. Is charging the dev the cost of fraudulent transactions actually a standard practice, and how would we go about campaigning against that garbage.

It's all very sad when smaller developers run into problems, but sometimes people allow their empathy to override their good sense.

Yodhrin read the blog links I linked to back above from Factorio - they put their numbers into at least one of them for how much they've lost (accurate at those points in writing).

Even if the chargebacks fees are removed, there's still a significant loss. Remember the key reseller is selling the game unit at a profit for themselves, which means the key was originally sold by the developer for less. However when the chargeback comes the developer has to pay the full amount charged, which means that they lose the amount the reseller sold it for. So the developer actually takes a loss. With nothing else alone the developer is still taking a loss; now you throw the chargeback fee on top and you throw the man hours spent dealing with this plus you've now got a customer who bought a game key and now hasn't got a game to play (they've lost their money too). Does the developer now have the user chalk it up or do they give out a free key to them to restore consumer faith - now they might have lost out on one keys worth of profit.

At the very small scale all the above can be soaked, however its not operating at the small scale, this is a large scale setup. Furthermore its clear that its growing. G2A is offering very cheap game keys and many users think they are legit which encourages them to buy from there rather than other stores - that's consumerism. Cheap fast service is going to encourage more sales and if its effective at money cleaning for criminals through G2A's policies then as more word gets out (and its clear the word is out) then they will use it more and more to launder money through.


Ergo its an issue that will grow and has been growing and is showing no signs of diminishing.


The Factorio devs even point out that their issue is less than for some others because they've not done any sale periods where their game goes on steep discount. Any dev putting a game on short term steep discount gets it even worse because the key resellers* buy up the keys at those discounted prices and then wait for the price to rise up once more. Once the game is selling at its normal rate the reseller can sell the key for a higher value whilst still keeping it under the retail price. Making it all worse for the developer.


*Remember we are talking about resellers buying games with stolen card details. Not those who just buy and resell to generate profit for themselves.

 Yodhrin wrote:
You seem to have decided that I'm somehow in favour of fraud and screwing indie devs, which I'm not.

No, I simply think you don't understand the issue and are dismissing it out of ignorance.

edit: Oh goodie, G2A made an empty promise (as in, it legally is a non-binding promise that they have no obligation to fulfill and are just making to look good) to pay ten times the chargeback cost for each developer.

A lot of small developers are telling them if their promise is legitimate, they owe the developers hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

For a small dev team like Wuve, the self-published producers/developers of Factorio (whom consist of just 21 people with a single game to their name), that 30,000 dollars of chargebacks is a huge hit to their income.

And let's be clear, G2A KNOWS this is a problem, because they do things like selling insurance in case your illegitimate key gets revoked.

We're really surprised that bankers are held largely blameless in a capitalist society?

Really?

Given my profession is fraud investigation, specialising in plastic card fraud, think I’ll stick to the legit.