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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: The Banned Accounts Highlight Industry Issues
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
As we get closer to the console release of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, it has been predictably slow on the significant changes to the game front on PC, but there have been a few recent moves that bring certain digital goods matters to the forefront. Zenimax alerted some players that their keys weren't legitimate and decided to end their access to the game as of this week. The studio also seems to finalizing all console moves, including which goods would transfer over in one more effort to help future console players get started off right, as well as ushering in some changes that likely reflect the future of the crown store.
Read more of Christina Gonzalez's Elder Scrolls Online: The Banned Accounts Highlight Industry Issues.
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Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
Same thing actually happens with gold sellers in games like World of Warcraft has for years! In fact there is an inside secret that's happening there as well, it was really huge some years ago at WoW's prime and actually happened to me. Support agents would take account information on accounts that had recently closed sell that to the gold sellers and then that would in turn be used as a farming system it happened with hundreds of accounts but because our press is so messed up only two sites covered it and it's part of the reason why Blizz started the program to restore currency and items to the accounts that were stolen in the first place instead of banning them outright. Looks like other companies need to learn from this.
However, that being said, they need to put their foot down about keys purchased from websites like these because it doesn't matter if the players want their accounts or not if they put out a post about it especially on their main page, some large announcement on the main page, to let people know that they cannot use these codes because they are fraudulent then there would be no excuse. Those players accounts being banned would then be on those player's heads. Really it's not that difficult is it?
some of these sites gives u refund it happened to me i bought Dying light from g2a it got pulled from steam talked to g2a in about 3 weeks i got my money back ( leason learned ) but they were very helpful
i totally agree there should be a heads up on main page and before you enter your code , hell there should a specifec site that announce un trusted sites
Sellers like G2A & Kinguin pretty much know the keys they sell arent legit. They have gotten away with it for so long and now companies are taking action.
Someone who buys a key for $20 the week a game releases has a good idea that the key is fraudulent / stolen. They take the risk all in the name of saving a few bucks. If they get bitten in the end then no one to blame but themselves.
Would be like buying a Les Paul off of craigslist for $100 and then being upset when the cops tell you its stolen and take it. The " i didnt know it was stolen" line only goes so far.
Point being dont buy goods from shady websites and then get butt hurt when they revoke your access. Buy from legitimate retailers or the official website. I bet not a single person who bought a box from a retailer or a key straight from Zenimax has had an account banned.
This is not a coincidence.....
Its more difficult than you think.
Say i had a stolen CC right now and bought 20 keys today. Sold them all on G2A by next week. There is a good chance the CC would not be flagged for at least a month. The CC company ( Visa, MC, ect. ) would probably take 4-6 weeks at least to issue a refund to the CC holder.
Then get around to the process of getting their money back from zenimax. And finally zenimax flagging all the stolen keys and banning them.
You are talking about months, most likely 3-4, after the keys were stolen using the CC before Zenimax can do anything.
I've heard stories about this and once about L2 staff members being compromised by gold sellers.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Interesting. I recently had to cancel my credit card for fraudulent use in Sweden as I sit in Western Pennsylvania. That credit card is ONLY used for gaming i.e. subscriptions and is only stored on 5 gaming companies billing systems.
So 1st, I only ever buy a game from the company that makes it unless its a hard copy version from Amazon to avoid this very thing from happening to me, plus I want my $ to go to a company making a product I like.
2nd I agree, having items expire from a digital store is stupid, it's a gimmick and it's not appreciated at all!
3rd ummmm yeah, the above 2 pretty much sums it up
Good article.
P.S Customers should be responsible for the choices they make, although I do understand the sentiment.
It's true the store needs to keep being fresh and hooking players into buying new items, but there must be some way to organize the shop that provides a more players-first opportunity.
Well, I suppose there is.
The idea of "digital scarcity" is exactly what you said, a way to be an impetus for players who procrastinate and a way to bump up sales for certain periods of time.
remember, this is a company and they have to make money. A lot of money. Just throwing things in a store to eventually be forgotten isn't going to create excitement about the product. And remember, because these companies can't be guaranteed x amount of dollars per month/year as they reasonably could with subscriptions, they have to find ways to bump up sales for certain time periods.
One way to sell digital goods is to always have the digital goods available but to offer incentives or deals for a certain span of time.
this way it doesn't look sketchy by taking away an object that is "always there" (no shortages) but does give people incentive to buy within a certain time frame or else they lose out on the deal.
Could be anything, "buy this pet and receive half off on another". Or "sale now for x amount of weeks". Or "if you buy this sale item now you will be entered to be one of 500 who will receive a free item of x value while the offer lasts".
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They should have done this months ago,so at least people with bad key could issue a dispute on pay pal but doing this after a year it's unfair because the time to request refunds it's gone for most of the players.
Anyway Zenimax is wrong if thinks that people will just rebuy the key in order to keep playing,simply don't worth the cost,hell even if I could have a refund I would use the money for another game.
To be fair the game companies have already lost money when people do charge backs when they notice products on their statement they havent bought. To ask for the same companies to give credits to those that bought keys just makes the loss even larger. So I dont think that is the way to go about it.
Didn't they recall a ton of boxes at the beginning of the year that nobody would buy even at a mayor discount? And wasn't it like 20 quid on the website?
Behold ESO goes B2P, no physical boxes around and the only place to buy it is their own store and steam for the original price of 50 quid.
Somehow I'm not amazed people don't want to pay that for a year old mmo and went searching online.
Gold-Sellers and websites are a booming basement industry. As long as there are players there will be cheaters or those who extend "outside" the rules to have an advantage. As long as there are games there will be gold-sellers.
It's a social and economical experiment. Do whatever it takes to win. That or there are a lot of bad players out there or companies that make certain parts of the game more difficult than it ought to be be it financial barriers and or time. These industries wouldn't be booming if there wasn't a steady supply of willing customers. Perhaps traditional game companies can learn a thing or two by making some of the gold-selling services an official buyable benefit instead of a ban-offense traditionally speaking.
Then it would really give GS's something to compete against instead of a static market in MMO environments that are more actually like a fluxing market. Give reason WHY players should buy your product instead of going to Joe next-door and purchasing from him at a lower price.
If I buy a stolen car, and the police come and repossess it, I am left with nothing.
Why should this be any different?
Face facts, if you are buying a game pre-release for 20% of the market value, you know you are entering into a shonky deal.
Reality is that people who did this have got a years value from it , and can now repurchase it for the VERY much reduced price, and are probably still more in front than those of us that paid full price.
I'll admit that I recently bought one of these keys (fire away, you know you want to) and that I even questioned it, is this 19.99 price too good to be true? Maybe I'm naive but when I searched the internet to see if the site was legit, I found a number of posts/links indicating it was legit and the biggest complaint I saw was failure to get a key in a timely fashioned... Too good to be true sometimes really is the case, no matter the posts you see online, and that's what this ended up being for me... The company is refunding me and handled the dispute better than I expected.
Will I buy from an approved seller, yes but not right now, the 50.00 price was the reason I didn't buy from Zenimax/Steam etc in the first place. It's just not worth that dollar amount to me. I'll wait until they have a sale. There's plenty of other MMO's out there that hold my interest that I already own, as well as single player RPG's, DAI, Skyrim, etc, that will give me my Fantasy or Elder Scrolls fix.
I just received an email from them that is worded in such a way that they are not acknowledging their key being obtained on their end fraudulently, but rather claiming it's my payment that is bad: We're sorry, but your payment for Order ########### has been rejected by our security system. Your money will be refunded to you shortly. Please try another form of payment.
Try another form of payment? Uh no, not after the experience I've had with your company. I don't know that I can trust like I did again.
I've never bought one of these 'illegitimate/fraudulent" keys from these kind of sites even though I know countless others who have and I've seen the money I could save. For example there were pre-order codes for The Witcher 3 selling for $30 over the past couple months. I gave em a quick glimpse and decided I respect developers and the law more than encouraging petty criminals.
The Witcher 3 is the best rpg I've played in years, and my top 3rd ever, thank god I made that decision CD Projekt Red deserved every penny!
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If there are people unable to distinguish it - which is almost impossible - then the ban hammer will reach them sooner or later.
It is a question of fangs.
Totally agree, when people buy these things on the cheap from a key retailer who isn't on the approved list, they have to realise that there is a good chance the game key has been obtained fraudulently, personally i have no problem with Zenimax revoking those keys, they have to protect their own business after all.
Perhaps this should be viewed as a cautionary tale for those who are considering buying game keys of that nature, for those who have and have lost their game, yeah i can see they would be upset and angry about it, but some lessons in life can be painful.
Nearly as bad as being told if we subscribe and support them, we will get new content every 6 weeks, only to have that thrown back in our faces and most of us feel like we've effectively paid to beta test the console version.
Regarding the crown store, I also don't like the pricing and just because those like WoW charge similar, think it's way too high, to repeat what I said on their forum,
Sure many will happily pay what for many others is a silly price.
keep things priced that high and many people like myself will never buy crowns, give us things at a sensible price and I will more than happily buy some.
It depends on the numbers though,
if 300 players are prepared to spend $25 on a skin, Zenimax makes $7,500
If 500 players are prepared to spend $20 on a skin, Zenimax makes $10,000
If 3000 players are prepared to spend $5 on a skin, Zenimax makes $15,000
Bearing in mind it's all automated, the additional cost of all those extra purchases at the lower price should be almost non existent. And if you ramp those figures up, it looks even better.
2000 at $25 = $50,000
20,000 at $5 = $100,000
The only way this doesn't make sense is if the majority of people wanting the item, are prepared to pay whatever is asked (and judging by those I've spoken to in game, that isn't the case) where you end up in a situation where,
Charge $25 and 3000 players buy, making $75,000 for Zenimax
Charge $5 and 5000 players buy, making just $25,000 for Zenimax
For me, it's simply a matter that even if I had a million in the bank, I would not waste $25 on a skin
Lots of players love to be completionists. Such a player with little disposable income that has worked hard for their pc/console, a player that can afford his/her isp but has little extra spare (contrary to how some of your lifestyles seem to be, many many many players will fall into this bracket), if they find themselves in a game where there's loads of things they would like for their character whether to role play or whatever, but will never ever be able to get due to real money costs, well I suspect many of them will feel that there's little point them continuing to play.
Sure real life is like that, but people play games to escape real life.
Again I'm more than happy to buy crown points if items are at a reasonable price and I suspect the poorest of players would manage to get crown points once or twice a year if they knew by doing so they could buy numerous items they want.
Maybe they have so many people paying silly amounts that they don't give a damn if I ever buy crowns or not
i think there have been a miss understanding what i meant is : every mmo for example should list trusted sites to buy from and untrusted ones
Steam has a number of crowns packages for sale in the game at different prices, but, lets just assume for a moment, that the game has 700,000 players, its probably less, but lets assume only 100,000 of them buy the $25 5500 crown package, thats still $250,000
and thats not counting another 200,000 perhaps that only spend $5 or so for the 750 crowns, thats another £1m
i don't know what is currently in the crown store, but, if the game is going to rely on micro transactions for revenue, they are going to be putting things in there that they know players will want to buy, just take a look sometime at the cartel coin store in SW;TOR, there is a shed load of stuff to buy in there, including gambling boxes, and that stuff really does sell, crazy maybe, but i can totally see why Zenimax would be interested in this, sure some people won't touch it, but, you can also be very sure that a ton of people will