MangaGamer will no longer offer Steam Keys due to fraudulent purchases

[WinterfuryZX]

I use steam only when they have absolute monopoly on a game, I hate that platform. I have never redeemed any MG keys to avoid to indirectly fund it.

That's a major concern, though, giiven the popularity of this platform. The most logical thing to do is give steam keys only to loyal costumers with an active account.

[Silvz]

I've always thought the same as someone pointed out above: these steam keys may represent a lot of lost sales to MG. I understand people having the game on all platforms, but, for a company that only gets money from their games [I guess], this "I give it to friends" stuff is pretty bad, since at least ~some of these may actually buy the game otherwise.

 

Just a curiosity: the girl character from MG is an original MG character?

[ChaosRaven]

27 minutes ago, Silvz said:

Just a curiosity: the girl character from MG is an original MG character?

You mean their mascot girl? Yes, she was drawn directly for MangaGamer. Actually they have two, a newer teenage girl and an older loli one.

[br4zil]

Well, while i love Manga Gamer, the princess evangile fandisc might be the last VN i purchase from them.

As a brazilian customer, i usually paid more than AAA price for most of their VNs. My only justification for paying that much money was that i was getting the game both uncensored and another copy on Steam.

Without that, either Manga Gamer will drop their prices a bit or i wont be purchasing anything anymore, paying what is equivalent of almost 2 AAA releases for VN is rather absurd IMO.

There are other ways to prevent fraudlent purchases, 1 week delays, purchase quantity, etc.

Outright removing that might make them lose alot of sales.

[mitchhamilton]

it only take so long before someone abuses a system and ruins it for everyone.

[finiteHP]

Really sucks that something like this happened to them.  Only other way they could do it is to only give keys to long time customers.  Charge backs can take up to a month to happen so if they did a wait time for keys it would have to be at least that long.

[Forgetful Frank]

This is always why we can't have nice things. It's always because of these stupid, money-grabbing, scamming, jerks fucking it up for the rest of us.

It's such a shame, truly.

[br4zil]

Emailed Manga Gamer:

" Hi Ricardo, 

Thank you so much for the insight into the Brazilian community.  

We are definitely considering additional security software and things so we can restore the service in the future. We are quite aware of how important complimentary keys are to the community; and want to implement a convenient solution for customers.  

 

 

Best Regards,
MangaGamer Staff

"

So it seems they are not abandoning the idea completely. Good to know, my faith in MG is restored!

[Dergonu]

5 hours ago, br4zil said:

Emailed Manga Gamer:

" Hi Ricardo, 

Thank you so much for the insight into the Brazilian community.  

We are definitely considering additional security software and things so we can restore the service in the future. We are quite aware of how important complimentary keys are to the community; and want to implement a convenient solution for customers.  

 

 

Best Regards,
MangaGamer Staff

"

So it seems they are not abandoning the idea completely. Good to know, my faith in MG is restored!

Thanks for posting this.

I´ve always liked how Mangagamer handles things so I´m confident they will figure something out.

Still, the fact that people were doing this agitates me... Grr! Why do some people have to ruin the fun for everyone!

[sanahtlig]

1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

Still, the fact that people were doing this agitates me... Grr! Why do some people have to ruin the fun for everyone!

They were using stolen credit cards.  These weren't your typical Internet agitators.  They were criminals.  Possibly even an organized crime ring.  I'm sure the name "MangaGamer" meant nothing to them other than "easy prey".

[Dergonu]

Just now, sanahtlig said:

They were using stolen credit cards.  These weren't your typical Internet agitators.  They were criminals.  Possibly even an organized crime ring.  I'm sure the name "MangaGamer" meant nothing to them other than "easy prey".

Yup. Still, it doesnt change the fact that they ruined the fun for everyone Damn them.

Hopefully this will be an instentive to increase their security and improve the site for Mangagamer.

 

Next time we will be ready.

*Queue home alone music*

[sanahtlig]

This is a truly serious incident.  It could delay releases.  It could permanently damage MangaGamer's reputation to payment processors and cause them to face precipitous rate hikes.  MangaGamer might have to raise prices to compensate.  It's not a matter to jest about or make light of.

Hope really hard that MangaGamer manages to work through this and return to business as usual.

[Dergonu]

19 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

This is a truly serious incident.  It could delay releases.  It could permanently damage MangaGamer's reputation to payment processors and cause them to face precipitous rate hikes.  MangaGamer might have to raise prices to compensate.  It's not a matter to jest about or make light of.

Hope really hard that MangaGamer manages to work through this and return to business as usual.

I completely agree, although ...

There is always room for humor; especially home alone refrences  

 

Hopefully it doesn´t leave any permanent damage, though it is like you said very possible. All we can do for now is wait and see.

[CeruleanGamer]

11 hours ago, br4zil said:

Emailed Manga Gamer:

" Hi Ricardo, 

Thank you so much for the insight into the Brazilian community.  

We are definitely considering additional security software and things so we can restore the service in the future. We are quite aware of how important complimentary keys are to the community; and want to implement a convenient solution for customers.  

 

 

Best Regards,
MangaGamer Staff

"

So it seems they are not abandoning the idea completely. Good to know, my faith in MG is restored!

Your name is Ricardo?! Now thats one sexy name for a guy.

[pual]

For users this shouldn't be a big loss since Steam is awful platform for VN's.  Shouldn't be a problem if eligibility for keys is raised to some buying amount.

[tjc2]

Why did they give out steam keys in the first place? Did they really intend for people to give them to friends or just to have another copy.

 

Not to be too blunt, but anyone can get their games for free and we only pay for them to support the company and ensure future releases.

[sanahtlig]

25 minutes ago, tjc2 said:

Why did they give out steam keys in the first place?

It's a marketing ploy that benefits both users and the company.  MangaGamer gets its name out, and users get a free copy of the game / another game to add to their Steam profile to show off in their collection.  It also encourages users to buy through them rather than Steam (so Valve doesn't get its 30% cut) and justifies selling adult versions at higher prices on their site (since you get 2 copies for the price of 1).

Seems like MG/Valve could get around this issue by making the keys bind to your Steam account on purchase from the MG store (or others).  The way this would work is that you'd list your Steam ID in your MG profile.  MangaGamer would then deposit the activated game in your Steam account.  It couldn't be resold then, curtailing the illegal activities that caused their current problem.  Alternatively, you'd been given a key with a very short expiration timer (like 1hr).  The criminals wouldn't have time to resell it.

[br4zil]

On 18/02/2016 at 3:12 PM, CeruleanGamer said:

Your name is Ricardo?! Now thats one sexy name for a guy.

Haha, while i like to think my perfectly kept spanish moustache and beard make me look good, my girl is of the same mind as you

[br4zil]

On 18/02/2016 at 3:32 PM, pual said:

For users this shouldn't be a big loss since Steam is awful platform for VN's.  Shouldn't be a problem if eligibility for keys is raised to some buying amount.

 

12 hours ago, tjc2 said:

Why did they give out steam keys in the first place? Did they really intend for people to give them to friends or just to have another copy.

 

Not to be too blunt, but anyone can get their games for free and we only pay for them to support the company and ensure future releases.

Not entirely true guys, MGs products for me cost me x2 the price of a AAA game. A Steam key is literally the deal breaker in justifying the purchase.

I like having the 2 versions, for example princess evangile had exclusive "all ages" art which is a nice bonus

Besides, all the Steam goodies is also fun, backgrounds, smiley and cards

12 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

*text wall*

Correct me if iam wrong, but didint steam dropped support for the account binding thing in a recent update?

[Decay]

Denpasoft just followed suit, they will no longer offer Steam keys for any games sold through their site. It seemed like Sunrider Academy was targeted. If I was to guess, they weren't under immediate pressure or anything but saw what happened with MG, realized it was happening to them, and decided to play it safe before they had the rug pulled out from under them like what happened with MG. Dovac seems super salty right now (what's new?).

It's a marketing ploy that benefits both users and the company.  MangaGamer gets its name out, and users get a free copy of the game / another game to add to their Steam profile to show off in their collection.  It also encourages users to buy through them rather than Steam (so Valve doesn't get its 30% cut) and justifies selling adult versions at higher prices on their site (since you get 2 copies for the price of 1).

Seems like MG/Valve could get around this issue by making the keys bind to your Steam account on purchase from the MG store (or others).  The way this would work is that you'd list your Steam ID in your MG profile.  MangaGamer would then deposit the activated game in your Steam account.  It couldn't be resold then, curtailing the illegal activities that caused their current problem.  Alternatively, you'd been given a key with a very short expiration timer (like 1hr).  The criminals wouldn't have time to resell it.

Also, I want to point out that there was a system for this at one point via OAuth. It was an api that allowed a site to sell and add a product directly to a Steam account. You would log into your account through it and then click a button, and poof, the game was in your account. One day Valve removed support for OAuth without explanation. Maybe they thought it was too much overhead managing it without much benefit for them. The conspiracy theorists out there say that Valve benefits by forcing everyone to sell keys because the risk of fraud makes publishers less eager to sell keys directly, outside of Steam. Historically, a lot of devs would just generate and sell keys on their site, avoiding giving Valve any cut, something Valve allows, and OAuth made it safe to do so, but now it's risky and you're seeing this happen a lot less often. Hmm...

Anyways, it's a moot point because Dovac just pointed out that they actually wanted to use OAuth on Denpasoft before Valve cut support and Valve was all like "You want to use it to give Steam games away alongside 18+ content? Ewww, no way!" and wouldn't let them. 

[Darklord Rooke]

33 minutes ago, Decay said:

Denpasoft just followed suit, they will no longer offer Steam keys for any games sold through their site. It seemed like Sunrider Academy was targeted. If I was to guess, they weren't under immediate pressure or anything but saw what happened with MG, realized it was happening to them, and decided to play it safe before they had the rug pulled out from under them like what happened with MG. Dovac seems super salty right now (what's new?).

Well he mentioned on twitter something about fraud, 4,600, and Steam Keys, so I guess he has a reason to be salty this time  

[Decay]

I think he meant $4,600, not 4,600 steam keys. That would be insane.

edit: Not to say that $4,600 in fraud isn't bad, it is, but if they actually had sold 4,600 steam keys through fraudulent purchases, that would be tragic. 

[Darklord Rooke]

He wasn't very specific so I honestly have no clue. But yeah, $4,600 is definitely the more likely scenario. 

[Valmore]

On 2/15/2016 at 3:53 PM, The Striker said:

Well i dont buy visual novels..... but this is sad

Uhm, if you don't buy them there's really only two other ways of getting them. Gifts and Captain Morgan.

[Fred the Barber]

15 minutes ago, Valmore said:

Uhm, if you don't buy them there's really only two other ways of getting them. Gifts and Captain Morgan.

He could also just keep playing Katawa Shoujo over and over again.

 

I don't really have anything to add, other than that I think @sanahtlig is right and that, one way or another, this should be a solvable problem for MangaGamer (and now Denpasoft, I suppose) to get back to providing Steam keys to people who want them in a way that won't allow them to be so easily exploitable. Hopefully MangaGamer is able to afford finding and implementing such a solution.