Saturday, November 2, 2013

Blackwell Unbought

So hi. You might have noticed that things have been a bit slow on the Wadjet Eye front. It's been a long time since I've blogged, so I figured I would break the silence by writing about an experience that makes me look like a total idiot.

The year of 2012 saw many things happen. We got Blackwell on Steam. We released three big games - two of which became huge sellers. We partnered up with GOG. We were very busy bees, and we had lots to talk about.

The year of 2013? Janet and I had a baby and moved four times. A big deal for us, certainly, but not exactly interesting for everyone else. Although as expected, it's slowed our production down quite a bit!


Meet Eve Anita Gilbert, Daddy's little work suppressor

We released an iOS port of Gemini Rue back in April, but aside from that we've been fairly silent on the game development front. If you follow us on Twitter you'll know that we've been working on Blackwell Epiphany, the fifth game in the Blackwell series. We're slowly crawling to the finish line, and it recently dawned on us that we had to start thinking about the launching process and all the PR that entails. But we've been so quiet lately. What to do?

I thought back to the year 2009, which was the last time things were very slow for us. We had spent a over a year working on Emerald City Confidential for a publisher, and we wanted to shake things up a bit and remind people we still existed while gearing up for our next internal release. The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur was coming up, so we did a free promotion of The Shivah for a day. It was an older game that people had forgotten existed, so it seemed like a fair bet.

Sure enough, it worked. About five thousand people nabbed the game for free. Our mailing list expanded nicely, and people were talking about us again. So since it worked before, why not do it now?

My plan was simple: To give away Blackwell Deception for free on Halloween.
The goal: To get people talking about us again, and to promote the next game in the series which will release in early 2014.

What could go wrong? As it turned out, almost everything.

I won't go into all the details here, since at the time of this writing I have been interviewed about it several times and more people have discussed what happened better than I could. So click on one of those links if you want to know the full story. But in a VERY quick nutshell - I included a free Steam key with every free copy of the game. Those free keys got exploited by resellers, whose intent was to hoard as many keys as possible until after the sale was over and then sell them. Attempts to solve this problem proved fruitless, and in the end (after not sleeping and fighting with this problem for over 20 hours straight) I threw in the towel and cancelled the offer. When I woke up the next morning, I learned that a weakness in our system was discovered and the resellers had continued their work overnight. Over 30,000 keys were nabbed this way, and I had to get them all invalidated.
 
 Been awhile since I had an opportunity to use this image again.

I know a large part of this mess was due to our inexperience and naivete. There was a lot I didn't know and a lot I didn't anticipate (I didn't even know that Steam key resellers existed, for a start!), and it came around to bite us in the butt.  I've said before that an indie lives and dies by their reputation, and throughout this whole debacle I was so torn about what to do. At one point I removed the Steam keys from the offer, but the reaction was swift and brutal. People like having games in their Steam library, even if it's a free game. It's like if it's not in their library it doesn't count. I don't quite "get it" (I'm pushing 40, dontchaknow) but I get that this is the way things are these days. The logic seemed simple: people were mad about not getting Steam keys, so try and give them Steam keys. In most situations, the goodwill generated would outweigh any ill effects. Sadly, this was not one of those times.

What makes me saddest are the small percentage of keys that were taken completely innocently by gamers who found the link on a forum after I cancelled the offer. I felt really bad that they were going to lose their games, but there was nothing much I could do. If it was just limited to a few thousand people grabbing one code for themselves and themselves alone, I would have just let it go and chalked it up to experience. It was the people digging in with both elbows, nabbing codes by the bucketful, that forced me to disable them all. To use a trite phrase, a few bad apples had totally ruined the bunch. The most I could do was to ask Steam not to ban anybody or get them in trouble for this.

Ironically, I kind of achieved my goal. Several mainstream press sites have run with the story, and the outpouring of support and sympathy over what happened has been tremendous. We couldn't ask for better fans. So thank you, all!

(Some have accused me of doing this as a cute PR stunt. All I can muster in response is the old saying: I'm not that dumb, and I'm not that smart.)

So what's the moral of the story? I honestly have no idea. Be careful when giving away free stuff, I guess. I thought I had planned ahead, but boy was I unprepared. In the end, I suppose it was a net positive. I Learned A Valuable Lesson and got some much needed publicity. It might have cost me a night of sleep and a few more grey hairs, but all's well that ends well.

15 comments:

  1. Steam resellers... first time hearing it. And reselling free ones at that. How low can you get?

    My thoughts on the Steam library thing is that Steam is now really social...ly thing. With the chat, the badge crafting and the like.

    Excited about the fifth installment though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That steam thingy seems pale in comparison to moving FOUR TIMES!?!? I find moving to be THE WORST! and I only have a laptop, some headphones and an orange squeezer to pack. :P

    ReplyDelete
  3. We didn't just move four times. We moved four times WITH A BABY.

    ReplyDelete
  4. steam key is an iffy business

    grid 2, a racing game, is being given freely in the facebook page, i think it's grid 2 giveaway or sumthin in fb.

    check out http://www.steamtrades.com/forum/8VTHU/h-grid-2-retail-key-roww-15-keys1-any-keys-3-ref-3-rare-offer/page/1

    and that is only 1 reseller, there are many more selling for paypal at eBay, basically turning out a free cdkey into digital cash/goods.

    Same happens with humble bundle when they used to give out keys, you get lots of sellers at eBay or trading forums trying to convert something that is ridicilously low-priced (humble origin bundle at 1$) into a whole lot more of profit.

    what irks me though is, they used spambot to collect keys as many as they could in the shortest amount of time possible. it made the traffic go nuts (see wadjet and GMG who did civ5 and mafia2 free keys) and basically cock-blocking legal gamers who are trying to get 1 for themselves coz most of the time the server would be down.

    i can see why humble bundle is going the new route

    dave, great game you got there, wish you all the best for the sequel, cant wait.

    cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So sorry to hear about your difficulties. I hadn't heard about the steam "resellers" either but hey I'm also getting up there (age 34--LOL) but then even my teenage daughters said they hadn't heard of them. Hopefully, you will continue to get good publicity though. Your fans will continue to support you! Can't wait for the new game. Congratulations on Eva--she is adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just read this...I'm on Ebay a lot and the pattern I always see is:

    1) Humble bundle sale is announced
    2) Steam resellers create ebay listings for Steam versions of the games (usually one auction per game) for a couple of dollars per. They probably pay 50 cents for the whole bundle and better yet, while the sale is going on, they don't even have to buy the keys until some sucker bids on their auction.

    PS - I hate Steam. I don't have an account. And I have a LOT of games.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Identical comes about using humble pack once they utilized to hand out recommendations, you will get a great deal of vendors in auction web sites as well as investing community forums looking to change something which will be ridicilously low-priced (very humble beginning pack with 1$) right into a good deal really revenue.
    FUT Coins
    Cheap Old School RS Gold

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Humble Bundle don't give steam keys anymore, instead they redeem the game directly to the user's account. Look into that! That way you grab the game, but there's no key to resell. Good luck, and I love your games. I just found this blog after playing the first four Blackwell games, one after the other. I hadn't played an adventure game in years, but I couldn't stop with the Blackwell series. Now I have to buy the last one! Keep up the great work, Dave!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Dave, I would love to interview you for my blog.

    ReplyDelete

  11. Everyone has their own hobbies, and some people like nice shoes and clothes, and some people like to play games. Among them, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a very popular game. Animal Crossing Bells is very important in the game, so people usually choose the professional website ACItems to Buy Bells Animal Crossing.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Watch This Video And You'll Be Surprised At How Wedding Gowns Have Changed In The Past 100 Years

    Click below for that video. It'll be interesting to be aware what you think. We believed that it was interesting how little wedding gowns have changed - and just how some trends have even return.

    The first dress - a feeltimes dresses dating from 1915 - showed the bride to be wearing a veil which was very similar to the one which Meghan Markle wore in the Royal Wedding recently, as a result of the scalloped edges. Just implies that real style never is out of fashion.

    Next up would be a flapper-style dress in the roaring 1920s - the decade of dancing The Charleston. 1920's style dresses haven't really lost popularity and several couples today choose to have a 1920s-style day. In particular, the veil style - slightly bunched up round the ears - is really a favorite with vintage brides.

    One of the very timeless dresses - give or take several details - may be the 1935 wedding gown. Based on a bias-cut slip dress, it's overlaid having a long lace coat. Change the collar just a little and you could put it on today. The buttoning in the front is exquisite. (Actually, we LOVE the thought of having a long lace 'coat' on the slip dress. Perfect afternoon to eveningwear.

    The 1940's style wedding looks just a little dated - and today's brides often prefer a far more fitted gown.

    Moving to the 1950's dress. Today's brides styling a vintage-style big day would just like to find a dress such as this. A full skirt is overlaid in lace and lace is appropriate back in style now. Pretty. Did your great-grandmother wear something similar?

    In our view, probably the most dated veil and headpiece may be the one worn through the 1960s bride, by having an oversized bow. The skirt includes a tulip shape that you simply don't see a lot now either but it is certainly a really romantic dress.

    Moving to the 1970s. If you're targeting a boho-style day, then this is really a dress we believe you're going to love.

    The 1980s style dress is unquestionably of its time, as a result of the puff sleeves. Perhaps we'll leave things there.

    The mid-1990s dress hasn't dated much. You could wear that today and also you'd look very chic. Again, you may want a more fitted gown however the off-the-shoulder look is appropriate back in style.

    The mid-1990s dress hasn't dated much. You could wear that today and also you'd look very chic. Again, you may want a more fitted gown however the off-the-shoulder look is appropriate back in style.

    Wonder exactly what the future holds for bridesmaid dresses? What do you believe?

    ReplyDelete
  13. MMOWTS has long insisted on providing WOW players with cheap and 100% safe gold. Moreover, they provide very fast delivery speed and very reliable delivery quantity. And,they will also hold promotional activities from time to time, and even give away game tokens to players for free. Most importantly, MMOWTS uses an encrypted SSL secure website protocol to ensure that all your payment details will not be intercepted or decrypted. In addition, any payment details of the user will never be stored. A safe payment environment will fully protect your payment process, so you can choose to buy WOW TBC Gold at MMOWTS.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Our daily life is related to work. It's like Nook's Cranny when I browse Animal Crossing. In addition to the work that has to be done, I also do other things.


    The service mechanism of Nook Shop is to reincarnate new items every day. Players will find different items every day they enter the Nook Shop. The player's bells account supports the player to purchase the desired AC item. ACBellsBuy.com offers a friendly Buy ACNH Items service. ACBellsBuy, Players, and Nook Shop are all related to each other. Once the Nook Shop sells everything, players will have little incentive to complete the quest.

    ReplyDelete