Comments on: When Publishers Make You Feel Like a Criminal

By: Joe Haygood

Joe Haygood — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:58:30 +0000

They send me my key today, because I had included a scan of my receipt. So I did get to play The Club, and I had a lot of fun with it so far. I will have to finish it so I can put up a review.

By: Caid Johnson

Caid Johnson — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:25:45 +0000

Oops. Stuff happens. You’re getting your key, a lot of forum people like to blast others. The gaming world has errors in it. No big surprise.

It could have been worse though
At least this way, you’ll actually appreciate your new game as the work involved to play it has been the sort which builds appreciation. Pirated software on the otherhand rarely ever (if ever) has that “obtained through hard work” feeling of appreciation attatched to it.

Caid.

By: paintball745

paintball745 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:21:12 +0000

yeah they did have a thing going where all you had to do was ask for a silver cd key and they would give you one free no questions asked.i dont think that is live though any more for obvious reasons.

By: Walter

Walter — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:41:05 +0000

I’m actually genuinely surprised that none of the forums you went to knew about this. But yes indeed batches of The Club were sent without a cd-key. Now what happened was during the first few weeks when they found out that they screwed up, they came up with a short term fix where anyone who was missing a cd-key would just go on The Club’s official site and receive a cd-key providing your email address. Now how would they know who actually bought it and who didn’t and is just there to get a free key? They didn’t. Rumours then spread that apparently the cd-key you get with The Club works with any other “Games for Windows” (Gears of War, Hellgate, etc). I have no idea if that service is still up or not but if it isn’t then that would be a pretty good reason.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:46:22 +0000

I used to work at a video game store, and one day I was opening a new copy of Project Gotham Racing 3 to make the gut copy for display, and magically, no disk. Had the manual though. Heard of this on more than one occasion.

By: Joe (Aeropause)

Joe (Aeropause) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:47:34 +0000

@ Zac,

I did call Best Buy, and I talked to a lady that was nice enough to open a copy over the phone, and she found that it had no key in it either. I mentioned this in the article.

Also, it is funny that the Sega knowledgebase now has the entry for missing CD Key under The Club. It also says to not return it to the store.

By: Zac

Zac — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:19:56 +0000

Maybe you should have just returned it to Best Buy for one with a key? It likely would have been faster and stopped you from being flamed (why would you ask knowing that would happen anyway?).

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:15:39 +0000

Well Joe, sounds to me like the publisher isn’t making you feel like a criminal, your own peer group is. Maybe instead of complaining about quality control on a box & disk in it, you should be commenting on how jaded your online world has become.

That said, I do agree that if Sega is aware of the problem, it should not be buried on the web site, but active & up front about providing keys with proof of purchase.

By: Wille'em

Wille'em — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:55:53 +0000

Sounds like Joe and Stephen’s co-worker both got lucky. Too bad you didn’t get a free game for your troubles.

By: Stephen Munn

Stephen Munn — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:48:34 +0000

I’ll top you. A co-worker received Call of Duty 2 for PS2 some time ago as a gift (it was new) and when he opened the box it was COMPLETELY EMPTY. The gift giver didn’t have the receipt, and had paid cash so Target couldn’t verify the sale. He called Sony and then finally Activision, who told him yes, occasionally this happens, and that they would replace his copy.