Grand Strategy

The Rimworld Steam Keys Debacle

Posted on by Richard Griever

Rimworld is this neat little gem that only Steam account users will have the hotness for. It’s a pretty awesome Dwarf Fortress esque game with some hints of the unnatural sci-fi that one may know from the Firefly series. The developers of said game even have this great deal for Early Access Steam keys. Then douchebags had to muck it up.

The whole story here is that the devs of Rimworld, Ludeon Studios, decided to put out a promo so that they could earn more money. God knows these indie developers need all the help that they could get. They offered that, instead of buying Steam keys from Steam itself, that takes a 30-40% pay cut from the developers with every unit sold, people interested in Rimworld should opt to purchase from their site instead. Naturally, Steam sells them cheaper than Ludeon does so, to sweeten the pot, Ludeon would send free Steam keys to put into any Steam account for those that bought the non-Steam version of the game. Simply typing in their purchase email was enough to merit this free Steam key of Rimworld. It’s essentially getting two copies for the price of a slightly higher one.

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So basically, more money for Ludeon Studios and shiny Steam keys for longtime supporters. Everybody wins. RimWorld is a massive undertaking, too. Ludeon deserves every penny they get.

Unfortunately, the Steam keys black market can be pretty brutal for the uninitiated. These fraudulent rapscallions descended upon the hapless developer in full force. In a blog post, Sylvester of Ludeon explained:

“If you bought before today, you can still get a key. However, I’ve been forced to stop offering Steam keys for those who buy today and in the future. We’ve been getting hammered by fraudsters who are obviously more experienced at this than I. Shutting it down for now is the only way to avoid thousands of dollars in chargeback fees and lost sales. It’s time to take a breather, because I can’t fight this ‘live.’”

With tons of chargebacks done with those free Steam CD keys, Ludeon lost more money than what would normally be normally sound for a developer of their level. Not to mention the Steam keys used in nefariously fraudulent actions are now being banned.

The plight facing RimWorld and Ludeon Studios’ shines a light on one of the biggest issues in PC game publishing right now: that developers may face crushing chargeback fees from stolen credit cards used to buy Steam keys. Fraudsters make money by selling these keys on via eBay-style PC game websites.

This is a tough one for Ludeon and I do hope it’s something they can recover from.

Steam Codes: Civilization VI Announcement Trailer

Posted on by Richard Griever

Amidst the rumble and tumble of other hyped things like Overwatch, Batman V Superman, the Warcraft Movie, and the imminence of E3 2016, some things, like Civilization 6, somehow got swept under the rug of mainstream obscurity.

That’s pretty sad, all things considered, because the 4X grand strategy IP is one of the greatest of its generation that has proven itself with every iteration of having deep complexity, addictive gameplay, and tons of content.

Firaxis games had recently announced their flagship game, Civilization 6, will be released on Oct. 21, 2016, along with a release trailer.

Steam Codes: A New 4X

The last game, Civilization 5, was launched to huge success and critical acclaim. However, the next Civilization game, Beyond Earth, while not directly in line with the core series, didn’t do so well due to the many imbalances and bugs.

Firaxis hopes to remedy that with the sixth installment of the series, claiming that the newest game in their popular IP will introduce new ways in engaging with the game world.

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One of the biggest changes that we’ll see a departure in from previous titles is that cities will now actually grow and expand, physically. This means that cities won’t just occupy one tile in the game world but will eventually grow enough to occupy multiple tiles. This turns the standard play of Civilization on its head entirely as people will have to plan out even more where they decide to make a city, especially the first one.

The active research of a certain technology and culture will now even affect how progressive a certain civilization is. For example, while your civilization is actively researching Writing, meaning that it’s still in progress to be completed, certain stats will increase and decrease, affecting your Civilization’s actual work capacity to a certain extent. This makes planning out research much more essential when compared to past games. Interactions with other civilizations will also be greatly improved upon as it is leaning to how diplomacy worked in the 4th game rather than the watered-down, bipolar tendencies of AI in the 5th game (I’m looking at you, Gandhi).

Multiplayer will also be greatly enhanced, “designed to be easily completed in a single session,” as opposed to the very lengthy meta Civilization 5 has at present. While it sounds promising, one can’t help but wonder if they’re going to dumb down the gameplay to a point where it might not be as good. But all of that is speculation right now and all we can really do is remain positive that Civilization 6 will redeem Firaxis from the mess, Beyond Earth. Hopefully, we’ll get some early access for Steam codes on this game.