Okay. I have some cold hard facts.

This is according to the outlet that this whole case is centered around, GameXperienceTV, the news article that was posted in a previous reply, and my evidence that I have gathered in their discord.

On the 8th of September, the developers approached GameXperience with a preview key for the game, which was accepted. However, there are two embargos on the game. One for news articles which expires on September 13th, and one for Content Creators (YouTubers, Twitch streamers and the like) which was four days later.

As GameXperience was publishing their review, found here https://game-experience.it/enotria-the-last-song-la-recensione-il-dark-souls-italiano-che-e-bello-ma-non-balla/, the developers thought that embargo was broken (the later one) and revoked the keys for the PR firm, ImaCrew (Imac Crew depending on who you ask). ImaCrew raised a stink.

That's what happened.

"They have a saying in Chicago, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is in enemy action." - Ian Flemming: Goldfinger

I'm going to dig further into this. There are some details that I have obviously missed.

So... I did a little bit of digging. The developer's conduct in revoking keys is less than satisfactory. I did a little bit of digging into their discord, and while I will post the English translation of a conversation between the CEO of the developer and a youtuber named Kristin Cross.

Who was typing is in bold.

CEO

So, Simone from imacrew's email is from yesterday evening at 9 pm, today is Saturday.
I work but not everyone in jyamma works on Saturdays, I'm just saying that he could have waited for a response or talked to me.
But anyway, now I've answered him and let's see if we can solve his problem.

Cross

Hello.
I am one of the ImaCrew Creators who had their game key revoked yesterday.
I came here to find out the reason.
Thank you.

CEO

There is no reason, most likely there was a problem with a batch of key deletes, we have made 2500 keys in the last few weeks, when they are deleted for external people like publishers or partners it can happen.
You are also receiving the media kit at home, which was shipped in the last few days, so I don't see the reason to delete the key and not the shipment :rofl:

Cross

This is the first time in my life (and to anyone who asked) that a key is revoked BEFORE the embargo (that is not a Beta key, or similar), especially so soon after the release.
The reasons could be multiple. What CANNOT be is something that happened like this by practice, a "batch of deletes" without anyone knowing anything. A generic "eh, it happens"

A key can be revoked easily, a shipment of a media kit already sent (and not yet arrived as of today September 14th) a little less so.
I hope this will be clarified.

CEO

So you're saying we deleted your key on purpose?
I explained what happened.

Cross

Ok, forgive me. Now I'm pissed off.
What kind of answer is that?!

Someone who comes here and is supposed to advertise YOUR game on HIS channel just told you that his key was revoked (along with many others).
Your answer: "it's a "batch of deletes", it happens".
So? Now what do we do? is something happening? will I/we get it back? will it arrive in time for day one?
I'm usually used to someone also attaching half-hearted excuses if something goes wrong, but never mind.

And then? What do you say? "So you're saying that we deleted your key on purpose? I explained to you what happened."

I NEVER ONCE said that you deleted it on purpose! WHEN would I have written that? I just wanted an explanation and a possible solution.
AND NO, it's NOT the norm, these things don't happen every day.

What kind of answer is that?!


3rd party Reply to Krystal Cross.

you can see that you have never had to deal with independent teams, even if they were a bit improvised.

For me there is a bit of prejudice towards this team

It often happens to me that those who provide me with keys for reviews or for y
Testing make mistakes like this.

Sometimes I solved it, other times I got stuck.

I have not spoken about their game anymore even if I had wasted time on it, or I have specified to my subscribers that I cannot talk about it because this is what happened. (Recently with freejack online, or hyenas cancelled while it was in NDA)

This comment seems to me to be a case of high treason.

Even the games are not yours until you buy it, the developer can do whatever the fuck he wants.

Then I don't know if you bought it in Deluxe edition, for me they will see that they will solve it somehow


It should be noted that this is the only instance of keys being revoked mentioned in discord, so it's entirely possible that this singular key got revoked due to an unflattering reason. I'm going to follow up with this.

I think that I already know the answer to this already, but do you have archives of what he said?

At first glance, I largely echo what the others are saying, however, you always have the right to refuse the copy if it doesn't meet your criteria for your curation. I'm assuming that you have done so by now, and this is largely a nothing burger.

Originally posted by luckz:

This seems like a very polite developer, not any attempt at 'trickery'.

"Looking forward to your warm and favorable reviews..." is the only mildly unethical part, but putting effort into contacting you in a language you understand surely can't be criticised.

I agree with this. I also have an issue with the previous sentence, but assuming that he has refused the key already, we can't necessarily make any opinions as to the nature of asking to review the game favorably.

Originally posted by 76561198083515175:

I know there's a fighting game that features a roster made entirely out of trademarked horror movie characters that seems to be pretty highly regarded by fighting game enthusiasts, even if the fighters are questionably "borrowed" from registered IPs.

I don't think this is a good fit for the spirit of the group. If the game was attempting to steal customers from a properly licensed product with an inferior version, I'd be right beside you, but point to a licensed Pennywise game that this product is leeching off of, please.

That is relatively easy to do. There are TWO officially licensed games involving Pennywise the clown. They're all explained in the link, but the TL;DR version of it is that there is a retro-style game and a VR game.

https://geektyrant.com/news/stephen-kings-it-has-an-8-bit-video-game-that-you-can-play-right-now

Part of trademark violations (not to mention copyright) here in the US is that confusion plays a factor. So if I made a shoe and use the Nike logo upside down, then that creates confusion on the part of potential customers and I would have violated the trademark of Nike. Trademarks have to be defended to the teeth or else, they would be void.

Besides, Pennywise the clown isn't a copyright/trademark of Warners. It is STILL Stephen King's character and thus his copyright/trademark. He would be required by law to defend that copyright/trademark to the teeth of any potential violations or otherwise, he would lose them. The only thing that Warners would be responsible for is the interpretation of the character, but otherwise, it is a pure Stephen King's character.

Originally posted by Ryuu:

Originally posted by Ryuu:

Refunds maybe? Faking reviews is not cheap otherwise :)

Oh, wait, Steam now tells if the reviewer had refunded the game! So this is pretty suspicious.
How is it possible to leave a review, have 0 games and the review does not show you've refunded?
Does Steam Family Sharing allows leaving reviews that counts for the rating? I forgot.

It does as of a year ago. I can do some experiments to see if that is still indeed the case.

I don't know if there is a business partner involved, and this is all the developer. The fact is that keys were out there for two years and the developer did absolutely nothing to do anything about it. There was potentially more than $80,000 (Minus Valve's mandatory 30%) in lost revenue here for the developer. Yes, the smart developer from two years ago sought to diversify where the game got sold, and gave a bunch of keys to DIG (though how many remains uncertain) on the promise that they matched the price that they were being sold at on Steam.

Looking at SteamDB, that price was $4.99USD for the majority of the game's history until June 16th, when it dropped to $2. Now why discount the game so severely? There could be a number of issues involved, but the prime suspect was that their "distribution partners" were not keeping up with their end of the bargain OR that keys were ending up on a site that shall not be named for a quick turn around on said keys for cheap.

But regardless of the issues that may or may not be involved, the fact is that this developer DID revoke keys as punishment, and now that he realized that there were legitimate customers that DID get hurt by revoking the keys.

Putting the puzzle together it seems like the developer severely undercut the price of the game AND have a 24 hour sale to see if people who bought the game at the prices that DIG (among others) were (edit to add) probably selling the game individually would buy it again for next to nothing. Sure, people who did buy the game probably rebought the game. Now that his experiment has ultimately failed, he is now taking his ball and going home (as the game is being removed from Steam today most likely).

Originally posted by SirViolentDeath:

Which games were dmca'd?

So far, the only game that was DMCA'ed was It's Good to be A Pirate RPG, however, before the DMCA went through, the dev swapped out the game on the same appid (against TOS). Now the game is Suzaku Fly VR.

Ironically enough, the game above is now hidden from the search results for both the publisher and the developer.

Update: People within the RPG Maker community have begun to report Garnudo Games for fraud, and this is basically the response that they got:

We're aware of it and dealt with it as much as we could, however due to the fact that most of these devs have been gone for years and that Steam doesn't accept proof unless it's given by the devs themselves we can't exactly do much more than we already have.

The stolen games that haven't already received a DMCA are remaining up for now.