Developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment put out a statement saying that copies of their game Natural Selection 2 had been purchased illicitly for the sake of resale.
Allegedly using a stolen credit card, a fraudulent website bought 1,341keys for Natural Selection 2 then sold them through an unofficial website. Unknown Worlds put out this statement:
“keys were purchased with credit cards where the card-holder initiated a “charge-back.” A charge-back is a consumer protection mechanism offered by payment companies such as Visa, allowing a card-holder to dispute a charge on their credit card statement. This means we never received payment for the game. In fact, we were charged a fee by the card issuer for the charge-back. For these 1,341 keys, these fees totalled around $30,000.”
Following on from finding this out, Unknown Worlds got in touch with Steam to deactivate the keys.
The ensured all users that the only legitimate places to buy the game are through steam or through their website. Anywhere else is doing it without permission and are likely obtained through dubious means.
If you’re affected by this event you should attempt to contact wherever you purchased it from and request a refund. We can only hope that this will be effective.
Please, in future, ensure that you can verify the legitimacy of any online retailers. It’s an effective way to potentially save prices through regional sales differences, but there’s a definate posibility that your money will be wasted and going toward unscrupulous sources rather than funding the developer.
Also if you’re selling stolen keys don’t do that. Do the right thing. Be cool instead.
