PoE early access received as steam gift - No early access

Just because you received it as a steam gift, it doesn't mean the key wasn't sourced from a reseller initially. In any case, these widespread issues with resellers are nothing to do with "dodgy" resellers. Maybe in some isolated cases this has been a factor but for the most part these resellers are legit with track records going back over a decade in many cases. These issues are affecting a huge number of people and there are simply not that many dodgy key sellers around. Something really shady going on at the developer end here where they are indiscriminately removing access from people who purchased from resellers, most likely due to server capcity issues so they are removing people who they are making less money from and who have no way to complain or get support.

I've sent the steam transaction ID for the gift to support, so yes I can confidently say it's not from a reseller. Also when the most discussed reseller that comes up in these threads, kinguin, also sell PoE currency for real money, yes I can say they're dodgy. There's a reason the resellers are cheaper than Steam or direct from GGG, you tend to get what you pay for.

The reason resellers are cheaper is because they use regional pricing differences to bulk purchase and sell keys at a discount. Yes things go wrong sometimes like in any marketplace but those cases are rare these days and statistically there is no way that all of these cases being flagged up are due to charge backs or stolen credit cards etc. That would be unprecendented and I've never seen issues this widespread with resellers around any game launch ever. There is plenty of "secret shopper" investigative work being done on this that has found that keys sold by well known respected sellers are being withdrawn by the developer. The "dodgy" behaviour definitely seems to be coming primarily from the developer side on this occasion. Server capacity issues are the most likely reason. The developer needs to trim numbers and would be least worried about upsetting cost-conscious buyers who are unlikely to be their most profitable customers in the future. It's also easy for them to hide behind the "we can't give any support because you purchased from a third party" line.

Sorry to hear what's happened to you and fair enough yours might be from Steam if your friend has given you the actual transaction ID (there is no other way you could get the transaction ID) but it's not helpful to spread misinformation about what's happening to others.

Understood, I appreciate your frustration as well and I didn't mean to come off as hostile so sorry if I did, that wasn't my intention.

As you say, it's not helpful to spread misinformation. I think suggesting this is intentional in itself could be seen as misinformation. As the old saying goes, "Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetance".

Making mistakes once in a while is fine, it's how it's followed up and rectified that matters. In this case I don't think this issue has been well handled at all, given the scale of this issue and how long it has gone unanswered.

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seanyco#5065 wrote:

Understood, I appreciate your frustration as well and I didn't mean to come off as hostile so sorry if I did, that wasn't my intention.

As you say, it's not helpful to spread misinformation. I think suggesting this is intentional in itself could be seen as misinformation. As the old saying goes, "Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetance".

Making mistakes once in a while is fine, it's how it's followed up and rectified that matters. In this case I don't think this issue has been well handled at all, given the scale of this issue and how long it has gone unanswered.

No worries and you're right that I probably shouldn't be speculating on the cause. It's just hard to see what other explanation there might be. The keys were clearly considered valid at some point and it's not credible to suggest that all of these keys were not legitimate in some way. There are simply far too many examples of this happening to users who have purchased keys from a diverse range of well respected sellers. There was also no region locking attached to any keys as far as I'm aware. I suppose the only other explanation is some kind of human or technical error as you suggest. Whatever the cause it has certainly been badly handled by support and people are understandably frustrated.

All the best with your steam gifting issue and I hope they resolve it soon.