Sunday 14 June 2015

War Thunder Steam Summer Sales

Hello Warriors,

so regarding the confusion about the War Thunder Steam Summer Sales issue.
There have been further developments with "The Know" (a team consisting of the former members of Rooster Teeth) posting a video highlighting the dubious activities of Gaijin and Rockstar games raising the prices of their products prior to the Steam Summer Sale so they could drop the prices and claim that they were now on sale.

There have been numerous claims and counter claims from all sides, but the facts are these:
1.  The War Thunder Mustang Pack was originally on sale for $19.99.
2.  Before the Summer Sale the price was raised to $27.99.
3.  The price was then lowered to $20.99 and was therefore "on sale" as part of the Steam Summer Sale.
4.  The $20.99 "sale" price is actually $1 more expensive than the $19.99 "non-sale" price.
5.  The Mustang Pack is now no longer available on Steam at all.
6.  The Ace Advanced pack also saw a price hike on June 3rd, raising the price from $40 to $50.
7.  The Ace Advanced Pack was then also included in the Summer Sale package.
8.  On June 10th the Ace Advanced Pack was removed from the Steam Sale package, but is still available for the new 25% higher price.
9.  On June 12th, "The Know" published a video on YouTube highlighting  and poking fun at this.


Here's where things get interesting.
Gaijin immediately hit "The Know" with a copyright claim, forcing them to take down the video, unfortunately the cat was now firmly out of the bag.  Total Biscuit, no stranger to spurious copyright claims from irate developers himself, followed up with a Tweet showing his support for "The Know" and the bandwagon began to gather steam.  The copyright claim against "The Know" was removed the next day.

Gaijin's CEO issued the following statement:
"We not agree with video, but that was a mistake. We gonna revoke copyright claim asap. There was nothing wrong with copyrights, of course. I asked our team to make a claim about false statements in video, they made a copyright violation strike. That was incorrect and wrong."

Regardless of whoever or whatever you believe, the facts of the case are this.
1.  Nothing Gaijin has done is illegal.  Unethical and highly dubious, but not strictly illegal.
2.  Whether or not you believe Gaijins' claim that the copyright strike was made in error is entirely up to you, but I'd like to think that the legal department of a multi-million dollar software company can tell the difference between "File a claim against that YouTuber for slander" and "Slap him with a fake copyright claim to shut them up before anyone pays attention to them!"  Little things like that are pretty important if you want to avoid being sued. Competent lawyers know this.

Gaijin have competent lawyers, right?

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