Won't Activate

DrkStarr

Well this sucks. I buy Sam & Max Season 1 Friday Night and I can't activate the game. Your FAQ is clear, you've set up a system that can not be activated by me and I have to wait for an e-mail from you. So far nothing and I doubt you work on the weekend. I've never heard of buying a game and then not being able to play it for 3 days until someone sends you a code. I've bought all sorts of stuff like this and the idea is you pay for it and play it. Making people wait on your support is crap. So if I change boxes a few years from now and the Hardware Fingerprint changes, I have to wait on another code? What if you're not in business? Now I'm just screwed? This has to be the worst type of activation system I've ever seen. You purposely won't let me activate it, and apparently you don't care.

I don't have problems with codes. I have problems with codes that don't work - D

Jake

Emily and Doug have both been on and off of the forums this morning, so I'm guessing that they are at least checking in on things this weekend. You're not screwed!

What exactly is the problem you're having, other than your apparent extreme emotional diress over your lack of Sam and Max? We're here to help!


If your game is simply not activating correctly, you may have to re-download. Try taking a look at the instructions here - most importantly the part concerning the Find My Order page.


And, as for what happens if we go out of business... First, obviously we have no intention of going out of business Second, as I've said a few other times, Telltale is staffed by living breathing human beings who really care about the games they're making, not by faceless automatons who will suddenly shut down and have their memory wiped if something happens to the company. If something ever did happen down the line, we'd all still go on living, and would all be very interested in ensuring that people still got to play the games we spent years making. I'd imagine you could say the same thing for Valve, who base their entire product activation on the online-activated Steam service, or Apple, who make an increasing amount of their money from the online-activated iTunes Music Store. Online activation is a new thing, and is still growing up, but the people who are using it are very interested in it not being stupid.

That said, we know our activation system is a bit awkward at the moment and are working to make it less so.

DrkStarr

I'm upset over the type of activation for this game. I don't want to use a Hardware Fingerprint. My hardware changes, I'm a developer, and when I buy something I expect to be able to use it for longer than the life of the company. That's where my distress is coming from.

- D

Jake

I do know where you're coming from. We have no interest in leaving customers out in the cold, though, so as our activation system matures and hopefully becomes less dependent on such things, existing customers will be brought along with it. What I mean is, if/when we upgrade our activation system (for instance, to something that doesnt key the game to your hardware), you'll be able to log in to our site and download the updated version of the game. (though it may be no consolance, it's worth noting that you can activate your game on a sizeable handful of machines before the activation system will bleep at you about overusing your activation key)

As you could probably deduce from browsing around the support forum, we're not explosively thrilled with how the activation system works right now either (and are always working to improve it), but when the season started, we had a system that worked (for better or for worse) and went with it, because getting the games out to people who wanted to play them as soon as possible was more important to us than fixing something that (from a purely functional standpoint) wasn't broke, even if that meant tackling some of the pricklier edges by hand for the time being. Now that all six episodes are out, many eyes in our office are turning to the problems this thread is about, digital wrenches (and possibly pitchforks, torches, and those rakes from the Frankenstein movies) in hand.

In the meantime, though, I hope things work out with your downloads sooner rather than later, so you can enjoy your purchase. Sorry again for the trouble!

DrkStarr

Well, if you're having problems with your activation system and need to redesign it, I feel the pain. But what I don't understand is why you didn't have an activation system worked out before Sam & Max. Boney was the first product I saw here, and you would think that an activation system would've been in place for him. Guess not.

Good luck getting it right - D

Jake

We do have an activation system in place, we're using it now to activate all of our games . And it is what we used with Bone*. We just know that there's room to improve.


* known in some circles as Boney.

Emily

I've responded to your emails, sent an activation key for Culture Shock and will happy to send them for the rest of the episodes if you like.

We work very hard to make the best of a not-always-ideal situation with this system. That said, if you'd rather not deal with the activation system and want your money back, that's no problem. Just let us know and we'll take care of it right away.