Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Still uses GFWL and ZDP, which may require workarounds.Ĭommand & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight (non in-game activation) įor product keys already in use, contact support.įor Steam the key is stored in the registry (for 64-bit systems the key is under Software\ Wow6432Node). Redeeming game on Origin prevents original edition from logging online Īll versions register on Origin as part of normal use. Vietnam and SPECACT DLC also redeem on Origin. “But it’s not OK to negatively impact our customers by manipulating our store and features.These games are redeemable through the Origin client or through the Origin activation page. “It’s completely OK for partners to sell their games on other sites via Steam keys, and run discounts or bundles on other stores, and we’ll continue granting free keys to help partners do those things,” Valve told Polygon. However, Valve said that it has no intention of ending the distribution of Steam keys used for legitimate third-party sales, and that it will continue to provide free keys to developers for that purpose. At the same time, Valve’s new policy could conceivably affect mass distribution of Steam keys for situations like large Kickstarter projects or low-cost indie game bundles. Steam isn’t an open marketplace, but Valve benefits from the goodwill associated with providing free keys to developers - even though the company never sees a cut from sales of those copies, and has to bear the platform hosting and bandwidth costs associated with them. After all, Jenkins’ comments specifically called out the practice of “offering cheaper options off Steam,” and portrayed Valve as conducting a cost-benefit analysis regarding on-platform versus off-platform sales. The leaked post also led some people to assume or worry that Valve was implementing this change in part to prevent developers from selling Steam games on outside marketplaces such as Humble Bundle.
“it’s not OK to negatively impact our customers” (Players receive cards retroactively, so they’re not missing out on anything.) Valve also replaced Steam Greenlight - the way that most of these card farming titles got onto Steam in the first place - with Steam Direct, a system that requires a $100-per-game fee for publishing on Steam. The company now employs a “confidence metric” that determines whether a game is actually being bought and played by real humans before Steam will drop cards for the game. Valve recently tackled this problem from two angles. That unlocks trading cards, which the developer then flips for a profit on Steam. The practice involves releasing what Valve referred to as “fake” games, and giving away “many thousands” of keys to bots that play those titles. In a Steam Blog post in May, Valve said it had found that some crafty developers were engaging in Steam Trading Card profiteering. Customers can sell the cards on the Steam Community Market. Steam Trading Cards are virtual collectibles that people receive while playing certain Steam games.
The new policy follows a change that Valve made earlier this year to Steam Trading Cards, a feature that the company added in 2013. So at some point we start deciding that the value you’re bringing to Steam isn’t worth the cost to us.įor example, say you’ve sold a few thousand copies on Steam but have requested / activated 500K keys, then we are going to take a deeper look at your games, your sales, your costs, etc. If we are denying keys for normal size batches it’s likely because your Steam sales don’t reflect a need for as many keys as you’re distributing, and you’re probably asking for more keys because you’re offering cheaper options off Steam and yet we are bearing the costs. Here’s what the post from Valve’s Sean Jenkins says: Valve will no longer automatically fullfill key requests from the developers to combat game sales outside of Steam.