Steam Runs Out of Keys For A Game, Keeps Selling It Anyway

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How does something like this even happen? It's not like you ran out of physical discs and had to wait for more, we are talking about game keys.

There’s only one problem. Apparently Steam didn’t have enough game keys to satisfy the explosion in demand for Blacklist that occurred over the weekend thanks to the sale. While Steam sells the download for the game, players also need a special key to “unlock” it once installed. This how publishers keep track of how many copies of a game are sold digitally on platforms like Steam.
 
I would assume it was a checkbox left unchecked when they set up the account. No big conspiracy or plot to steal from people, likely just a simple mistake that they will fix.
 
If true, I guess that kind of debunks some people's anti-pre-order stances where they say digital copies of games aren't a finite product (at least for this game, and others that rely on developer/publisher generated keys to function).
 
With headlines like this, Steam support being a massive dumpster fire and watching them focus like a laser on a single title (DOTA) while letting their other games and franchises die off (TF2) makes me think that Valve just doesn't give a shit about gaming anymore.
 
With headlines like this, Steam support being a massive dumpster fire and watching them focus like a laser on a single title (DOTA) while letting their other games and franchises die off (TF2) makes me think that Valve just doesn't give a shit about gaming anymore.

It's too bad the competition can't get anything resembling competition together. I was thinking the same thing with Amazon and NewEgg this morning. It would be great to have an alternative to Amazon, but NewEgg is so reliably painful that they are not even an option.

It's not that Steam and Amazon are too big to fail, but they are essentially too big to compete. They're more or less locked in until their business model is eclipsed by an entirely new technology.
 
With headlines like this, Steam support being a massive dumpster fire and watching them focus like a laser on a single title (DOTA) while letting their other games and franchises die off (TF2) makes me think that Valve just doesn't give a shit about gaming anymore.
how exactly is TF2 dying off? it still gets patched on a regular basis. Valve still holds special events (scream fortress). they still add new features (they added that ranked/competitive matchmaking a few months back)
 
Wow, they ran out of numbers. Turns on computer, make more numbers, sends them out. Nothing to see here.
 
Artificial scarcity... This is what happens when you let MBAs on to the internet or anywhere near technology.

Also, I might give Blacklist another go, I dropped it near the end because, although it gives you more stealth options, there is this section where it basically forces you to go all action.

On a side not, the latest release of dgVoodoo2 allows you to finally get shadow buffers working in Splinter Cell 1 on modern hardware.
 
Good of them to honor the sale price, even if it takes the dev a few days to sent Steam more keys.
 
This is what happens when you've got two types of DRM going on. Buy it on steam, but you still need a Uplay account too.
 
This isn't even close to the first time this has happened. I can think of two sales they've done where I bought a game on a weekend and had to wait until Monday for them to get more keys. Its a little stupid that game keys are still things but I suppose it makes it easier for third party developers to track their sales. If your going to use them though you should have a system in place to automatically generate them for systems like Steam.
 
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