What can Steam do

[AbraCadaver]

to smooth this over? A refund? A couple more bucks off the game? A coupon for future purchases? Or do you think Steam will do nothing whatsoever, fix the problem quietly and pretend it never happened?

[Velvet Raven]

to smooth this over? A refund? A couple more bucks off the game? A coupon for future purchases? Or do you think Steam will do nothing whatsoever, fix the problem quietly and pretend it never happened?


Smooth what over? Fix what problem?

[AbraCadaver]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. The issue with "running out" of keys for Risen. It's been on sale all weekend, and it's been an issue since Friday. Nobody can play it until we get the keys, but many of us purchased it. It's sort of a big issue all over the boards right now...

[Aesir Rising]

They didn't do squat for the Prey folks during the last holiday sale, when they 'ran out of keys' for that game - they just stopped selling the game before the sale period was over.

It isn't a solution or fix, but at least in this case you can still at least order this game at the sale price. And wait to play.

[SiegfriedVII]

It's not the first time steam runs out of keys, I remember when I got stalker back on the Christmas sale last year they ran out of keys.

The difference is that with stalker they announced they didn't have any more keys and that you could still buy the game and wait a bit more to play it if you wanted. I read this, the price was awesome and I bought the game. I have no complains about that situation, they handled it very smoothly by just warning us before the purchase.

The mess up with Risen is that we are buying something that isn't available without our knowledge and valve is just letting it be, we have no idea when we'll get our keys or whatever is happening.

A really bad situation that could have been avoided with a simple message on the purchase page. I still would have bought the game and wouldn't be jarateed now.

[Velvet Raven]

That is one thing Steam should have learned if this has happened before to expect a huge rush on a game like this going for 1/2 price and have extra keys on hand. I am lucky because I did not hesitate I just bought the game by reviews the first night.

[Thiefcat]

Yea unfortunatly they will do absoluty nothing for us. I too bought Risen on friday and here it is Sunday morning and still can't pay. I have had issues in the past with Steam and honestly they really don't care.

Any company that won't even use a phone support line (especialy for something like PC games) basically makes it impossible to receive any sort of resolution from them. This web based way of submitting questions and waiting days to receive answers is archaic. I have never submitted a troubleshooting question that was answered any less then 2 days later...thats absurd.

I am honestly very confused how they can sell you a product, take your money, and not supply said product to the purchaser. How is this legally possible?

[Maxwell20]

They can do a lot- but they won't.

[T@F]

Well tbh you can look at it two ways.

buy the game now in the deal but wait until prob monday to get the key.
or valve don't sell the game now and lose out on the deal.

[Maxwell20]

Well tbh you can look at it two ways.

buy the game now in the deal but wait until prob monday to get the key.
or valve don't sell the game now and lose out on the deal.

Sure, but you aren't even warned about this situation! U can still buy it without any information.

[SnarKs]

Wow, im happy i bought it thursday night.

[T@F]

Sure, but you aren't even warned about this situation! U can still buy it without any information.

True but it is the weekend valve are allowed to have the weekend off with there kids.
Also there was a region unlock so that did not help as well.

I guess the devs thought 5,000 keys would do but soon as they unlocked the region for everyone 15,000 sold.
Btw the numbers is just an example i do not know how many keys valve had or how many times the game sold on this deal.

[Atomic Hamster]

There will be no apology I bet and they will get the keys in their own time. They have our money and, like all companies these days, don't care after that.

Complaining won't do anything so just do something else instead. I'm not happy with the situation either but you won't get anything other than the key in time I'm afraid.

[SGT-Snail]

At the end of the day, the steam system is obviously flawed. You can't sell things you don't have in stock. Its like taking out a loan and not paying it back, say goodbye to your house....or your kneecaps..lol

[DarkChaplain]

We had the same issue during the Lucas Arts week with Empire at War.
Had to wait 2 days til the new keys were acquired,
no problems aside from a small delay, which is to be tolerated considering the amazing deals.

You will get your DRM-diseased game, don't worry.
If you'd buy retail boxes off ebay you'd have to wait a couple of days for the package to arrive as well, think of it that way.

For Empire at War, for example, it wasn't Steam's fault, the support was extremely good.
Still, the publisher doesn't always respond immidiately - and of course, it's still weekend.

Stop being jerks now, please.

[AbraCadaver]

It's just that digital is supposed to be, well, instant. What would happen if you downloaded an MP3 off of itunes and couldn't play it for several days? You'd be pretty flippin' annoyed.

[enerrene]

We had the same issue during the Lucas Arts week with Empire at War.
Had to wait 2 days til the new keys were acquired,
no problems aside from a small delay, which is to be tolerated considering the amazing deals.

You will get your DRM-diseased game, don't worry.
If you'd buy retail boxes off ebay you'd have to wait a couple of days for the package to arrive as well, think of it that way.

For Empire at War, for example, it wasn't Steam's fault, the support was extremely good.
Still, the publisher doesn't always respond immidiately - and of course, it's still weekend.

Stop being jerks now, please.

Yes, lets stop being jerks now, let the company stomps our heads, that would be wonderful. [/SARCASM]

[Jiefangjun]

Least they can do is to give us progress updates and an apology in the forums. Furthermore, I think it's within reason that they offer a discount on the next purchase of people affected by this Risen key issue.

[sethsez]

They didn't do squat for the Prey folks during the last holiday sale, when they 'ran out of keys' for that game - they just stopped selling the game before the sale period was over.

It isn't a solution or fix, but at least in this case you can still at least order this game at the sale price. And wait to play.

But they did do something for Prey - they took the game down rather than accepting money for a game they could no longer sell.

If you'd buy retail boxes off ebay you'd have to wait a couple of days for the package to arrive as well, think of it that way.

But that's an understood part of the purchasing process in that situation, and you're informed of estimated shipping times before the purchase is completed. That's why people don't complain that it's unfair, because they're informed. Steam is out of keys but they're not telling anyone and are still taking people's money, that's the problem.

For Empire at War, for example, it wasn't Steam's fault

How they handle it most certainly is their fault. They're the ones responsible for the transaction going properly, that's their entire role in this whole deal. They're the intermediary between the publisher and the end user. If the publisher screws up it's their job to smooth things out, and if they can't do it immediately then to communicate what the issues are to all parties involved.

Steam's role is to ensure they have product to sell, to sell it to end users (in the process making sure the end user gets what they paid for and to collect the proper amount of money), and to then distribute the money properly. If Steam didn't have the right number of keys but sold them anyway then that isn't the publisher's fault, it's Steam's for not keeping proper inventory.

tl;dr: What happens between the publisher and the customer is Steam. It's their job, their responsibility and their fault if something goes wrong.

[Evil Kerek]

Stop being jerks now, please.

There's only one jerk posting on this thread that I can see.

It's entirely within reason to be upset at Valve for failing to post (and it's still not posted) information about the lack of keys.

I would have been perfectly fine purchasing it and knowing I wouldn't have been able to play. No problem. ♥♥♥♥ happens. Leaving your customers in the dark is the one of the fastest ways to lose them.

Purchasing it and having to come to the forums to find out what the #$@$ was going on? No, that's not ok, ESPECIALLY when it's happened so many times before. They KNOW it can happen. They KNOW it will happen. Yet there is apparently still not a set of rules in place for it.

So get off your high horse. You know very well no one is going to respond to you making statements like that - so you're either not very smart or a troll.

[DarkChaplain]

I don't say 'don't be upset', Kerek.
I just say that people should stop whining that they can't play for 3 days but be happy about being able to get the game at 50% off.

I know that they did post a notification when the Empire at War-accident happened, and we had some nice moderator updating us at all times - it worked, we got the support we needed.

I can't say why that failed in this case, but it sure has its reasons.
While I agree that they should put a simple notification up and drop by the forums, most reactions on here are completely overboard.

Making statements like 'grab our money and then don't provide the product' and labeling Steam thieves is just wrong and won't get you anywhere.
Its understandable that people are pissed about not being able to play their new game right away, but it will end up on your computer and you will be able to enjoy it for easily one hundred hours.
You got 50% off on the product while you could have waited for monday - and the new keys - to come and pay the full price.

Anyway, I hope there's some mod coming around, apologizing for the delay.
Although it should be clear by now that not even the game's publisher cares for his product, eh?