Question about Steam: adding retail games...

[Ben Clarke]

Guys, I have STALKER, Doom 3 and Doom 3 ROE... as I get free games with my GPU, I downloaded and installed it, see that STALKER and the two Doom games are available on Steam, and see the "Activate game with Steam" option. I click it, input my CD key, and it gives me an error saying "This key is invalid. Make sure you didn't miss type it...." any idea what causes this? The keys are legit, and install fine with the game. Steam won't accept them though.

[WhiteLotus]

can you register the game normally?
can you ring them up and tell them?

PS i have no idea how to use steam nor what it does, i'm just throwing some ideas out there

[Darknova]

Originally Posted by Ben Clarke

Guys, I have STALKER, Doom 3 and Doom 3 ROE... as I get free games with my GPU, I downloaded and installed it, see that STALKER and the two Doom games are available on Steam, and see the "Activate game with Steam" option. I click it, input my CD key, and it gives me an error saying "This key is invalid. Make sure you didn't miss type it...." any idea what causes this? The keys are legit, and install fine with the game. Steam won't accept them though.

Free games tend to have different CD-keys to your normal retail ones, to differentiate between retail games you've paid for and those you got free. Basically Steam won't recognise the key as it won't have those keys in it's database.

[Ravenas]

Originally Posted by Ben Clarke

Guys, I have STALKER, Doom 3 and Doom 3 ROE... as I get free games with my GPU, I downloaded and installed it, see that STALKER and the two Doom games are available on Steam, and see the "Activate game with Steam" option. I click it, input my CD key, and it gives me an error saying "This key is invalid. Make sure you didn't miss type it...." any idea what causes this? The keys are legit, and install fine with the game. Steam won't accept them though.

I did the same thing and actually emailed the people at Steam with a picture of my CD key. Here's what they said:

DOOM 3 CD Key keeps saying it's invalid.

Discussion Thread
Response (Kurt) 08/10/2007 05:04 PM
Hello Raven,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

Technical support for this title is handled by a third party support department - please follow the link below for instructions to contact the support provider for this title:

Title: Third Party Game: DOOM 3
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-...ted=1186181648

Please let us know if you encounter any difficulty contacting the support provider for this title, or if you have any further questions.

Auto-Response 08/04/2007 04:23 PM
Title: CD Key Reset Process
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-...ted=1092517154

Title: Guest Passes
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-...ted=1164055488

Title: Steam Error: Credit card declined
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-...ted=1137191832

Hope that helps

[ktr]

You cannot use retail 3rd party keys on steam sadly. Only steam keys or 1st party keys (games made or published by valve) work with steam. The best you can do is go to my games, look at the bottom, and select add non-steam game...

[Ben Clarke]

Damn. So if I lose the disks, I won't be able to download them from steam? Fook....

Thanks anyway guys.

[GLeN]

I bought cod4 from Game and it says the same thing, i think steams just being a bitch with its games, il have to ask them too