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Steam Issue *resolved*

T

TechNerd1300

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So Steam was giving away Left For Dead 2 Christmas, and I claimed it, but I downloaded it at a friends house today, and it's asking for a key. What do I do about this?
 
Contact Steam?
 
Done that, they claim I don't own it even though it's in my library.
 
TechNerd1300 said:
Done that, they claim I don't own it even though it's in my library.
Click to expand...
So you have the install option in your library but when you go to play it asks for install key?
 
TechNerd1300 said:
Done that, they claim I don't own it even though it's in my library.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a technical problem at their end. I was unable to claim the free copy, because Steam's site point blank refused to display the web page for that one game.

Either their servers were severely overloaded (for just that one page?) or they didn't want to display it and give away any more copies, which would be very sneaky and underhand.

Did you get a confirmation email when you added it to your account?
 
qubit said:
Sounds like a technical problem at their end. I was unable to claim the free copy, because Steam's site point blank refused to display the web page for that one game.

Either their servers were severely overloaded (for just that one page?) or they didn't want to display it and give away any more copies, which would be very sneaky and underhand.

Did you get a confirmation email when you added it to your account?
Click to expand...
I didn't and I added to my library when it was available free.
 
I just installed my free copy and it never asked for a key, so it sounds like a technical issue on Steam/Valve's side. My guess is the server issues caused the game to be added to your library, but not registered on their side.

Really there is nothing we can you, you just have to keep talking with their tech support to get the issue resolved.

qubit said:
Sounds like a technical problem at their end. I was unable to claim the free copy, because Steam's site point blank refused to display the web page for that one game.

Either their servers were severely overloaded (for just that one page?) or they didn't want to display it and give away any more copies, which would be very sneaky and underhand.

Did you get a confirmation email when you added it to your account?
Click to expand...

Steam's site was having major issues all day long Christmas day. I didn't mange to claim my copy until about 11PM CST. The rest of the day I couldn't get the site to load, or I couldn't get the game's page to load, or I couldn't get the login page to load, or I couldn't get the store to load, etc. There were several hours where I couldn't even get the winter sale page to come up.
 
DRDNA said:
I didn't and I added to my library when it was available free.
Click to expand...
Shame. That would be all the evidence he needs to prove he's got it. While it could well be a technical glitch, I do suspect a bit of underhand play here, too. Perhaps that giveaway was a little too successful...

Edit

newtekie1 said:
I just installed my free copy and it never asked for a key, so it sounds like a technical issue on Steam/Valve's side. My guess is the server issues caused the game to be added to your library, but not registered on their side.
Click to expand...
Ok that changes things somewhat. I did find the rest of the site worked ok at the time though, so it's odd.
 
qubit said:
Ok that changes things somewhat. I did find the rest of the site worked ok at the time though, so it's odd.
Click to expand...

That happened to me several times throughout the day, but not just with L4D2. There were several times where half the site seemed to be working fine, but I'd click on a link and the link would be dead. But I could still browse other parts of the site like there was no problem.

Giving a game away for free then purposely sabotaging the site isn't really Valve's style either.
 
newtekie1 said:
That happened to me several times throughout the day, but not just with L4D2. There were several times where half the site seemed to be working fine, but I'd click on a link and the link would be dead. But I could still browse other parts of the site like there was no problem.

Giving a game away for free then purposely sabotaging the site isn't really Valve's style either.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'd tend to agree with that.
 
Is no one else thinking it may have been that he DLed it from a friend's house, which would be a different WAN IP? Or not, I don't know, maybe Steam doesn't keep track of that, but they DO have fairly good security, so they might.

I've been chatting extensively on Ubi's AC IV forum and there's this one guy that always insists the problems people are having with the game are caused by Steam, despite having been proven wrong several times. In fact when they had launch delay problems on the Freedom Cry DLC, those with Steam copies got their's before the ones with UPlay copies.

I've never had any problems with Steam, but UPlay is problematic and bloated. I recently measured Steam to be using 25-58MB RAM, while UPlay was using 152-192 MB. Not saying Steam doesn't have occasional problems, but from what I've seen Valve fixes them very quickly, so if it IS on their end, stay in touch with them, it will likely be resolved.
 
I think I have a solution, If it works I'll tell you. Anyhow, I've tried everything legal to make it work, but it's not going, and Steam isn't going to give me another copy. Let me see if my idea works
 
It's entirely possible you weren't able to get it registered. Valve announcing free L4D2 during the holiday wasn't the brightest thing to do since their servers were probably at capacity anyway. They spent half of Christmas day crashed.
 
Frag Maniac said:
Is no one else thinking it may have been that he DLed it from a friend's house, which would be a different WAN IP? Or not, I don't know, maybe Steam doesn't keep track of that, but they DO have fairly good security, so they might.
Click to expand...

Steam's system allows you to install the same game on multiple computers and multiple different IPs. Their system is set-up so you can only be logged in at one location at a time, so it guarantees that you can only be using one copy of the game at a time.

I have pretty much every game in my steam library installed on my office computer and my home computer.
 
It's resolved, I ended up just buying it because I wasn't willing to go through the hassle with the system over such a small amount of cash.
 
That's not really the solution we wanted to hear and isn't really a solution, but just writing the problem off, but thanks for letting us know. You've been denied something that was rightfully yours due to a glitch at their end. Sounds like crap customer service from Valve in this instance. :shadedshu:

What was that idea you had initially then? It may help someone else out in future.
 
Well the plan was to download the game via the library, and steam wouldn't let me.
 
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