Question about games

[Mihai_89]

Hello,

So i bought a while ago, actually long time, possible almost 1 year, 2 games and i completely forgot about them. I have not activated them yet on steam because i forgot i even bought them and found them when i was searching for something else around the house.

My question is, if i bought these games almost 1 year ago can i still activate them now ?
I mean is there some time limit to activate a game ?

Will i get banned if i activate these games so long after i bought them ?

Please if someone could reply i would greatly appreciate it. I completely forgot i bought them and found them when i was looking for something around the house.

[cinedine]

Have you thought about jsut trying it? Why would you get banned?

There is no general answer to this. Keys *do* expire, but usually last pretty long.

[Mihai_89]

Well i haven't tried activating them.

I was saying that i'm afraid that i will be banned if i activate a game too long after the date that i bought it.

[Wolfpig]

No you wont get banned for such a thing.
If you by a retail game in store which came out years ago and had a steamkey then a lot of people who buy such a game now would get banned.....

[Mihai_89]

Wolfpig well the games aren't very new, they're both like 5 years old, i did buy them at retail store, but i bought them about 1 year ago, because i didn't have any money when they released.

So can i still try activating them without the fear of getting banned ?

[Wolfpig]

Yes.
As said, you wont get banned for activating gamekeys...

[Mihai_89]

Thank you for explaining and for the info about this Wolfpig.
I will try and see if i still can activate them.

[XBL Laberbacke]

Originally posted by Mihai_89:

Thank you for explaining and for the info about this Wolfpig.
I will try and see if i still can activate them.

Keys do not expire. A couple of days ago I activated keys from a Half-Life Generations CD box that came out around 2000 or so.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by XBL Laberbacke:

Keys do not expire. A couple of days ago I activated keys from a Half-Life Generations CD box that came out around 2000 or so.

Depends on the key and game and more
Some keys do expire
Also in some cases the game is removed from Steam and the key then deactivate to be activated (not always sometimes) so it really depends on key to key bases

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Black Blade:

Originally posted by XBL Laberbacke:

Keys do not expire. A couple of days ago I activated keys from a Half-Life Generations CD box that came out around 2000 or so.

Depends on the key and game and more
Some keys do expire
Also in some cases the game is removed from Steam and the key then deactivate to be activated (not always sometimes) so it really depends on key to key bases

Never heard of that. I just activated a key for "Prey" (the 2006 one) a few weeks ago on my account. That game has not been on Steam for 6 years or so by now and the keys still work and you can download/play the game.
Which specific titles cant be activated anymore? Apart from multiplayer only games where no servers exist anymore, those indeed can no longer be activated.

[Red Shift]

I've only heard, not experienced myself, that some batches of keys sold en masse in bundles have been deactivated after 6 months or so, with devs claiming the reason being that it was to prevent unactivated keys being resold on the grey market.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Never heard of that. I just activated a key for "Prey" (the 2006 one) a few weeks ago on my account. That game has not been on Steam for 6 years or so by now and the keys still work and you can download/play the game.
Which specific titles cant be activated anymore? Apart from multiplayer only games where no servers exist anymore, those indeed can no longer be activated.

I think there is a list here:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/RemGC/discussions/9/135509024338980195/

And its as i said game to game bases, i assume HL keys will never exspire for an exsample

[Kargor]

Just to clear this up: Steam keys work indefinitely (for some definition of...). There may be extremely rare cases where keys get revoked, but it's certainly not something that happens a lot. And if it does, even people who had a revoked key activated on their accounts will loose the game -- activation doesn't protect from this.

The only risk of using an old key is that, for some reason, that same key might have shown up somewhere else. This is rather unlikely as well, but it could happen if a shop/publisher screws up the database or gets it stolen.
In such a case, whoever has the key on his account is basically the one owning the game, and the user trying to activate it again will get an error and will have to spend time getting a replacement. Which could be impossible if the purchase was long ago...

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Just to clear this up: Steam keys work indefinitely (for some definition of...). There may be extremely rare cases where keys get revoked, but it's certainly not something that happens a lot. And if it does, even people who had a revoked key activated on their accounts will loose the game -- activation doesn't protect from this.

The only risk of using an old key is that, for some reason, that same key might have shown up somewhere else. This is rather unlikely as well, but it could happen if a shop/publisher screws up the database or gets it stolen.
In such a case, whoever has the key on his account is basically the one owning the game, and the user trying to activate it again will get an error and will have to spend time getting a replacement. Which could be impossible if the purchase was long ago...

Sorry to say you worng on one part
Games thatthere keys are been disabled, do not always get removed, as of the list i posted above