Trying to enter a old retail box game to steam with serial number - Not working

[FF$ | The_Destroyer]

Hi all,

I have a game called Stalker, It's on steam to buy however i purchase it many many years ago from a retail shop.

I'm trying to add the game via add a steam game using the serial number on the back of the game yet steam says invalid. Is there no way of me adding this?

[Wolf Knight]

are you sure its a steam key?
make sure your not mixing up 1 for I (i), 0 for O, 8 and B, etc

[FF$ | The_Destroyer]

No it's from the booklet you get in the retail box. I thought as i've already paid for it i could just simply add it. Or are you saying i have to actually buy the game.

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Jason:

No it's from the booklet you get in the retail box. I thought as i've already paid for it i could just simply add it. Or are you saying i have to actually buy the game.

does it say its a steam version of the game on the box/booklet?

[らﾉ几凵什モ]

here follow these https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-wusf-3601

[FF$ | The_Destroyer]

Stalker don't work. No mention of Steam at all on the book or game case. But I'VE tried another game and that can be installed.

[らﾉ几凵什モ]

I think that game is a non-steam game if you have a CD with it try to run the program and see if it install for you after that you can add that game to steam as non-steam game

[nullable]

Unless the physical copy required Steam, the CD key for the physical copy may not be compatible with Steam. Steam supports the keys it has for the game, not necessarily all the keys that exist.

For as old as Stalker is, there were bunches of games you could buy on Steam, or buy a physical copy. And whether that key on the physical copy could be used on Steam wasn't guaranteed. And there's certainly a thousand cases of old games that either pre-date Steam or had side-by-side versions where Steam doesn't support every CD key ever generated for the game.

Heck you can't even put in old Half-Life keys from pre-Steam days anymore.

[Muppet among Puppets]

You probably can claim it on gog
https://www.gog.com/reclaim

[Satoru]

Which STALKER game are you taking about because there are 3 in the series.

Note the Original STALKER game had a cdkey that was ONLY for MP. Bascially it wasnt a steam key. so the key wont work on steam anyway

As others have noted you can use it to get a GOG copy

[Kargor]

And, in general, only Steam keys redeem on Steam.

Every once a while a publisher has uploaded his old keys to Steam -- but if your key is shown as invalid, they clearly didn't do that for those.

[FF$ | The_Destroyer]

Thanks all for the help, really good to see it! I will reclaim it on that GOG website. It was the first stalker game i have.