duplicate product code

[ruben.van.den.ouden]

Hi,

I've bought a second hand game from someone who deleted the game from Steam and will never play it again.I have received the original game by mail. The game just happens to be activated by Steam.

Therefore, I can't play it...

I don't understand, there is nothing illegal or bad about this: the other guy sells me the game, with original product code, makes sure he deletes the game completely, and still Steam forbids me to install it.

Can someone (from Steam?) explain me how I can play this perfectly legal bought game?

I hope I made myself clear in English.

Regards, R.

[gwait]

Deleting the game does not free up the license/cd key as far as I know. Once you activate it, it's forever tied to that account.

[Drab]

You didn't buy the game legally. Keys are one time use.

You got scammed by the seller.

[Aptivon]

the product is tied to his account.
deleting it doesn't reactivate the product code.

[ruben.van.den.ouden]

Tnx for all the quick responces. I find this absolutely unbelievable. I mean: the Football Manager producers are a whole different company then Steam... How can Steam decide for them that no-one can ever give away, sell or whatever do with his/her own game.
I mean, I understand that they want to prevend games from being copied and illegaly spread across the internet like via torrents and stuff, but this is really different in my opinion.

I see numerous Football Manager games used on the internet for sale...

In the past, like with The Sims or whatever, this was absolutely no problem. You have the original product key. The game is payed for new and then sold again... Like a book or cd or even E-book. This is all perfectly normal and just because I can't play this game without registering all my personal information en activate via Steam, I can't play a second hand game...

Why doesn't Steam create an option like: "delete and de-activated"? No wonder people
seek illegal copies on the internet if normal/legal behaviour is being frustraded this way.

You probably understand I am pissed... ;-)

[Chris Solomon]

you might be able to free up the licensce key if the person who sold it to you contacts steam support and asks to have the game permanently removed from their account. but thats only if the game in question comes on physical media. if it's a steam (digital) only game, then, you got scammed. also, there are some physical copies of games that might or might not work with what i said before. those games are one where the install discs have what amounts to steam backup of the game. examples:

Team Fortress 2
Left 4 Dead
Half Life 2

there may be other titles, but i just listed the ones i own on disc, therefore know for a fact whats on the disc.

older titles like half life in which you may enter the key into steam to get a steam copy, might or might not work as I stated above.

[Aptivon]

Originally posted by ruben.van.den.ouden:

Tnx for all the quick responces. I find this absolutely unbelievable. I mean: the Football Manager producers are a whole different company then Steam... How can Steam decide for them that no-one can ever give away, sell or whatever do with his/her own game.
I mean, I understand that they want to prevend games from being copied and illegaly spread across the internet like via torrents and stuff, but this is really different in my opinion.

I see numerous Football Manager games used on the internet for sale...

In the past, like with The Sims or whatever, this was absolutely no problem. You have the original product key. The game is payed for new and then sold again... Like a book or cd or even E-book. This is all perfectly normal and just because I can't play this game without registering all my personal information en activate via Steam, I can't play a second hand game...

Why doesn't Steam create an option like: "delete and de-activated"? No wonder people
seek illegal copies on the internet if normal/legal behaviour is being frustraded this way.

You probably understand I am pissed... ;-)

steam is a company and therfore needs to make profit.
if people would just buy a game on steam, play and and then deactivate it, they could sell it for a lower price. which would lead to people only being used codes for a few bucks less.

[Gishank]

Originally posted by Chris Solomon:

you might be able to free up the licensce key if the person who sold it to you contacts steam support and asks to have the game permanently removed from their account. but thats only if the game in question comes on physical media. if it's a steam (digital) only game, then, you got scammed. also, there are some physical copies of games that might or might not work with what i said before. those games are one where the install discs have what amounts to steam backup of the game. examples:

Team Fortress 2
Left 4 Dead
Half Life 2

there may be other titles, but i just listed the ones i own on disc, therefore know for a fact whats on the disc.

older titles like half life in which you may enter the key into steam to get a steam copy, might or might not work as I stated above.

If you ask Steam support to permanently delete the game from your Steam library, it will not free up the CD Key to be reused.

[Drab]

Originally posted by ruben.van.den.ouden:

In the past, like with The Sims or whatever, this was absolutely no problem. You have the original product key. The game is payed for new and then sold again... Like a book or cd or even E-book. This is all perfectly normal...

Perfecrtly normal but it was still not legal then either. They couldn't enforce it then, but they can now, so they do.

The publishers and developers of games, music and movies are all for this I assure you. Steam didn't just arbitrarily make a rule.

And... the reason people pirate stuff is because they have no morals.

[ruben.van.den.ouden]

@Homer, I understand. Only this is a physical original copy of Football Manager 2016 bought somewhere else. Never payed Steam a dime. So how can they interfere?

@Gishank @Chris, tnx. Can you explain how to directly get in touch with Steam? I only fine ways to post threads like these.
I find it really unfair, more even because it seems this seller isn't trying to scam a thing. I hope it's worth the try.

[ItzEv0]

Originally posted by ruben.van.den.ouden:

Tnx for all the quick responces. I find this absolutely unbelievable. I mean: the Football Manager producers are a whole different company then Steam... How can Steam decide for them that no-one can ever give away, sell or whatever do with his/her own game.
I mean, I understand that they want to prevend games from being copied and illegaly spread across the internet like via torrents and stuff, but this is really different in my opinion.

I see numerous Football Manager games used on the internet for sale...

In the past, like with The Sims or whatever, this was absolutely no problem. You have the original product key. The game is payed for new and then sold again... Like a book or cd or even E-book. This is all perfectly normal and just because I can't play this game without registering all my personal information en activate via Steam, I can't play a second hand game...

Why doesn't Steam create an option like: "delete and de-activated"? No wonder people
seek illegal copies on the internet if normal/legal behaviour is being frustraded this way.

You probably understand I am pissed... ;-)

well you see if you are able to give your own games to people if you get hacked the hacker can take all your games then sell them online thats the reason why the cd keys are an one time use

[ruben.van.den.ouden]

@Drab, tnx. Seems smart and possibly makes me stupid to buy the way I did. It's becoming more of a moral discussion to me now then about a couple of bucks.
In my home country, the judge ruled that selling a legaly bought/owned e-book can be re-selled, for example. Second hand hardcopy books is a huge, widely accepted, market.

[ruben.van.den.ouden]

I found this from '12 and translated it; a image of Steam was used as example by the way.

A victory for lovers of used games. "The Court of Justice of the European Union" has determined that publishers do not affect the resale of digital games. Once bought a digital title so all yours.
According to the court a publisher gets the exclusive right to decide on the distribution of lost a game when it was first sold. "An author of software can not oppose the resale of his 'used' licenses-allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet."
What does this mean for gamers? Where you bought them, you just can legally resell your digital games.

[Chris Solomon]

Originally posted by Gishank:

Originally posted by Chris Solomon:

you might be able to free up the licensce key if the person who sold it to you contacts steam support and asks to have the game permanently removed from their account. but thats only if the game in question comes on physical media. if it's a steam (digital) only game, then, you got scammed. also, there are some physical copies of games that might or might not work with what i said before. those games are one where the install discs have what amounts to steam backup of the game. examples:

Team Fortress 2
Left 4 Dead
Half Life 2

there may be other titles, but i just listed the ones i own on disc, therefore know for a fact whats on the disc.

older titles like half life in which you may enter the key into steam to get a steam copy, might or might not work as I stated above.

If you ask Steam support to permanently delete the game from your Steam library, it will not free up the CD Key to be reused.

you obviuosly did not read my post. I said there are restrictions. games on a physical disc do not ussually have a steam code. examples:

Bioshock
half life
HL:blue shift
HL:opposing forces

but if you enter the key for that game you are granted a steam key for that game. if the original owner asks that the steam version of the game be deleted from his account, and then the new user contacts steam saying he just bought a used game, they will then work with you to get the game added to your library. this is what happened to me when i bought half life platinum from my local EB games, which sell used games and at the time sold used pc games. in my case i did not know who was the original owner, but i provided the recipt to steam support (scanned image) and they added the games to my account. I am assuming who ever previously owned the games then lost access to them on their account.

there are games that have discs that include a steam key. you can either install the game from disc, or enter the key into steam to download a copy of the game. these games would not free up a code if you ask it to be deleted from your library.

[Celecity]

I got the same thing. I purchased a bunch of PC games from a thrift store to try them out and it came up with this message. The only thing I can think of is contacting the company and explaining to see if they will give you a different code. Otherwise I don't think you can use it. I also think it is rediculous, but I guess we can't do anything about it. :/ beside buy another code. Sorry it happened to you also!

[HLCinSC]

Steam doesn't know if your code was a hardcopy or not. Redeeming a game on Steam is a non-transferable license to a digital game. Like all other major digital game clients including Origin, Uplay, GOG, PSN, Xbox live, etc... you cannot resell your licensed content.

The lack of a second hand market is a very attractive feature and is one of the main reasons developers/publishers have embraced it so much. If a dev/pub wants to, they can issue a new code, but almost all won't.