A Short Hike must be withdrawn from Barter

[HereIsPlenty]

I have had an email from Kasey in customer support at Humble to confirm that they are not getting any more keys for A Short Hike. Although it is currently marked as out of stock of keys at the moment, the item is still being traded and unknown to trader or recipient, no key will be present when gift link is activated.

I place no fault on the person who traded me the gift link for a short hike but we must stop trading those on Barter since the gift links will not be honoured by Humble.

[alex]

I doubt the site admin will remove it entirely from tradables, but it's been marked already as "out of keys."

And for the record, with gift links, it's never guaranteed that there is a key behind the link because the key is assigned when the redeem button is pressed, not on purchase or even when the link is generated. In general, if you have a purchase on Humble you don't want to lose, you should reveal the key.

[HereIsPlenty]

Actually the trading notice when you highlight it says "with promise to restock." That is not the same thing at all. Humble have now confirmed there will be no restock.

[luckz]

So we'd need a warning type that gift links are unlikely to be honored? Like, "out of keys forever" as opposed to just "out of keys (temporarily)"?

Key trades should of course still work, for anyone who revealed the keys, so there's no reason to do anything else about the game.

[HereIsPlenty]

Sure but I saw the message, read that keys would be restocked (Promise being the word) and went through with the trade. Now I am down a tradable. That was avoidable but regrettable. It is more avoidable now that we know the keys will not be restocked so there is no reason for other people to fall prey to that and lose a game in trade.

[ellipsism]

I am sorry that you lost a game because of this. I added the out of keys tag to A Short Hike and I wrote the tag description.

In retrospect, that description was a mistake, but at the time, I thought it reflected the temporary nature of the key exhaustion. Searching through Discord, I can't find a screenshot, but I believe the text was similar for A Short Hike

ATTENTION: We have run out of Steam keys for Macdows 95. We are getting more ASAP. We will have Steam keys for you as soon as they are available again!

Given the long delay, that 'We are getting more ASAP' was suspect and unrealistic. The warning tags should not be optimistic. Previously, the description was

Bundle ran out of keys, but with promise to restock

It is now

A retailer ran out of keys. Gift links likely contain nothing.

It is still possible to trade these games though, if users saved the Steam keys when they were available. It appears that this offer completed successfully https://barter.vg/u/241a/o/3167851/ Therefore, I believe notices rather than removal (or x0 quantity) of all tradables is appropriate.

[HereIsPlenty]

Sure and I appreciate your effort and time. I have had to put it on blacklist though, to stop anyone offering me something that has a good likelihood of being the same result.

Did not want it happening to others.

[ellipsism]

Here's the most recent update

Originally posted by grilledcheese:

Unfortunately, it seems like keys won't be available for A Short Hike right now. Hopefully you can still enjoy A Short Hike using the DRM-free download on the Humble site.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1055540/discussions/0/1741134331875089021/#c1744515852427910769

[ellipsism]

I have a Steam key for A Short Hike. I'll exchange it for the empty gift link. DM me on Discord or add on Steam to swap.

[HereIsPlenty]

No, its ok, I am fine - I was more concerned about future trades turning out the same way. The game is not expensive, I will pick it up on a Steam sale at some point but thanks.

[ellipsism]

It sounds like the developer wants to add keys, but there is some undisclosed problem with Steam and/or Humble. It's one of the best reviewed game on Steam. It's clear not a game-shaped object that Steam needs to worry about key abuse. Therefore, I still hold hope that the keys will be delivered eventually.

You send the empty gift link and I save it. I send the Steam key and you get the game now. I have unused keys going back years, so I have no problem waiting.

[HereIsPlenty]

Firstly while I appreciate the offer, I do not take anything from people and that will not change. Secondly, the gift link activated, I received the email from Humble telling me I had a gift then I got to Humble and there was no key despite it saying in the email and the site that I had a gift, it was just that no key appeared. So the link has already been activated and is no use to you.

Again, thanks, I was just concerned that other people would fall into the same hole and you have resolved that by changing the message on the item.

[brake]

Seems like the same thing is happening with other games like ETHEREAL, macdows 95 and Roombo: First Blood.

These games are completely removed from my Humble Bundle page, as if they were never in the corresponding bundles. They used to show as having keys, then keys being exhausted, but now the game names don't even show up.

You should check the thread about Ethereal where developer says Steam did not approve their requests for extra keys.

Maybe this thread's title can be changed to include these games as well.

I am not sure if any other possible games missing their keys. I will have to check all the monthlys I have. Or maybe even any keys from a bundle from Humble Bundle. Though I really hope this is happening only with the monthly bundles.

[ellipsism]

Originally posted by HereIsPlenty:

So the link has already been activated and is no use to you.

Although Humble support reported that they are not getting any more keys, I believe that there is a chance that the developer will get more keys, supply them to Humble, and add them to the Monthly bundle and associated gift links.

It's a link like https://www.humblebundle.com/downloads?key=____ correct? I have other empty gift links, so I understand what I would receive. I'm willing to accept that risk and wait. I've already played it and I'm not much of a collector.

As brake noted above, this is a larger issue for which I will need to improve reporting. I didn't consider the tag description until you reported it. Also, the empty gift links are useful to me. Either the Steam key will appear one day, in which I'll report that news and this will be A Short Hike exchanged for A Short Hike trade, or it will never appear, and I can continually monitor that and warn about the problem.

[royalphantomhive]

Waited on Poly Bridge to be restocked last year, took only 6 months or more for it to be restocked. How i know? I kept checking lul. Also peculiar, more recent bundle featuring the game had it stocked. (hb monthly march 2017 / hb indie #19 - 2018)