Valve will no longer automatically fulfill developer key requests - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE]Valve is making an unprecedented move to curtail the number of Steam game sales happening outside of Steam itself. According to a post on Steam’s developer-only board, the company will no longer automatically fulfil key requests by developers who sell games on Steam.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]For those unfamiliar, any developer with access to Steamworks – Steam’s developer API – is able to generate keys for their games at will. Some of these keys are given to the press, friends etc. but they often go to bundle sites. That’s how you get a batch of high-quality indie games in a bundle for the price of one, and all keys redeem on Steam. In these cases, and they’re many, Valve makes no money from these sales, which the company sees as a problem. Presumably, this is being done to combat the trend of shovelware and low-effort games that use Steam as a showroom while offering bundle sites hundreds of thousands of keys at incredibly low prices so that these sites can in turn offer ten-game bundles for $4. This is another way so called asset flippers can make money from their games, and they’re likely the target here.[/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/18/in-order-to-reduce-game-sales-outside-of-steam-valve-will-no-longer-automatically-fulfil-key-requests-from-devs/"]Source[/URL] Possibly R.I.P. Bundle Stars and Humble Bundle, but probably not

[QUOTE=Zotobom;52586510][URL="https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/18/in-order-to-reduce-game-sales-outside-of-steam-valve-will-no-longer-automatically-fulfil-key-requests-from-devs/"]Source[/URL] Possibly R.I.P. Bundle Stars and Humble Bundle, but probably not[/QUOTE] Bundle Stars, maybe. Humble Bundle, not a chance. Humble's too big and too legitimate to fall now.

And they have a good reason to do so [quote] The idea is to cut down on the sales of Steam keys outside of Steam, since developers who ask for these disproportionate amounts of keys are often doing so to sell them much cheaper to bundle sites. [B]What ends up happening is that Steam bears the bandwidth costs and other expenses associated with the service, without taking a cut of the sale.[/B] [/quote]

What I see happening is most of these Bundle-sites will stop selling [I]unlimited [/I]keys for games but rather do more of a "X amount of keys left"-thing, which you could argue will actually drive urgency to buy the games since there's a limited quantity now. Might even be good for business.

Legitimate games shouldn't have anything to worry about, this is a part of Valve's crackdown on asset flips and card farming. As long as a game's sales on steam are not wholly disproportionate to its key activations, Valve won't be refusing to issue keys.

-snip-

[QUOTE=Jelman;52586659]Can you stop with the :clickbait: please. This is used to stop the games who only have 100 owners on steam but 5000 through keys given to bundle sites[/QUOTE] Title is completely accurate

A lot of people also use the keys and put them up on those sites that claim they will get their games reviewed. As soon as I published my games store page I started to get spammed by multiple of these so called sites requesting I give them keys for reviews etc. I just trashed these emails.

[quote]This is used to stop the games who only have 100 owners on steam but 5000 through keys given to bundle sites[/quote] Cite your source.

valve has never automatically fulfilled the key requests this is in the TOS and steamworks help guide this "leaked" from the steamworks forum and people are in a panic, its always been like this

Humble Bundle could switch to gog. They already sell games for other platforms. Yeah steam is great, but I like gog a lot more

[quote]valve has never automatically fulfilled the key requests[/quote] My personal experience states otherwise. Ask for 100 keys, get 5,000. Click a button, generate X number of keys; approved within seconds/minutes. If it wasn't automatic, it was rubber-stamped.

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52586896]Cite your source.[/QUOTE] [img]http://gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news/304003/eLDE2QM.png[/img] Also this: [quote]While our changes did impact the economics of trading card farming for new products coming to Steam, there are still a lot of games and game-shaped objects using Steam keys as a way to manipulate Steam systems. As a result, we're trying to look more closely at extreme examples of products on Steam that don't seem to be providing actual value as playable games-for instance, when a game has sold 100 units, has mostly negative reviews, but requests 500,000 Steam keys. We're not interested in supporting trading card farming or bot networks at the expense of being able to provide value and service for players. [/quote] [url]http://gamasutra.com/view/news/304003/Valve_engineer_comments_on_restrictions_to_highvolume_Steam_key_requests.php[/url] This is not in any way intended to stop people selling games elsewhere or anything even remotely along those lines, as long as they're legit sales that aren't completely out of line with what they 'should' be. This is intended to stop the problem of games that aren't games being sold or given away, as they provide no actual Value to anyone.

I wonder what exactly they mean by 'game-shaped objects'. Most of the software category on Steam seems pretty legitimate, and afaik the videos don't usually sell Steam keys off-site.

Valve have previously referred to asset flips and the like as "fake games", and I assume this is just a more accurate name for that.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;52587181]I wonder what exactly they mean by 'game-shaped objects'. Most of the software category on Steam seems pretty legitimate, and afaik the videos don't usually sell Steam keys off-site.[/QUOTE] Probably other stuff like promo codes, special skins, bonuses, etc.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;52587181]I wonder what exactly they mean by 'game-shaped objects'. Most of the software category on Steam seems pretty legitimate, and afaik the videos don't usually sell Steam keys off-site.[/QUOTE] Developers could be abusing Steam trading cards to make money. Just release a shitty game with Steam trading cards, request a ton of Steam keys and distribute them and then have people idle them for cards and sell them. Whether the game actually works or is decent (eg. it isn't an asset flip) is irrelevant since the developer gets a cut of each Steam card sold.

- :snip: i'm dumb-

[QUOTE=nightlord;52587170][img]http://gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news/304003/eLDE2QM.png[/img] Also this: [url]http://gamasutra.com/view/news/304003/Valve_engineer_comments_on_restrictions_to_highvolume_Steam_key_requests.php[/url] This is not in any way intended to stop people selling games elsewhere or anything even remotely along those lines, as long as they're legit sales that aren't completely out of line with what they 'should' be. This is intended to stop the problem of games that aren't games being sold or given away, as they provide no actual Value to anyone.[/QUOTE] Sweet, thanks. I hope to see more people sourcing their arguments; it really helps the discussion.

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52588977]Sweet, thanks. I hope to see more people sourcing their arguments; it really helps the discussion.[/QUOTE] Well the same information was in the OP article soo...

[QUOTE=Tamschi;52587181]I wonder what exactly they mean by 'game-shaped objects'. Most of the software category on Steam seems pretty legitimate, and afaik the videos don't usually sell Steam keys off-site.[/QUOTE] "Game shaped objects" is a term they coined a while back when talking about the greenlight replacement used to describe "games" that are bottom teir shovelware assetflip trash made and released with the sole intention of mining trading cards via bot networks and collecting loose change from what little direct sales they actually get.

Valve should just disable trading card drops from games obtained through keys. Make trading cards a bonus for using the steam store.

[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52593085]Valve should just disable trading card drops from games obtained through keys. Make trading cards a bonus for using the steam store.[/QUOTE] This would imply valve would even do it let alone work

What if we scrap all gimmicks from steam like trade cards and just allow devs do what they want to do with their game? Also, keys on bundle sites is what helped steam gain tons of users. And those users won't stop purchasing after the bundle