faulty steam code forces online purchase

[trainstroid]

I recently bought Train Fever via Amazon because you get something you can hold in your hands (nice poster though) and it’s about 10 Euro cheaper than on steam (no idea why is this). After delivery arrived I was totally thrilled on trying it out the first time. I’m also one of these guys waiting for something close to Transport Tycoon for ages.

However my excitment got stopped pretty harshly. During installation i got asked to type in the STEAM CODE which was printed on the booklet inside the CD case. Unfortuantely a prompt appear telling me:

This key already exists ( Doppelter Produktschlüssel ). I was like WTF. I just opened the case from its sealed wrapping, so no one could have possibly nicked this code. Maybe there was someone cracking your game, I don’t know.

I would not have bothered too much about it, if STEAM would be able to support appropriately. However they failed miserably.

The discussion with Steam lead nowhere:

• I:
  “Can’t install product due to non funktioning Key (STEAM CODE).”
• STEAM autoreply:
  “We can’t help you, you should return product and get a refund.”
• I:
  Returned the product and got a refund.
• STEAM human, 5 days later:
  “We are sorry, but we can help you. Please provide a photo of your key and of your receipt.”
• I:
  “I do not have the key anymore, because I did how your autoreply suggested and returned the product.”
• STEAM human:
  “Okay we are happy to try again. Please provide a photo of your key and of your receipt.”
• I:
  “Don’t you read my messages. I told you I don’t have it anymore and your autoreply was misleading. Please don’t use autoreply if your are not 100% certain that it matches. You’re having employees for this. Also why is there such a price difference between the amazon and steam offer?”
• STEAM human:
  “We cannot help you with this problem, because we do not pass information about our pricing politics.”
• I:
  “Thanks for your help. I won’t try it again. Support is somehow different.”

And that is what I do. I won’t buy again, at least not in the near future (even though I’d really like to play it).

Why did you choose STEAM? For me this game is mainly offline. If there is a way to avoid STEAM I would buy it straight away. I want to avoid all the hassle with another intermediate party sitting between you and me.

The game itself looks fantastic, honestly. I really appreciate your work on it and I hope it will be a massive success.

[uzurpator]

Seriously, what other options are there?

[Lowell]

Just buy it through Steam. All games are auto updated, no CDs and DVDs to ever get ruined or lost. Your Steam account is good for any computer, you simply log in, if you are at a new ‘puter, it will down load all your games to the new one. Simple.

[Mike]

Hi schmichael,
I’m afraid Steam is one of the very few reasons PC games still exist! Due to lower marketability and high fraud level, less and less games are released for PC.
Just buy through Steam – you’ll support both developers and the platform!
And yes, the game is really amazing (if we could demolish roads again! ;)).

[medopu]

When I had a small scratch on Simcity 4 CD, which made it impossible for me to play the game i bought, i swore to myself never to buy any box copy of a video-game ever again.

Steam isn’t really that invasive as i thought. It works offline, it works on different PCs, it’s closed if I want it to be closed and most of all, it allows me to store videogames indeffinitely so that they’re never damaged, forgotten or stolen.

The only stupid bullshit is, that you aren’t able to resell the videogame, but that’s a small price to pay IMO.

Regarding the price on steam, you just missed huge deals. Even I got the game with a 25% discount, some got it even higher. You just have to wait for steam sales, before you buy something. Games outside steamsale on steam are very expensive and i don’t recommend buying on steam if you aren’t willing to wait for the steam sales.

[isidoro]

I had another problem with Steam and I didn’t find the place to get it solved:

I bought the game to play it in Linux and what was my surprise that I find that it only works in 64-bit Linux, although it isn’t advertised anywhere…

Now I can only play it in one of my computers…  but imagine if I had only one…

 

[fransgelden]

I bought the game to play it in Linux and what was my surprise that I find that it only works in 64-bit Linux, although it isn’t advertised anywhere…

Yes, the 64-bit version was indicated on the Steam page as a requirement. Anyway, why don’t you just download the 64-bit version? Unless you don’t have enough RAM. The game need at least 4GB of RAM to get the full potential out of it.

If you played the 32-bit windows version, you would be limited to small and medium maps anyway.

[isidoro]

Now I see it is.  When I bought it I think it wasn’t, therefore my surprise…

Reason I don’t migrate to 64-bit is old hardware (4 Gb of RAM) and all programs, data and configuration that would be lost.  Those computers aren’t only used to play games.

[trainstroid]

Hi guys,

good comments after all. I’m starting to like this forum.

I just wanted the developers to know about this issue.

An alternative just arrived. STEAMSALE.

@medopu: Thanks for that.

@clk_mike: I’ll give it a go. This game deserves a good future.

Merry Christmas and a fantastic boxing day to all of you.

[Author]

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