GamersGate?

[RealityFlaw]

So I see that Impulse keys can be registered on Steam, but I tried the one I got from GamersGate and it doesn't seem to work, is this a known issue or did I do something wrong?  I would like to buy Light of the Spire while it is on sale, is this possible?

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums

Can you give us more detail on how it doesn't seem to work?

[RealityFlaw]

Thank you for your prompt response.

I input the same serial I used to activate the game, but it says "The product code you've entered is not valid."

[keith.lamothe]

Odd.  There is a known issue where folks will get a message saying that the key has already been registered on another account (or something to that effect), but I don't know of any unresolved issues where it simply said that it wasn't valid at all.

Just to make sure, you're:

1) Going to the Library tab in steam.
2) Clicking on "Add A Game" in the lower-left-hand corner.
3) Clicking on "Activate a Product on Steam".
4) Clicking Next and then "I Agree" to get though those.
5) Entering the serial into the "Product Code" box and clicking Next.

And then it's telling you "The product code you've entered is not valid."

Have I got that right?

[RealityFlaw]

4 doesn't happen for me, it goes from 3 to the Product Code entry dialog.

But yes to the rest of it.

[x4000]

It looks like your key was keygenned, in that case -- what product are you trying to register?  All of the keys from anywhere are registerable on Steam, so if it's not working it is probably that a pirate keygenned your key and registered it on steam already.  If it's not the base game of AI War, I'd be surprised, though.

[RealityFlaw]

Yeah I'm trying to activate the base game so I can buy the expansion.
Guess I'm SOL 

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah I'm trying to activate the base game so I can buy the expansion.
Guess I'm SOL 

No, it might, but others have had success with simply asking Valve to recognize them as the legal owner of the key by sending them the receipt from the other distributor.  This doesn't always work, but there's a chance.

From the steam forum thread on this issue:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1543880&page=3#37

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1543880&page=5

[RealityFlaw]

I've poked around and the success rate for that method seems very low, also it would almost certainly take several days, at which point the sale would be over.

Meh. I guess its plenty of fun like it is.
Still it seems strange that a piracy issue would make no mention of a key conflict.

[x4000]

It's good security, actually. Same reason that sites say "unknown username or password" instead of "wrong password." that way you don't know if your key (or username) is valid at all from the error message, which prevents hackers from using that info to bootstrap into other info.