Ancient Shadows Key STILL Won't Register

[x4000]

March 06, 2011, 09:04:14 AM

He wasn't psychically predicting the future with his statements.  All games and expansions as of that time did register.  Later, with each expansion, we say "they don't register yet, but we hope and expect they will at some point in the future."

[Cyborg]

March 06, 2011, 09:04:14 AM

He wasn't psychically predicting the future with his statements.  All games and expansions as of that time did register.  Later, with each expansion, we say "they don't register yet, but we hope and expect they will at some point in the future."

Yes, surely the expectation that we have steam registration doesn't come from any of those quotes, doesn't have any precedent, and is not implied by anything that you or Keith wrote.

Ridiculous, Chris. Says right on those threads that you supported it from your store. If that changes, you should put in big bold letters to go buy it from steam because your store no longer applies to activating the product the way we all activated every single one of your products- *All* of your products- for years. Years.

[x4000]

Gosh, it's a shame we never said anything in the two years after that about it not being supported yet!  Oh, wait...

[LaughingThesaurus]

Is it not warned on the store page that "there may be delays in steam accepting keys for newer titles"? If that little sentence is there, that'd practically solve the whole problem. Otherwise, I don't actually see what is expected here.
Bowing out of the debate now.

[Cyborg]

Is it not warned on the store page that "there may be delays in steam accepting keys for newer titles"? If that little sentence is there, that'd practically solve the whole problem. Otherwise, I don't actually see what is expected here.
Bowing out of the debate now.

If you call August a delay… But yes, I agree. Just a little note saying that your key is second-class if you buy from them directly.

[x4000]

Is it not warned on the store page that "there may be delays in steam accepting keys for newer titles"? If that little sentence is there, that'd practically solve the whole problem. Otherwise, I don't actually see what is expected here.

That sentence isn't on there, no.  Which seems to be what is being asked for, but we aren't really saying that any of the steam keys are activate-able on Steam, for any of the titles, on the store page.  If someone is coming to the store page blind, the assumption is that none of them are.  If you go to the forums, you can see "hey neat!  These line items also register on Steam."  Ancient Shadows nor Shattered Haven are not on that list.

Shattered Haven never will be because it doesn't have license keys, but we did say in a blog post announcing the game that alpha and beta preorder players could request a Steam key by just emailing us.  So that helps out the early adopters.  Our other newer titles are also not expected to carry DRM, and thus would use that same model.  Expansions to existing games that already have license keys will probably continue to work as those games already did.

The issue I have with putting some generalized statement on the store page is that it sets up expectations wrongly -- specifically, that we will always have games that can eventually be registered on Steam, or that we'll always even have CD keys in the first place.  That said, I've now made a centralized list there:

Which Games Have CD Keys That Can Be Activated On Steam?

The Following Games CAN Be Registered On Steam:
AI War: Fleet Command
AI War: The Zenith Remnant
AI War: Children of Neinzul
AI War: Light of the Spire
Tidalis
A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2

The Following Games Can NOT Be Registered On Steam:
AI War: Ancient Shadows -- Key registration may become available in the future, but if you definitely want it on Steam, we advise you buy it on Steam.

The Following Games Have No CD Keys At All:
Shattered Haven -- Alpha players, and players who bought the game direct from our store during the beta period, can email us to get a Steam key.

http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/arcen-store

[keith.lamothe]

@Cyborg: fair enough, I had meant those as describing the then-presently-true situation rather than predicting the future (remember, the extensive delay in getting AVWW's keys to register hadn't happened yet), but if you want to call those me promising it I won't argue the point.  As I said privately; give me a target email address (even if it's just a throwaway, I guess) or steam account name and I can send you a steam copy of AS.  I literally have no other way, however.

[Echo35]

Wow, people be jumping some guns here. I don't really care honestly. I remember it being a "this should work but it's not guaranteed" thing pretty much every time, and I buy direct from Arcen anyway so they get a bigger cut of the profits. What Steam does with it's products is hardly the fault of the developers. And it's not like I can't play the game. That would be a legitimate Arcen Games issue. This is just a convenience thing.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Very nice, Chris.
I suggest the quick and easy way, you make it really good and put a lot of effort into it to make everybody happy. I threw out that quick and easy way to hopefully have the whole debate chill out a bit, really. Offering a shiny fanciful detailed solution doesn't quite work in an argument of any kind really. I'm glad to see there's some kind of agreement.
@Cyborg: I don't know what steam's doing, but the burden's clearly on them. I don't really see a way to fix that situation directly.

[Echo35]

As I said privately; give me a target email address (even if it's just a throwaway, I guess) or steam account name and I can send you a steam copy of AS.  I literally have no other way, however.

If I forward you my receipt, can I get on that deal?

[keith.lamothe]

If I forward you my receipt, can I get on that deal?

I know you well enough to not need a receipt; just send me a target via PM or email (it's the same username as I use here at gmail dot com).

[x4000]

Thanks folks.

And Keith, are you paying for those out of your own pocket? That's the only way I can think of that you could be doing that...

[Echo35]

That's the only way I can think of that you could be doing that...

Well you don't have to go THAT far. I can get it on my own if that's the case.

[LaughingThesaurus]

You wouldn't lose that much money on that deal would you? I mean, it is your game after all. Steam would take part of it, but it'd eventually get around to you guys again for buying your own game wouldn't it?
Regardless, that's a totally awesome thing to do and I'll probably be telling this awesome story to everybody I know who doesn't care, but I'm just curious since I don't know how steam works exactly.

[x4000]

Well, steam takes a nontrivial cut, plus there's sales tax.  And then he only gets a portion of royalties because Pablo, Arcen, and Erik also pull the rest.  So I estimate he'd be out around 85-90% of what he paid to do that.  Since you asked.