Steam limits the number of keys for suspicious games

Valve has been at it for a while now, trying to figure out how to make Steam better after Greenlight has proven not to be able to stop an influx of bad games and asset flips. They have shut down Greenlight and introduced Steam Direct, however they have also managed to do the complete opposite by approving games that perhaps should not have been Greenlit. Next step is limiting keys for those who want more keys than they sell on Steam.

Sean Jenkin, game and video development software engineer at Valve, explains why Valve will deny some key requests for developers. He explains: “If we’re denying keys for normal size batches, it’s likely because your Steam sales don’t reflect a need for as many keys as you’re distributing, and you’re probably asking for more keys because you’re offering cheaper versions off Steam and yet we’re bearing the costs.” Thus, the problem is with developers actually wanting to get more keys than they are actually selling and basically undercutting themselves elsewhere. Sean says that they will be looking into games that request suspicious amount of keys to be activated.

This information, however, comes from a Reddit screenshot which is claimed to come from a private Steamworks game, so it might be useful to take this with a grain of salt. The leaks are generally accurate, however, official word is always better. Steam has been working on improvements for a while now and even though we cannot say that it has been successful, we can wish Steam best of luck in fighting the illegitimate key business.