Sniper Elite 3 has rolled out onto the market in various territories for the home consoles and PC; and while the console version of the game seems to be operating as expected, there are a few problems over in the PC camp.
Blues News was tipped off to a post over on the Steam community forum where it was revealed that some Sniper Elite 3 Steam codes have been banned or revoked. The codes not being accepted by the digital distribution outlet come from third-party vendors, which might set off warning bells to anyone who decided to buy a digital version of Sniper Elite 3 for PC, outside of Steam.
The community post from Rebellion explains exactly why some of the codes have been revoked or banned from the Steam database, with the post stating that...
“We appreciate that some people are upset, this is exactly why we wanted to make this offer to gamers who’ve been affected through no fault of their own.“To clarify, one of our PC retail distributors informed us that some of their allotted Steam keys were stolen. We believe these keys were then resold to multiple companies, with no payments going to either Valve or the retail distributor.“Steam were immediately informed and have now revoked that set of keys.”
They further note that anyone who had purchased the game from a third-party vendor and had their game access revoked, they should immediately contact that vendor and ask for a refund. If you're unable to get in contact with the vendor for a refund or you run into other problems related to getting your money back, be sure to contact Rebellion directly about the problem.
In addition to this, in order to make up for this inconvenience, Rebellion further went and did the right thing by offering free DLC codes to anyone who pre-ordered the game and had their key revoked on Steam.
As noted in the post...
“In addition we’re aware that some gamers may have pre-ordered these keys in good faith, believing them to be genuine - missing out on both the game, and the “Target Hitler” DLC pre-order incentive.“In response to this we’d like to offer the “Target Hitler” DLC FREE to all those affected by this.”
This is a really unfortunate thing, but it also seems to feed into the mentality about withholding from pre-ordering games. There is a strong sub-community within the gaming industry that encourages gamers not to pre-order games – not necessarily because of situations like this – in order to prevent publishers from capitalizing on sales of an unproven, unreleased game.
In this instance, some of the people who pre-ordered the game ended up with a dud. At least, on the upside, Rebellion went and did the right thing by offering up free codes for their DLC of the game.
Sniper Elite 3 is currently available for home consoles and PC. The reviews have been fairly positive so far, so barring this incident it may not be that bad of a game to check out.
