I can't believe how Steam continue to alienate legal users.

if you're not happy with it just get a refund popocho. I wouldn't be happy if I paid for the game and not be able to access it.

Sounds like something to petition support about.

I refunded Sims 3 a year ago because I had trouble playing the game. It wanted me to jump through so many hoops and half of the stuff didn't work. Like steveywonder said, hit that refund button before it's to late.

They must be waiting to score some keys cheap from black market since it's not like Steam has an almost infinite generator for them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/47890/discussions/0/1761356057404041296/ Just chill and relax

lol, i bought sims 2 years ago, never tried cause already have game+dlc's in origin client. Just checked - there's no cd key in steam xD

Alice: Madness Returns had a similar issue in the past and well, it got removed from the store. Entirely possible for the same thing to happen with this game.

Throwback to an older comment

If you're really desperate to play Sims 3, refund on Steam (and report it as "Broken" for good measure I guess) and get it on Origin instead.
EA and Valve don't mix, and Valve are doing exactly jack shit to make sure people can play the EA games that are sold through their store - a fine combination of bad blood between the 2 companies and Valve just being lazy fucks as par for the course.

This is totally unacceptable. They shouldnt take money for which they dont have.

Just pirate it

refund and forget about that game, that's the only thing you can do to hurt them.

Speak with your wallet. Refund that crap (after you leave a review, of course).

Steam provade a huge update in this time, so be patient )

Something like that happened with Dawn of Discovery. I think it was before the refund policy. The game was on sale and Steam ran out of keys. I remember I had to wait 2 days to get my key.

Refund and get your 3 fricken dollars back. Who really cares you paid next to nothing for it in the first place... Unless you forked out for all the DLC.

And your logic saying that's why piracy exists is just moronic, people were pirating games long before digital distribution was a thing.

I honestly doubt it's Valve's problem that they are "out of keys" as well, my best guess would be that EA is responsible and that they are just trying to make Steam look bad because they are in direct "competition" even though Origin is somewhat of a joke.

Purchasing EA game on Steam would mean 2 DRM : Steam one + Origin one. I only purchase EA games directly on Origin (and UbiSoft ones on UPlay) to avoid that issue. Only exception was Valiant Hearts and I got delay between Steam purchase and UPlay key delivery like you have, so I never did it again either for UbiSoft or EA games. I don't get cards though by doing so, but at least I can redeem game and play it immediately once downloaded.

Okay, what I don't understand ... there's Origin keys for Sims 3 and it still sold on Steam. When you buy it on Steam you get an Origin key with your purchase and you can download and play it via Steam like any other game on Steam. So even if they're having trouble giving you your Origin key right now, you should still be able to play it on Steam, no? That's at least what I did back then ... I bought it on Steam, and only registered the Origin key way back later, when I bought more DLCs from a 3rd party seller (Amazon) for Origin. If it's a license issue, they should still just let you play the Steam version until they've restocked their keys. Otherwise they shouldn't sell it.