A Steam Product code you activated has been removed from your account.

30 Jun, 2015
X-note

A 6+years old activation. No clue what is this game btw.

Guess from an old low quality bundle?

Edit: looks like it was from Indiegala - Every Monday #66 from 6 years ago.

edit 2: there are reports users losing Train of Afterlife too, a friend lost it, who got it from a fanatical bundle, so it is not just a missclick when happens for multiple games.

edit 3:
looks like Dev claiming he did this accidently. Is it believable? Hard to believe this, when he done it for multiple games, but that is just my opinion. Well, the answer is here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/337940/discussions/0/4241812037689890854/

edit 4:
Looks like Valve gave up the "your mess, we won't clean up after it" policy, and unlike previous times, when they not helped to restore the games after "accidental" removals, this time they did, so without any task or e-mail affected games now reappeared again on the account.

2 years ago*

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It's actually a pretty decent VN :x

I see 3 bundles with it so maybe you got it from one of these:

https://gg.deals/game/x-note/

2 years ago
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mine as well. well, that's a shame

2 years ago
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same =\

2 years ago
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Mine also. From IndieGala.

After 6 years shakes head.

Cue the developers playing dumb. "Oh we didn't know"

2 years ago
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Mine too, now sgtools show it as Not-Activated Win.

Edit: can it be erased from wins history?

2 years ago*
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You can try contacting the original giveaway creator and ask if they would send a support ticket to delete that particular giveaway, probably the easiest way to do it. Hopefully that user is still active.

2 years ago
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Thanks for the idea, if I won't see official response to this issue, I'll try it.

2 years ago
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You are welcome. :-)

2 years ago
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Comment in this cumulative thread, to get it added to the list.

2 years ago
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my X-Note too ;/
Actually played and liked it .
dunno if i bought it myself or got it from tremor games back in the day

2 years ago
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Another game was removed the same way from my account "Train of Afterlife"
they are by the same dev

2 years ago
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+1, though X-note is still on my account

2 years ago
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did you get it from a bundle or direct steam purchase of some sort?

2 years ago
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I got it from Fanatical Banzai Bundle

2 years ago
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same

2 years ago
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Another blocked dev, nice :)

2 years ago
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how did you block dev in steam?

2 years ago
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Go Here and click the gear under the "Beta" tab thing, then ignore.

2 years ago
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Ok, thank you, but this works only if the developer/publisher use this beta feature.
I want to block Pubs/Devs who not use this feature.

2 years ago
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There's nothing gained by commenting here. Write a review (you still can even if your key was revoked) and flag the product for fraud on the Steam store page.
As Valve is sitting on their hands and let devs/publishers run rampant maybe enough uproar from their users will wake them from their complacent slumber.

2 years ago
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There were no complaint in the topic, simply just informative. Affecting some also, who now have unactivated win, so posting this with that amount of information here is pretty fine.

2 years ago
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Mine too. I got it from Indie Gala's Every Monday Bundle #66.

2 years ago
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I got Train of Afterlife and X-Note from Groupees bundles. Neither has been revoked

2 years ago
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Why was this removed? I'm seeing some posts from the forums of some of their games about people's Antiviruses detecting something malicious in their games. The standard response, and logically I would think the same, is this was just a few false positives.
This couldn't possibly have been the case could it?

I don't remember owning a game by a developer that was booted from Steam since the whole Digital Homicide story broke, and people got to keep their games, we only WISHED they were removed and we were given credit in exchange. For the games to be removed I'm thinking this is either a case of stolen content or elements of the games or that somehow the really bizarre and seemingly impossible virus claim ended up being true.

2 years ago
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It wasn’t removed from the store, it was removed from people’s accounts.
So you can still buy it, but those that previously got it from a bundle had it removed from thier library.

2 years ago
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Why are they doing it to people who got keys from more than just one place? How many stolen keys can they be claiming if that's what the story is?

2 years ago*
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The exact message from Steam about the removal was: "Your recent Product code activation has been revoked due to a problem processing payment for this item." Valve clearly didn't program anything in to notice that a June 29, 2015 activation date isn't remotely "recent" in 2021.

The reason the dev gave for removal is making it pretty much impossible to consider this an honest mistake of any kind. You simply don't have problems processing a payment that completed successfully six years ago. The games were in bundles at IndieGala, Groupees & Fanatical, none of which are likely to have held out payments for six years. People are likely extra angry because the reason given is clearly BS.

2 years ago
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That is insane. They basically stole from you. Yeah six years down the road seems a bit extreme to claim anything in terms of receiving payment. I'm seeing most people say they got it from IndieGala and back then they were one of the better bundle sites out there, I probably bought more stuff from them than anyone else. I would never see them or Groupees doing anything wrong in terms of not paying what the dev asked for their keys and after such a long time you'd think they would have given up any rights to those keys for not doing something sooner or to even be able to do what they did. Valve should step in and reverse it all if they can, and I bet if enough people raised a ruckus to get their attention they'd side with the customers on this.

I once ordered something from overseas on eBay and waited over a month and when I finally gave up hope on the item ever arriving it turns out I could no longer do anything about a refund. Because too much time had passed for me to dispute the payment. There has to be some sort of statute of limitations on the books to stop stuff like this from happening because anyone could just claim that, "oh hey that [random item] you bought from me eight years ago, yeah I never received payment so I'm taking it back". The entire thing is insanely suspect and pretty absurd.

Edit: It looks like the dev is trying to do the right thing, if you follow the link on page 3 and read their apology it seems they are trying to make things right. Not sure how something like that even starts but at least they are trying their best to handle it the right way. Still though, I totally understand the poster at the bottom of this page when they say they shouldn't have to jump through any of these hoops and that this was even at all possible to do is kinda messed up. I'd be frustrated too most likely.

2 years ago*
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I still have my key for some odd reason (Idk it's origin.), but revoking a key from a steam account after 6 years is pretty shifty.
Apparently keys from their other game "Train of Afterlife" are getting revoked as well.

2 years ago
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I wonder if this is going to be a trend in years to come. Why and how is this possible, after all this years?

It is clear that we don't own anything on steam, if any developer can delete the games from people accounts with this level of ease.

2 years ago
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That's exactly the issue I have with this occurrence. It's not about losing a mediocre game from Steam library but the question if Valve actually monitors such behavior and which precautions are taken by Valve to avoid retail keys being revoked out of a whim by the devs/publishers.

2 years ago
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"yeah, digital is better than physical"

2 years ago
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Yeah mine is from Indie Gala's Every Monday Bundle #66. Been so long I haven't even seen their key interface in years. I idled this for cards long ago and likely would never actually play it. But as a concept itself as well as absolutely eliminating the possibility of me changing my mind or sharing it with someone, I don't like it being taken years later.

Digital games are great but moments like this do make me occasionally miss the fact that physical couldn't be taken away as long as you owned it and didn't destroy it.

Hopefully this gets resolved to everyone's benefit so the dev's reputation isn't permanently damaged and there's no bad blood from the relevant Indie bundle sites.

2 years ago
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I took the time to look through gg.deals for their entire library, here's their full game bundle history as reported there, from earliest released game to latest:

  • Train of Afterlife (Groupees - Bundle in a Box, November 2014; IndieGala - Every Monday #52, March 2015; Fanatical [Bundle Stars at the time] - Banzai Bundle, August 2015)
  • X-Note (Groupees - Build a Greenlight Bundle 14, November 2014; IndieGala - Every Monday #49, March 2015; IndieGala - Every Monday #66, July 2015)
  • OASE - Other Age Second Encounter (IndieGala - Monday Bundle #82, November 2015)
  • Natural - Beyond Nature (IndieGala - The Anime Treasure Bundle, October 2017)

Saw someone on the OASE Steam discussion forums worried their game may be revoked, but no reports of actual revocation for the other two so far.

2 years ago
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same lost x-note from 2015. ridiculous

2 years ago
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Ok, the game is still removed but SG added it to the whitelist, so it won't count as not activated win on you account.

2 years ago
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After "No. 70: Eye of Basir" and "Overfall" keys getting revoked with similar claims (devs saying they didn't get paid by one or more key resellers, keys were stolen, etc), this kind of thing sadly doesn't surprise me anymore. What does surprise me however is how far back the reach is in revoking those keys. I feel like, similar to how SG doesn't allow to change feedback after X amount of time, there should be a way to prevent revocation of keys after so many years. While it is possible that some sort of legal battle (assuming the dev is not lying about being owed) could take a good while, mass revoking all keys (including those distributed to sellers you didn't seem to have beef with) seems scammy all around. I think a dev should not be able to simply mass-revoke like this when so much time has passed.

Plus it just continues adding to the paranoia of people who may still have (unused) keys. Granted, as far as that aspect goes I wouldn't be surprised if steam is a little slow on combating those things, since they would of course prefer people using the storefront over getting keys, but still. This kind of bad practice is starting to look like a trend so I can only reiterate what other people have said, if you own one of the affected games, be sure to leave the appropriate review and report.

I had X-note on my wishlist for a while now but crap like this obviously makes me not want to support the dev. For the time being I keep stalking that steam community thread to see how things develop.

2 years ago
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I stand behind my option that revocation of keys is right tool for job.

But I also agree that there should be better tools for this. And there should be time-limit. 3 years or so should be plenty of enough for most fraud cases.

2 years ago
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Ah don't get me wrong, the tool itself is a good thing, it's all about how it gets used, or the potential for abuse respectively. I just feel that for a mass revocation after 6 years there should have been some extra hurdles, especially seeing how the dev has now admitted that at least part of the revoked keys were indeed an accident. It's great that devs have an option to look out for themselves if they do get scammed, especially those new to the business who may not have properly researched about reputable sellers etc. But there should be steps taken, given the time frame here, to for example have to prove to valve that you have unsuccessfully contacted your salespartner etc. So that they may review a dev's case and then give the go revoke whichever keys were distributed to that seller.

That said, of course as a non-dev I have no insight on the exact process so perhaps there are some hurdles in place already, just not enough or the right ones to have prevented this particular incident. I imagine the legitimate key resellers are also not enjoying being part of this as it does tarnish their reputation, and even if things are cleared up as to which storefronts were injustly affected, a part of that damaged reputation will remain. Especially in light of customers who do not bother to follow the development of the issue and just outrage post all over the place. (Not that I don't understand being mad, but I've always found complaints work better when stated calmly.)

We can't fault Valve over keys from retailers per se, after all we 'could just buy at the steam store directly', but we can at least let them know that their due process could use an update. Be it voting with vallets or reviews. (Although this then brings up the issue of them filtering 'review bombs' which may also afflict legitimate waves of negative feedback.) At this point the whole shebang feels like a rabbithole, haha.

2 years ago
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📝
[Tool] SGTools (New Section, DEALS!)
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/KOLZFjX
Train of Afterlife
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/tJIKrSk
x-note


These seem to have been added to the white list as false positives.
If you think that there is also a problem other than two cases, it is better to report to the SGTools discussion.

2 years ago
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Marble 54 minutes ago
The dev has clarified they revoked these keys by mistake, being too hasty and have Emailed me a replacement after I asked them about it.

Valve needs some stricter controls and checks in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening 'by accident'. A dev should not have free reign to revoke tens of thousands of keys in bulk without some sort of sanity check.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/5501694039554747893/?ctp=3

Just realized a Steam moderator went into damage control mode and merged the thread with this one on the game community hub to avoid further visibility on the main forum.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/342360/discussions/0/4755222397152133757/?ctp=14#c5501694039556145548

2 years ago*
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Someone posted that the dev claimed that Fanatical didn't pay them so that was the reasoning behind the revoke. I don't know if the same thing applies to IG but it doesn't really seem like a mistake to me. Who claims they weren't paid after 6 years?

2 years ago
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h.barkas 1 hour ago

Originally posted by Start_Running:

-snip-
It is, as said, between the Retailer, The Publisher, and the COnsumer. Valve is just providing the tools for the developers to enforce their contracts with 3rd party retailers. 

So you want to tell us that Indiegala, Humblebundle and Bundlestars(now Fanatical) working together with the biggest publishers in the industry conspired to scam this one man developer/publisher and payed him with Monopoly money and after six years he realized the plot and revoked the keys sold in bundles on these sites under the pretext of payment problems? That's an intriguing narrative

that's what I have to say to this got-no-money issue

2 years ago
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I got new key from Train of Afterlife in 2 minutes.
I just sent an email to the dev: zeiva@hotmail.com

2 years ago
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Same here. Got very fast response from dev with a new key

2 years ago
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i'm usually buy 2x copies of each indiegala bundle HH hosted by one guy, several years later half or maybe more of it's just already revealed keys and already redeemed, weird asf

2 years ago
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I will not bother asking a crazy dev "please Sir give me back my game you have stolen from me". The dev is punished enough by loss of customers and reputation.
I have more issue with Valve letting such things happen through their automated system on a now regular basis without fact checking if the claimed reason for revoking a key has any legal foundation. I have drawn my consequences and only buy on Steam to spend my wallet funds.

2 years ago
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Closed 2 years ago by Csontzuzo.