Warning! Eryi's Action Steam keys are not working!

If you think you have a non-yet activated "Eryi's Action" key and you are planning to make a giveaway or a trade with it, you are better not to, as most of them seem to be activated a long time ago!

You will get an error "Duplicate Product Code". And I can say - after some research - this is a common problem.
(I don't know what percent of the total keys is involved, but if you own your key for a while, it will most likely not work.)

This I find really strange, I've never heared about something like this before, that's why I opened this thread.

I got 2x Eryi's Action Steam keys in Groupees Bundles. Of course both should have been 100% unused. And both said "Duplicate Product Code" when I put them into Steam. This never happened with any of my steam keys, while I bought sh*tton of various bundles during the past years.

First I thought it was Groupees mistake, but that turned out fast, not they are the guilty.

I made some fast search with Google:

1 random Steam Discussion I found: Duplicate Keys? from a Bundle Stars bundle buyer:

So I got the Fusion Bundle and am trying to activate the keys. I'm getting a Duplicate Product Code message for Eryi's Action, saying my key has already been activated by an existing Steam account, and is therefore invalid. What happened?
BTW, the rest I either owned already, or worked fine.

+

This Problem happened to me, as well.

1 other report on a random gaming blog: This code is already activated:

Hello.
I bought Fusion Bundle today.
I redeemed "Eryi's Action" in steam client.
But it say this key is "Duplicate product code"

From some game seller website (I rather not linking):

Eryi's Action Steam Key. Action (...) They gave me two duplicate keys over the course of 5 days.

This site is/was selling the game keys standalone, so not only the bundle sites are affected.

Here is a tweet from Twitter, and a reply:

just bought it, awesome bundle but the Eryi's Action key was a duplicate, hopefully its easy to fix?

+

same problem here! i dont know why

Reddit - Bundle Stars The Fusion Bundle; 9 Steam games for $3.49:

Got a duplicate item code for Eryi's Action.

+

Same here. Each key worked great except the one for Eryi's Action. It said that it's already been used. I submitted a ticket with Steam Support and I figure they'll get it fixed, but just a head's up for anyone considering getting this bundle.

+

Same here. I contacted support and got an automated "Out of Office" reply from their support.

+

That happened to me too.

From Neogaf's STEAM Announcements & Updates 2014:

so the second Eryi`s Action key they send me on bundlestars is ALSO a duplicate code, wtf...

From a CAG forum thread:

waiting for Groupee Support to respond back to my request for a new Eryi's Action Steam key given that the key they gave got the "duplicated product code" message on Steam (...)

Comment of the winner of an Eryi's Action giveaway on a random website:

more than a month ago
code is a duplicate

I've also found some past giveaways when ppl were dropping code of this game and replies to them some seconds(!) later that those were already taken/used. Since the replies made that fast, the users were there at the right moment and should have get em without a problem.

And a random SteamGifts thread: what-can-i-do-if-i-got-duplicate-key:

finally after 1981 entered giveaway
i won some
but i got a duplicate key
it's just indy game Eryi's Action

I can see the user who gifted the game got a "not-received" feedback for that game - even if it was not his fault - and guess what...
It was his last giveaway on SG (what is totally understandable imho).

The Developer of the game is Xtal Sword. Eryi's Action is their only game on Steam. So... I don't know. Maybe

• someone has stolen all of the keys from the devs database?
• someone found a solution how to hack the keys of this game (keygen or something like that)?
• the devs resold their already distributed keys? (I've read that once, it is possible for the devs to track their own keys - if this is true they might check which of their keys they sold got activated immediately, and sold the rest again to different shops.)

Any thoughts? If someone has any experiences with Eryi's Action keys please post them.