Posted November 11, 2013
teshra: Thats just how Steam works though and always has as far as I know. Its not anything to do with Humble Bundle or any other place where you can buy Steam keys. When you have a Steam key, the only way to know for sure if its been used is to use it. It will either tell you its a duplicate or it will activate it for you.
I suppose the 3rd option is if you already have the game, and the key has not been used. I don't know what it tells you then. Hopefully the game won't start installing and waste a key for you that way.
And I've heard legends and rumors that if you contact Steam support to ask if a key is active or used, they will tell you. But from those who recite these tales, they say it is a long and arduous journey fraught with the unknown of whether or not you shall find your answer and thus your salvation. (um, in other words, support will take forever to get back to you).
Indeed, Steam always worked this way whether one uses a key or a gift link. The only way to know is to try and register it and find it works, or if you know for sure you already own the game in question you can test it and Steam will tell you you already have that game. If you own the game already and test the code you'll get "you own the game already" and if it is used I think you get "duplicate product code". I suppose the 3rd option is if you already have the game, and the key has not been used. I don't know what it tells you then. Hopefully the game won't start installing and waste a key for you that way.
And I've heard legends and rumors that if you contact Steam support to ask if a key is active or used, they will tell you. But from those who recite these tales, they say it is a long and arduous journey fraught with the unknown of whether or not you shall find your answer and thus your salvation. (um, in other words, support will take forever to get back to you).
Like anyone, I wish there was a way to test if Steam keys were still unused/valid, but thinking about it more I realize that will never happen because if Steam had a way for anyone to do that, then scam artists would simply write software that attempts to brute force every possible Steam key that could exist by trying every possible key and asking Steam if it is valid or not. It'd be questionable whether they'd be too successful with it or not but their servers would almost certainly be swamped with billions of requests per day from every scam artist to crawl out from under a rock I imagine. If I had to hazard an educated guess as to why we can't test codes, it would be this.
Post edited November 11, 2013 by skeletonbow