Unsuspecting Sniper Elite 3 customers who bought stolen keys have had their games revoked.
Over 7,000 Steam keys for Rebellion’s Sniper Elite 3 have been reported stolen from a PC distributor, and then re-sold to unsuspecting customers. After discovering the theft, Steam promptly invalidated the keys, leaving many legitimate customers who were victims of the thieves without the game. Steam has urged customers to seek refunds from wherever they bought the keys from.
“To clarify, one of our PC retail distributors informed us that some of their allotted Steam keys were stolen,” the developer said. “We believe these keys were then resold to multiple companies, with no payments going to either Valve or the retail distributor.”
Rebellion has posted a list of retailers that were unaffected on the game’s Steam discussion page, and as a gesture of good will, has offered the “Target Hitler” DLC absolutely free to any customers who were affected by the revoked keys (though that’s probably a small consolation to these guys who are unlikely to see a refund from their retailers).
“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.” Rebellion writes.
Fans are justifiably angry, saying that they should not be punished for a theft that they didn’t commit. It’s certainly not a great move for Rebellion, who honestly should have just stopped further sales of stolen keys and left the ones that had already been redeemed.
Source: IGN
