In the big debate surrounding physical disc versions and digital codes, at least one thing is certain: Steam keys are very, very robust.
I still sometimes wake up screaming today when I think about the first Spellforce. And my nightmares have nothing to do with the game itself—no, to even start Spellforce, you had to enter a CD key that I simply couldn’t make out properly. Is that an “O” or a “0,” or maybe a capital “O”? Is that an “R” or a “T”? It was one of those keys that were poorly printed on the CD case and simply impossible to decipher.
Ah, the good old CD key. Sometimes a curse, sometimes a blessing—and one Steam user just had a much more positive experience on Reddit than I did back then.
He or she was given an ancient CD version of Half-Life 1; the jewel case is about 27 years old. And lo and behold: the ancient CD key can still be redeemed for a working Steam version of the classic shooter, even after all this time:
People are, of course, commenting on this with the apt Star Wars quote: “It’s an older code, sir, but it’s correct!”
Do Steam keys actually expire?
Since I’m interested in this topic, I did a little digging to see if Steam keys even have an expiration date. My colleague Tristan wrote a detailed article on this a few months ago. The key takeaways were:
- In theory, Steam keys last forever. They have no inherent expiration date as long as no one redeems them.
- However, there are, of course,licensing exceptionsthat we’ve seen in several high-profile cases over the years. Remember the legendary shutdown of The Crew, which was a major catalyst for the “Stop Killing Games” initiative.
- Time-limitedalpha and beta eventslogically have an expiration date.
- If keys were distributed as part ofillegal activities, publishers can revoke them.
- In some cases, the sellers (i.e., publishers) also specifyspecific expiration dates, after which they can theoretically invalidate a Steam key.
- And then there’s the scenario that most often affects game testers like us: From a purely technical standpoint,keys can be manually revoked by the developers, for example, when a testing period ends. Farewell, 007 key—it was so nice having you!
But these are all very, very rare exceptions. As a rule, you can carry your keys around forever on a piece of paper in your pocket without them losing their validity. Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that digital Steam licenses come with different usage rights than, for example, purchased discs, which you’ll still be able to pop into a drive and install 1,000 years from now.
Right now, a massive debate is raging on consoles about the elimination of PlayStation discs—a debate we buried on the PC ten years ago, since most PCs no longer have a drive at all. More on this in the link box above.
Speaking of which: Do you still have a disc drive? Let me know in the comments—I’m curious.
