Sniper Elite 3 Steam Keys Bought in Good Faith Revoked as Result of Scam

Valve has revoked an unknown number of Steam keys for the recently released Sniper Elite III after developer and publisher Rebellion said they were stolen from one of its retail distributors.

We still don’t know how many buyers were affected, but at the time of writing the Steam discussion thread where Rebellion made the announcement is almost 700 comments long.

Many of the comments are from understandably angry customers, who didn’t know they were buying stolen keys. As Rebellion explained it to one of these angry buyers on its Facebook page, Rebellion asked Steam to revoke a batch of keys that was stolen from one of its distributors of the retail, hard copy version of the game. Rebellion believes these keys were sold to third-party key resellers like Instant Gaming.

However, a post to Instant Gaming’s Facebook page claims that it bought the revoked Sniper Elite III Steam keys legitimately.

“The resellers are NOT the problem,” Rebellion said on Facebook. “Those stores affected are NOT shady…The keys supplied to them were not as they seem – they were unlicensed, and unpaid for. This was reported to Valve and they revoked the keys.”

Rebellion is offering Sniper Elite III’s Target Hitler DLC for free to all those affected by this issue. To be eligible for that, you’ll have to contact Rebellion by Friday, July 4 by following the instructions here.

As for the price of the game itself, Rebellion is encouraging customers to contact the sellers in question and seek a refund immediately.

Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg and Google+.

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