Valve will stop uncontrollably issuing developers any number of game keys. The service explained this by fighting the sale of keys on third-party sites bypassing Steam.
The change in the Steam policy was announced by an employee of the Valve Business development department, Sean Jenkins, at the Steam developers forum.
“If a developer requests a batch of keys from Steam that far exceeds the possible sales of his title, it may mean that he sells them somewhere else. In this case, Steam incurs unjustified costs.
For example, if you sold several hundred copies of your game on Steam, but requested 500 thousand keys, this will force Valve to take a closer look at your games, sales, pricing, and so on,” Jenkins wrote.
Theoretically, these measures can cause difficulties for game projects that are funded through crowdfunding campaigns, since the developer will have to request a large number of keys for crowdfunding participants even before the game sales start.
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