i got witcher 3,witcher 2,witcher ,and witcher board game on steam, but can you connect your steam account to gog? perhaps i could download their goodies which aren't available exclusively when purchased outside gog

You can claim Witcher & Witcher 2 here: https://www.gog.com/witcher/backup

Other game in the series currently not available, maybe somewhere in the future but who knows

The Witcher Adventure Game(based on a board game it says) is part of the winter sale at the moment 85% off leaving it at $1.49. It sucks buying games multiple times I know, I bought one 3 times because of changing computers/os upgrades and the copyrights kept getting sold. Anyway $1.49 isn't terrible if you don't want to wait without a guarantee. I'm not allowed to post links, so you'll have to search for it.


I hope this isn't seen as hijacking the thread. I think it is an expansion of the subject question, based on the previous answer.
I got a few unused steam game disks for games that steam no longer offers on their website, and so they cannot be added to the steam library. I want to play the steam games I paid for that steam doesn't offer anymore. Those game disks should have been recalled, not clearanced. Is there any chance GoG is working on adding discontinued steam code redemption support?

If you had a key for a Steam game I'm pretty sure that would activate even if the game isn't available to purchase on Steam anymore? It's rare for a game to not be available anymore entirely, even with keys. For instance, if you could somehow find a key for 'The Movies' that would very likely still work, even though the game hasn't been available to buy on Steam in a decade or so. In most cases 'fully' removed games simply weren't playable anymore (ie, online game where servers had shut down for example)

Which games are you talking about?

Are you sure those are "steam" game "disks". Sounds more like you're trying to redeem things like uPlay/GFWL/origin games and not actually 'steam' ones.

Staem keys are always valid, especially if they were actually retail keys. Thus if your games were actually 'steam' games (this is highly unlikely) and were actually retail copies (again this is highly unlikely) then they would be redeemable on steam.

I lost my giant stack of game cd's from the ages, in storage somewhere I'm sure, but where? I bought several Star Trek games, "Star Trek DAC" was among them, and I think a Star Wars game. I believe they all had an offline story mode in addition to any multiplayer stuff. In my experience any games that didn't have compelling enough single player couldn't be saved by multiplayer, but the market seems to disagree with me. Recently I got a shinny new coaster for Lord of the Rings: War in the North, the game cd will install the steam client then close itself without an error message. I was unable to find a way to activate the game on the steam site. I know War in the North isn't yet offered here, but it isn't offered there anymore either. They say it was glitchy but just the same I'd like to try it anyway.


With War in the North I bought a nonsteam Mirrors Edge, with the music cd. The game used the less common of two web based DRM servers that EA took down, the server that has no beta mode to work around. It installs but no way to activate it despite having a unused EA key. I bought the GoG Mirrors Edge when it was on sale for a little more than I paid for the two CD box set. If GoG allows us to redeem the "EA Download Manager" code since EA doesn't seem eager to reactivate their old DRM servers after two years of being down, I'd be glad to offer it in one of the give aways, after all there is no point in redeeming two codes for myself, or letting EA keep the money without delivering a game to somebody.
GoG If you're listening see if you can acquire the old EA Download Manager licencing rights, Mirrors Edge wasn't the only game affected, just as that wasn't the only discontinued DRM server option those game disks may have used. Might even be able to expand the catalog a bit with games that are no longer legitimately available.

I've learned to never buy a game disk that says anything about mandatory internet connections.

The second quote is from the CD not from Satoru, but the editor keeps resetting that every time I try to change it.

Also how do I do a block quote without quoting a member? On other sites I just use the same quote script but leave the username blank, here that assumed that both quotes were from the same person, added a / and locked me out of editing it.

Every physical game that activates on Steam comes with a CD-Key in there somewhere which you enter in the client. After that activation it's linked to that account forever. This should have been explained on the box as well, or somewhere at least. I assume this wasn't a second hand purchase?

Just leave off the "_#" part from the opening quote tag.

So, just do this:
[ quote ]This is the text[ /quote ] (except remove the spaces from between the brackets).

Only if they're available on the steam connect page, or the reclaim your game page and already associated with a steam account. Or they're a CD Projekt game you bought a physical copy of, for PC which as a rule far as I know, comes with a gog.com redemption code right in the box at least my physical copies of Witcher 1, 2, and 3 all did.

Not all developers are willing to participate in either the reclaim your game or steam connect programs to, and most who are are only willing to do so for a limited time. So my personal advice is check up on the steam connect page regularly. You might over time be able to transfer a pretty good chunk of your library.

Sounds like you got these games second hand. Steam games at retail are functionally boxes that are used to transport a piece of paper that has you activation code on it. The cds are worthless. The cd either has the cd-key imprinted on it, the case has a sticker on the inside, or the manual has it.

You don't even need the client to add a steam game to your account

https://store.steampowered.com/account/registerkey

You can do it on their website

What satoru meant is that for some games that ship on a physical disc (no idea what actual proportion), the disc does not contain the game -- it'll pretty much literally just auto-download and -install the Steam client, then download the game from there. In such cases, the only possible benefit over having bought a digital download copy directly is any physical "extras" that might've come in the game case (manual, map, extra disc with soundtrack or "making of" videos, etc.).

There's quite a few problems with that

1) Retail games for PC are kinda dying so even getting one is a minor miracle
2) Many retail games literally just ship a cd with the steam installer and the cd-key on a piece of toilet paper and that's it. Aka the disc contains literally nothing
3) Even if the disc contained some data, it has a usefulness of about 1 week at best. You will absolutely have to download a day 0 patch no matter what, as the disc data is already fairly old (going gold does not mean anymore that the dev team stands still so there will always be changes to download no matter what). After just a few post release patches, the data on the disc will be so old and out of date, steam will outright download the entire game again since 90% of the data on the disc is worthless and cannot be patched.

Sure, I know all that... but Steam activation for retail games has been around since 2010-2011 (or something like that). You're mostly referring to the more recent ones. It's perfectly possible to find new copies of retail games with steam activation that have been originally released more than 5 years ago.
Also, some retail games, even now, are GOTY or "Definite" edition with all data on the disc and no updating needed. But I know they're disappearing and often being replaced with code-in-a-box ones (again, for recentish releases).

I'm not talking about myself. I have a friend that cares more about having a physical box than about DRM. He has a cheap internet package (=low download limit) and still likes to buy some of those older physical Steam releases.

Me, I don't want DRM anymore. On rare occasions, I'll buy a Steam game if it's REALLY great and very unlikely to come to GOG (e.g. the Resident Evil ones). I'll only pay a ridiculously low price and I'll download a "DRM free backup" somewhere.

I love physical releases, but even before online activation those boxes had become sad containers with little printed (or other) contents in them.