Valve to put limits on the number of Steam keys they're distributing to smaller games

In a screenshot leaked to Reddit, allegedly from a private Steamworks group, Sean Jenkin, game and video development software engineer at Valve, suggests that Valve will start denying key requests to developers. While they’re keen not to “degrade tools that legitimate developers are using” to sell their games according to a blog post from May, Valve say they will now refuse to provide keys far in excess of the number of copies of their games that developers are actually selling.

Jenkin offers an example, saying “if we’re denying keys for normal size batches, it’s likely because your Steam sales don’t reflect a need for as many keys as you’re distributing, and you’re probably asking for more keys because you’re offering cheaper versions off Steam and yet we’re bearing the costs.”

“For example, say you’ve sold a few thousand copies on Steam but have requested/activated 500K keys, then we are going to take a deeper look at your games, you sales, your costs, etc.”

As this information has been posted to a private Steam group, we’ve not been able to verify it so far. These leaks have always proved accurate so far, however, and they fall in line with Valve’s previous attempts to crack down on illegitimate key sellers.