Humble Bundle is perhaps one of the best ways to expand your Steam library, adding to that never-ending backlog of games you have never played but paid for with hard-earned dosh. However, if you let your key sit unredeemed for too long, it seems Humble will replace it with an Epic or GOG one.
As per Reddit user mikasa_tsukasa, who first spotted this change, Humble Bundle will replace unused Steam keys with Epic Games Store or GOG keys instead, issuing no notice in the process. It remains unclear as to why this is happening, or how, and we reached out to Humble for a comment but did not hear back by the time this article was written.
Theories of why this would happen are already running rampant, and suffice it to say that players are by no means happy to hear this. The Epic Games Store is generally unpopular among gamers, despite its many advantages and benefits, including free weekly games. GOG, on the other hand, while also not so present in the market, does have its own set of goodies, including the fact that all games sold on it are DRM-free, i.e., they are yours as soon as that purchase goes through.
No license can ever be taken away from you, nor will the game ever become unusable or unplayable, no matter what happens to the company that made it or the servers it’s hosted on. It’s the closest thing we have to physical media and classical game ownership. GOG and Epic Games nevertheless lack many features that Steam has, though it also has to do with the tremendous brand loyalty Valve has built for over two decades.
These preferences for Steam could precisely be the reasons why Humble Bundle is replacing more valuable keys that could end up on third-party marketplaces like G2A. If your Steam key is just sitting there unused, chances are you’ve put it up for sale on one of these marketplaces, trying to make back some of the money spent on a Humble subscription and tremendously decreasing publisher revenue in the process.
Publisher pressure could have also played a role. Major companies that collaborate with Humble will want Steam keys kept strictly away from any kind of third-party sales, preferring to sacrifice Epic Games Store and GOG keys instead and to leave Steam keys for official use only.
Of course, all of this is just speculation, and we have reached out to Humble for comment. We will update this article when and if we get a response.
In the meantime, be sure to use those Steam keys you might have lying around your Humble Bundle, including those small games you’re probably never going to play. At least they’ll stat-pad your Steam game count, which we all know gives the biggest bragging rights in the world.
