Unbeknownst to many people, it’s not a requirement that you purchase a game directly from Valve in order to use it with their Steam gaming platform—and, in fact, it’s often advantageous to purchase your game from a third party retailer. Let’s take a look at how to get your third party games into your Steam account.

This will be the golden time to get extra keys for new games. Use Retail CD on Steam Network. Open the download page and click Redeem on the Steam button. You will get Steam product key which can be used for registering your account. Now select the key generate and copy to your clipboard. After that it then starts downloading the game via Steam. I have the disc but it refuses to install the game from it. There is no other.exe for the installation besides the Steam setup.exe. How do I install the game from the disks? I have a slow line and a limited download cap, so I.

Why (and Where to) Shop Outside of the Steam Store

The click-and-done purchase process on Steam is, obviously, very, very convenient, but it doesn’t always yield the best prices. While Steam is well known for their huge Summer and Winter sales (as well as a spattering of deeply discounted games here or there throughout the year), the vast majority of games on Steam sit at full retail for most of the year.

In fact, if you buy a game from outside Steam, you can often import the game into your Steam library, and it’ll appear exactly as if you’d bought them through Steam in the first place—complete with play time and progress, Steam achievements, and more. So, if you’re willing to venture outside the Steam marketplace and do a little comparison shopping you can end up saving quite a bit of money, with no downside to you.

RELATED:How to Add Non-Steam Games to Steam and Apply Custom Icons

Note: Not all games can be imported into Steam, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use your Steam library interface to manage even those titles. If you find yourself with an unrecognized (or very old) game title that you still wish to use Steam to manage, check out our guide to adding non-Steam games, complete with custom icon artwork, to your Steam library.

Warning: Due to the popularity of Steam, there are a lot of sketchy sites trafficking fake Steam Keys. We do not recommend searching Google for “Steam Keys” and picking the cheapest reseller you can find. Reseller experiences range from “I saved a few bucks and nothing awful happened” to “My computer is now infected with ransomware”. If you’re curious about the world of key resellers, this excellent long read over at Polygon dives into the issue.

RELATED:10 Alternatives to Steam for Buying Cheap PC Games

The most bulletproof shopping strategy is to buy only from firmly established organizations like Amazon, Best Buy, or Newegg. You can also get Steam-compatible keys from popular bundles like The Humble Bundle. If you’ve heard of the store before, it’s probably a safe bet. If you want to comparison shop and/or get alerts when prices fall across Steam and related game sale sites, we’d recommend checking out isthereanydeal.com, which can track discounts and notify you when a game you want is on sale, where, and if it’s compatible with Steam importing.

How to Add a Third Party Game Code to Steam

In order to add games purchased through a third party to your Steam account, you’ll need the activation code from the third party retailer. You can either redeem codes on the Steam website or via the Steam desktop application.

To redeem a code in the Steam application, open Steam on your computer and from the top navigation bar, select “Games” and then “Activate a Product on Steam…” to start the product activation wizard.

To redeem a code via the Steam website instead, head to the Activate a Product on Steam page and sign in with your Steam account. Enter the product key here and go through the wizard. The website works basically the same as the Activate a Product on Steam option in the Steam client, but it can be used even if you don’t have Steam installed on your current device. You could even access this website from your phone.

On the first page of the wizard, you’ll be prompted to get your code ready, click “Next” when you’re ready.

On the next screen agree to the terms of service by clicking “I Agree”. On the next page of the activation wizard, enter your product code in the slot and click “Next”. Do note that the name given to the activation codes is rarely “Steam Key” when you’re buying from a different retailer and it may be labeled “Digital Activation Code”, “Product Code”, or some variation there of. The important part is that the retailer you purchase from notes that the key can be redeemed on Steam and that it is formatted like the examples seen below.

On the last screen, you’ll see a confirmation of the game title as well as a button that allows you to print a receipt of the game activation transaction. The only difference between what you see on the screen and what is printed out is that the printout includes your Steam username and a confirmation code in addition to the game title. Click finish when you’re done reviewing and/or printing the information on the final screen.

After you exit the activation wizard, you’ll see the game you just activated in your library, like so:

Simply click on the “Install” button, like you would any other Steam game, to download the game and get started playing it.

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Download keys & URLs

A download key is a special URL that gives someone access to a project’s files.

There are a few ways a download key can come into existence:

1. Someone pays for your project
2. You, the project owner, generates one from the project edit page

When someone downloads a free project a download key is not created. Someonewill not own a game just by downloading it for free

We've described in detail what happens when someone pays for your project inthe How buying works guide. One important thing to note: Ifsomeone pays for a project that is free (minimum price of 0), they will stillget a download key. If you decide to add a price in the future they will stillhave access.

A download key’s URL is unique and should not be shared. If a download key islinked to an account then it can only be viewed by the owner when they arelogged into their account.

File access

The purpose of a download key is to give download access to the files you'veuploaded to your project. By default, any file you've uploaded will beavailable for download. If you change the minimum price of your project thenkey holders will still have access to their files.

How To Download Games On Computer

There’s one exception to this rule though: any files that are individuallypriced.

There are two ways to set a price on your downloadable files: You can set aminimum price on your entire project, or you can individually set a price onfiles of your choosing.

All download keys have an associated price. It’s used to unlock anyindividually priced files. This price is set when someone buys your project, orif you manually set it when generating a download key.

Generating a download key

From the Distribute tab of your project’s edit page you can find theDownload keys section. There are two ways to generate keys: singular or inbulk.

If you'r looking to give out access to your game to a friend, or press, werecommend generating a single key. If you need to generate many keys, like fora promotion on another site, then we recommend the bulk generator.

Individually generated keys give you finer control over the key: you can set alabel for easy identification, track how often it’s been used to download, andrevoke it if necessary.

How To Download Free Games On Steam

Bulk keys

Steam How To Download Games

Keys created in bulk have two additional options:

• The Unlock price lets you specify which files of your project shouldbe unlocked by the keys you're generating, in case you want to set apartbonus tiers (soundtrack, artbook, etc.) for fans who have actually boughtyour project.
• The Give access to external keys option lets you specify whether the keysyou're generating should give access to one of the external keys you've addedfor your project.

External keys (Steam, etc.)

If your project is being sold on other marketplaces such as Steam, you cangive away keys with each itch.io purchase.

How To Download Game Using Steam Keys

To do so, simply paste keys in the External keys tab and submit them.

It’s good to triple-check before submitting external keys. If you've made anymistakes you'll need to contact us.

Make sure there is always enough available keys for buyers. If someone whopurchased your project tries to get their external key and there’s none left instock, they will be told to try again later.

Read How buying works to see how buyerscan redeem external keys.