Dear Bohemia, please give allow us now to activate retail games on steam!

[Petko 10]

Dear Dwarden and Others!

2 years ago I didn't have had any problem with the policy with retail keys not being able to activate on steam. That time the concept of Arma with the modability, beta patches etc. did not fit well into steam. And the distribution on the steam plattform was just a supplemental method, where we could assume that it would cost a lot for Bohemia to allow retail keys to be activated on steam.

But since than lots of things have happened. The Arma games have been streamlined to steam (or steam was streamlined to Arma, or both), Arma 3 became a steam only game, and now even DayZ is distributed on steam. We can say for sure, that Bohemia and Valve are now strategic partners.

As for me I have bought Arma 2 and Arrowhead in a retail store, the DLC-s were bought on sprocket (Bohemia Store now), and now Arma 3 too, and activated on stream. So today I was thinking I would like to reinstall Arma 2, Arrowhead (CO), DLCS too, but as having now Arma 3 on steam, I was thinking how awsome would it be to just activate it on steam and spare are the hussle with installing from the DVD-s, patching, installing DLC-s, installing beta patches, installing DayZ etc.

So I humbly ask for your kindness to allow to activate our retail games on steam. It would be a nice gesture towards the community too, and I don't think now it would need a lot of effort from the company now. It would help us much to clean up the mess and use steam as a common platform for our games now. So please consider.

Thank you in advance!

[bhaz 0]

I like the idea, considering I have ArmA and ArmA2 retail, but Arrowhead and A3 on Steam, it would be nice to have it all in one place. Combined Ops + mods was a huge pain before 3rd party launchers helped automate it.

Though, making something like this happen is much easier said than done with the current situation. Those stupid enough to consider cheating (DayZ especially) or were somehow tricked into using suspicious software likely ended up having their keys stolen (www.battleye.com front page news) - and even though the cheaters deserve it, some legitimate players may be victims.

[nightshift 10]

a had bought arma 2 and arma 2 arrowhead in retail store (dvds) and the 2 dlcs baf und pmc in bis store.

Please give as a possibility to activate and combine all this in steam.

maybe you could deactivate the retail keys when converting is done to block reselling the old retail dvds or keys :)

[k3lt 3]

Good idea, actually not that long time ago SimBin allowed to redeem GTR, GTR2 and GTL retail keys on Steam. :D

http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/your-retail-copy-of-gtr-gtr2-and-gtl-on-steam.61506/

[rcmw 10]

Yes i use steam a lot and this would not be a bad idea. Steam should be ok with it too as it will increase DLC sales.

[byrgesen 1]

well i believe its up to Valve and if you have used your game it should not be possible, unless they change the entire Steam Activation system :) Its simply not possible to add a already used game to steam.

I really dont think BI can do much about it tbh, but it would be a very nice addition.

[Placebo 28]

I do not believe there are any current plans for this to happen (nor do I know if it's even possible), so I'm afraid that is the official answer.