Steam runs out of 'Splinter Cell' game keys during a sale
So much for digital stores having infinite supplies.
Digital stores by their nature usually have unlimited inventory, right? Don't tell that to recent Splinter Cell: Blacklist buyers. Steam began a sale on Splinter Cell games on October 28th, and almost immediately ran out of Blacklist keys -- you just received a "failed to contact key server" error (or similar) when trying to play the stealth action title. Steam support and developer Ubisoft promised that keys would arrive on October 30th, but there were still reports of CD key issues as of that afternoon.
We've asked both Valve and Ubisoft for their responses and will let you know if they say more. Some users say they've received refunds, but that's not much comfort if you were determined to get Sam Fisher's adventures at a discount. And no matter what, it's clear that there wasn't adequate planning. You don't run a sale when you're unprepared to handle the inevitable increase in demand, especially not in a digital era when customers simply expect software to be available.
