Steam, GFWL and a hacked email account. FIGHT!

Chases Street Demons

So a few months back I got hit by some sort of worm, and those crafty worm-makers got my internet bits. Specifically they got the information for my Steam account, my GFWL account (linked through a hotmail account) and some credit cards. Because I was a bad person in a previous life I was able to recover the serious stuff without harm - the credit cards and the Steam account. Unfortunately the hotmail account was completely gutted - no amount of anything I do is persuading hotmail that I'm really me and thusly they aren't releasing the account. My secondary plan of waiting 6-8 months for them to delete the account for inactivity has failed; apparently hotmail redlines these accounts and doesn't release them again.

The problem here is that I have several games (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Red Faction: Guerilla, etc) that use GFWL and I can no longer play those games because while steam is cool with me loading them up, GFWL still thinks I'm a suspicious looking character.

Now I'm in a pickle with these games. I can't re-buy them through Steam because Steam is watching out for me (thanks, bro!) and won't let me buy a second copy of a game I already own. I tried firing off an email to Steam support - which was closed five days later with a single character reply. This reply read, verbatim, "?".

I just want to get new CD Keys for the games that I want to re-buy so I can register them through the new GFWL account I've got. Does anyone know of a way I can accomplish this which will also allow me to play these games through Steam? I'm not interested in other download services or non-steam installs if I can avoid them.

Serve the Newell. Thanks.

Naebliss

Creating another steam account should let you get the games again although it's not the greatest solution. You could also try creating another GFWL account and logging in with that.

StrifeRaZoR

Naebliss wrote: »

Creating another steam account should let you get the games again although it's not the greatest solution. You could also try creating another GFWL account and logging in with that.

Sadly, that wouldn't work. When he purchased the game from Steam, the key he was given was registered on GFWL. Unless you mean just creating another steam account to buy them again to get another key to register with a totally new GFWL account, I don't think it would work. What you CAN do, however, is purchase copies from Amazon or any other site that sells digital copies of games, then activate said games on a new Steam account. I do not believe Steam will let you activate the key if you already own the game (I have never tried that, so don't quote me on it).

PS. Just read the last bit of the post, and your best bet is another distribution site. Check Amazon and GreenManGaming for keys. Even if you have to download the games from the GFWL marketplace, you can still add them as non-steam games. Not the same, but at least you get the overlay.

Siska

Have you tried contacting GFWL support? There might even be a tiny chance they can help you with your hotmail account. With everything being owned by Microsoft and all. If nothing else they should at least be able to "release" the keys so you can re-use them. If you bought the games with credit cards in your name that would probably help, since those are a kind of identification.

Wulf

I recently had some issues with GFWL, in that they had locked me out of my account on suspicion that it had been compromised. What you need to do is call them directly, and request that they start an investigation into the account to ensure that you are now the only one with access to it. They will ask you a ton of account questions etc, but once all that is done, you should get access again in a few days.