So; Steam.  Digital distribution.  No physical media anywhere.
 
One could assume that Valve essentially has an unlimited supply of everything on Steam. If they need more they just generate more. I don't think that's an entirely unreasonable assumption since it's all digital. They gotta be able to generate keys, right? You buy something and it automatically makes you a key and everyone gets paid.
 
Not so. Apparently they do have a limited inventory and apparently it's entirely possible for it to run out with them unable to "restock" fast enough to meet the demand. At least, for one game so far: PREY. 
 
Perhaps PREY is a special situation. Regardless, it's an amusing situation. A game sold out on Steam. :P
 

xD

I thought they were just doing that so when it comes up again, more people will buy it.

I think they allocated a certain number of purchases at the sale price, set within a 24 hour timeframe. Thus, all allocated offers at that special price point have been purchased.

I was pretty surprised, anyone catch the price?

" I think they allocated a certain number of purchases at the sale price, set within a 24 hour timeframe. Thus, all allocated offers at that special price point have been purchased. "

I'll have to call the other internet down the street and see if they have any in stock.
 
Wait no. What I mean to say is having an arbitrary set limit for stock in addition to a date when the sale ends is dumb as hell. One or the other, sure fine, a limit of 500 d/led before the sale expires is fine, but having both seems pretty stupid.

Wow, never thought I'd see that happen, special edition downloads yeah, a game selling out, that's weird and it looks weird on a digital distribution store. It doesn't give a good impression.. They should have something in place prevent this from happening, surely there must be a way of doing so with computer software.

How much was Prey on sale for?

The problem was they sold it for too cheap and thought not alot of ppl wants to buy it.

" I think they allocated a certain number of purchases at the sale price, set within a 24 hour timeframe. Thus, all allocated offers at that special price point have been purchased. "

What I'm really surprised is the fact that that Prey actually sold out and not other more popular games on Steam.

crazy crazy world

Hey, Prey's a fucking good game. One of the best campaigns I've experienced in a long time.

they were probably losing more money from bandwidth selling this game than the amount of money they got from sales.

What I'm really surprised is the fact that that Prey actually sold out and not other more popular games on Steam.

" they were probably losing more money from bandwidth selling this game than the amount of money they got from sales. "

Give me a second, the concept of a product distributed digitally as a download being "sold out" has my brain turning in circles.

Actually what seems to have happened is that they ran out of keys to sell. I suppose what Valve does is that like a physical game store they also have inventory for some (or maybe all) games: keys. I'm assuming they have tens of thousands of keys at any one time and can order more from the publisher on the whim but if the game sells fast enough it could be quite problematic to obtain more keys quickly. By the looks of it this is exactly what happened with Prey.

The terminology is a little odd, but given that Steam does not have rights to the game, it makes sense that they only have a contract to sell a limited number of games at that cost.

Sold out on steam? What? Prey...Sold Out? WHAT?!

The guy who was in charge of generating keys had to go save his cousin from the inevitable robot apocalypse, so he took the Prey graphic into MS Paint and made a "Sold Out" banner so he could take some time off.  
 
Problem solved.

I saw that earlier, too.  I got a good laugh from it.
 
Is this the first time that happened?
 
Can you still buy it full price?
 
If not, then does that mean Prey has ceased to exist on Steam?

Lolazer.

" @Demyx: edit: 
85% off $2.25 sale $14.99 regularstarted 14 hours ago replaced by Bioshock 9 hours ago  sold out in 5 hours "

This is pretty funny. I suppose the CD keys explanation makes sense, but telling me a game sold out on Steam is like telling me a song sold out on Itunes. o_O

wat

Yeeehaa i have found Prey keys for steam! I have buy a key now i have pray on my steam account xD
 
http://www.cd-keys.at/Prey-STEAM

It's like a time capsule in here.

@gyspox said:

Yeeehaa i have found Prey keys for steam! I have buy a key now i have pray on my steam account xD http://www.cd-keys.at/Prey-STEAM

wat

I almost thought that this was a new thread until I saw the Linkyshinks reply.

@Demyx: edit: 
85% off $2.25 sale $14.99 regularstarted 14 hours ago replaced by Bioshock 9 hours ago  sold out in 5 hours

Actually what seems to have happened is that they ran out of keys to sell. I suppose what Valve does is that like a physical game store they also have inventory for some (or maybe all) games: keys. I'm assuming they have tens of thousands of keys at any one time and can order more from the publisher on the whim but if the game sells fast enough it could be quite problematic to obtain more keys quickly. By the looks of it this is exactly what happened with Prey.

The only option to play this game on PC seems to be to buy a copy of Prey off Amazon or Ebay sealed and redeem the key that way.

When steam keys are finished they need to generate new ones from the publishers. This doesn't happen that much so when it does it takes time to restock.

I think that means there was a limited supply of the deal itself, like "first 500 customers don't have to pay a damn thing">

Soooooooo is this game basically impossible to play on PC now? Sorry, not going to buy a new copy on amazon for $30