Stained, a game that recently went through the Steam Greenlight process and was released back on the 10th, seems to be having a bit of a customer service problem at the moment. After being included in the Indie Royale Debut Bundle 3 in an effort to get the game greenlit on Valve’s service, developer Realaxis promised purchasers of said bundle that everyone who bought it would receive Steam Keys for their game stained. This is of course considered standard practice for these bundles and is nothing out of the norm; which led many to trust them in their reassurance that Steam keys would be handed out to those who supported them.

Unfortunately, due to low sales (barely 300 copies sold so far) and admitted bitterness by the developer, they have gone back on their promise to deliver the Steam keys and wiped any mention of it from the forum messages where they were posted.

Adding insult to injury, the developer took to the steam forums to explain why this all happened, but did so in a rather smug manner:

We have decided not to distribute the keys any more to the IR bundle purchaser.

I think you already had your share of enjoyment when you purchased the game via IR-Bundle for 50 cent.

Their post on the Steam forums is rife with self-pity, containing such gems as this:

You might regret your decision of not giving the keys, the bundle owners will get angry…?

I think we already have a reason to regret. And trust me with just 300 copies sold and sale is complete dry we are already rotting into the hell.

Adding even more complications is the fact that Realaxis has decided to stop responding to their email and has therefore been forced to send out keys manually to Indie Royale purchases. This has led to some getting more than one key anyway, which just makes this whole thing even messier.

Having only made $3100 in the first two weeks, it seems Realaxis has completely given up and is more or less abandoning the game altogether. Apparently they don’t understand that Steam isn’t a ticket to instant riches and that true success and profitability comes with time, hard work, and good word-of-mouth.