Given that:

• the keys should be expected to expire after January 1st

• SG Holiday Event GAs end on Dec 25th (one week after Jan 1)

• GA winners have one week to activate key & mark GA as received

...then these keys unfortunately shouldn't be given as SG Holiday Event GAs unless the GA creator accepts the risks that:

• If winner doesn't mark key as received within one week, then a reroll would not be possible until after the the key may expire

• If any winner (reroll or not) attempts to redeem the key after one week, then it may not activate, and winner can mark it as Not Received.

• Winner with deactivated key has no obligation to agree to the GA being deleted.

• Apart from winner agreeing to delete GA, Support does not delete GAs just because a key expired. No matter what creators write in their GAs, it is the sole responsibility of the creator to provide a valid key, however they acquire it.

Regular GAs that run shorter may not have as much risk around reroll redemption versus key expiration dates. Someone can correct me if I misunderstand the related SG guidelines.

I'm not a game developer, but I guess I assume that if trading didn't exist (and things like bundle splits), that they'd get more sales. I don't know if that's true or not, or even if that's how they feel. I'm just basing it mostly on Humble's longstanding policy of not selling, trading, etc. keys except via gift links...although I wonder if that policy's changed over time.

I don't think trading isn't good. I trade my bundle extras regularly. But evidence suggests to me that developers/publishers don't like it (e.g., the key expiry).

Their concern, at least, is that having keys floating around would decrease the value of their game in the long run - people will go there and trade for a key valued at the bundle price long after the bundle ends.

Yes, the flip side is that tradability might drive people to buy a bundle with their game in it, but bundles are supposed to be temporary sales! They raise the price back to normal afterwards and hope people will still pay it. If people can buy up a bunch at the low bundle price and trade them, that effectively means that their future full-price sales have to compete against trades valued at the bundle price, which they don't want and which makes the cash value of their game decrease faster.

I'm not saying I agree (there's a lot of ifs and buts in that chain of logic) but I think that's their thinking. And more importantly, that thinking makes many game devs reluctant to participate in bundles for fear that their game could get devalued by a bunch of keys ending up on the trading / tertiary market. So people making big bundles like this one use expirations to reassure them that they won't end up pouring a bunch of keys onto the tertiary market.

(And of course, as the above implies - they're not just worried about trading, they're worried about key resellers who will buy a ton of bundles and then sell the keys for far cheaper than the game usually costs, forever, or at least until they run out of keys.)

No worries. I've done that so many times myself. @.@ Happy Holidays!

Same, paying with Paypal. Paying with credit card I got charged 35GBP, which shows in my account as 42,05.