[LegitShady]

Well yes, they don't want you to generate code sand then sell for less than you sell at steam because that's a suicide level business model for them. But you can still sell the codes yourself without cost to you. I don't understand why what you're saying is relevant.

[cma]

You are bringing in new users and locking them into Steam.

Steam only allows it because they want to be one centralized hub with more and more people locked in through social features, existing libraries, recommendation traffic, etc., but it is only allowed if it isn't price competition so that consumers can't feel the weight of the 30% directly.

[LegitShady]

no one is locked in anywhere. It's the developers choice to put in DRM or not. Steam by itself doesn't force it.

No business plan makes sense if they give away their product for free without taking any form of revenue. Casting that as evil is odd and misleading. That they allow devs to generate codes that give steam no revenue at all is pretty incredible.

[bluecatswim]

I know devs who do free giveaways through steam keys once in a while so presumably there is a provision in place for that too.