Getting stuck in between corporate finger pointing is always a pain.<p>The example I remember was attempting to play Red Alert 3 online after a few years gap. The multiplayer server indicated my key was blocked for a message along the lines of too many registrations - I'd only used it on a single PC over a span of a month some years earlier.<p>So I contacted EA support, and they told me basically "your retailer [steam] must have given out the same key to multiple users, contact them for a new one". They wanted Steam to issue me a new key, and thereby eat the cost.<p>Of course, Steam was having none of that, this was a problem with the developer's service and so they wiped their hands of it saying it was up to EA to fix their shit.<p>After a while I decided there's only so many lengths I was willing to go to for what was then a €30 video game so I went to play starcraft 2 instead.