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  • How do I redeem or activate a Steam game code?

How do I redeem or activate a Steam game code?

September 18, 2014 / Dave Taylor / Mac & MacOS Help, Video Game Tips / 3 Comments

A company I’m working with sent me a redemption code for their new game on the Steam network. I’m a Mac guy, not a gamer. What do I do with it?

If you’re even a casual gamer, you know about Steam. It’s an amazing platform that lets you have all your games, all your saved game data, and all your buddies in one place, even across individual games. That’s how you can play The Sims 4, for example, as I’ve written about over on my dad blog.

Steam also works with Mac, Windows PC and Linux, so it’s impressively cross-platform. If you’re a computer gamer, it’ll run on your computer, and do a good job.

Like an iTunes Store redemption code, however, you can’t really redeem the Steam code without having Steam installed and running on your system, and without you then also signing up for a (free) Steam account. So let me show you how that goes…

To start, head over to Steam and click on that lovely download link (or just hit the one below):

download steam for your mac

Once it downloads, it’s a pretty typical Mac app installation process where you just drag the app into the Applications folder and it does whatever magic is needed on first launch:

install steam mac os x

You can do that!

Now double-click to launch the app and once it’s done its initial data download from the Steam server, it’ll ask you to log in to your existing Steam account or create a new one:

log in to create steam account

Since I have an account (on my PC), I’ll log in by clicking on “Login to an existing account”.

Then once I enter my account and password, it’s no surprise that, well, I don’t have much there as of yet:

no games in my steam account, so sad

Pretty sad, actually.

Now, finally, you can redeem the code that the company sent you. Click on “+ Add a Game…” on the lower left edge:

add a game / redeem a code steam

As you can see, choose “Activate a Product on Steam…”

Now you’ll have the chance to enter your redemption code, as I’m going to do with my review copy of the upcoming game A Golden Wake:

activate game / redeem code

(I’ve blanked out most of the code I used for obvious reasons, but it was in the AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC format)

Enter the code carefully, then click “Next >” to submit it to the Steam servers. If it works, you’ll see “Activation Successful!”

code redeemed, game ready to download

Almost done!

Click on “Next >” again to actually download the game:

download new game steam

I find that the time estimates for downloading software are very off-target. This game took about 45sec to download on my Xfinity connection, no complaints about that!

Finally, it’s installed and ready to run. Click “Play” and you’re in your new game.

Enjoy!

And when you’re done, do explore Steam a bit, especially the Steam store. Lots and lots of gaming goodness.

About the Author: Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the early days of the Internet. Author of over 20 technical books, he runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech help site. You can also find his gadget reviews on YouTube and chat with him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor.

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Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!
activate steam code, download games, gamers, mac games, redeem steam code, steam, steam games, steam powered

3 comments on “How do I redeem or activate a Steam game code?”

  1. nathan says:
    March 5, 2018 at 7:51 pm

    This site just saved me from failing my english class!!!

    Reply
  2. brandon says:
    May 9, 2016 at 3:10 am

    thanks super helpfull

    Reply
  3. Amaresh says:
    February 12, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    The thing is I downloaded Splinter Cell Blacklist and it opens UPlay, when that happens it asks me for an activation code. But I purchased the game from steam so where can i find the activation code.

    Reply

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