TL:DR at the bottom

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series is probably my favorite game series of all time. I've put thousands of hours into those games over the years. I ran S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Files (part of the former FilesNation/GameFront Files Network) which was the #1 place to get mods for the games. When S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 got canned and GSC Game World let everyone go I was really bummed out.

Vostok Games rose from the ashes and I jumped at the chance to support them and I hoped that they'd be able to capture some of the magic that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games held in what they were doing next.

I decided that I'd support their efforts and backed them by getting a "Founders" status on their new project, Survarium. It was a $99 investment in what I hope would become an amazing game.

Survarium has sure had its ups and downs and I am not entirely happy with it but my main issue currently is with how they are handling the accounts on the game.

I have my original account with Founders status and my prior progress on it. I don't play it very often but I've been keeping track of the game for a while awaiting the "Freeplay" portion of the game. That's my bread and butter.

When the game came to STEAM I downloaded it right away but when I launched it, it just made a new account linked to my STEAM account that started from scratch. There was no option at all to log in with my existing account nor link my STEAM account to my existing account. This naturally annoyed me so I took it to their forums.

Several members told me that this wouldn't be an issue and I could just have support fix it. I contacted support and they were of no help at all, nothing got done. Still other players assured me that this was possible and that they'd had it done for them.

I even contacted their community manager Joe Willburn on Twitter and he looked into it. No luck there either.

Fast forward a couple months and I saw that they'd put up a Discord for Survarium players. Hopped on there and chatted for a bit and was once again told that it shouldn't be a problem getting an existing account linked to my STEAM account, once again this person had it done for them.

Opened a new support ticket, submitted my request. First got a response back in Russian that I had to use Google Translate to even read, basically told it's not possible. Argued back and forth with Support for a bit, basically telling them "Other players straight up told me this is possible and that they had it down for them." Support comes back and says that was something that use to exist but the feature was disabled one year ago and they don't have any plans to re-enable it.

I was basically told that there is no way at all for them to resolve my problem and if I want to play on my Founders Account I must play the game with their stand alone client. I don't find this acceptable.

There are dozens of other games on STEAM that use their own stand alone launchers/updates and do not have this problem. Most will just let you log into your game account via their launcher (which is launched via STEAM). Some will let you generate a STEAM Key (which is 100% to the devs by the way) that is linked to your game account and allow you to redeem it on STEAM (Elite: Dangerous does this). Some games will do the login from the game itself. Survarium does this last option but for reasons unknown to anyone but Vostok Games the STEAM version bypasses this for some asinine reason.

If you launch the game with the stand alone launcher you are greeted with a login page, just enter your email/password and you are good to go. If you launch the game via STEAM (which has the same launcher by the way) you are greeted with EXACT SAME LOGIN PAGE but there is no email/password box and there is just a button to login via STEAM.

The solution to this problem is so simple a Unity Asset Flipper could figure this out yet Vostok can't seem to.

I cannot recomment any player, especially anyone who started playing this game prior to it coming to STEAM to continue to support them when the cannot even manage user accounts with any sense of compentency.



TL:DR Impossible to use existing paid game account on STEAM, support refuses to fix issue. Cannot support developer anymore.

TL:DR at the bottom --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series is probably my favorite game series of all time. I've put thousands of hours into those games over the years. I ran S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Files (part of the former FilesNation/GameFront Files Network) which was the #1 place to get mods for the games. When S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 got canned and GSC Game World let everyone go I was really bummed out. Vostok Games rose from the ashes and I jumped at the chance to support them and I hoped that they'd be able to capture some of the magic that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games held in what they were doing next. I decided that I'd support their efforts and backed them by getting a "Founders" status on their new project, Survarium. It was a $99 investment in what I hope would become an amazing game. Survarium has sure had its ups and downs and I am not entirely happy with it but my main issue currently is with how they are handling the accounts on the game. I have my original account with Founders status and my prior progress on it. I don't play it very often but I've been keeping track of the game for a while awaiting the "Freeplay" portion of the game. That's my bread and butter. When the game came to STEAM I downloaded it right away but when I launched it, it just made a new account linked to my STEAM account that started from scratch. There was no option at all to log in with my existing account nor link my STEAM account to my existing account. This naturally annoyed me so I took it to their forums. Several members told me that this wouldn't be an issue and I could just have support fix it. I contacted support and they were of no help at all, nothing got done. Still other players assured me that this was possible and that they'd had it done for them. I even contacted their community manager Joe Willburn on Twitter and he looked into it. No luck there either. Fast forward a couple months and I saw that they'd put up a Discord for Survarium players. Hopped on there and chatted for a bit and was once again told that it shouldn't be a problem getting an existing account linked to my STEAM account, once again this person had it done for them. Opened a new support ticket, submitted my request. First got a response back in Russian that I had to use Google Translate to even read, basically told it's not possible. Argued back and forth with Support for a bit, basically telling them "Other players straight up told me this is possible and that they had it down for them." Support comes back and says that was something that use to exist but the feature was disabled one year ago and they don't have any plans to re-enable it. I was basically told that there is no way at all for them to resolve my problem and if I want to play on my Founders Account I must play the game with their stand alone client. I don't find this acceptable. There are dozens of other games on STEAM that use their own stand alone launchers/updates and do not have this problem. Most will just let you log into your game account via their launcher (which is launched via STEAM). Some will let you generate a STEAM Key (which is 100% to the devs by the way) that is linked to your game account and allow you to redeem it on STEAM (Elite: Dangerous does this). Some games will do the login from the game itself. Survarium does this last option but for reasons unknown to anyone but Vostok Games the STEAM version bypasses this for some asinine reason. If you launch the game with the stand alone launcher you are greeted with a login page, just enter your email/password and you are good to go. If you launch the game via STEAM (which has the same launcher by the way) you are greeted with EXACT SAME LOGIN PAGE but there is no email/password box and there is just a button to login via STEAM. The solution to this problem is so simple a Unity Asset Flipper could figure this out yet Vostok can't seem to. I cannot recomment any player, especially anyone who started playing this game prior to it coming to STEAM to continue to support them when the cannot even manage user accounts with any sense of compentency. TL:DR Impossible to use existing paid game account on STEAM, support refuses to fix issue. Cannot support developer anymore.