Summary
OneSteamuser has recently taken online to share a surprisingly positive “access is denied” message that greeted them on their attempt to accept the gift ofBattlefield 5from one of their friends. While thebizarre Steam issueultimately didn’t stop them from enjoying the game itself, it did end up piquing the curiosity of many a fan.
The ability to gift games on Steam is nearly as old as the storefront itself. The current version of the feature dates back to 2017, when Valve disabled the option of stockpiling gifts in one’s inventory, requiring users to immediately send them to their intended recipients post-purchase. The move was made in response to the gray markets that emerged due to the steep differences in regional pricing of games, which later gave rise tothe trend of Steam region swapping.
RELATED:Valve is Now Selling Refurbished Steam Decks for Significantly Less Than New Models
Although the game gifting mechanism on the platform hasn’t undergone any significant changes ever since, the system is still prone to the occasional hiccup, as recently discovered by Reddit user AbsolutelyRadikal; after clicking to acceptBattlefield 5that was a birthday gift from one of their friends, the fan was greeted with a strange “success” message informing them that Valve’s servers refused to process their request. They later shared a screenshot of this peculiar notification on the r/Steam subreddit, consequently amusing many users, some of whom went on to describe the error with a “task failed successfully” oxymoron.
Fortunately for the gift’s recipient, the strange error they encountered did not stem from anykind of Steam bug preventing game access, as they were immediately able to proceed with downloadingBattlefield 5after closing the prompt. Speculating on the origin of the message, some users suggested that AbsolutelyRadikal might have simply double-clicked the confirmation button while accepting the gift.
Elaborating on that point, Reddit user VokN said that doing so can cause Valve’s servers to process a given request twice, which can result in a denial of access error on the second attempt becauseSteamhas nothing more to add to a given user’s library. The fact that AbsolutelyRadikal was able to downloadBattlefield 5in spite of the unexpected message is consistent with that theory.
The final outcome of this unusual interaction was hence much better than it could have been. After all, Valve’s aforementioned efforts to combat gray game markets circumventing its regional pricing are still regularlycausing trouble for Steam users trying to gift games to their friends.
