So I bought, and very much enjoyed, Fallout 3 GOTY edition when it came out, however during a house move I lost my discs. I was bummed until yesterday when I saw Steam have FO3-GOTY on sale. However I still can't play because Steam failed to get enough keys to allow buyers to play. So what I want to know is, how long is it going to take gamesas to get the new keys to Steam? Also people on the Steam forums seem to think there won't be enough keys to go around, is that likely?

And my final question, WTF is with needing a cd key on a Steam game? Steam is already providing authentication!

The way I understand it is that publishers need to supply Steam with keys for their games, they usually don't run out but when demand is unexpectedly high it can happen that they temporarily do. Of course, it's just a digital product, so there should never be a true limit to how many keys Bethesda/Steam can give out. Hopefully it'll get sorted out soon.

If you are actually able to buy the game despite the fact that it says they've run out of keys, you can be pretty sure they'll get the keys soon enough.