Back 4 Blood

Back 4 Blood

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How do I remove the Back 4 Blood Open Beta from my Library?
By rawWwRrr
Some users want to remove the Back 4 Blood Beta from their Library. Here's how to do it with a couple of clicks.
   
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To the point....
1. Uninstall the Beta from your Library.

2. Then click on this Steam Support link:

https://steamproxy.com/steamhelp/en/wizard/HelpWithGameIssue/?appid=1385510&issueid=123

You'll see a Steam Support window open without referencing any game. At the bottom will be two buttons to choose. Click on the one named "Ok, remove the listed games from my account permanently".


appid=1385510 in the URL references the Back 4 Blood Beta title.

issued=123 references the "I want to permanently remove this game from my account" option.

After clicking on that button, Steam will deactivate the license for Back 4 Blood Beta and it will disappear from your Library.
How does this work? Is it safe?
This is a long explanation that most users won't care about, but in order to be transparent about why this works, I put it here at the end for those that are curious.


Removing games from the library

There are three options to removing a game from being visible in your library:

  1. Refund - Only really an option within 2 weeks of ownership and before you've played it more than 2 hours. You can always try for an exception but it is rare and not applicable in this scenario since the Beta was free.
  2. Hide - Choose the "Manage > Hide this game" from the left-click menu in the Library. This just moves it to a hidden collection in your Library. You can no longer see it normally but can find it in the "View > Hidden Games" menu and is still part of your Library. You can still launch the game if it is installed.
  3. Permanently Remove - This is the Support option of last resort for those games that you truly don't want in the library any more but can't get refunded. It's a Support menu option and is referred to as an Advanced Hide by the community. It disables the license on the account as if you never owned it. If you attempt to buy the game again, the checkout process will error out and explain that you need to restore the license through the Support pages.

It gets tricky when the title in question is delisted from the Store. The Support pages may or may not work depending on how far removed the game has been delisted. If it's simply not being sold but is present on the Store, the Support pages should work fine. It's when the game is removed completely that things get complicated.

Following the path of Support > Games, Software, etc. , you will end up at the following page:
https://steamproxy.com/steamhelp/en/wizard/HelpWithGameIssue

If the game in question isn't among the list of Recent Products, you can use the Search box at the bottom to find the one you want. When you do find the one you want, you'll typically see a screen like this one (using Balatro as an example).

The game is clearly visible with when you bought or activated it, the amount of playtime, links to the Store page and to view it in your library, and a few available options beneath. For me, I activated this game with a key so I don't have a refund option, but the ability to permanently remove this game is available. At this point the URL for this option is this:
https://steamproxy.com/steamhelp/en/wizard/HelpWithGame/?appid=2379780

If I click on the option to permanently remove the game, I am now taken to that screen with two options.
  1. Ok, remove the listed games from my account permanently
  2. No, I changed my mind or wanted to request a refund
You get the option to proceed, or an option to change your mind and do something else. Here it says "to request a refund" but I still can't do that because it was a key activation on this game. Now the URL for this option is:
https://steamproxy.com/steamhelp/en/wizard/HelpWithGameIssue/?appid=2379780&issueid=123

This URL is typically followed by a transid and line_item number which are tracking codes but are not important for this explanation.

Fun with URLs

Sometimes during the Support search for a game, if it is delisted it won't be displayed as an option to choose, or sometimes the game has such a generic title that there are too many results to completely list them all and the game you want won't display. We can get around this if we know the game's appid.

Every title on the Store has a unique appid associated with it.
  • Back 4 Blood's appid is 924970
  • Back 4 Blood Beta appid is 1385510
  • Balatro's appid is 2379780

If we add the appid to the end of the HelpWithGame url, we can go directly to that game's Support page.

When you select one of the options at the bottom of those pages, the next URL will include that option as the issueid that Support as associated with it. For the "Ok, remove the listed games from my account permanently" issue, it is issued=123. Now we get...

All of these will take you directly to that game's option to permanently remove it from your Library.

But it's blank
Unfortunately for games that have been removed from the Store, the game itself won't be displayed in the Support option.

As long as the appid matches the exact title you are wanting removed, the Support page will mark that title's license as deactivated on your account just like any other game.

How can I find the appid?
Each game's Store page will have it in the URL. Back 4 Blood's Store page is:
https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/924970/Back_4_Blood/

But what about games that you can't find on the Store? I typically use SteamDB to research those. A user of Steam and a member of the community at large, xPaw, runs the site and it is chock full of information about all Steam's games. As it happens, the site captured the information for the Beta and you can see it from the search results on the site.


Here it clearly displays the appid, but if it's not shown in the search results, just click on the game and you should see it at the top of the game's information page.


You talk too much....
It's a curse sometimes. If you made this far, I hope I was able to teach you something interesting about Steam.

Thanks for reading.

-- rawWwRrr