Installing 2nd hand game

[Durallan]

did the person who sold you tell you anything about the fact it needs to be registered with a steam account and that they had already done so? Yes this does prevent the traditional sell on of games at trade in stores. Games publishers are trying to stamp this out because the game stores make most of their money on second hand games because they profit 100% of what they sell the second hand game for. I would be suprised if a game store sold you this second hand, because of the steam thing.

I would suggest you go back to the person/company you bought it from and demand you either get a FULL refund, or you get the steam account it was subscribed to. However then you won't have a choice of a username and yyou'd have to change the password pretty damn quick, if they gave you the correct account details(I really would try to get your money back). I'd wager your going to have to go back and get a refund because I don't see how else you are going to be able to play it. Steam did have an empire week with it 50% off last week, unfortunately over now? or is it still on...

If you live in australia/NZ, you can get the total war anthology for 100 bucks which includes empire total war (and all the previous games)

Otherwise you may just have to end up buying it off steam or an original copy in store. Hopefully someone else has better news for you, but I don't believe Steam would help you anywhere with this because you didn't buy it from them and they would say its not really their problem (and theres the fact of piracy which they might just quote). I also have absolutely no idea if you can Unregister something from a steam account, I don't believe you can, once you register it with an account its there for as long as steam is I believe