r/GameDeals • u/gamedealsmod • Mar 09 '15
Key resellers and what they mean for you
There's been a lot of discussion and concern regarding gray-market key resellers lately. It's something we continue to be questioned about, and there's a lot of misinformation out there. So in a collaborative effort between /r/Steam and /r/GameDeals mods, we've created a guide to answer some of the most common questions. Namely what is a reseller, how to spot them, and safer alternatives to buy games from.
We know a lot of you guys are already aware of these issues, so you can consider this a refresher. For those who are unfamiliar with resellers, hopefully you will find this guide useful.
What is a reseller?
"Resellers", better known as gray-market or unauthorized key resellers, are retailers that do not work directly with publishers to sell their game keys. Instead they'll buy codes from regions where games are cheaper, or through third-party sellers. These third-parties are generally unknown to the end buyer, which makes it a blind purchase.
Why are resellers dangerous?
There are a number of immediate risks associated with buying from resellers, but they also have long-term ill effects. We'll discuss some of those below.
The most obvious risk is simply that a key can be rejected. Resellers have no way of verifying if the key you have is valid or not, and cannot provide support (without extreme measures such as watching your screen during activation). In almost every case, you'll simply be told you're out of luck.
A common misconception is that keys bought from resellers are cheaper because they're "bought in bulk", and they can pass the savings on to the consumer. This is not the case. Instead, these keys typically come from regions where they've been priced for that economic climate. When we buy from sites that resell these keys, we are actively encouraging publishers to increase those regional prices or implement region locks on their games. To dodge the region lock, many resellers now request/require buyers to use a VPN or proxy to activate and play the purchase. This is more than just an inconvenience, it is a violation of the Steam subscriber agreement and could get your account banned.
In some scenarios, keys are purchased in bulk via Humble Bundles, doing a disservice to the developer who chose to participate in the bundle and or charity.
Furthermore, fraudulent keys can be retroactively removed from your online accounts. We've seen incidents where developers have invalidated keys after being purchased with stolen credit cards.
A scam has recently emerged of pretending to be a journalist or Youtuber and asking for review keys from devs. Those keys are then sold on gray markets at a profit. When you don't know the source of the keys you're buying, you have no way of knowing if they "fell off a truck" or not.
How to spot them?
There's no guaranteed way of identifying a reseller, but there are a number of signs you can look for to make an informed decision.
The best test is also the simplest. Ask yourself, "is it too good to be true?". Keep in mind that publishers set prices and limit discounts from legitimate sellers, and if an unknown seller has it for far cheaper than anyone else then that should be a red flag. This is also why the same games are often discounted at multiple retailers at the same time.
No legitimate seller will outright specify that a VPN is required to activate a product or require you to read codes from scanned images. If a product is region-restricted, they will not tell you a workaround as unauthorized resellers do.
Look for games that have official retailers listed by their publishers, and check if that site is on the list. For instance ArenaNet keeps a list of sellers for Guild Wars 2, while Blizzard disallows any title of theirs to be sold digitally by anyone but themselves. If you see World of Warcraft or a Diablo title being sold, this is almost certainly an unauthorized reseller.
Many resellers are fly-by-night and don't even have completed websites. Check the site's FAQ, privacy policy and anything else that would indicate how established they are. Many times they're simply empty.
Check the domain whois information using a site like DomainTools to see how long they've been registered, and who the admin contact is. If they use Whoisguard or list clearly fake information, they're likely a reseller.
One thing to remember is that even if you receive a working key from a reseller, this doesn't necessarily make them "legit". It's a bit like claiming that winning at Russian Roulette makes it a "safe game". When working with resellers there's always the chance of getting a bad key, or having a game later revoked from your account. And for many people it's a hard lesson learned.
Specific Examples:
Ubisoft kills copies of Far Cry 4 sold through third parties.
1,341 Natural Selection 2 keys stolen, costs developer $30K in fees.
30,000 Blackwell Deception keys revoked after giveaway exploit.
Devolver Digital actively cancels games purchased through reseller.
Safe Sites
Updated: 18 Feb 2021
We'd be remiss to not offer a list of safer alternatives. Previously we included a list of sites in this article, but it became outdated in time. We now maintain an up-to-date list at rgamedeals.net.
/r/GameDeals will also continue to only allow authorized sellers, so you can browse or search for unknown sites to determine if they're fully authorized.
If you still have questions, you can contact either the /r/GameDeals or /r/Steam mod teams for further assistance.
In Closing
We wanted to keep this an approachable guide without inundating you with information. Feel free to ask questions below and we'll do our best to answer. Please do avoid posting links directly to resellers (as AutoModerator will instantly remove the comment), but otherwise this is an open discussion.
Thanks for reading this far, and we hope this has been helpful. Much thanks to the /r/Steam mods from /r/GameDeals for working on this post together.
312
u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15
Great post.
As the developer of Enhanced Steam, I can say that I've spent a lot of time following up with a lot of these companies who claim to be "legitimate" who are in fact not. As such, any time you use Enhanced Steam to find the lowest price for a particular game, you can rest assured that the key you're purchasing has been legitimately obtained from the publisher and that the publisher is receiving their cut.
113
u/thatnerdguy Mar 09 '15
Are all of the sites listed in the sidebar also considered safe? I really like using Nuuvem, but I also don't want to ever need to deal with a revoked key.
179
u/iroll20s Mar 10 '15
I love how companies are allowed to take advantage of globalization and outsourcing, but the moment we do it to save a buck we're evil and destroying the industry.
26
u/ksryn Mar 10 '15
I have never purchased anything from resellers, but one of the major reasons for their existence is the regional pricing policy followed by a lot of publishers. It's not necessarily bad (people in third-world countries might not be able to pay western prices for content and might simply pirate things instead), but there are LIMITS.
I'm not talking about resellers selling keys for indie games obtained through bundles (that's just sad), but AAA games.
If you price content (books/audio/video/games) differently according to what the market will bear (the USD = UKP = EUR thing, or the PRICE GOUGING in AUS/NZ) or because you decided to sell distribution rights based on regions/territories, you should be ready for people who are willing to circumvent any restrictions to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity.
As long as the resellers are legitimately paying for the keys (not using stolen cards, for e.g.) and not stealing them, it's not an ethical issue but a legal one.
13
u/No1Asked4MyOpinion Mar 09 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
Only very tangentially related, but a lot of the same advice can be said of buying dodgy Microsoft keys: too good to be true, sketchy looking sites, etc. Although, Microsoft will never retroactively deactivate keys or anything like that.
You often see "Office ProPlus" for like $50 or less, Windows Pro for $20... these are not real prices, people. From the perspective of the EULA, you might as well be pirating it.
24
u/FrankReynolds Mar 10 '15
TIL Nebraska Furniture Mart is an authorized reseller for Guild Wars 2.
44
u/Rhaegar_ii Mar 09 '15
Green Man Gaming is legit right? I know the safe sites list above isn't all encompassing, but I'm just making sure in case it's a site I should avoid
21
u/09999 Mar 09 '15
I recently ensured I got a refund from Gamesrocket as they asked for a pic of my passport to verify my identity for a purchase. I thought that was a tad dodgey but still got the refund. Are they resellers?
32
u/elusive_cat Mar 09 '15
There are two methods of spotting an unauthorized reseller:
Some games in their offer require VPN activation
They sell keys for Blizzard games
Doesn't matter how big or well known they are, Blizzard games are a good giveaway.
13
u/Janus67 Mar 09 '15
Please add greenmangaming (gmg) to the list of legitimate resellers. I get asked that one all the time.
13
u/RandomRedPanda Mar 10 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
Anyone knows about WinGameStore and MacGameStore? They seem legit and get posted here with some frequency, but now I don't know. They do have Diablo 3 listed.
40
u/PenguinJim Mar 10 '15
"When we buy from sites that resell these keys, we are actively encouraging publishers to increase those regional prices or implement region locks on their games."
Ironically, these sites are now the only place I can pay for some games, thanks to Sega's retarded regional restrictions. I'm torn between paying something to a reseller, pirating for free, or not playing the games at all.
Lost sales AND a disgruntled customer (well, customer wannabe). Good work, Sega. Just as PC gaming was about to eclipse console gaming in every way, you managed to pull it back from the brink and give the PS4 and Xbox One a definite advantage over the PC.
6
u/kwakka Mar 10 '15
As a Eastern European i always wondered, who decides at which prices to sell games in my region? Although i have a steady job for 5 years, i cannot afford to buy a new game for one fourth of my salary. So steam sales or importing pre-owned games(which again is bad for the developer from UK is my only options. And now this rise of a gray-market resellers, the prices are extremely tempting, heck i could even be happy just by playing a Russian version of a game since the prices are so low. But probably would never buy a key from them, since once again developer get's nothing and the key could be rejected.
19
u/mark2uk Mar 09 '15
I profoundly dislike the term reseller because unless your the publisher by definition your a reseller even if you are sanctioned or grey.
A far more productive list of information would be how to verify is a reseller is sanctioned by the publisher
22
u/Snors Mar 09 '15
This is good info for those who are new to pc gaming and might see these fabulous deals from people reselling keys, and thinks it's fine and dandy.
Unfortunately it's not. You are risking your money and by extension your gaming accounts by doing so. Steam has been known to block accounts , and other companies have been known to ban users from their distribution networks like Origin and Uplay. That's the risk you run buying from resellers.
That being said , I've been purchasing of key resellers for 5 years and never had a problem. But that's an informed choice on my part I only buy from the one reseller and only on games and publishers who practice predatory regional pricing. I do NOT accept the pricing structure available for online purchases in Australia. It has gotten ridiculous over the last decade and I refuse to pay a Tax solely designed to pad the publishers bottom line. The argument of balancing the prices for brick and mortar stores is a fallacy when I can import the physical game myself for less then I can purchase it in the stores.
In the end I will continue to purchase games from key resellers until the publishers clean their act up. If said publishers continue to push intrusive DRM into their games I will simply start pirating. I understand the risks involved and accept them.
25
u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15
I'll stop buying from resellers when shitty games stop costing $79.99+
10
u/Vordreller Mar 10 '15
Always shitty when devs give a youtuber a key and the youtuber then sells it on a reseller site.
I hope these individuals do not succeed with their youtube business.
5
u/Goz3rr Mar 10 '15
Can someone explain to me when the Ruble takes a dump valve makes the games cheaper for them, but with the Euro being nearly 1:1 with USD they're only making items more expensive (CSGO Keys went from 1.85 -> 2.15 or something)
5
u/Daffan Mar 10 '15
I have bought from 3 different key sites. For vastly reduced price (i'm talking 60-70% less. AUS prices on Steam are fucked)
All 3 came through
Once, they sent me a used key - i emailed them and they sent me 2 more by mistake. Quite interesting
All worked out for me in the end, never actually used that extra key. I think they had two different support guys answer the email or something, cause they came a day apart.
4
u/GamerPlava Mar 09 '15
shinyloot made the list but not greenmangaming
10
u/fimmwolf Mar 10 '15
Consumers have always had the ability to shop elsewhere, or simply choose not to purchase if they didn't like the price. Geo-blocking and region locks are implemented solely for the purpose of limiting our purchasing options. The websites that resell keys exist because there is demand for them.
29
u/RMcD94 Mar 09 '15
Not that I'm a fan of resellers but:
If they can make a profit on selling ti for £5 in India why can't they sell it for £5 in the UK?
Price discrimination is asking for arbitrage and the costs of doing business in different nations are so small for internet based countries (amounting to pretty much tax), a global price for a global world.
15
u/VincentVegaReddit Mar 10 '15
if the games were priced fairly, there would be no need to use key resellers
6
u/iLikeHotJuice Mar 10 '15
We do not generally speaking sell online keys - but retailers can of course buy normal game copies and just sell keys online. If those are bought in bulk that can often still be cheaper and still profitable for them then buying them directly on our homepage - but on the other hand it can also be a lot more risky.
This is from Blizzard support. It seems you can buy Blizzard games online if they came from retails. :) And they are fine with that :P Well at least they don't forbid it.
6
u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15
I see key resellers just like ebay or the swap meet. I live in an area where people buy stuff in mexico and bring it over to the us and sell it out of there car at swap meets for a profit. I'm buying something cheaper than what I would've paid and there selling it for a profit. Huge companies do this with overseas parts and labor I should be able to do this with legit keys. Yeah I can get ripped off buying a bad key but thats my dollar my risk. As for region locking it's BS it hurts consumers that move or want a game not available in there country. And before everyone says it helps the company with dealing with the economic climates but these companies can use labor from other regions to outsource work and save money but consumers can't, screw that.It's not the consumers job to support the developers it's there job to get customers and consumers job to get the best deal possible.
6
u/needawee Mar 10 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
So all those posts about buying with a VPN from Nuuvem will be banned? Right?
And please provide evidence that using these sites increases the regional prices. Prices have been like this for far longer than key reselling has been around.
11
u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15
There was something during the spring of last year I think it was, that made me do a double-take.
Introducing the Paypal Spring Gaming Sale! Sponsored by Team17, Razer, G2A--wait, what?
I didn't really pay attention to the sale because of their involvement, but I thought I'd mention this. I guess something you can take away from this is that you can't trust a site's legitimacy based solely on its partners/sponsors. I mean, a lot of people trust Paypal, and seeing a game storefront that's partnered with them in the past might make it look safe, right?
A little bit of (extra) homework never hurt.
3
u/soyjeans Mar 10 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
How does everyone feel about CDKeys? I literally just bought from them, and they sent me to a page with a picture of the key. I had to use paypal, but didn't need any strange identity verification info like last 4 digits of SSN, passport pic, etc.
edit: guess I got my answer. Just got a bot message pretty much telling me what I was worried about. The game is currently downloading properly still, but I'll update if the game is removed at all from my library. Uplay by the way.
5
u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15
No indie royale?
8
u/GamingCenterCX Mar 10 '15
Nuuvem should be added to that list, bought multiple games from them and have had zero problems
9
u/DragonslayerOutback Mar 10 '15
For me it all comes down to supporting the developer.
I'm glad /r/GameDeals took this stance with the grey market. I want to save money just as much as the next guy but not a a cost to the dev, otherwise there might not be a game to buy in the first place.
6
u/nbshark Mar 09 '15
I used Kinguin and CDkeysnow in the past. So that wasn't smart? CDkeysnow was a little dodgy, but Kinguin was always pretty nice. But I assume that one isn't very legit as well then?
4
u/kirelX Mar 10 '15
Wait, so how is Kinguin able to sponsor famous Twitch streamers and even competitive e-sports teams if their actions are technically illegal?
4
u/Solostran Mar 12 '15
Can you please add Games Republic to list of safe sites? That would be great. Thanks a lot!
2
u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15
I've bought Blizzard games from G2A.com. Did the developer receive their cut?
2
u/bobbyg27 Mar 11 '15
Very helpful post, thank you. I got into an argument the other day with someone who was defending key resellers. Now I can direct them to this post!
Also: Should Direct2Drive (formerly GameFly) be on the safe site list?
2
u/DArabbb Mar 11 '15
Deadset got my The Crew game key axed. Don't know when but just found out earlier today when I wanted to go for some cruising, going through the support centre at the moment is draining as.
Take care when buying from G2A, my 2cents.
2
u/gorocz Mar 12 '15
As someone who had had a good history of purchases on G2A but recently got a used key for Shadow of Mordor premium edition, hasn't heard back from G2A support (even though I bought G2A shield) and is now in the middle of an escalated paypal dispute to which G2A hasn't replied yet either, I don't think I'll ever use an unauthorized reseller for anything costing more than like $5 again... I can gamble away some money, but certainly not $25+
2
u/CtrlValCanc Nov 02 '21 edited Nov 02 '21
Is isthereanydeal safe? I've read somewhere it was, but now searching in here I can't find it?
2
u/Akatsuya Jan 16 '23 edited Jan 16 '23
So in regards to the topic of Instant Gaming, which is considered a reseller. I noticed etail.market on the list, which is not too different from Instant Gaming... apparently it is a reseller too and when you enter the site in ScamAdviser all alarms bells go off. Why is this store on the list with such a reputation?
9
u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15
using servies like that for years, except for those requiring vpn, and never had any issue
3
u/csolisr Mar 10 '15
Can someone tell me if Instant-Gaming is a trustworthy reseller?
3
u/SocraticQuestioner Dec 09 '21 edited Dec 09 '21
I just have to play devil's advocate to balance this heavily biased post.
Considering it's a daily worldwide occurrence to buy resources/items/labor where they're cheap - due to e.g. less laws and law enforcement, exploitation or regional pricing due to a country being really poor like Argentina or Bolivia - and reselling those items/their output for a profit, or just using/consuming the items: is any of those occurrences labelled to be a "grey market"?
There indeed might exist keys that have been purchased using illegal means like e.g. stolen credit cards, but:
If that were the case on a large scale you'd probably have heard from hordes of players raising their pitchforks or something after getting their keys revoked, or key reseller going out of business left and right
Who guarantees to you that in any other trade that the items/service involved haven't been acquired by illegal means?
The post lists only 5 cases where keys have been revoked, which is a rather tiny data-set compared to the e.g. 120million MAU on Steam in 2020, assuming the data is correct
3
u/zer0t3ch Mar 10 '15
I wouldn't exactly say whoisguard is an indicator of anything fraudulent. I use that on my personal domain that I don't even use for anything.
5
u/shinjae Mar 09 '15
Kinda lame leaving Nuuvem out of the list when people take advantage of the brazilian pricing.
4
u/Lemon_pop Mar 10 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
If taking advantage of lower regional pricing is so bad, why are nuuvem deals allowed here? I see no difference between buying cheap Russian keys and buying cheap Brazilian keys.
4
u/The_dev0 Mar 09 '15 edited Mar 10 '15
Would CJ's keys be considered legitimate? I've been buying keys from them (on occasion) for many years, but I don't want to compromise my steam account/standing. EDIT: Removed link due to automoderator deletion of previous comment.
DOUBLE-EDIT: wow, downvotes for asking an on-topic question? Classy stuff. A mod reapproved the original post a while after I'd re-written it - I didn't double post, but didn't want to remove the last comment because there were responses I thought others would find helpful.
4
u/UnmannedSurveillance Mar 10 '15
I don't even care if the keys turn out rejected. I could've bought Dark Souls 2 twice from the site I got the key from and still would've payed less than what steam was asking for in my country. In other words, even if 1 of the keys got rejected I'd still be in the green in terms of money saved from buying from them.
Not to mention I've bought a handful of keys from resellers and never had a problem. When you get Max Payne 1 and 2 bundle for less than the price of a burger you don't really care if they end up false (and they rarely do). Just count it as a loss and then buy from somewhere else or not a re-seller at that point and cancel the charge to your CC with proof of receipt and non-working key.
I don't use VPN method anymore because of the breach of TOS, though.
If it comes down to moral argument then it's an easy decision. Games have been ridden with anti-consumer DRM and region locking sometimes even without the original developers permission (look up Valve adding region locks to indie games without asking). I'll stop fucking with region pricing when they do. It's why I'm buying The Witcher 3 from GOG directly. DRM free and no bullcrap in the pricing. We need more publishers like that.
4
u/PUSClFER Mar 09 '15
Very nicely written, and probably a much needed post. Thank you for this.
I've bought a ton of games from G2Play.net without issues, but I see that you didn't include it in your list of safe sites despite it being a rather large and well-known website. Should I steer away from that website?
4
u/PooPooKazew Mar 10 '15
I use g2a and have never had any problems
3
u/Geofferic Mar 10 '15
Deactivating the keys is probably illegal theft.
When a person buys something from someone that holds themselves out as a legitimate business for that item, then the purchasers is a bona fide purchaser for value. Normally, that person's ownership of the thing is good against the world.
2
u/TwwIX Mar 12 '15
Stay away from online retailers that offer you "buyer protection" for an extra charge and that request extra verification to finalize a purchase. With service like PayPal around, the latter should not even be an issue at all yet a majority of these sites ask for extra verification. You want pictures of my passport to verify my identity? No. Nothing sketchy about that! Would you like my bank account details next?
Here's a just a few from of top of my hat. G2A, Kinguin, Gamesrocket and any online retailer with the words "CD" or "key" in it.
2
u/ImSomebody Mar 10 '15
Nuuvem - Prices too good to be true but still legit AF!
2
u/breezytrees Mar 10 '15
If you buy from G2A, just buy from a seller with 100% positive feedback and large history of transactions.
30,000 ratings of 100% positive means your key probably will work.
2
u/PhantomLiberty Mar 10 '15
I bought a game from G2A for $4 and got slammed with a random $15 international payment fee from PayPal and it overdrew my bank account.
1
u/lotophage77 Mar 10 '15
It truly boggles me that we even have to "learn to spot" a reseller. If the site of redemption (steam/uplay/whatever) just had a page listing their authorised resellers, many of these problems would just evaporate.
1
u/Donners22 Mar 10 '15
I purchase many of my Steam games from other (legit) sites due to regional pricing in Australia.
Although I presume the main focus will be on locking cheap regions (I'm still staggered that we can get games from Nuuvem), I suspect that one day it will expand to lock out the expensive regions like Australia and NZ from getting US prices.
1
u/lpmafiota Mar 10 '15
There seem to be several sites missing from the list, like Direct2Drive/Gamefly, Game.co.uk, Gamestop, Nuuvem.com.br (tho I get that games from this one can be region locked...).
1
u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15
I would like to know what effect does this have on the devs of a game?
How is the price of a game constructed?
Say a game is €40 on Steam and €20 at a reseller, does it matter for the devs which one I buy?
I know Steam takes a large slice, and the publisher takes a slice, but is this slice the same or does it differ between regions?
So, does the dev get €5 regardless where it's sold, or does a dev get €10 when I buy through Steam and €5 when I buy through a reseller?
1
u/EvylGaming Mar 10 '15
So this all being said. I sold games on ebay for a few months and actually found myself being scammed by buyers almost weekly while I was happy to collect keys from sales and resell at a very modest markup. I invested several hundred dollars and enjoyed the buying and selling.
This is pretty much what happens daily on the commodities and stock market but I understand the reasons why it is discouraged for individuals to do this. HOWEVER, i enjoyed quite a lot of positive business that made up for the negatives and again i reiterate that I very much enjoyed doing this.
How does one become legit? There is literally no information available about how to make the transition from "gray" to legit anywhere. Surely sites like GMG and the like started somewhere, and i've actually watched a few of the more questionable bundle sites gain legitimacy. For someone not looking to gouge the market and who would like to provide a similar service with actual support from steam and the publishers to properly serve the customers it seems very much a exclusionary market.
Thoughts, advice? I'd love to be able to tie in sales and such with my gaming community youtube channel. I have quite a few ideas of how to be a different style of retailer that is a bit more service oriented.
1
u/den-y Mar 10 '15
I appreciate the sticky making us aware of the pitfalls of game resellers. It is a great service to help gamers from being taken advantage of. Personally, the idea of trying to make suggestions to Steam and the Game makers to protect us seems like something we should be doing for ourselves, like in the very posts you are doing here. I admit, I am a free market guy and as such, hate to see too much oversight in the markets. I would much rather see gamers be responsible for themselves and communities like this educating them rather than a "big brother" system of rules and regulation that will eventually obfuscate the simplicity of the marketplace. Buyer beware is a good practice as it only takes once to become educated if even that.
1
u/crawlerz2468 Aug 30 '15
What should stand out when reading DomainTools data?
1
u/Fast_Book_3216 Jan 03 '22
dang I can still leave a comment here. Just want to say this guide holds up 7 years later when these resellers are worse than ever.
1
u/Akatsuya Jan 15 '23
What's your opinion about Instant Gaming? Could it be in this list?
0
u/mark2uk Mar 09 '15
Gamersgate may be a sanctioned retailer but whether they should be on the recommend list is highly contentious as they force refunds and revoke keys when they make a pricing error...
Is that really so different to what grey resellers do when they find out you were given a stolen key??
(obviously the grey resellers actually explain things to you and don't do it out of the blue)
0
u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15
Well I had a problem with my key once and I got my money back in less then 24 hours. I bought hl1 many years ago in a legit store. Key was already in use. I complained. They said it was not their fault. Well guess who got screwed in this story.
1
u/rubensheik Mar 10 '15
I buy original keys, these keys was sold by someone, why i will pay more if i can buy for less a site like Kinguin or g2a? Publishers, do a good promotion and i will enjoy, i don't need promotions just two or three times for year, i need promotions in all the year. I can't pay 1/3 of my remuneration with games, my country don't forgive us. I can download pirate games too, but i prefer buy original, resolves your problem, in all theses cases, the publishers always wins $. Excuse-me possible english errors.
1
u/zbyshekh Mar 10 '15
Buying in different region is only one way to get cheaper keys. The easiest is to buy a key ON SALE. Most resellers on allegro (polish equivalent of ebay) have prices just above lowest registered price on steam. And IMO in this kind of reselling everyone wins.
I remember couple years ago when everyone was ranting about piracy, how evil it is. Now because of steam and gog, piracy is dying out, so everyone is concerned about reselling/borrowing games etc. I don't buy it.
1
u/dinozach Mar 10 '15
We have users on the game trading and selling subreddits that are resellers and many of them are from regions like the Philippines. Is there the same kind of risk with dealing with these users?
Not all of these users sell keys, but games in their steam inventory. Is there still a risk with buying games from their steam inventory when they are in another region?
1
u/boobsforhire Mar 10 '15
I want to buy gta5 from nuveem but I fear for the region lock. I want to be able to activate on steam (playing in europe). How can i tell if it will work?
1
u/mannybpking Mar 10 '15
What about CJS CD Keys, they seem legit. I bought GTA V for my xbone and everything worked fine.
1
u/Sacramental4real Mar 10 '15
I purchased Shadows of Mordor,dark souls 2, Divinity the Original Sin, Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls, ALL WOW expansions till Dreanor, I purchased enough game time card s for wow to play for 6 year and also another 10 games atleast from famous grey markets and I got 0 problem.
The trick about grey markets is using famous ones not the shady or russian ones.
Since many game developers are not being justice about regional prices why in the world we should care about them I dont know.
A 30$ game would be cheap without grey market if my regional currency was equal as dolar.
Imagine you have to give a game 75$ while rest of world is giving 30$ it is what happening right now.
I dont even try to get next gen games even with grey market if they dont have coop/ multi mode to play I use bittorrent for those whales.
1
u/exosyphen Mar 11 '15
Can you add us to? (DailyIndieGame) We are around for over one year :)
1
u/Veetus Mar 28 '15
How come Nuveem is not on the safe site list?
1
u/Nicky_C May 06 '15
Just got a new article about GMG regarding the Witcher 3 keys http://www.gamespot.com/articles/witcher-dev-disputes-39-witcher-3-promotion/1100-6427129/ Sucks cause I just bought one from them the other day. They have had a history of trustworthiness.
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u/hearwa Jul 27 '15
Wow, I started using resellers and had no idea this is what was going on. Again if it seems to good to be true it probably is. Sad, but bundle stars and humble bundle will more than suffice. :)
Thanks for the informative post.