I already buy on this website and I don't encounter any problem ;)

An interesting read, thanks for posting it! So it would seem like certain indie developers chose to let them host their bundles. A few things did stand out though:

12:38 AM - HRK Rep: We never purchased any game bundle directly from any other bundle website. We purchased them from suppliers, I don't know where they come from.

This probably means that they're purchasing boxed copies in a region where the games are cheaper. It's par for the course when it comes to grey market keys, and it's not illegal. The main issue here is knowing which grey market sellers are selling legitimately obtained keys, though if the HRK rep is being honest, their keys are purchased in bulk, probably at the same price that local stores pay for their boxed copies.

12:24 AM - HRK Rep: It's so unfortenate that some of SG users may think that the keys are purchased from anonymous sources. Since there are thousands of games and it's not really hard to make some contracts with their developers ;)

I might be reading this wrong, but that sounds like all they are saying is that the games are not purchased through any further middle hands. So they might be buying keys from one place where it's cheap, and then re-sell it on their website.

Some of the conversation was reassuring, some was not. Overall though I might be willing to give them a try now. Here are start times for conversation points I found interesting.

12:24 & 1:28 - They use G2A's payment system because it's convenient but the shady Shield feature is automatically tacked on by G2A and can't be removed, though they're trying to get G2A to remove it since it's unnecessary for HRK customers. Ok, I can accept that for the time being. However if they don't either remove it or find an alternative payment system later then I will assume they are fine with this shady system thus ruining their credibility for me.

12:34 - He offers to provide a list of their partners which is nice. Are those partners reputable? Are those partners shady? Either way it's transparency on HRK's part which is always good.

12:37 & 1:13 - He says they used unofficial sources for their lottery initially but no longer, and describes the lottery idea as a way to help developers make more money. Again the transparency is nice, and I like the lottery idea overall. While I'm not a fan of gambling it does sound in this case like something that's fine for the consumers and good for HRK & publishers/devs.

12:55 - Two of the three reasons given don't really convince me. A lot of places buy in bulk and distribute digitally rather than physically. I'd assume those are a given for any seller that would come up on SG. Devs not having to pay HRK as much as they pay Valve does sound convincing although it seems like offering the same product at a drastically reduced price to other sellers sounds like a good way to piss off Valve and lose your presumably profitable relationship with them.

1:52 - It seems like a lot of organizations are promoting a charity now and this is probably why. It does make me wonder why they don't do the same if it's profitable for the organizations promoting charities. If it's cheaper for them and they get to send even a little money to charity then where's the loss?

I am glad you talked to them but it did not really change my opinion about this site. Since the don't work with publishers the only way to get low prices would be buying keys from countries where these games are cheaper. If that's not shady I don't know what is.

This rep can deny all he wants but their Make Bundle games all come from Indiegala and DIG bundles. There is no way it is just a coincidence that these are exactly the same games that are currently in bundles on those sites. Most likely they purchase these bundles in mass quantities during happy hour.

HRK Lottery is where you pay $2 and you have 10% chance to win AAA games.

Do they give anything when you pay $2? Because if they don't it is illegal.

1:52 AM - HRK Rep: While it looks very nice to help charities, but there is some facts that they don't tell to their customers.
1:52 AM - HRK Rep: When you use charity option, payment fees cost lower.
1:53 AM - HRK Rep: For example Paypal deducts 2.4% for a normal payment. But for charity cause it takes only 1.2%
1:53 AM - HRK Rep: So you can transfer payments with lower costs because you are telling people that you help charity!

That's not true. Humblebundle cannot use that. It's for non-profit organizations which HB is clearly not. I don't know how it works in other countries but here are PayPal fees in the US.
It's more of a marketing tactic than way to save on fees.

I would say buying from them is safe but I simply would not do that because I don't like their tactics of acquiring keys and all this lottery nonsense. There are plenty of our sites to buy from.

A load of bullshit, as usual. Their "verified distributers" are actually the gray market resellers.

Rachel, as I will have some spare income, I am going to try my luck at it. I have bought bundles from HRK and never had a problem. But I suppose I will try the lottery and tell you how it works out.

I understand their intention with wanting to remove the shield thing from their G2A payment gateway, but saying "we are not responsible for this" is BS. It's their choice to use the gateway. And EVERYONE who's giving them business is going through it. They can't really be exempt from the inconvenience it brings to the customers, no matter what they say.

I once had a conversation with hot random monkeys. To be quite honest, I didn't understand a word they said.

Never dealt with HRK directly: why gamble on getting useless bundle keys for a small chance of getting an AAA game I more than likely don't care for at all? (I can count on one hand all the AAA games I was interested in in the past 3 years.)

Did deal with G2A, yes. One removed game, one key when it turned out to be used for one of my giveaways. Both worked but that won't mean I don't know the obvious risk of dealing with them.

well... over 500 attempt in the HRK lootery thing and i got blood of old and dead bits ( neither of them i actually used ), and its supposted to have good games... which is obviously a lie,
i regulary enter so many chats on steam daily and i never seen anyone outside the HRK site saying that he got a good game ( yes, i asked in them ). yet HRK claims that the lootery have AAA games and thousands of good games. so why did no one actually got a game other then blood of old, dead bits, overcast and some other mostly negative games. care to explain HRK rep?

I just tried to buy a game and my order has been stuck in Processing for hours. This was after it took a while for my Paypal payment to complete on their site, and after they asked me for my phone number.

Great post rachellove

Never had a Problem with G2A, i bought and i sold there some stuff. But HRK? Now Way man, good for free keys from time to time, but its obvious you dont get something, thats worth your money. Go buy a lottery ticket, should have better chances of getting the jackpot, then getting a AAA/good game there.

I'll keep getting my games from bundlestars and GMG thanks. They both have decent enough sales and I've never had a problem with them which they didn't fix like within a few working days.

HRK,G2A ,Kinguin and other shady key seller sites don't provide real deal to the games. For eg: there is a price error recently on newegg for ROTR and dirt rally in which u can buy each game for $0.99. G2A,Kinguin sellers mass buy this and sell it for $30 and above. This is the reason I don't like it. If they give real deal they need to provide the games for $0.99 or less

I've bought probably half a dozen of the $1.50 build-a-bundles from there & had issues with 3 keys... as I recall, one time it took three business days to get a response (bit overly long, I guess), other two were resolved in a single business day. Was just issued a replacement key.

Can't speak for their deals or random keys or other such things, though.

As for G2A, the vast majority of sellers there are just 'regular' key resellers. It's the eBay for Steam keys. Yes, some are scam sellers (they won't last long), some are fraudulent sellers (credit card theft, etc -- they'll last even less time), some will sell massive amounts of bundled keys which depending on the bundle site, how it's sold, & person's country of origin, may or may not be legal (the terms on these sites are a lot like EULA's, you can put a lot of stuff in there, but that doesn't mean it'd hold any water if it was challenged in a court of law -- though I will say that the Humble site inparticular would have a solid defense, at least against US based sellers that 'split' their bundle, or for bundles where (profits) primarily go to charities), and then the last group of sellers, that primarily will sell regional keys to the 'world' market. If you only buy from ppl, w/, say, 100 transactions or more, you'll likely never deal with the 1st or 2nd group -- so no need for g2a shield. Also, no need to anger the seller by leaving some negative feedback before going through resolution center (all that does is reduce their incentive to make you a Happy Buyer, as you've essentially already said they're rubbish).

I've never had a 'failed' purchase on g2a (besides a few 2 or 3 cent keys, listed by people that think they're 'listing stuff for free' but probably never read fee schedule & don't know about the 0.35 euro flat fee for completed auctions). I've had to take two to resolution center, w/ one of them ending up w/ a nice mutual arrangement & the other w/ the guy refunding my key w/o saying anything (one of those high volume sellers that I usually try to avoid, the, ah, 50k+ sort generally).

Mutual arrangement I spoke of essentially amounted to me asking for a 2.5 euro voucher for a 2.35 euro key that failed (if he was unable to issue a replacement key). For the record, sellers can't see any info about buyers. They have no clue if you've bought 10 other games and not complained at all, or if that's your first purchase and also your first complaint. So don't be too surprised if they're suspicious on a high value item. Also, when choosing who to buy from (don't let selected offer make that choice for you), if the value is high enough to concern you, check their feedback. G2A instituted a new policy maybe 6 months or so ago where they simply refuse to remove any FB. Many sellers may show a 99 or 100% FB ratio, but in "recent times", it may be a lot lower. Other sellers may show a 97 or 98%, but it could be because they're a newer user, or have an excessive amount of negative feedback that has nothing to do with the service the seller provides. re: people complaining about slow delivery of keys, not being able to use X as payment method, 'key ended up costing more than on Steam' (buyer using shield and selected offer, cough), etc.... not the fault of seller. Would also say it's safe to moot all the complaints about random keys and premium keys being trash. Most damning comments would be complaints about revocations, I've seen some 100k+ transaction seller with dozens of visible negative feedbacks about gifts being revoked == avoid like the plague obviously. Region issues on keys would be my #2 avoid & then complaints about 'invalid' (unspecified), 'duplicate', or 'used' keys as #3. If either of those last two happened to me on a key I purchased, I'd try to resolve it via the resolution center first. If resolved satisfactorily, at worst I'd leave a neutral feedback for a key that had to be replaced/refunded/compensated for due to a regional issue, & probably would leave a positive feedback for any dupe or used key that was promptly addressed... how I feel about it anyway. Revocation would get a neg & just tone modified by whatever happened in resolution center (or would have, up until a week ago, until this Custody and AXYOS thing happened -- I guess I'd have to research a bit first now).

Anyway, a refunded key results in seller losing the 0.35 euro auction completion fee, whatever their listing fee was (0.15 euro if it was only 1 key), the commission fee (8% of sale value), and, if buyer utilized it, the entire 'selected offer' "fee" (pls, never use selected offer). For buyer, it results in loss of g2a shield money (if you used it, which you shouldn't -- unless it was by accident, laugh), loss of selected offer fee (most godawful rubbish thing ever), & also loss of any fee involved in payment process (unsure how high some payment methods go, bitcoins are 0%, paypal is 2 or 3%, I believe). That means any smart seller (or maybe I should say any seller that speaks or can understand same language + isn't some automaton with 100,000 transactions) should be happy to issue a voucher rather than have to refund a key if they don't have any other keys for that title (just state that you'll close out the case, if voucher of x amt is issued). Obviously not always an option as you may not ever buy something from g2a again, but if chances are high that you will, then it's mutually beneficial option. Can always give it away to someone else. (just works as a code)

Ah, this has become some TL;DR bait, & I've spent enough time on it for now, I guess. I guess if anyone replies or I get some free time, may expand on this later. Want to say a few more things about 'selected offer' inparticular but I'll just leave it for now. My general guideline, best people to buy from are folks with 100 transactions (with at least 2 weeks of visible FB history) - 10,000 transactions (ah, probably up to 20K or 30K now). Why? You eliminate the obvious fraudsters, which g2a sure doesn't want on their site either & are quick to disappear. You also eliminate most of the automatons that ignore resolution center cases & if it's something you particularly care about, you'll eliminate the 'worst' of the regional/bundle key resellers as well. I also try to avoid gifts, but I guess that's just a personal preference. In some cases, I suppose gifts may be 'safer' (if you're worried about getting scammed -- I reckon gifts would be easier for buyer to prove non-receipt & harder for seller to claim they were successfully delivered, maybe if they wanted to waste time w/ some photoshopping).....

but, well, most of the sellers are just like 99.9% of the sellers on eBay, they aren't out to steal your money...

and just like on ebay, you're more likely to find buyers trying to scam, rather than sellers (as most scam sellers will be weeded out before you even have a chance to buy from them)

and, yeah, this glosses over the whole regional/bundle thing, which i wanted to get to but, well, maybe later. hand is in srs pain

Interesting material. Thank you, rachellove.

I buy a lot from this site and haven't had an issue yet(~4 Make Bundles and 5 Lotteries). And yes, I also fell once for that dang G2A shield.

Nice read and I found the part about donations landing lesser Paypal fees quite helpful. Might help in future websites I make.

The self-aggrandizing BS in there almost bent my mind out of shape.

I bought a 10 random keys bundle (it worked out about AU$17) and scored 3 games from my wish list - 2 valued at $AU40 each - I had no problems with them activating and the games were legit - I did however get stung with the G2A shield piggy backing on my credit card - I never used to look at every transaction (Stupid I know), because my wife tends to use google store on her phone and buy games and books and in app crap, I just tended to add it up in my head and if it looked about right I paid my fees and forgot about it - until 1 month when we bought nothing with it because we were saving for something, and I noticed it there - going back thru it, I found it on 4 statements. I disabled it. Problem solved.

Interesting read! Thank You very much for it, Rachel! Now we know they are not that bad...
I still can't believe all those things though... There are facts which excludes each other (as some people mentioned) while they say them at the same time which makes it suspicious. What is more, I still can't be sure they really got all their keys from publishers/developers/official sources. Are there any proofs? Have they ever provided any proofs? If not, perhaps it would be good to either ask HRK to provide with some proofs about what they say or contact one or few of the places they mention they got keys from about it and ask so we could be sure? I'm not saying that HRK may not be telling the truth but we can never be sure, right? We better check everything. If it was possible for You, Rachel, I'd (and hopefully more people as wel) be really happy and thankful if You could contact Sigma Team Inc. and ask about details so they could approve what HRK says. That would make all the things clean and make HRK reputation even higher I believe.

TLDR. Rachel, could You be so kind and contact Sigma Team Inc. to approve that HRK indeed got keys directly from them to be sold on their website? That would be awesome as we would then be sure HRK is indeed legit and trustworthy. Thanks a lot in advance and if You aren't into contacting them, it's OK anyway, You've done a lot already!

I missed the thread first time around. Thanks, it's a good source of information.

But after I reading, I couldn't help but smiling and remarked 'no wonder many people like this girl'. ha.

updated note (apr 4) - someone bumped this thread again! so i've updated some links and info... take a look below.

some new things:

1. Name change from HRK to HRK Games/Hot Random Games
2. added some more bundle links here for some older bundles: Indie bundle 5 and the FREE Daily Drop Key Raffle

I've purchased 3 games from HRK in the last few months.
One of the games I had left the key for, since I already owned the game, and after several weeks of not using it, when I attempted to give the key away to a friend it wasn't usable. Contacted support and took a week to resolve, but didn't get the key for that game, since it was a game known for having key issues. I got an equivalent valued game in exchange, so wasn't a complete waste, since I wasn't going to use the key in the first place.
I'm not sure I'll purchase from them again, although I had no issues with the other two keys I bought.

Also, thanks for enduring the two-hour chat at midnight! :D