Do you use shady key stores?
I don't use those, because I don't buy games. I win them instead :D:
jokes aside - nope, never used G2A/Kinguin etc - I always buy my games from steam safe stores. I have backlog big enough to keep me running so if I cannot afford this 60$ game I will just wait till it goes on sale :>
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Kinguin is shady? Aw what a bummer. A friend showed and recommended me this website yesterday.
I always bought on Steam or won them here.
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(Btw. I don't know g2a too).
kinguin buys oiut games from resellers and sell them themselves.
That doesn't sound shady to me but totally legit. Could you explain it a bit more please. I really have 0 idea on that matter. I shoved my money always up GabeN's buttex.
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Sure ;>
Basicaly - when the key/gift comes from the reseller you simply can never be sure if it is legit or not and that's it. It can be totally 100% legit game, but it can be stolen game as well and then you may have it revoked from your account in best scenariot (worst scenario being getting trade banned for scamming -> cannot trade, buy or activate anything on steam). Reseller companies like Kinguin simply buy cheap copies of games from unknown/unofficial sources thus you can never be sure where these copiec coe from. These can be just keys/gifts bought on sale resold for small profit, but at the same time - these keys/gifts may come from scamming other traders, cc or paypal refund frauds etc. In later case your game will get revoked from your steam account and in best scenario you just lost your game, worst case - steam believes you were part of a scam and trade-ban you.
Sure - over 90% of offers on these sites are valid ones, just ppl reselling their goods for small profit - but since you cannot be sure who your seller is, you can end up either loosing your game or even whole steam account because you wanted to save a few pennies.
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oh, that looks good. thanks for the tipp!
EDIT: i am only fine with uplay, because it's half price. I have all my ubisoft games on steam. bought for a reasonable price, when region locks were not a thing yet. but now i guess i have to switch to uplay. having those games on steam is nice and there are obvious benefits to it. but not for double the money...
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thanks again. don't know why i checked the shady stores before GMG. i bought Anno on GMG now. looking forward to play it this evening. :)
EDIT: and i get full download speed with Uplay now. interesting, i always had problems with that (that is one reason why i prefer to have ubisoft games on steam).
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a few i can think of right now:
we had this discussion before, and i remember we had like 10 points back then. so i am obviously forgetting something right now. ^^
on the other hand, what are the cons? i can see none, except for the price (which is a huge one, of course - that is why i bought Anno 2205 for uplay today). the argument that you have to start 2 clients is not really an argument, if you ask me. if you start a uplay game on steam, the client gets loaded in the background and starts the game. it's absolutely the same. it's even better for me, because i always have steam running, but i will manually start uplay, if i want to play a game there.
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Well, I bought a key from G2A once, before I knew about bundles, massive sales and games going free, and nothing went wrong. I really really wanted to own my fav game on Steam instead of an "arrrrrr" copy so I went for it.
Would I buy from it again? Probably, if I really couldn't find it cheaper anywhere else and couldn't hope it'll get bundled.
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i got Mortal Kombat X Premium Edition for $15. off kinguin and had no issues. i also always look at rep for # sold and % of working keys and anyone below 99% is a no buy and i only tolerate that cause i feel the 1% could just be human error on a good seller.
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http://www.gamesrocket.com/download/Mortal-Kombat-X-Premium-Edition.html
There you go, 15.49
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Yea they are safe, they are on itsthereanydeal too, which as far i know only lists safe retailers
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no really because i dont have a reason to buy more games, thanks to hb , bundlestars and occasional steam or gmg/gamesplanet sales theres plenty of cheap games all over the place and my backlog is too big already (:
plus i dont play games on release because 99% of those end up being a hot mess and take like a year to get proper fixes. Unless its multiplayer only game of course, because those tend to have most players at or short after release, but even for fifa 16 i got that one for like $36 from greenmangaming a few days after release and i dont think even those 3rd party ebay sites could match gmg price :P
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I have bought a few games from G2A. The games were mostly bundled an d so I knew where the key was coming from.
I usually check the person's feedback and check what people have said about the seller. If the seller isn't up to par I don't buy the game, no matter how low the price is.
In my experience so far, I haven't faced any scammers or shady people but I haven't bought such AAA titles either.
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I never had a problem with those so called shady sellers, never got a key revoked, or never got a duplicate key or whatsoever.
And neither of my friends had such a problem. And yes I have bought many times from them games I found cheap hadn't found them cheaper somewhere else. Though I have a long time to buy from them
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i actually don't want that. couldn't care less about some paper with cover art on it, and some cheap plastic toys or whatever. ^^ i want my games digitally. and it really pisses me off, that i will get Transformers Devastation as a retail copy (because it was way cheaper that way). first retail copy for me in years. i will just activate the steam key and one minute later throw the rest away. xD
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i like/love most of those games, but i have them only digitally. and that's the way i want it. and now please don't disown me! xD
btw, is the latest Longest Journey even available as retail box? it's a rather small budget title (and episodic). it is very possible there won't be a retail version, right? :)
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I'll forgo disowning you just this once since you've admitted to loving them, but tread carefully ;)
If I remember correctly from the Kickstarter campaign, the box version was supposed to be released with the final episode.
I'd just love to be able to afford boxed versions of these games. They're my all time favorites and I'd display them proudly <3
Currently I own no retail versions of any games, and before I came to Steam I owned no legit versions either. Oh, how things change in a little over a year... :)
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Dreamfall did by the way have a very good CE. It was not overly expensive, came with one of the few art books that I actually found worth flipping through (most art books from games are rather boring, but they had put some effort into this one, and it was hard cover), the first game and the soundtrack. I would much rather have a CE like this than one that comes with an oversized plastic statuette that I can't put anywhere because it's too big.
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Depends on the statuette. I'm not into collectibles or toys at all, but if it's something that I think looks aesthetically nice, I may be okay with sticking it on a shelf somewhere just to add color and flair to it.
Not something I'd pay notably extra for, but it's better than some of the lame maps, trinkets, and artbooks some of the games throw in just to charge more.
However, when a game releases a good artbook, that's the best. :)
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I'm trying to think of any CE that came with a large figurine that actually looked good enough to put on a shelf. I don't even think I would want the Skyrim one. Instead, a small figurine would be a lot better (for me). Something along the line of the one that came with Morrowind or Warhammer Online would work a lot better for me.
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Oh, no, did I miss the 'large' part? No, I definitely was speaking only about small figurines, knickknacks you can stick next to a particularily nice shell or stone you found, or something, next to the TV or your computer. Just something to make your desk/table/shelf/entertainment stand have a bit more life to it.
Large figures, rather than accenting, dominate your attention, and I don't really see a place where that'd be useful, unless you're really big into figures or a specific game, and want everyone that visits to know that. Which, is fine- I just haven't found anything that has both compelled me that much, AND offered anything worth displaying :P
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I can completely understand that, most "feelies" are not very good. But some things are genuinely useful, like the big map that came with Victoria 2 (basic edition), and some can be quite interesting, like the book explains the basics of the D'ni language & culture that came with Myst V (CE).
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I remember when digital games were quite a bit cheaper (I wanna say, 30%?) than retail copies, as the publisher's nod to the lack of manufacturing/shipping/etc costs involved.
Nowadays, there doesn't seem to be any distinction made between prices, and it gets..
. I mean, nearly 100€ for a game like Batman, 90€ for Fallout 4? Really?
..a bit ridiculous.
At that point, it seems to just be raw greed.
Then again, I still think $40 retail games are the height of expense, the ones being released above that just seem absurd to me, even as retail copies :X
But if people'll pay it..
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I was under the impression that prices were kept high due to retail stores saying "either you sell your games digitally at the price you recommend we sell the game at, or we don't sell it at all". But then retail stores were allowed to sell the games at whatever price they thought was appropriate, so they tried to undercut digital prices (and each other).
Unless they happen to have been called Åhlens, because they thought it would be a good idea to charge 20% extra for no reason. There might be a reason why they don't have a large section for games anymore... (well, GameStop also charged "recommended" price, and often kept the "recommended" price long after it was appropriate, like 5 years post release. No wonder GameStop is not doing so well around these parts).
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Weird. Well, I'm talking about the timeframe when World of Warcraft and Steam were both still newish, so like a decade ago :P
That's about the last time I bought non-digital, haha. :X
At that point- probably because online retail WASN'T handled through Steam, but by actual retailers- you got a discount for digital game only.
So, for example, Walmart might sell a game in-store for $40, but have an online option to buy at $28.
I honestly don't know how much of that still exists [though I THINK you can still get games a bit cheaper on Amazon at times?], as I really mostly look to bundles these days for games- so my price expectations are a bit specific :P
I've never had much respect for Gamestop :/
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So, for example, Walmart might sell a game in-store for $40, but have an online option to buy at $28.
I wish they would still do that. I wasn't really into buying games digitally at that time, but I have always thought that the digital versions should have been cheaper since I started buying them. It makes sense from a consumer POV, but on the other hand makes sense why they don't from a business POV.
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I'd want to own a box set once but they're like 200% the price here compared to the ones you get from US :/
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Yes, as emergency for keys that I didn't mark on my list as used and made a GA/trade with them.
It's also a good place to check the grey/black market prices when dealing with trades. (Although it was funny trying to explain a while ago why I wouldn't give away Gang Beasts for $2.50 even if it's "just a bundle game"; the current lowest semi-legal price is $10.)
My problem with them is that they are not cheap in reality. Bundle games are sold at bundle price/game or even more. AAA games may have a good price tag, but to my knowledge G2A never managed to give an answer on where those keys are from. And if the worst is true, that in insider is just selling keys on the side, then entire publisher libraries can get revoked with a push of a button. (Well, lots of buttons.)
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to be fair: i don't think there are many stolen keys on those sites. probably close to zero (at least i hope so ^^). most keys will just come from the cheapest possible region. as far as i know, you often get a scan/photo of the product key there. so i guess that's what they do. buy a cheap retail copy and sell the steam key. same goes for digital copies, bought in local stores, of course. if the amount of stolen keys was significant, i would imagine the publishers would have taken measures a long time ago.
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This tells exactly nothing, to be honest. They will come up with a system with publishers they don't name. They don't have a fixed price on anything, by the way, not even the off-market prices stay the same. And no follow-up message on that otherwise fairly generic marketing bullshit that has next to no actual information value.
Not to mention that if they get the keys from publishers (even though even as of today, not a single publisher ever stated that they had any deals with G2A), they didn't give on any explanation on why do you need to purchase additional fraud protection services via the Shield for the keys that are supposedly from totally 100% legit sources.
On market, okay, they ask for a fee to guarantee that the seller won't scam you. But why are they asking the same for the stuff they themselves sell? And if they get the stuff so cheap and sell them so cheap, how come they have millions of dollars to throw at esports teams, tournaments, streamers, and large gaming sites? If they sell cheap, they should have small profit. Yet they even give away a few per cent of the profits to the referral link owners. And if Steam covers 75% of digital market yet they cannot afford a new server, how come G2A, a supposedly small player has a lot more money to throw around from sales?
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This is the issue... You are assuming that G2A is one who is shady, but in majority of case its those publishers. No publisher will tell you that they have back-hand deals to sell games cheaper, because then they wouldn't able to explain why they sell digital copy at such high price. Let be honest, how many copies do you think that publishers menage to sell at release date price, or better yet, how may countries have high enough standard to sustain so many games on the market. That is whole reason why Steam has region-locking. Even trough "Lord Gaben" told that piracy is issue of service, he still combat piracy with lower prices.
i don't know where do you get your statistics for Steam, but I highly doubt it. Also, who said that they cant afford anything, they just don't want to. We all know how bad is Activision, and they just shed $5.9 milliards to acquire company, and Activision looks like small child next to Steam.
I agree with you about "shield", but it's just one more way for them to take little more money. Also this options is purely to give consumers filling of safety. Just think rationally, if even 1% of the keys were revoked, it would create too much negative press for company to sustain itself. Sure, there are illegal keys that can be revoked, but % of those is so low that in regular cases can be ignored. Think it this way, there is possibility to struck by lightning, and following that logic you shouldn't walk around with out Faraday's cage or leave your house at all. But, with chance of that happening you are ignoring safe-guard option, and keep on living. I know that its not best analogy, but you see my point.
And the last point... Its humans physiology that keeps us on panicking borderline cases while more common one are usually ignored or just sidelined.
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You should not use those sites for the same reason you wouldn't want to buy stolen goods. Here is something legal that might help you get coupons for games you want to buy:
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coupons won't help me with new games, right? as an example i mentioned Anno 2205. i doubt i will find a -50% coupon for that. ;)
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It depends from who you're buying.
Most "high rep" e.g. G2A users are getting those copies from "somehow legit" sources such as bundles, buying in mass quantity, using coupons, buying from cheapest regions yet ROW, etc.
Of course, you can never be sure. But 5 of my friends wanted to play Insurgency >right now<, and I told them that I can buy them games from official source, or G2A for half of the price, yet from trusted resellers. In the end of the day I bought 5 insurgency keys, from 3 different highrep guys, and noone of it got revoked.
Just use common sense, do not buy from guys with 0-10 transactions, and you should be fine in like 90% cases. I do not like buying off G2A as well, hence, I never buy anything there for myself, but I did use that service for a few times now and didn't get into any scam situation yet.
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and you should be fine in like 90% cases
oh, i think it is way more than 90%. if it were only 90% (meaning: every tenth customer will post on the internet, that he got a bad key) those stores would not be on the market anymore. :)
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It isn't worth the risk for me. Local retail is cheap enough to make getting AAA titles worth getting when they go on special. Bought Alien Isolation Nostromo Edition for $7.50 for a friend this weekend :)
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With all the authorized bundle sites and Steam sales, I'm never lacking games to play and so I've found no reason whatsoever to buy from somewhere I'd refer to as "shady."
I kind of like knowing that the keys/games I'm buying were OK'ed by the developers/publishers. IMHO that is the single best way to support the gaming industry.
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I've bought from HRK 10 AAA bundles and everything was ok. I had one problem with a key that didn't worked and after 12h after i made the ticket they change the key.
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It would seem like they actually do make their own bundles and get their keys from the publisher. They also seem to be buying other bundles and re-selling keys, but if they did not make their own bundles, then it's unlikely that they would sell previously unbundled in cheap bundles (something that they have done in the past).
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It's just a guess, but I think it's the combination of the two. They get some games straight from the one-man self-publisher studios, but some of the bundle composition is just way too similar to other super-budget bundle sites like DIG that it cannot be coincidence: they would have to make the exact same contracts with the exact same indie studios at the exact same time.
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Same here, I did not have a problem with mine, but the whole experience just seemed really shady to me. Getting a verification phone call from Poland, keys from some random-generator email address in Russia. And I ended up getting duplicate copies of the 2 games in bundles not long after anyway and giving them away. I should be more patient. :)
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I did buy 3 keys from the "grey" market (Diablo 3's expansion, The Stanley Parable and Win 8.1, all from Kinguin, being precise).
They all worked, and the products are still active.
I try my best to buy from "official" resellers and wait for good sales, and I do this more for ethics than safety. But as you can see, my ethics flew out the window already. T__T
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Been using key sites for years ( I never buy full priced off any of the major clients) and I have had no issues whatsoever.
The way I see it is if that is what the market is willing to pay for it then so be it. Its like selling your house. You could want $ 1 000 000 for it but if the market is only saying $650 000 you are more thank likely only ever going to sell it for $650 000 or possibly less.
Besides new games have a very short window where they can retail at such high prices before falling rapidly and these key seller markets reflect this more accurately than say Steam, Origin or uPlay where the publisher will try and hold on to the value for as long as possible.
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i believe this is true to an extent but when grey market sites have brand new games at 50% off or more inside the first week of launch it tells me one of two things: either a ROW game was purchased in a country like Russia to pass on the savings to countries who normally pay higher prices, or someone used a stolen credit card to buy a game they know they can resell fast and and are dumping it at a price to turn it over quickly.
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I don't ever buy keys from people who list the keys on the market place as I think that could be asking for trouble. I just purchase from the keysites directly themselves like G2A, Fast2Play or CD Keys. If there is another seller involved then I am usually not interested and will wait it out until either of those sites has a sale again with the game I want.
Been doing that for a number of years without any hassle or issue. I am simply not prepared to pay $60 dollars for a game that is usually broken beyond repair at release and that needs gigabytes of patching just to get into a fit state (which of course all costs me more money on top of the $60 dollars). So rocks in the head to the publishers and developers if they think I am gonna hand over my hard earned cash for that.
And to be honest I couldn't really care where the key came from as long as it works and I get to play the game. Why should I worry about ethics with regards to publishers and developers when they continuously have no respect for me and other customers by siphoning half of their games off as DLC, micro- transactions (in a $60 dollar retail release - get real - don't mind that when the game is F2P) and other shady shenanigans?
At least I am not pirating their games!
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for games for myself? hmmm...maybe i guess. it depends on the vibe I get. i dont want to think i purchased a key someone bought with a stolen credit card to resell for cash. Maybe if it was a low-value game that most likely would not have been purchased in that manner. it would also probably have to be something exclusive. i would steer away from brand new games at deep discounts. that would be a big red flag to me.
i could never buy a key from a grey market reseller to give away on SG though or to give as a gift to a friend. if there is to be a loss (revoked key) it should be on me, not a loss i gifted to someone. :P
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exactly what i am thinking. i used Kinguin for myself recently, but would never buy a key for SG there. i could not verify it, and i could not guarantee it won't be revoked later on (and i am aware chances are pretty good the key is completely fine). i just don't want to risk my SG reputation. ^^
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Guys, those keys are meant for people who live in poverty. How are you going to feel, when one day, publishers say, RIGHT! No more cheap 3rd world keys!
"Why should we ship cheap 3rd world keys to impoverished countries, when they're just being all bought up by self entitled westerners".
Then, people who already have so many problems, won't even be able to escape from those problems for a few hours a day....
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So, I was always against those shady key resellers. You can never be sure where they got the copy. There have been problems in the past. People got their games revoked. There were even some incidents where stolen keys have been sold. Until end of last year I wasn't even thinking about using those stores. There was no reason anyway, since the trading market allowed cheap Steam copies from Russia, Brazil etc. So often you could get the same price, while getting a Steam gift (known origin) instead of a shady key. But now that everything is region locked, most games cost 60€ or close to that. You can't really save money anymore. I am someone who buys lots of games. And that's not really possible anymore with those prices. So I have to admit, I already used a key store for one game. And I am thinking about whether the money saved is worth the risk. Whether I should use those stores more often now. I am still struggling with the idea. Worst case would be a stolen key, I guess. And even if that (probably) doesn't happen very often - I don't want to pay for stolen goods.
What are your thoughts about that? Do you use those stores? Are you aware of all the negative aspects, and does it bother you?
Anno 2205 is released now. And I am really thinking, if I should buy a Uplay key on those sites for half the price...
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