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Do You Use Another Site To Buy Steam Games?

D

Duplolas

Banned
Just found out there are sites that sell Steam game CD keys and Steam gifts at a price cheaper than Steam in most cases.

Is there a reason why I shouldn't use sites like these to buy all my games?
 
There are authorized resellers who buy keys in bulk from a publisher and sell the keys at their own storefront.

Then there is the grey market. I would avoid that because you might land on a key purchased with stolen credentials (and will later be revoked) or you might just get a copy that doesn't work in your region and get fleeced by the buyer.
 
I used to buy games from Green Man Gaming before the Battlefront disaster. I'm surprised the gaming media didn't catch on to that whole drama.

I bought Total Warhammer from them just because they had it for cheapest and they gave me a 30% off code to make up for what happened (big deal). That will be it.
 
Almost always, unless it's a Steam sale. I have a really low budget, but using sites like GreenManGaming, or even just buying nVidia keys from individuals on eBay, has saved me a ton of money.

Never had a bad experience, never had a game revoked, saved hundreds.
 
Consistently. I only buy small indies from Steam (although even then I prefer Humble).

Big sites like GMG, Nuuvem, Amazon etc are fine. Other sites are also mostly fine but aren't allowed to be mentioned on here.
 
Sober said:
There are authorized resellers who buy keys in bulk from a publisher and sell the keys at their own storefront.

Then there is the grey market. I would avoid that because you might land on a key purchased with stolen credentials (and will later be revoked) or you might just get a copy that doesn't work in your region and get fleeced by the buyer.
Click to expand...

CJs-CDkeys says,

CJS CD Keys sell brand new CD Keys taken directly from brand new sealed copies of the game. We source our keys in bulk direct from major Distributors.
Click to expand...

So would you say its safe then?

Machina said:
I used to buy games from Green Man Gaming before the Battlefront disaster. I'm surprised the gaming media didn't catch on to that whole drama.
Click to expand...

What happened?
 
Duplolas said:
Just found out there are sites that sell Steam game CD keys and Steam gifts at a price cheaper than Steam in most cases.

Is there a reason why I shouldn't use sites like these to buy all my games?
Click to expand...
Gamersgate and humblebundle are reuptable as steamgaf can attest
Funstock and gamesanet are legit for the most part too iirc
Greenmangaming states where the codes come from though
Newegg is legit as well
 
Mainly purchase via GMG and Humble now that Steam doesn't support PayPal in my country (Chile) since they introduced our currency. Before PayPal was supported, but now they only take Visa, Master Card and AMEX IIRC.
 
Not all games are available on these outside sites is one big reason.

Outside of that, no other reason, just buy off preference, and know what sites you're buying from. There are several well-trusted sites, and a few shady ones I'd avoid that are legitimate key resellers.

One thing that's not said often enough for Valve is how pro-PC gaming they are in this regard. They don't get any money if Steam game keys are sold off Steam, but they allow it since they believe in supporting the PC gaming space as opposed to trying to make some exclusive sector in it.
 
Duplolas said:
Well there are only a couple I have looked at so far. G2A and CJs-CDkeys.
Click to expand...

Those are grey market sites. G2A seemingly gets their keys through dubious means, so it's possible that you're buying games bought with stolen credit cards.

CDKeys seems to get them from retail copies, but as they get them from various countries you do have the risk that they won't work in yours. Iirc they give you a refund if they don't, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

EDIT: Oh, CJs-CDkeys is different from the site I was talking about. Don't know how reputable they are.
 
TimmiT said:
Those are grey market sites. G2A seemingly gets their keys through dubious means, so it's possible that you're buying games bought with stolen credit cards.

CDKeys seems to get them from retail copies, but as they get them from various countries you do have the risk that they won't work in yours. Iirc they give you a refund if they don't, but I'm not entirely sure about that.
Click to expand...

Well CJs also says,

If you buy the EU Multi-langauge version, then your key will be completely region free and include all languages. This means that since this is a steamworks game, you can activate the key from anywhere in the world. There are absolutely no region locks.
Click to expand...

It seems all pretty safe to me.
 
I buy many games from other sites. No reason to limit yourself to the Steam store, if you can get the same games for less elsewhere.
 
Duplolas said:
CJs-CDkeys says,

So would you say its safe then?
Click to expand...
Sounds like those copies "fell off the back of a truck" (for lack of a better term) for the better part.

How authorized resellers work is this - publishers on Steam can generate as many keys as they want for free. So sites like GreenmanGaming, humble bundle, amazon, etc. buy keys from the publisher in bulk and sell them at their own prices. On steam, publishers control their own prices (not Valve), which is why resellers have taken off while sale prices on steam have sort of plateaued in the AAA/high-end indie space, mostly because pubs have sales data on Steam and can see when/where/how much people are willing to buy.

The only time I would buy a cd key scan/picture or something is if it's from a video card bundle or something.
 
DO NOT buy from G2A.

They have a really bad rep from developers of Steam games (there's a constantly bumped thread in the Steam developer forums talking to be cautious of them). They are not a legitimate key seller, and they try to trick new devs to give them keys under guise of Youtubers or reviewers or for giveaways or some contract they don't keep their end of the deal of. The money does NOT go to the developers, and they are not a legitimate key reseller.

They also do more shady business practices, and there have been a number of reports in the Steam threads over the years from those who don't know who they are getting keys that don't work and not being refunded.
 
TimmiT said:
They're selling games that didn't get retail releases though.
Click to expand...

Yeah. That really makes me wonder.

Dusk Golem said:
DO NOT buy from G2A.

They have a really bad rep from developers of Steam games. They are not a legitmate key seller, and they try to trick new devs to give them keys under guise of Youtubers or reviewers or for giveaways or some contract they don't keep their end of the deal of. The money does NOT go to the developers, and they are not a legitimate key reseller.

They also do more shady business practices, and there have been a number of reports in the Steam threads over the years from those who don't know who they are getting keys that don't work and not being refunded.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I will make sure to stay away.
 
Have been using CJS for years, never had a problem. Recently bought keys for Just Cause 3 and Fallout 4 from them. They do have quite a complicated sign up and authorisation process though that can catch people out.
 
I sometimes buy from The Humble Store. I know plenty of people who use G2A though. It is promoted actively by twitch streamers and some youtube channels.

Also, doesnt buying from other sources exlcude you from steam refunds?
 
If it's something on Steam that I want, I always do.

Maybe US steam users have it good, but Australian steam prices are a joke. Pretty much similar prices to what EB games charge.

I pretty much only use cdkeys for new releases or humble site if there's a good bundle.
 
I'd say I buy more games from GMG than anywhere else. I've never had any issue with their keys, and they're almost always significantly cheaper than buying directly through Steam.
 
Dusk Golem said:
DO NOT buy from G2A.

They have a really bad rep from developers of Steam games (there's a constantly bumped thread in the Steam developer forums talking to be cautious of them). They are not a legitimate key seller, and they try to trick new devs to give them keys under guise of Youtubers or reviewers or for giveaways or some contract they don't keep their end of the deal of. The money does NOT go to the developers, and they are not a legitimate key reseller.

They also do more shady business practices, and there have been a number of reports in the Steam threads over the years from those who don't know who they are getting keys that don't work and not being refunded.
Click to expand...

Damnit, I just bought something yesterday from them.

Welp, I make sure to stay away in the future, thanks!
 
I used to buy tons of Steam games from Amazon US, back when they had amazing deals.

I still buy tons of Steam games from Humble Bundle and GMG.

I also sometimes buy AAA games from retail key resellers. Or buy keys from GPU bundles off ebay.
 
Steam gifts= nope. Selling or buying Steam gifts is against the TOS and can get you in trouble (or you can lose your newly bought games)
Sites like GMG, Gamersgate, Getgamesgo, Funstock, etc are fine and I use them quite a bit.
 
Dusk Golem said:
DO NOT buy from G2A.

They have a really bad rep from developers of Steam games (there's a constantly bumped thread in the Steam developer forums talking to be cautious of them). They are not a legitimate key seller, and they try to trick new devs to give them keys under guise of Youtubers or reviewers or for giveaways or some contract they don't keep their end of the deal of. The money does NOT go to the developers, and they are not a legitimate key reseller.

They also do more shady business practices, and there have been a number of reports in the Steam threads over the years from those who don't know who they are getting keys that don't work and not being refunded.
Click to expand...

Source?
 
Dusk Golem said:
DO NOT buy from G2A.

They have a really bad rep from developers of Steam games (there's a constantly bumped thread in the Steam developer forums talking to be cautious of them). They are not a legitimate key seller, and they try to trick new devs to give them keys under guise of Youtubers or reviewers or for giveaways or some contract they don't keep their end of the deal of. The money does NOT go to the developers, and they are not a legitimate key reseller.

They also do more shady business practices, and there have been a number of reports in the Steam threads over the years from those who don't know who they are getting keys that don't work and not being refunded.
Click to expand...

This is not true at all. G2A is a marketplace and maybe sellers that sell on that site do that, but G2A has no reason to risk their reputation over such minimal gains when they make plenty of money taking their cut from others. This is no different than someone selling stolen goods on ebay. Just make sure you stick with high feedback sellers and you'll be fine.
 
I never buy games on Steam because the Euro currency prices are absolutely nuts. Even retail PC games are 30% off Steam prices most of the time.

If the price is around 40€ there is a high chance it's legit. Lower than 35€ is getting pretty suspicious.
 
I buy keys from GMG and Humble. But I stay away from more shady sites. I don't want to support them, and I dont buy that many games that money is that much of an issue.
 
CasualTR said:
Source?
Click to expand...

Kiyo said:
This is not true at all. G2A is a marketplace and maybe sellers that sell on that site do that, but G2A has no reason to risk their reputation over such minimal gains when they make plenty of money taking their cut from others. This is no different than someone selling stolen goods on ebay. Just make sure you stick with high feedback sellers and you'll be fine.
Click to expand...

I can't take a screenshot of it due to contracts, but there's a pinned thread on Steam's private developer forums on Steam Keys, a guide for it, and many posts from developers along with the main post cautioning against G2A, among other things. And there's a large number of threads on the developer forums about G2A and their shady going-ons, and developers with multiple stories about bad experiences with them.

One of the few public stories on them:
On September 5th we uploaded Steam keys for our Kickstarter backers to our website and posted an update with all the information they needed. Unfortunately, some of the generous folks that backed us over a year ago were unable to automatically redeem their keys, and I decided I would help them manually. During the next 10 days or so I sent about 1000 emails with Steam keys or with requests to confirm our previous emails. That was on top of my normal 40-80 emails a day, and an additional 50 due to the upcoming release. Needless to say, it was a hectic time.

Among all those requests from backers, I began to receive emails from youtubers. Some of them were pretty long, some rather short. Some were sent directly to me, some were sent via the contact form on our website. Some of them came from youtubers with an audience as small as 300 people and some of them from folks with more than 1 million. But they kept on flowing. We felt certain the game was going to be a success, so I was more than happy to send each one a key (or two or three).

Before the release date I had been approached by roughly 15 youtubers. We replied to all of them, sending the number of keys they requested, finding that sometimes they wanted more than one as a kind of “Thank You”.

During the release weekend we received another 10 or so key requests from various sites. The weekend was crazy and a flood of emails were being sent back and forth. Our forums exploded, and we were working like mad to fix a number of rather painful bugs. I happily answered all those youtube guys, sending them a Steam key, not even giving myself the time to look at the channels they ran, just being happy they were willing to help us spread the word around.



I expect I would have lived in ignorance for a long time if it hadn't been for one thread that appeared on the Steam forums. Some folks reported that Worlds of Magic was available for purchase for about 15$ at ********. I was sure that something wasn't right as the price has been set up everywhere to be exactly the same. There might have been a buck or two of difference due to the currency exchange rate, but it was hard to imagine that someone was willing to sell the game for such a low price. I had no choice but to take a look.

I went to the store and bought a key using my credit card. Then I discovered that the key was one of those sent out to youtubers. Initially I thought that the guy had taken three keys, kept one for himself and sold two of them (the account on G2A was from Bulgaria), but after I checked it was clear that the guy had received only one key. It took me a while before I realized what is going on. You will find the explanation below.

I took a deep breath and began to thoroughly check all the emails that had been sent to me. Most of them were gmail accounts and had a single letter or number difference between the email name and the youtube channel name. Sometimes it was some popular regional mailing domain (for eastern Europe mostly). So double check it as many of people I know are really using the Gmail, so before judging please double check just to be sure.

We had to make a very difficult decision. In future, every youtuber that applied for a STEAM key would have to send us a message using their YouTube channel.

The first and second did so, as well as the third. So, I began to think that maybe I had exaggerated. Alas, that was not the case.

From about 20 additional requests, I received only two youtube channel confirmations.

So, as it turned out, roughly 70% of the keys we had given out were taken under false pretenses, or to use a more direct term, stolen. It left us asking ourselves: Were we really so blind and naive?

As it turned out, the answer was “Yes”, but we’re not alone.
Click to expand...
More from this story here: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Lesz...0/How_to_get_every_game_on_STEAM_for_free.php

And there are far worse stories developers share among themselves, I can certainly say. But in almost all cases, even from good rated sellers, almost never do sales from G2A actually end up in the pockets of the developers, only the sellers.
 
I buy from a pretty wide variety of sites, because that is the way to get the best value for money.

I only use sites with a good track record for customer service.

Even G2A that people have been slating in this thread are fine as long as you use sellers with a good user rating. G2A even sell certain items direct themselves, and I think most problems people have had involve third party sellers.

Edit: I don't have much sympathy for devs who just give out keys to anyone who asks for them, and then those keys end up getting sold. It's pretty easy to not just give keys out to anyone who asks for them.
 
Yes I always shop around for the cheapest prices, why would I stick with just the Steam store if it's not the cheapest?
 
I personally don't out of concern that it'll potentially affect regional pricing for places of poorer status. I don't know how well-founded the concern is but I make enough to afford my own region's pricing so I'm not going to chance it by potentially buying a key meant for India or wherever. Most games I buy have been out for more than a year anyway though, so they're like 75+% off as is.
 
Other than Steam, I usually go through Humble Bundle and on occasion Nuuvem and Green Man Gaming (used to use it a lot, but feel they have got sketchier lately).

Steam's Refund policy and ease of use have made it more of a go to place now, although I've never had issues with Humble, so I also frequently use them.

Outside of Steam stuff, I'm using GoG and Battle.net frequently.
 
For sites I regularly use, I do use GMG, Humble Store, and GamersGate quite regularly, and would recommend all three.

Nzyme32 said:
Other than Steam, I usually go through Humble Bundle and on occasion Nuuvem and Green Man Gaming (used to use it a lot, but feel they have got sketchier lately).

Steam's Refund policy and ease of use have made it more of a go to place now, although I've never had issues with Humble, so I also frequently use them.

Outside of Steam stuff, I'm using GoG and Battle.net frequently.
Click to expand...

This is another thing that's a good addition to add. Steam Key activated games can't be refunded, one advantage to Steam is if you play a game within two weeks for under two hours and don't like it, you can request a refund. That added purchase security is one reason to buy from Steam themselves due to how simple it is.
 
I have been doing this, but this year I got burnt BAD by terrible ports (Batman and Just Cause 3) that I was unable to refund because I didn't buy them on Steam.

It's a super shitty situation.
 
I use GMG, cdkeys and ozgameshop I never buy from the steam store unless its a indie title anymore.

The combination of a raised price and then it being in US dollars is ridiculous especially with the state of the AUD.

Never had a problem, just do some research first on the sites you will use.
 
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