Some of these cheap keys come from stolen credit cards, some come from other regions where the games themselves are cheaper, some can even come from trades for TF2 keys. Polygon had an article about this back in February.
The point is that sites like G2A or Kinguin have been known to be selling stolen keys. Whether it was intentional or not, the stolen keys were later revoked. It's called the gray market for a reason: it's not illegal like the black market, just not as legitimate as the white market.
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I am sorry to tell you that most of the people never got a problem with their keys! I know a lot of people who use those sites and never had a problem! As I said it seems the problems where only with sniper elite 3 as for the other games people are getting refunded if the key is found not to be functioning correctly, well that's what I heared
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Then you do not know enough people. There was a lot of people who bought ubisoft games in g2a.com, and got their keys revoked later. Ubisoft decided to give them back AND refund the owners of the stolen credit cards, but it was a "only this time" thing. There is always someone who gets his key revoked, doesn't matter if he got it from a trader, or a site like kinguin or g2a. These sites aren't harmful, but they aren't 100% safe, and if something bad happens, support may not be able to give you a refund, nor any kind of compensation.
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well i guess if someone bought 10 games and saved above 60$ if one of the 20$ games get the key revoked he is still saving 40$. I know a friend wish had this problem and he simply doesn't care. Anyway I use gray market to but as u said they are not 100% trustful but da hell when I can save like 50-60$ just to get one game revoked later on I don't care.
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Well, you heard wrong. Plenty of people don't have problems. But at the very least a large number of Ubisoft and Devolver keys sold through resellers have been revoked, and certain Bethesda keys sold on through resellers have been retroactively region locked. Many people didn't get refunded and any key sold through unofficial sites comes with similar risks.
You are getting cheap games but you are taking a risk. That is all.
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That's fair enough. In my experience though you can usually work out where the resellers are getting their keys from and either get them cheaper or avoid if it looks dodgy. But whatever makes anyone feel like they are getting a bargain I guess.
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"So please can someone explain to me how can grey market be harmful?" - for who?
For devs: they hoped to get $50 from USAnians, USAnians buy keys for $30 that were bought in Russia for $10 - ergo, devs/publisher lost $40. And that's nice-option, when key was actually bought not using stolen credit card - if it was bought using stolen credit card, dev/publisher will have to pay bank costs of returning money.
Gamers risk: they hoped to buy game for $30, turns out it was bought using stolen credit card, gamer lose $30.
All in all, gray market (including steamgifts trading section too! ) is much more hurtful for developers - instead of getting $20 they get $5. But there's always the big question "would they get $20 if you couldn't get it for $5?".
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They do not have to offer a game on steam. For them, they are paying for a large customer base and advertising.
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You can't be taken seriously if you bring bogus numbers like that.. Steam taking 70% cut is ridiculous.
The Grey Market sites you talked about before is USERS selling keys they got 'nobody really knows where' and offering them back on those sites. So some people find loop holes buying cheap keys in a region and resell them to a worldwide public on those sites. Or they bought some bundles BEFORE and offer the keys for those now that the bundles are gone, hence why they're the cheapest at the present time.
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Which is not that much considering you end up on the biggest game selling platform in the world and don't have to handle any content delivery once you put into steam's hands. The games will be accessible to your customers from anywhere as long as they can access Steam and those will be automatically updated if need be. What would you think it cost publishers to print CD/DVDs of the games and box them then distribute them in stores all over. If it was so bad for them then publishers wouldn't deal with Steam.
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yeah but steam is taking 30% just to put a file on their server and add some pixels to their website and provide payment methods. The multi player are still played on the publishers servers and not steam servers. I guess a 10-20% shall be enough! But 30 :/
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"Just to put a file on their server and add some pixels to their website and provide payment methods"
Please take a marketing course, then come back again, these arguments don't make any sense.
Arrrgh, this whole argument makes me so angry I think I'm going to write a wall of text.
Steam:
Let's imagine I make a game today with my elite programming skills, and I decide $20 would be a good selling price for it. 3 options: sell it physically, through my own website, and through Steam.
Steam, as flawed as it is, is both convenient for the users who like to have everything in one place, and convenient for the developers, who don't have to worry about publishers if they don't want to.
Even free to play games, which wouldn't have any reason to fiddle with Steam in the first place, are getting their games in there! TERA, being the latest big addition. And it's just because of the huge amount of publicity they can get from a huge user base.
TL;DR: Classic distribution methods cost the developer WAY more than 30% of the selling price, you should get more information before making false claims.
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It's a fair point about the advertising. I sell stuff online (not games) and you don't sell anything if people don't know about it. Advertising your stuff can still be worth it even if it costs a lot - and the kind of exposure you can get from being on Steam to me seems like it would be easily worth Steams cut (likely even at 70% although you may want to check those figures).
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That isn't huge at all. I'd much rather sell games on Steam and take 70% than try and sell games without Steam and take 100%. Because I know I'd sell a hell of a lot more games on Steam and make a lot more money.
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That is completely missing the point about exposure and advertising.
If I'm a small publisher and I make my own platform and try sell my own game on it without spending any money on advertising then I might get to keep most of the money from sales but I might only sell 10 copies. Because hardly anyone knows about it.
If I'm on Steam then I might sell 100 or 1,000 copies or 10,000 copies or even more. And Steam might be taking 30% for not doing very much at all - but I'm still really benefiting from being on the biggest PC gaming platform and making a lot more money for myself.
I could try and advertise and promote my game without Steam but I'd probably spend way more money than I would make. Even at 30% Steam is a really cheap and efficient way of promoting your game. That is why so many people want their games on Steam and why Gaben has so much money. It generally works out well for both parties.
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You can ask if it is fair or if Gaben actually needs any more money and those are good questions. Maybe Gaben/Valve/Steam put a lot of effort into their platform and making it popular and maybe now they deserve to be rewarded for it. Or maybe it is just now a form of exploitation and greed.
I'm just saying that for most developers and publishers 30% to Steam actually is cheaper than trying to go it alone and buy similar exposure through advertising. And if you look at it that way it maybe isn't completely unreasonable. It certainly isn't scamming which is what you said and I originally replied to, as both publishers/devs and Steam are generally all profiting significantly from the arrangement.
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Gabe isn't gonna put you on steam for free. That just isn't how business works. Advertising and exposure is well worth it considering a lot of people like steam over other DRMs, save for GOG which is DRM free.
Steam taking 30% of the cut isn't all that big really.
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Like you later said, it's 30%.
And if you think that's much - well, 30% is around what publisher gets from every sold retail box, while 70% goes to shop, warehouses, truck drivers, Sony/MS, taxes and I don't remember what else.
So even if Steam is taking large cut, publisher still gets twice as much money as they get from retail boxes.
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Okay, first to start off.
Are you talking about the deep web, or just a grey area on the web?
Would it not be obvious to you that they would file a claim and you would get the game removed from your account?
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1) as a security expert I know about the deep web, but I am taking about the grey game keys market.
2) Yeah it is but the only case when this happened was with Sniper Elite 3 and since then everything is really fixed. As I recall many of the people who got fake keys were subject to a refund
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Sure, you could buy off of "the grey market" and get games for cheap.
And similarly I can go on the dark web and get carded (bought with stolen credit card) items at 50% on Ebay, assuming it's a Mac or an Alienware, each one would make me a $800 profit, even more because resellers get a 33% discount, so I get a good $1000 per device. I could make 100K+, anyone could make 100K+ easily. But why don't I do it.
1. Your fucking over the devs.
2. It is immoral. You might as well just go ahead and rob a homeless person.
EDIT: Shit, sorry. I read the whole thing wrong; I though you where buying carded games on purpose, haha XD, sorry. I also have no idea, I got Black Ops II for $20 on G2A, when the game had never been under $40 before, so I was a bit suspicious, but the game is still in my account with no issues. Either way, wherever it is cheap, and as long as they don't tell me it's carded, I will buy it.
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Came across this Reddit post?
http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2yhnsw/key_resellers_and_what_they_mean_for_you/
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Yep but I don't consider reddit post as trustful anyway the people in here explained it well. Grey market are not 100% secure but they are not illegal and as long as they are not illegal I will use them. Well i guess if someone bought 10 games and saved above 60$ if one of the 20$ games get the key revoked he is still saving 40$. I know a friend wish had this problem and he simply doesn't care he is still saving 40$'s. da hell when I can save like 50-60$ just to get one game revoked later on I don't care.
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yeah but steam is taking 30% just to put a file on their server and add some pixels to their website and provide payment methods. The multi player are still played on the publishers servers and not steam servers. I guess a 10-20% shall be enough! But 30 :/
Key reselling is a very lucrative business as well, they are doing less. If you only care about cheapest deals then sure, you are free to support these sites. Others would not from a moral standpoint, it's subjective. This is similar to piracy, expect that is governed by the law.
That Reddit post also has links the other posts on other sites, this one is the most appalling to me. There an SG topic from cg as well, I assume those ended up on key reselling sites as well.
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Yes, if a passenger drops and leaves his phone on a cab, the taxi driver takes it and sells it off to a buyer. The taxi driver makes some cash, the buyer saves some cash. The passenger loses his belonging for being careless, that is his own fault for allowing himself to be taken advantage on.
Agree or disagree, doesn't matter - it happens regardless, it's everyone for themselves.
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That's not true. I just checked and liked i mentioned nuuvem sale's beat kinguin, for example they are having a discount of life is strange and lord of the rings war in the north, these games are far cheaper in nuuvem then on grey markets. here is the link to the sales.
Take a guess where is also cheaper to pre-order games? nuuvem's batman is 2 euro less then kinguin and i'm not adding taxes, if i did buy from kinguin the price would be even higher because they only add their taxes at the end of the transaction.
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If the game is region locked, nuuvem has a warning, right below where it says it's a steam game; here is an example.
Some games can also be buy locked, which means that they don't sell outside brasil, if this happens you have three choices:1) use a VPN, 2) buy from a brazillian trader; 3) buy from another store.
In short you will never get in trouble for buying at nuuvem as long as you "read" their descriptions, at most you might have a hassle of using a VPN to buy the game.
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Grey markets are a gamble, sure you can save a few bucks if you get lucky.
If not, you pay and your key gets revoked and no possible refund in sight.
Just because some people buy keys without a hitch doesn't mean that there aren't
people who suffer from keys being revoked, or retroactively locked and so on.
It would be much safer to wait for a sale rather than to get burned by a deal that seems too good to be true.
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The major harm is that we now have region locks left right and center. And more ridiculous things will happen mark my words. If the deal is too good to be true its usually the case.
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Hello guys,
Some while ago I learn what grey market is after posting some good deals on a website that I had no idea that it is a grey market site. People in here claimed that grey sites get the keys for cheap and sell them for a higher price or they get the keys from stolen credit card.
Well what I want to ask is from where do they get their keys? For the last week I was searching many games on many different sites and also compared the prices and grey market sites always seemed to have the lowest price for all the games. And some are even newly released ones such as GTA 5, witcher 3 and project cars. So how a grey market site can have a game for such a low price when it is released how can he get it for cheaper? People claimed that they get it from bundle, but wish bundles? It is a 2 days old game, how is it bundled yet? Also some people claims that they get a lot of keys at once so they are subject to discount but they get the key from official sites don't they? So basically the key we get is original isn't it? I understand that for some old games they might have purchased them for cheap from bundles but how in the hell do they manage to get new games for such cheap prices.
As for the second point, the stolen credit card thingy, I read many articles wish stated that people have been scammed from such sites and that they got stolen game keys or game keys purchased from fake credit cards. Well the single moment when a good amount of people was envolved is with this G2A selling sniper elite 3. Other than that it is always just some number of people who most of the times get a refund, also not all the grey stores have this kind of problem.
So please can someone explain to me how can grey market be harmful? Or discuss with me the above points? Because I am really confused in this especially that many many many many people get their keys from grey market. And grey market sales might be even huger than official market sales ( I don't have a proof on that so it is to be taken with a grain of salt)
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