Which store do you advice me to use for my one-time purchase?
already bought from instant-gaming and kinguin, received keys for both
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really? I always thought it where 2 seperate companies..
never used any of them anyway.
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All of them are somewhat shady depending on how you spin it. Pick the cheapest and avoid the price traps.
(this is not a deal)
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I've only heard about Kinguin, and it's medium shady.
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try to find it on cdkeys dot com as i personally have bought a bunch of keys from them
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+1. I dont personally use it, but a friend does for almost every game he buys and hasnt had any trouble.
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Use paypal protection, they can't do much on chargebacks and PayPal protection.
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The short story about this is: It is known that there a keys purchased with stolen credit cards and the like on all of those markets. Paypal somewhat protects you from keys not activating at all, but that's not normally the matter - they will normally activate. But if the were not purchased legally, they can be revoked any time. And then, Paypal won't help you at all as the purchase is too long ago.
And this applies to all the stores you mentioned equally. I personally would wait for a steam sale or for the games you are interested in being put in a bundle, though even the big bundle sites are no longer safe from having their keys revoked (though in the cases I know, I'm rather inclined to give devs and publishers most or all of the blame, normally the bundle sites at least provide you with keys for a different game if they cannot get hold of working keys at all).
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You should add a NONE option.
The sites arent the problem. Its the users on it. Theres no real way to check if they are legit or not. But thats everywhere. Even on steamtrades or other sites. I would just select a buyer who have plenty of positive feedback. And hope it goes through. It probably will.
I only buy from traders when theres bundles going on and hope they are cheap because they were bought on those deals, instead of a user buying 20k keys from a developer then doing a chargeback, making the dev pay X dollars in fees for each copy.
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Already bought from all three and didn't have any issues by doing so. As already stated, Kinguin and G2Play belong to the same company, they're also offering the games for the exactly same price.
Imho all three are better than G2A, yet still not approved by devs/publishers.
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I've always been under the impression that Kinguin was owned by the same people as G2A, but I may be totally wrong. Anyone got any info on that?
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It is also a Hong Kongese company that is actually a shell of some other company. But we know the real owner of G2A, and as far as I know, we have no idea who is really behind Kinguin since last year, when they apparently went under some changes. Although it is a bit interesting that the CEO is also Polish, like the owner of G2A.
The MO of the two sites differ though. G2A is a straight-up tax evasion site that uses every known trick in the book to fleece people without crossing the threshold of alienating users. Kinguin is more upfront and auto-detects regions to apply taxes accordingly. Whether they actually pay them is another question. They also don't force any hidden or additional fees (although Kinguin has a "Shield" that costs 2€/$ as well) but operate with higher prices instead.
It could be the same company though, because they are almost suspiciously constructed to attract a distinct kind of user base within the grey market.
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They have modified it now: you get support for any problem, but if you have a Shield subscription, you are on the higher priority line.
The Shield itself and the unsubscribe process/torture tied to it is still one of the shadiest shit I know on the internet that is still on this side of legality.
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the main difference is that the kinguin insurance is not a subscription. that makes it pretty legit in my eyes.
although, it's annoying that they recently upped the price for that by so much (it's relative now).
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It also makes it a better source of income. It still only puts you into the priority line for support, nothing more. I give them one thing though: they are more upfront about it and how it works. I still try to avoid the grey market like the black plague, but I admit: among these sites, Kinguin is the one I dislike the least, by far.
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i used to avoid those sites, and instead used traders on ST. then at some point i started to wonder what exactly the difference is. i mean, both are sources for games from different regions. so if i am fine with one, i should also be fine with the other.
i also rarely ever put real money into it. i sell leftover bundle keys there, so i mostly use wallet to buy games. so if i ever have a revoked game (which has not happened yet), i won't feel so bad about it. ;)
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I have 1380 games on steam and 1200 of those have been bought from G2A, it is a great site and I have never had an issue. Have used Kinguin and cdkeys in the past too without a problem. I have never however bought from Steam, I never will. G2A are my first go too site.
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have used the last two ones and didn't have problems so far (though the most I've bought from G2A - no problems, too)
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instant gaming is by far the safest place to buy things from out of these choices
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35 purchases made on Kinguin since 2014, 0 problems. Can't speak for the other two, haven't even heard of them.
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You haven't heard of G2A? Have you been living under a rock, Teliko? So much drama lately! And even if you missed that, they are well known and big sponsors for esport tournaments.
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It's G2Play.net, not G2A.com. I've never seen it before either (the name G2Play certainly suggests that's it's affiliated with G2A, but I have no idea if that's actually the case)
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Doesn't look like it, there just seems to be a lot of people tagging along with the "G2" prefix for some reason. There's another site called G2G that I used to sell my WoW gold all five times that I quit, but they've no relation either. Just had a look at G2Play and their sponsors also don't seem to match, but interestingly enough the entire layout is identical to Kinguin's, no idea what's going on there.
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well known and big sponsors for esport tournaments
The more you sponsor, the less shady you magically become. Decades ago it was fast food, soda, credit card companies that were omnipresent in sports advertising (while at the same time McDonald's and Coca Cola were blamed for every health issue ever), and now other entities do the same to whitewash their image.
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Why are people so happy they have never been caught buying stolen stuff? Since that's what they are saying, not that those sites are fully legit.
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no, that's not what people say. you seem to think all the games on those sites are stolen, while in reality almost none are. key stores make their money by selling games from cheaper regions, not by selling stolen games. there is the occasional black sheep, sure. but thinking most or all games there are stolen is just wrong. publishers want us to think that, because they don't like that we pay less than they think we should.
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I guess you also buy electronics off the street. Never said all, but big enough portion of them are stolen that I will never support that. But go on, maybe it's your credit card that gets used to buy them next, you would be happy about that wouldn't you?
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but big enough portion of them are stolen
do you have an actual source for that? any numbers at all?
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Just search for the sites here for example and you'll find plenty of threads where people had stolen keys revoked. Or Google them to read all the articles about them. How do the actual numbers matter that much? Do you accept them as legit if only 1% are stolen or 5%? Like many devs have stated, they prefer you being the p-word rather than buying stolen, since that actually loses them money from all the chargebacks. How low you will go to save couple pennies is up to you.
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Just search for the sites here for example and you'll find plenty of threads where people had stolen keys revoked. Or Google them to read all the articles about them.
you will not find plenty, you will find a few. compared to the amount of games they probably sell each days, the amount of people complaining about revoked keys doesn't seem so big to me. and you will also find many people saying they never had any problems. so again, we would need real numbers on this. because my impression tells me it's actually not a big problem. it doesn't happen as often as you think.
How do the actual numbers matter that much? Do you accept them as legit if only 1% are stolen or 5%?
sure they matter. my whole argument is that stolen games are probably not a regular thing on those sites. that there are maybe a few black sheep, and that's it. so yeah, it actually matters whether it's 0.001% or 5%. that is the difference between me being right or you. ;)
Like many devs have stated, they prefer you being the p-word rather than buying stolen, since that actually loses them money from all the chargebacks.
define "many". ^^ of course, if it hits a company, that's bad. and i understand that in this case the chargebacks are actually significant. but i bet you in most cases devs make money from these sites, just as with "legit" sites and Steam.
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How exactly can I be wrong about not wanting to support that? I have absolutely no need to buy stolen stuff from those marketplaces, the street or eBay. You seem to have a need to get everything for the cheapest price possible without caring about anything else. And for you they seem to be the right choice, but never for me. You can justify your actions all you want, but you'll never get my acceptance for it which you seem to need for some reason.
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How exactly can I be wrong about not wanting to support that? I have absolutely no need to buy stolen stuff from those marketplaces, the street or eBay.
that's not what i said. you are free to do whatever you want. but i feel if you make statements like "a big portion of games there is stolen", we can have a discussion about whether this is an actual fact or not. where is the problem with that? i don't attack your personally, even if you may think that. that's really not my intention. i just think it should be alright to discuss statements like that. because my impression is another. and i don't feel you have enough proof for your statement to be a fact. :)
You seem to have a need to get everything for the cheapest price possible without caring about anything else.
nope. i buy a lot of stuff directly on Steam. and european Steam is expensive. i also buy many games directly on release. i always get the feeling most people here only buy on sale. and if you buy for full price, they sometimes even tell you how stupid you are, and much smarter they are because they wait for big sales or for complete editions. i don't think they understand that i as an early adopter am paying for their games.
i actually buy only a very small amount of my games on kinguin. mostly from wallet i generate by selling bundle leftovers there. i invest very little real money there. i would say that roughly half of my game-money goes to Steam directly, the other half goes to traders on Steamtrades, and money going to Kinguin is a real exception. right now i have 50€ wallet there, waiting for a game i want to buy. all from bundle games.
my point is, i am not the cheap shit you seem to believe. ^^ and even if i were, that wouldn't invalidate my arguments.
You can justify your actions all you want, but you'll never get my acceptance for it which you seem to need for some reason.
i don't want your acceptance. ^^ i just wanted to discuss your statements. if you post something on the internet, you have to expect that people respond to it, right?
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Big enough portion for me not wanting to support them. Did you have any hard numbers to back your 0.001% claims? And I'll rather give away extra keys here than sell on those marketplaces because I don't want to give them any profit.
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I'd say it's more like buying used from gamestop. Obviously none of the money is going to the devs, and it's entirely possible that the game was obtained through shady methods, but ultimately you're buying a game for a discount.
Though at this point, I feel a little grimy doing either.
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I guess some people on steamgift giving away keys from these sites. Even if these are only a really really small percentage, does this make steamgifts legit? At least for me the numbers count indeed, because every site (with user content) has it's black sheeps. And there are games where I love to support the creaters (with full price), but there a plenty I don't care.
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You mean keys someone acquired through illegal means? No, I hardly think so. If they used a stolen credit card or other illegal means, they would want to launder the money through the grey market. What would they gain by breaking a law and just giving away the game here?
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No, I mean people buying games from sites provided from other people who got them illegal.
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Oh, that? Yes, it happened, we saw winners whose game were revoked because the gifter got it on the grey market and the key was not exactly legit.
In this regard, this site is using the keys and not involved in the acquiring process. Your analogy could be used on SteamTrades though, if someone tries to sell similar keys there. (And, well, it does have an infamy…)
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I feel unsafe GAing keys I did not buy myself, like keys obtained via trades. Then again, keys bought from stores or bundles also get revoked or invalidated once in a while. DMCA, malicious developers, etc.
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There is no money involved on SG, that's the difference. Don't really see carders buying 10k games to gift away here just to get massive CV, but I guess that's possible too.
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I guess you also buy electronics off the street.
no, but i buy them on eBay. which is kind of the same. Kinguin is a marketplace just like eBay. and i am sure there have been cases where people sold stolen goods on eBay. does that make eBay evil?
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Are those sellers promoted by eBay as their best ones because they sell so much stolen items? No? So why is that OK on other marketplaces?
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no idea what you're talking about. i buy on Kinguin, and there is very little promotion of individual sellers. it's more about who has the best price, i think.
also, it seems to me you're fishing for arguments, because you actually see very little difference between ebay and kinguin, as far as stolen goods go. ;)
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i sell some of my leftover bundle keys on Kinguin and buy games for the wallet i get. only had a problem one time, but support was able to help. i got a working key for Quantum Break XBox, but since it was a retail key, i didn't get the PC version. only the XBox version, which was useless to me. but it was advertised as XBox+PC code. their support only refunded me half the money, which i guess is fair since i got half of what was advertised.
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IG is a reseller, kinguin,g2play and g2a are marketplace.
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IG isn't a reseller, for them to be a reseller they would have to buy the keys from either the publisher or a 3rd party then sell them on. They don't. Publishers provide IG with keys and then receive a percentage of each key sold.
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Well, I bought from them once. Do you know what they sent me? A mobile photo of the key printed in the physical box, so... why isn't that reselling?
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The "cheap retail copy from 3rd world country" scenario is pretty much the 'classic' key store :)
Especially it being a photo of the CD case or so.
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They are all shady, but IG is selling keys directly, so their support might help you in case of trouble. G2A and kinguin are marketplaces (they sell some keys directly, but they are mostly known as marketplaces), so prices might be slightly better, but also more risky.
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I actually buy most of the games on g2a or kinguin. Never had any troubles. But I don't buy AAA titles, more like 10 cent - 5 euro games. They offer protection for some money. Additionally they didn't include taxes in their headline price.
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Instant Gaming sells their own keys. Kinguin and G2 are marketplaces.
IG gets the keys from cheaper regions while the other 2 its isnt clear where the keys are coming from.
Either way, I purchased keys on all those websites and never had any problems.
IG is my favourite one though, it feels safer for me.
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None of those. Go to greenmangaming or gamersgate, those are officially supported by publishers like Capcom , Ubisoft, Squareenix etc. and have great discounts.
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i buy from cdkeys nor gmg(green man gaming) and a store named gamers outlet
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Try Opium Pulses - http://opiumpulses.com/store
I'm slightly biased because I used to work for them, but they're a great bunch of guys and they're 100% legit.
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All websites are completely fine the keys you buy are just different some obtain them from Developers some through some weird way in the end it doesn't mather for me except the price i'm not buying a game for $30 if i can get it for $10. Because most devs don't deserver that price i have been buying off 3rd party sites and i have never had any problems. I will continue to do so because game dev's refuse to drop prices $60 for a game and $60 for DLC's is just bs and i don't have that amount of money to spent for every game.
Also if you buy from Marketplaces, just buy from the sellers with a bunch of keys sold and a good rating. You will probably never any issues and if you would you can always refund it with paypal. And the support seems to be good i have even heard a few friends getting their money back in a single day without the shield this only happened because he bought something at the same time as someone else and there was only 1 key left.
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Do you think developers and publisher are going bankrupt because their prices are too high? lol
Video games cost the same now, than they did 30 years ago. It's actually quite amazing that they're still so cheap considering inflation and the extra work that goes into them.
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No, i don't think they will go bankrupt but I never even said that i'm just saying i'm not buying games for full price anymore because the ridiculous amount of DLC's every game has. They could easily drop their prices to $40 and then do $20 of DLC's and that would not even hurt them.
I mean look at games as Shadow Warrior 2 they can sell their game for $30 at launch. And quality wise it think its better then some so called triple A games from a developer called Ubisoft and they seem to like Season Passes and DLC's aswell
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THQ, one of the world largest publishers went bankrupt just a couple of years ago. Do you think they went bankrupt because they were making too much money?
What makes you think that up to 2 years work for hundreds of people is only worth $40, what do you base that number on? $40 wouldn't pay one programmer for 1 hour.
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I wouldn't call THQ one of the worlds largest publishers, all they really have is a bunch of decent titles nothing major also most of the games aren't theirs they just publish. Publishers don't make games they just publish them.
Also i was mainly talking about games that add $60 of DLC's to the base game which is ridiculous because the DLC is usually half the size of the base game and not worth $60. Or half of that.
An reduction in price will usually result in more sales this would compensate the money they lose. And $40 is just an example.
But the $60 Price for games and the additional $60 for DLCs just has to go away i would be fine with $60 if i would also get the DLC's but no they also cost $60. $120 For each game is way to much for the average person especially if you want to play 5+ games that release every month.
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I wouldn't call THQ one of the worlds largest publishers, all they really have is a bunch of decent titles nothing major also most of the games aren't theirs they just publish. Publishers don't make games they just publish them.
THQ used to be huge, releasing both major licence titles like those based on the 40k licence, different sports licences and some in-house IPs, like Saint's Row & Darksiders.
If a game is theirs or not, well, that can quickly turn into an argument of semantics. But they owned several game studios, like Volition, so I would argue that those games were made by them. Much like a game made by say Maxis would be a game made by EA, because EA fully owned Maxis.
An reduction in price will usually result in more sales this would compensate the money they lose. And $40 is just an example.
The question is if the added sales make up for the lost revenue from each individual sale. Starting low also gives you less room for lowering the price further (which can help garnering a second round of sales). Needless to say the answer of "what's the best price point of a game" is not an easy question to answer. Sometimes going lower might be the right thing to do (this is why the original Serious Sam sold so well), and sometimes it's not. A lot of market research is done to figure out what the optimal price point is for any given game.
It should be noted that there's a secondary factor to consider when it comes to price point, and that is the signals it sends out. A 40€ game is often viewed as a "budget game", and that might harm the public's perception of your game. Again, you need to judge this on a case by case basis.
But the $60 Price for games and the additional $60 for DLCs just has to go away i would be fine with $60 if i would also get the DLC's but no they also cost $60. $120 For each game is way to much for the average person especially if you want to play 5+ games that release every month.
Does the average person play 5+ games each month, or is it just people who are really into games, who write on forums who do? For someone with a job and other hobbies, time rather than cost might be the main limiting factor, they don't have time to play more than 1-2 games/month.
If the DLC is worth the cost is another question, and this varies a lot from game to game. Plenty of games have DLC that are not worth it, and you should simply don't buy that DLC, but some have DLC that offers a good amount of content.
It's also important to not that production cost & game length does not really scale linearly. Making a 2h DLC might well cost more per hour of gameplay than a 20h game. It's really something that varies on a case by case basis.
Also, it should be noted that this is not really something new. Expansions were often exactly the same way.
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Among big publishers, THQ were always "B-tier" in some way or another.
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Just as an aside, the cost of a game isn't much more than it costs for me to fill a tank of gas in my vehicle.
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Hallo, I want to buy a game that appears to be available at a convenient price point in these 3 stores, that look somewhat shady to me.
I might be wrong, I never used them in the past and I don't want to decide incorrectly, so I ask for advice.
Which site from the poll should I choose for putting my cc into?
Are they safe? The deals they have are trustable?
Thanks in advance!
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