How come so cheap on third party websites?

[RandalMcdaniel]

I remmeber when mortal kombat X came out people were selling it on (cant say name it gets censored) for only $18.. Which blew my mind. And not only that but thousands of copies were sold at that price. I was really confused considering it was a $60 game..

What confuses me most is that this seemingly legit website is even sponsored by pewdiepie..

So i look up madmax on this third party retailers and its $16... sixteen freaking dollars. With over 30k copies sold.. And all people redeeming them said they work just fine..

How? Just how?

What confuses me is this.. The only company on earth that can PRODUCE cd-keys that are compatible with steam is steam itself correct? So how do these keys get out by the thousands?

[EverdreamJustPlays on Kick]

No idea why they blurp the name, itsl ike they are punishing people for finding the cheapest price on something, you go shopping, you look for deals...buy bread..whats cheap?..buy milk..whats cheap?..buy gas..whats cheap?....buy games? PAY 59.99 OR YOU ARE SCUM!? is this the mantra here?

[RandalMcdaniel]

Lol yeah pay $59.99 or you are scum. Thats the mindset with everyone these days. Its funny because everyone on forums is a security guard and wants to ensure steam and other AAA companies get the money that is entitled to them.

Regardless if a AAA game gets sold at lower prices than MSRP, its not like some game developer is going to go hungry or homeless because of that. AAA companies only hire educated and experienced people with good credientials.. In other words they only hire people that have got their sh*** together. People you need not worry about. People that probably would have another job already lined up before their current project even failed

[neoVictrix]

So, this was about to be some rediculously long (and I mean probably character limit-breaking), going on about how it had cost an independent developer around $5k USD just to port their PC game to the Xbox One, backings from investment companies like Tencet (League's parent company), copyright laws, license agreements (since we technically don't own the "software" we purchase, we instead aquire a license to use), the terms of use and such for digital platforms like steam, amazon, and so on, and example pages from some of the game manuals I have of physical copies of games, and about the third-party sites people are talking about, but I found a much simpler way of explaining it all:

It's a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and you don't even want to step anywhere near it.

Just trust me on it.

[Guywars]

I think it depends on how popular the game is and on how well it is accepted by the public.
Arkham Knight dropped to 14€ after a couple of days since it was a disaster, Mad Max is not a brilliant game (not a disaster either) and it's from WB too so people were probably sceptical (add the fact that 90% of the times videogames based on movies suck a lot) .
Stuff like MGS V is still at 50-55€ even on these third party websites since it sells a lot and people know it's a good game.
Rocket League too, indie games are usually super cheap on these webistes but RL hasn't dropped much in price, 16€ was the lowest one i saw.

[B()NE]

This is capitalism in action, Steam is just a game download tool and market place, one of many, they set a price for a game, if the consumer can find it cheaper elsewhere and decides to purchase the commodity at what they consider to be fair value, well that's the free market isn't it?.

If they are so against this why not become more competitive and squeeze out the little guys that are undercutting them with fairer pricing or better deals to their customers rather than take it out on the consumer by other retaliatory means.

I think that the upwards price creep for digital downloads over the years has helped fuel the "grey market", so they have only themselves to blame and should address the root problems not attack the consumer and restrict choices.

[omegazeda]

G_2_A has it for 18 i think

[Skid]

Originally posted by B()NE:

they set a price for a game.

The publishers set the price not Steam, Valve just take a cut. The game gets sold at different prices in different counties namely because they have much lower disposable incomes, so rather then simply letting piracy take over completely the game is sold at a much cheaper price in those counties.

Grey market retails typically buy the cheap keys from theses counties (or buy them off people who bought them in that country, and that's where keys from stole credit cards come in) and sell them in counties where it's more expensive. Any profits made from the difference in price they kept and the developer doesn't see any of it, the developer still gets a cut of the original sale but nothing of the second sale, so they loss out as a result.

[Zydrate]

I paid full price and THEN started hearing about my friends getting it for 19$ here, 22$ there. That's too bad, but I'm coming up on 30 hours played so it's worth it.

[Zecele]

Just because its sponsored by pewdiepew doesnt mean its legit. Their is lots of loop holes when it comes to this type of stuff having to do with selling digital products.

Only official steam game/key sellers other than steam is Green man gaming and humble Bundle.

If you can buy this game for $16 or $20 ,ect its to good to be true because its sold for 60 bucks on steam. Its obviously not legit, and their is a chance your key will become invalidated.

I dont get why people cant use their head when it comes to this...Obviously its illegal...lolol

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

1. GMG and Humble Bundle are not the only official resellers of steam keys others that come to mind include: Amazon, DLGamer, Gamergate, Oneplay and Gamesrocket.

2. Non-official key resellers are as legit as eBay or Amazon, the games are cheap because they get the keys from cheaper countires and sell them for profit. They don't have to pay any money to the developers or to steam another reason why they can sell them for a low price.

[Der_Scanner]

The most customer idn´t know the 3rd party or won´t risk anything.
This is the core of steam users.

The 3rd sellers get most of the keys buy buying giveawy tokens to all involved companys inclusive puplishing and the whole rat tail. The most of the companys didn´t need so much keys and sell it.

Yes, these are thousands of keys. Ten thousends of them.

Some of them are regionalized, some not. Different content rounds it up.

This is one way of the 3rdsellers. Buying 100.000 units will be the 2. leg... without logistic in lack of any hardware they don´t have high maintenance. So they can sell it so cheap.

[daveishungry]

oh well i like other websites soo far no problems untill all my games like my 150 huge amount well for me anyway it is gets revoked i will crying and eat my ♥♥♥♥ in sadness

[daveishungry]

d...i....c....k