Relationship between GMG and Steam?

[Rambone]

Can anyone help me understand that relationship between Green Man Gaming and Steam?

I bought XCOM 2 on GMG for 28% less than Steam price and I get to activate it on Steam. I've been doing this for almost all new titles in the past year, as GMG is always 20-30% cheaper, even on a new release.

What I don't understand is doesn't this hurt Steam sales and so why would Steam allow the relationship to activate the game on their platform? Or perhaps GMG is a partner company of Steam or owned by Steam or something?

Anyway I love not paying retail, but just been really curious how GMG does it.

[Nix]

There many cd key sites and gmg is one if the few that is legit. You can use Google to see which ones are legit and which ones are not, there tons of Shady ones.

[Delacourt '27]

Steam doesn't sell the keys, 2k does. 2k sold the keys to GMG.

[Basement cat]

It is like this: 2k sells games to steam, steam take 33% cut.
2k sell games to gmg, gmg only take 10% cut, then ask steam if they can use steam for DRM if gmg give them 5%.

I have no idea on the detail, but i suspect it is something like that

[Delacourt '27]

I thought the game companies put games on steam, except the EA and Blizzard has their own, like Origin.

[MPO]

Just my key from GMG today. Hype!

[Xilitu]

Well with the witcher 3 GMG didnt buy any keys from the Developers and i would guess its the same thing here with Xcom 2.. they buy the keys cheap from other countries were they are cheaper because of currency diffrences and then sell them cheaper then Steam ect

[Rambone]

It's very confusing, I just don't understand why Steam would sell a single copy when you can just go to GMG and get it for 28% less, and still have all the benefits and convenience of activating it on your Steam account.

[Delacourt '27]

I think Witcher 3 was cheaper because they volueentarily took a lose on it. Read in their forum about the 3 instance of bad codes/distributor disagreements. But the developer still got their money, just not directly from them. But GMG get Xcom 2 keys directily from 2k, I think.

Some people don't want to take the chance to be "scamed", or convenience, or eariler preload time.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Originally posted by Xilitu:

Well with the witcher 3 GMG didnt buy any keys from the Developers and i would guess its the same thing here with Xcom 2.. they buy the keys cheap from other countries and then sell them cheaper then Steam ect

It actually depends from publishers to publisher since GMG is an authorized seller to some people while not to others like Activison, Ea, and the previously mentioned CD Projekt Red but for games on their site with these devs they would list the source of the games as "Authorized Source" or something like that quite shadey (sort of the cause of the them being kick out of /r/gamedeals, thus starting this policy) but I believe 2k is actually a partner with GMG (really hard to say for sure since 2k says nothing on their site on authorized sellers). So GMG currently in a weird place as a seller since it is authorized in some places but a grey market seller in others but they are know for having pretty decent Customer Service

[Timi]

Originally posted by Xilitu:

Well with the witcher 3 GMG didnt buy any keys from the Developers and i would guess its the same thing here with Xcom 2.. they buy the keys cheap from other countries were they are cheaper because of currency diffrences and then sell them cheaper then Steam ect

That's not what GMG does. XCOM 2 keys are direct from 2K.

Witcher 3 games were bought from another retailer, since they couldn't get them from CD Projekt Red directly.

After that hubbub, GMG has been showing the source (as close to it as they can) of their keys on the game page, which for XCOM 2 is '2K Games'.

Originally posted by The Spoony Croy:

Originally posted by Xilitu:

Well with the witcher 3 GMG didnt buy any keys from the Developers and i would guess its the same thing here with Xcom 2.. they buy the keys cheap from other countries and then sell them cheaper then Steam ect

It actually depends from publishers to publisher since GMG is an authorized seller to some people while not to others like Activison, Ea, and the previously mentioned CD Projekt Red but for games on their site with these devs they would list the source of the games as "Authorized Source" or something like that quite shadey

That Reddit thing was such BS anyways. "They won't disclose their sources, aa, they must be EVIL!!1", well no ♥♥♥♥. They'd probably stop getting keys from those sources (publisher pressure that they won't sell those resellers the keys in the first place).

GMG hasn't proven themselves to be "perfectly legit" when it comes to their 'unauthorized keys', but I don't think anyone has proven them to get them from 'grey market' either. Guilty until proven innocent, huh?

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Originally posted by Delacourt '27:

Some people don't want to take the chance to be "scamed", or convenience, or eariler preload time.

Actually I got my key right around when preloading opened up (finished preloading a few hours ago)

[BodyPolitic]

GMG is a good site, they are pretty reliable, and for the most part you will get the same pre order bonus you would from steam. But you need to check specifically if that is the case, as I have seen certain cases where they are not offering the same preorder bonus that is on the steam storefront, similar to how if y ou get a free key with a new GPU purchase, ofter times it will be missing the preorder bonus DLC you find on the steam page. But other than that I've only ever gotten good keys from them.

Also twice on the eve of a popular release GMG ran out of the keys (One was COD:Ghosts so no great loss ) but they did run out of the key after I had already purchased from them. Their support was prompt though and when I asked for a refund since they didn't deliver the key they issued it very quickly.

[Delacourt '27]

I got mine half hour after the preload started, not from email, since the moderator in the forum said it might take hours to send all codes out, so I kept refresh my game library page every minute to get the codes.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Originally posted by BodyPolitic:

Also twice on the eve of a popular release GMG ran out of the keys (One was COD:Ghosts so no great loss ) but they did run out of the key after I had already purchased from them. Their support was prompt though and when I asked for a refund since they didn't deliver the key they issued it very quickly.

I think those 2 games would be Ghosts and Battlefront? Just guessing since those 2 are games they get for a "authorized source" so that would probably be the reason why

[Nephron]

2K does not sell the game to steam, they are selling it via steam and they can choose the price. Retailers like gamesplanet or gmg have contracts with 2K and other publisher and receive game keys at a certain price. Of course they try to sell it at a price that makes profit but also does not make customers buy at other shops. This will always be lower than the price in steam set by the publisher.

There is no relationship between steam and other retailers. Steam is a platform publishers can use to sell games.