Buying game keys

[Yellowfrog]

Is it legit to buy a game key from another store and activate it on steam? Px from Fanatical?

[Paratech2008]

Publicado originalmente por ペンギン:

Could just as well ask: Is it legal to shop at stores other than those prescribed by a private company?

Yes, because this concerns freedom of choice and consumer rights. On the other side, we have issues such as monopolisation, market distortion, price fixing and a lack of transparency.

Ultimately, the topic is about controlling ownership (also with the help of filter lists and geoblocking on Steam that work to protect Valves' own profit interests) and that includes product keys that can be traded. Unfortunately, it gets a bit more complicated here...

As with everything, everyone should research beforehand, even outside of Steams' microverse, as the opinions here are often very biased.

Some key sites are immoral because they sometimes give keys that are resold and may be revoked. People get burned by sites blocked by Steam. Also publishers don't get competition for keys sold on those sites.

[primeinsurrection]

Some are legit. Most are not. Usually legit ones have problems sometimes but usually fix it. And it does violate terms.

[primeinsurrection]

Publicado originalmente por Paratech2008:

Publicado originalmente por ペンギン:

Could just as well ask: Is it legal to shop at stores other than those prescribed by a private company?

Yes, because this concerns freedom of choice and consumer rights. On the other side, we have issues such as monopolisation, market distortion, price fixing and a lack of transparency.

Ultimately, the topic is about controlling ownership (also with the help of filter lists and geoblocking on Steam that work to protect Valves' own profit interests) and that includes product keys that can be traded. Unfortunately, it gets a bit more complicated here...

As with everything, everyone should research beforehand, even outside of Steams' microverse, as the opinions here are often very biased.

Some key sites are immoral because they sometimes give keys that are resold and may be revoked. People get burned by sites blocked by Steam. Also publishers don't get competition for keys sold on those sites.

Many people assume they are stolen but most of them are actually either bought in bulk for resell or bought in other countries at a cheaper price.

[Ben Lubar]

Publicado originalmente por Boblin the Goblin:

All websites listed on isthereanydeal.com are legit sites.

I love how that site handles stuff like https://isthereanydeal.com/game/alien-swarm-reactive-drop-sdk/info/

"new historical low price" for this free SDK

[Kargor]

Publicado originalmente por Ben Lubar:

Publicado originalmente por Boblin the Goblin:

All websites listed on isthereanydeal.com are legit sites.

I love how that site handles stuff like https://isthereanydeal.com/game/alien-swarm-reactive-drop-sdk/info/

"new historical low price" for this free SDK

ITAD pulls prices from stores using their own software; I don't know how much work they are spending on keeping this working, but there are situations they don't handle well. Getting a "price" for something that's free is the least of the problems.

As more interesting case, for example, was when I found TWO different prices for the same store on the site, both for Steam keys. Turns out, while ITAD listed them both as "Steam", it was actually Epic and Steam keys sold at slight different prices, but ITAD didn't notice the Epic.

Another annoying situation is that sometimes, ITAD doesn't match the game titles correctly. This most often seems to occur with games that might include Japanese stuff on some sites, and not on others. I've also seen the old and new "Thief" being mashed together because they have the same title, but they are actually very different games.

Last but not least, if a game is given away for free, that shows up as the new historical low. While it's technically correct, it's also a completely useless display as it gives you no indication whether a current sale is "good" or not (arguably, the same applies to historical lows that haven't been repeated in years. ITAD might need to think about such cases and how they want to make the data more useful...):

[Снюс Уиллис]

Never had any problem with hyp-estkey, for steam keys

[PocketYoda]

Greenmangaming is also legit i have bought hundreds of games off them and Fanatical. Humble bundle is another legit.

[Wren]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.