Retail key sites

[John]

So i just happen to buy games on Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle and Eneba quite often. Up to now, i thought that the way these sites worked, was that said game developer gave permission to said site to sell one of their games at a lower price. But a friend of mine, when i suggested him bying from Eneba, he said that is not safe, because he's heard cases of banned accounts, because the keys on those sites are actually stolen keys from regions that sell the game at a much cheaper price than yours and because you activate it in your account, you can get banned. I've already bought a lot of games from retail sites and i wouldn't want my account or even that specific item i bought to be banned. So i said only buys from Steam now on. I don't wanna risk my account or anything for this. I tried to find a way to send an email to the Steam staff, but the Steam support is only Q&A on specific issues. There is no email option. So how am i gonna learn the answer to this?

[Snapjak]

isthereanydeal.com is generally regarded as the best place to check prices on legitimate sites.

Legitimate in this case means ones that thus far have not screwed over everyone.

[Washell]

Eneba doesn't sell games. Eneba allows people to sell their keys or gift cards through them. Any such site should be avoided, because you can never be sure the key you buy has been paid for with a stolen credit card or such. Just read the FAQ or support section of sites where the games appear to be to cheap to be true. If, like Eneba, they have over two dozen guides on how to activate your gift card or key, stay clear. Any legit store won't need to provide you with guides, because what they sell you will just work.

Green Man Gaming and Humble are fine. Isthereanydeal.com is a good and safe resource.

[John]

Originally posted by Snapjak:

isthereanydeal.com is generally regarded as the best place to check prices on legitimate sites.

Legitimate in this case means ones that thus far have not screwed over everyone.

Originally posted by Washell:

Eneba doesn't sell games. Eneba allows people to sell their keys or gift cards through them. Any such site should be avoided, because you can never be sure the key you buy has been paid for with a stolen credit card or such. Just read the FAQ or support section of sites where the games appear to be to cheap to be true. If, like Eneba, they have over two dozen guides on how to activate your gift card or key, stay clear. Any legit store won't need to provide you with guides, because what they sell you will just work.

Green Man Gaming and Humble are fine. Isthereanydeal.com is a good and safe resource.

Thank you for your answers, guys. All i get from this, is trust good old Steam and nothing else. But because i can't contact the Steam support, do you think there's any chance i'll get banned for anything i've bought so far? I'm a bit freaked out after i've learned about all this...

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Umbrella Corporation:

Originally posted by Snapjak:

isthereanydeal.com is generally regarded as the best place to check prices on legitimate sites.

Legitimate in this case means ones that thus far have not screwed over everyone.

Originally posted by Washell:

Eneba doesn't sell games. Eneba allows people to sell their keys or gift cards through them. Any such site should be avoided, because you can never be sure the key you buy has been paid for with a stolen credit card or such. Just read the FAQ or support section of sites where the games appear to be to cheap to be true. If, like Eneba, they have over two dozen guides on how to activate your gift card or key, stay clear. Any legit store won't need to provide you with guides, because what they sell you will just work.

Green Man Gaming and Humble are fine. Isthereanydeal.com is a good and safe resource.

Thank you for your answers, guys. All i get from this, is trust good old Steam and nothing else. But because i can't contact the Steam support, do you think there's any chance i'll get banned for anything i've bought so far? I'm a bit freaked out after i've learned about all this...

No, that isn't what people have said at all.

It's not trust "good old Steam" only.

We've pointed out those sites like Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, Fanatical et al are legit, but the last one IS NOT.

The former are legitimate key sellers where the stuff they get is directly from the devs and publishers. That Eneba (and certain other key sites) resell stuff people buy either illegally or outright steal them.

What is likely to happen to you? Nothing if you stop now. Unless you really have splurged on a load of dodgy keys, then your account won't be affected. The worst that can happen is you will lose those games, as the keys will be rescinded.

That's all.

So now you know.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Umbrella Corporation:

Thank you for your answers, guys. All i get from this, is trust good old Steam and nothing else. But because i can't contact the Steam support, do you think there's any chance i'll get banned for anything i've bought so far? I'm a bit freaked out after i've learned about all this...

There is no point in contacting Steam support. Your account also won't get banned. What can happen is that a key gets revoked, so you use that game, but that only happens when keys are sold without the developer being paid for them (often through fraud). But Steam support won't know until a developer contacts them about it.

The site linked has deals for a lot of stores. All of those are legit. Personally I use Fanatical and Humble bundle, they're both safe to use.

[John]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by Umbrella Corporation:

Thank you for your answers, guys. All i get from this, is trust good old Steam and nothing else. But because i can't contact the Steam support, do you think there's any chance i'll get banned for anything i've bought so far? I'm a bit freaked out after i've learned about all this...

No, that isn't what people have said at all.

It's not trust "good old Steam" only.

We've pointed out those sites like Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, Fanatical et al are legit, but the last one IS NOT.

The former are legitimate key sellers where the stuff they get is directly from the devs and publishers. That Eneba (and certain other key sites) resell stuff people buy either illegally or outright steal them.

What is likely to happen to you? Nothing if you stop now. Unless you really have splurged on a load of dodgy keys, then your account won't be affected. The worst that can happen is you will lose those games, as the keys will be rescinded.

That's all.

So now you know.

Actually Snapjak said "Legitimate in this case means ones that thus far have not screwed over everyone". So "thus far" means there's a chance it will happen. He must know something i don't, to say that. That's why i said Steam only from now on. And yeah, as you said, i will stop now, just to be sure. Thank you.

[Callahan420]

Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle are safe to use.

[ReBoot]

You can't get your account banned from redeeming license keys from shady resellers. Worst case, said license would get revoked.
I mean, yeah, it is possible to construct a case where someone else uses their license key you redeemed to hijack your account, but that would indeed be rather constructed.

As for telling legit from shady sites apart, using Steam and only Steam is feasible, but you'd be ignoring all the legit resellers. Shady sites can be detected very easily: if they don't sell the key themselves but offer it from a vendor, it's shady. If they offer Steam gifts along keys, they're shady. If they offer you to pay extra so they REALLY won't screw you over, it's shady.

It's like never leaving home (we got a pandemic now, but imagine we didn't). Sure, you can work from home, order grocceries online and connect to the world via internet. That way, you surely totally won't get into a traffic accident. But you're also limiting your options, for no good reason at that. Instead, go outside, but do so with open eyes & brain, not blind.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Eneba is a gray market, they do not have permission to sell on behalf of game devs, or publishers. Gray market is when you allow people to resell game keys, it's similar to eBay, people list things to sell, does not have affiliation with publishers at all, nor did they get their permission to be reselling their keys, and publishers do not get paid from gray market sellers. Gray markets have a risk to them, as there a small chance you may encounter a scammer, that uses stolen credit card to get the game, and when the owner of the stolen credit card charges back, the store it was bought from originally and they notify the publisher of fruad for the key, and game get revoked on the victim that buys from the scammer.


GreenManGaming, and humble bundle are not gray market they're 3rd party retails that got permission, as well work directly with publishers to sell keys, and do pay the publisher their money.

You can use a tool site such as isthereanydeal.com great site as shows you prices on 3rd party retailers.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Umbrella Corporation:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

No, that isn't what people have said at all.

It's not trust "good old Steam" only.

We've pointed out those sites like Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, Fanatical et al are legit, but the last one IS NOT.

The former are legitimate key sellers where the stuff they get is directly from the devs and publishers. That Eneba (and certain other key sites) resell stuff people buy either illegally or outright steal them.

What is likely to happen to you? Nothing if you stop now. Unless you really have splurged on a load of dodgy keys, then your account won't be affected. The worst that can happen is you will lose those games, as the keys will be rescinded.

That's all.

So now you know.

Actually Snapjak said "Legitimate in this case means ones that thus far have not screwed over everyone". So "thus far" means there's a chance it will happen. He must know something i don't, to say that. That's why i said Steam only from now on. And yeah, as you said, i will stop now, just to be sure. Thank you.

Ah I see what you mean. But no, he wasn't prophesising, or anythinhg like that. Just being exact and cautious with his words.

It doesn't mean that they MAY go bad or tits up, it's just that there's zero evidence of them doing thus far. I think that was the point.

Anyway, the thing to remember is REALLY simple.

Sites like Green Man Gaming, humble bundle and the rest all have one thing in common - they're legitimate. They buy their keys from the actual devs or publishers.

Sites like Eneba are NOT because they buy the keys from anywhere except that and don't care one bit about where they come from.

It's really simple.

If you ever are in doubt infuture about a site, you can always ask here.

[Снюс Уиллис]

They all for games, okay, but for software only microsoft partners like hypes-tkey

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by Снюс Уиллис:

They all for games, okay, but for software only microsoft partners like hypes-tkey

Just read the comments, not sure why even necro 5 year old discussion.

[Steven]

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