Digital resellers; what's your take?

[greengiant]

Admittedly I knew nothing about this kind of service until the big story about stolen keys blew up over the news and the internet.

I am in fact talking about websites that allow individuals to sell digital activation keys (aka Steam and other online game services) that they've other acquired via a purchase they made (or other means).

Have you folks ever used a service like this before? As an example, the biggest name (and has been for quite some time) in this business would be G2A.

For the first time ever (as in two days ago) I decided to give it a peek, just... well because. I used my rather extensive wishlist on Steam (aaah we can all keep dreaming we had the time to play that many games) and searched them up on G2A. The majority of my findings were rather disapointing with no real discount (or significant enough to convince me to use their servces). Code Blue of the Decisive Campaign series wasn't bad, but I'm not quite ready for that one yet while I'm still working through my current backlog of grognardy war games in my Steam library.

I also noticed something else they sell; random packs of games that are revealed upon purchase. In other words, gambling. They come in different tiers, but a 2 minute search YouTube revealed that these are more often than not really, really crap with games no-one has heard of or cares about, never mind whether they actually fit your genre interests or not as there appears to be no way to tweak the results of the random content. I can totally see people blowing hundreds of dollars on this though for those with very little impulse control.

So, thoughts? I most likely won't use it and my trip there was more out of curiosity than anything else.

[devoncop]

I have used the bigger sites like G2A , Kinguin and CDKeys without any issue at all.

I currently am playing the hell out of Pathfinder War of the Righteous which I bought for the grand total of £7.50 UK pounds from CD Keys when Steam was selling it for closer to £30.00.

[Pete Dero]

This website gives you the best prices by official shops : https://isthereanydeal.com/

If you like taking a small risk this website includes less official stores : https://www.allkeyshop.com/blog/

But G2A has a bit of a bad reputation : https://www.eurogamer.net/g2a-admits-it-sold-stolen-game-keys / https://gamerant.com/g2a-stolen-game-keys/

I have used Kinguin on a regular basis without issues.  But keep in mind they behave like a cheap airline : a fee for paying, a fee for administration, ...

[Gusington]

I use IsThereAnyDeal to check prices and CDKeys is usually unbeatable.

[Wburn]

I've used G2A in the past you just need to be careful about the activation process for the game key you want to purchase. Some keys are only activated in Eastern Europe so you may need a VPN to spoof the Steam activation process if you're not in the country of origin for that steam key.
Most of the time I think they will say universal activation which means you don't need a VPN.

[al_infierno]

I've used G2A in the past you just need to be careful about the activation process for the game key you want to purchase. Some keys are only activated in Eastern Europe so you may need a VPN to spoof the Steam activation process if you're not in the country of origin for that steam key.
Most of the time I think they will say universal activation which means you don't need a VPN.

FYI: It's a fairly well documented fact that buying these cheaper keys from Eastern Europe actually screws over the game developers big-time.  Most often these reseller sites purchase keys illegitimately (e.g. through stolen credit card information) and when the credit card company catches on, the money ends up getting charged back to whoever it was stolen from.

The resellers do not suffer because they already have your legitimate money. Steam suffers, but not too much because any lost revenue is ultimately just a drop in the bucket.

The people who really suffer are the developers who worked hard to make a game for you to play, and now make precisely $0 from your purchase because of the scammy resellers.

So I'd respectfully ask that you keep that in mind next time you consider using one of those scammy sites.

[Wburn]

I get your point I only wanted to explain how the process works. Last time I used G2A was several years ago for Cold Waters. These days if I do purchase it's usually in advance of a release, currently which is Western Front which I am really enjoying. As for game developers I was buying a bunch of DLC from Graviteam since they were being misplaced due to the war in the Ukraine.
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[Father Ted]

I'm pretty risk averse (and can afford to buy games when they go on Steam sale), so have not looked into this, but I do think the term "re-sellers" seems dodgy.  Sounds similar to ticket touts.