What are your thoughts on steam key sites? have you even bought a key from sites like g2a? are they a scam or are they cool, also do you have a story to share about steam keys.
i was planning on getting a mystery pack from g2a or whatever its called but im not sure if its a scam or not.
g2a is a legit site. their games are either heavily discounted older titles, or purchasing access to a shared account. I guess it all depends what type of games you’re into. Steam is a no brainer for legit games. You could also try eBay for discounted steam keys. There are plenty of deals to be had. I also like fanatical games. they also have deals which are often better priced than Steam. Hope this helps, and happy gaming:)
I’m not going to delete this comment as some requested, but everyone should know that G2A is not a legit website. See the top comments, gives a great explanation.
G2a isn’t a legit site, they have a market place for key sellers and who knows where those keys come from. I’ve used it in the past and had a couple of games pulled from my steam account.
Although these days Fantatical is the games retail arm of Fandom, who are the company that enshittified most of the video game wikis on the internet after they bought Wikia. So they’re legit, but their parent company sucks.
I can only imagine you in a super shady trench coat sitting in some dark alley signaling people over. One side of your coat has G2a keys and the other side has bottles crudely labeled “snake oil”. G2a is garbage and nobodies “but I get der gaems 4 cheep” anecdotes are going to change that.
g2a and similar websites are grey market websites. That means they’re not literally illegal, but most of their keys are usually gotten illegally. Sometimes (it’s rare, but it happens) people buy keys and they get revoked later if Steam confirms it was stolen. I wouldn’t use them at all if you care about giving the developers their money, you might as well pirate it.
Meanwhile there are legit websites like Fanatical that do sell cheap mystery keys. Most of them are shovelware they’re trying to get rid of, don’t bother.
Often times g2a keys are purchased with stolen credit cards or acquired through other sketchy means and the game risks becoming invalid days or weeks after purchase. Had it happen to a friend a while back with Civilization 5.
Stolen credit cards, buy legit keys, owner of card does chargeback, actual retailer is now out money and a key and can get penalised for the chargeback.
Might as well pirate it instead because the devs definitely don’t get the money.
I used to say this same thing parroted over and over again on reddit when in reality it’s not even an issue. Every time you ask for examples they link the same incident that happened in like 2015 where some keys got stolen and sold on the site. It was a sliver of overall business they do yet redditors ran with it as if fraudulent key sales made up 50% of their business. It would be like saying Craigslist or Ebay aren’t legitimate sites because there can be stolen good found on them from time to time when that’s just the nature of an open marketplace.
Game devs and publishers have commented on this matter numerous times saying that it’s a significant source of costs for them, but sure, it’s just one incident.
It’s an open marketplace, every open marketplace in the world has fraud on it and G2A is no exception. Doesn’t make it any less legitimate than other online marketplaces. But to address your three links, the first one is from 10 years ago which is before the G2A marketplace existed, the second features a developer (Mike Rose) whose game barely sold any copies on G2A as found during the 10x fraud challenge and the third is actually a legitimate claim that G2A paid out. However if 32k is the worst we can come up with that’s pretty low comparative to the amount of business the site does.
If fraud is so much more prevalent than other marketplaces then why hasn’t the EU opened an investigation?
G2A isn’t more fraudulent than other marketplaces, if someones selling a game for less than any official retailer it’s likely to involve fraud. G2A and Kinguin are just the biggest ones.
Regional pricing is the alternative to it being cc fraud, which I’m pretty sure still qualifies as fraud but since the publisher doesn’t lose money from it it’s kinda whatever. But many games are now region locked and still show up on these sites, I sure wonder why.
It feels like an easily solvable problem. Every key is unique. It can be centrally tracked from it’s origin to the buyer. Steam should allow the easy revocation of keys if reported as bought with fraudulent means.
The reason keys aren’t revoked more often is because it results in negative press. If you bought a Plony GameStation 6, you’re very clearly not a Sony customer. But if you buy what looks like a Steam key, you enter it on Steam, you play it on Steam, and then days later get invalidated, usually the customer frustration is towards Steam. Most people looking for cheap games don’t follow the chain of causality to see who’s at fault.
It does. That’s why sometimes you’ll buy a game on g2a, it’ll work for a while, and suddenly be inactivated. (Because it was bought with fraudulent means)
And even if the keys don’t become invalid and were initially purchased with a non-stolen credit card, it may be part of a money laundering operation and therefore facilitating some shady crap.
As a small game dev, I can tell you that I get a lot of emails from people impersonating content creators requesting keys for “review.” They then turn around and sell those keys on sites like Kinguin to make a quick buck. If you buy from key reseller sites, that’s who you are supporting. Developers don’t see a cent.
I sell my Humble Bunlde choice keys - not everything is stolen. It’s my thing, I bought it, I’m entitled to selling it and someone else is entitled to buying it.
I’ve used Eneba for a few things and I’ve only had 1 bad purchase that was refunded pretty fast. I really only check it when I’m looking for something that’s kind of old, but is still full price or damn near full price on most storefronts. Like you can get Skyrim Anniversary Edition or Fallout 4 GOTY edition on any platform you want for like $3 instead of $50-60.
I used it to get Sims 4 and every expansion that was out at the time for $10 total.
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I’ve never had any issue with CDKeys, and they seem legit. Unlike G2A they’re not a marketplace for shady resellers.
Yeah CD Keys is the only one that I buy from. I’ve never had a real problem, but sometimes preorder keys don’t arrive in time to preload on Steam.
g2a is a legit site. their games are either heavily discounted older titles, or purchasing access to a shared account. I guess it all depends what type of games you’re into. Steam is a no brainer for legit games. You could also try eBay for discounted steam keys. There are plenty of deals to be had. I also like fanatical games. they also have deals which are often better priced than Steam. Hope this helps, and happy gaming:)
I’m not going to delete this comment as some requested, but everyone should know that G2A is not a legit website. See the top comments, gives a great explanation.
G2a isn’t a legit site, they have a market place for key sellers and who knows where those keys come from. I’ve used it in the past and had a couple of games pulled from my steam account.
Fanatical though is legit.
Although these days Fantatical is the games retail arm of Fandom, who are the company that enshittified most of the video game wikis on the internet after they bought Wikia. So they’re legit, but their parent company sucks.
G2a is legit
No, it is not.
G2A is scam on scam on scam on top of scam.
I can only imagine you in a super shady trench coat sitting in some dark alley signaling people over. One side of your coat has G2a keys and the other side has bottles crudely labeled “snake oil”. G2a is garbage and nobodies “but I get der gaems 4 cheep” anecdotes are going to change that.
I get deer games cheap tho
g2a and similar websites are grey market websites. That means they’re not literally illegal, but most of their keys are usually gotten illegally. Sometimes (it’s rare, but it happens) people buy keys and they get revoked later if Steam confirms it was stolen. I wouldn’t use them at all if you care about giving the developers their money, you might as well pirate it.
Meanwhile there are legit websites like Fanatical that do sell cheap mystery keys. Most of them are shovelware they’re trying to get rid of, don’t bother.
Often times g2a keys are purchased with stolen credit cards or acquired through other sketchy means and the game risks becoming invalid days or weeks after purchase. Had it happen to a friend a while back with Civilization 5.
Made severall purchases on G2A and Kinguin and never had a problem. I only buy old games though and only from resellers with a lot of reviews.
Stopped with G2A however when they asked me to upload an ID.
G2A sells sketchy stolen keys, so does Kinguin. I’ve never had an issue buying from them, but plenty of other people have.
There are plenty of reputable sites though. When I’m looking for a game on sale, I go to IsThereAnyDeal.com and all the sites they list are legit.
Stolen from whom?
Stolen credit cards, buy legit keys, owner of card does chargeback, actual retailer is now out money and a key and can get penalised for the chargeback.
Might as well pirate it instead because the devs definitely don’t get the money.
I used to say this same thing parroted over and over again on reddit when in reality it’s not even an issue. Every time you ask for examples they link the same incident that happened in like 2015 where some keys got stolen and sold on the site. It was a sliver of overall business they do yet redditors ran with it as if fraudulent key sales made up 50% of their business. It would be like saying Craigslist or Ebay aren’t legitimate sites because there can be stolen good found on them from time to time when that’s just the nature of an open marketplace.
Game devs and publishers have commented on this matter numerous times saying that it’s a significant source of costs for them, but sure, it’s just one incident.
Oh yea, have some links https://unknownworlds.com/blog/beware-shady-key-resellers-and-discount-steam-keys/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/07/09/indie-publishers-tell-gamers-to-pirate-instead-buying-keys-through-reseller-g2a/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/g2a-pay-factorio-devs-over-32000-after-uncovering-stolen-key-sales
It’s an open marketplace, every open marketplace in the world has fraud on it and G2A is no exception. Doesn’t make it any less legitimate than other online marketplaces. But to address your three links, the first one is from 10 years ago which is before the G2A marketplace existed, the second features a developer (Mike Rose) whose game barely sold any copies on G2A as found during the 10x fraud challenge and the third is actually a legitimate claim that G2A paid out. However if 32k is the worst we can come up with that’s pretty low comparative to the amount of business the site does.
If fraud is so much more prevalent than other marketplaces then why hasn’t the EU opened an investigation?
G2A isn’t more fraudulent than other marketplaces, if someones selling a game for less than any official retailer it’s likely to involve fraud. G2A and Kinguin are just the biggest ones.
Regional pricing is the alternative to it being cc fraud, which I’m pretty sure still qualifies as fraud but since the publisher doesn’t lose money from it it’s kinda whatever. But many games are now region locked and still show up on these sites, I sure wonder why.
It feels like an easily solvable problem. Every key is unique. It can be centrally tracked from it’s origin to the buyer. Steam should allow the easy revocation of keys if reported as bought with fraudulent means.
The reason keys aren’t revoked more often is because it results in negative press. If you bought a Plony GameStation 6, you’re very clearly not a Sony customer. But if you buy what looks like a Steam key, you enter it on Steam, you play it on Steam, and then days later get invalidated, usually the customer frustration is towards Steam. Most people looking for cheap games don’t follow the chain of causality to see who’s at fault.
It does. That’s why sometimes you’ll buy a game on g2a, it’ll work for a while, and suddenly be inactivated. (Because it was bought with fraudulent means)
And even if the keys don’t become invalid and were initially purchased with a non-stolen credit card, it may be part of a money laundering operation and therefore facilitating some shady crap.
No, they are not legit.
Sometimes the keys they sell work, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they start out working but later get revoked. But more importantly…
They are even worse for the developers than pirating the games:
It is better to wait for a Steam/GOG/Humble sale. Price tracking sites like this one can be helpful:
https://isthereanydeal.com/
As a small game dev, I can tell you that I get a lot of emails from people impersonating content creators requesting keys for “review.” They then turn around and sell those keys on sites like Kinguin to make a quick buck. If you buy from key reseller sites, that’s who you are supporting. Developers don’t see a cent.
Most are scams, but there are reputable ones, like Humble Bundle and Fanatical.
Gamedevs would prefer that one pirate the game outright than use shady key resellers.
I’ve bought a ton of stuff (both games and DLC) from G2A and never had any issues.
“Nothing bad has happened to me so nothing bad can ever happen!”
🙄
If you could link me to whoever said that it’d sure be appreciated, since it looks like you’re just making shit up.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/g2a-confirms-stolen-game-key-sales-pays-40000-to-factorio-devs/
It’s not legit. Oftentimes, gray market sites are just buying keys with stolen credit cards
I didn’t say it was legit, I said it has always worked for me.
The question from op was asking if they are legit. Your answer implies that it is.
I sell my Humble Bunlde choice keys - not everything is stolen. It’s my thing, I bought it, I’m entitled to selling it and someone else is entitled to buying it.
I’ve used Eneba for a few things and I’ve only had 1 bad purchase that was refunded pretty fast. I really only check it when I’m looking for something that’s kind of old, but is still full price or damn near full price on most storefronts. Like you can get Skyrim Anniversary Edition or Fallout 4 GOTY edition on any platform you want for like $3 instead of $50-60.
I used it to get Sims 4 and every expansion that was out at the time for $10 total.
I’ve used eneba quite a bit. Even for MMOs. Never an issue. If someone knows it’s a bad site, please comment. G2A seems to be the devil.