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.
It has been said by many indie developers many times that purchasing games through key resellers is objectively more harmful for the developers than piracy entirely.
Key resellers tend to buy keys in bulk using credit cards. When the bank reports the card stolen, steam issues refunds. The developer of the game is responsible for these charge backs, not the storefront.
Basically, if you buy games from key resellers not only are you not giving developers money that they deserve, but you’re literally taking it out of their pockets. Do not buy from key resellers, pirate instead.
Yes, look at this blog post from Factorio team, it is a few years old by now but still valid
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303
They start talking about G2A about half way through the post. Basically they much rather see you pirate the game than buy it through G2A
Mike Rose talked about that specifically and it was nothing more than a PR stunt to sell games. When G2A had that “contest” to prove that stolen keys were sold on their site and they would pay you 10X what you lost we found out that G2A only sold 5 copies of Rose’s game on their site. Not 5 stolen copies, 5 sold copies total. Then other devs like that Charlie Cleveland clown said that stolen games were sold on G2A before G2A even existed.
Wait, so those 5 Factorio buyers sent at least 7 E-mails to the Factorio devs? The blog post there has 7 example E-mails.
That indicates quite clearly that someone is lying. Given that one “someone” in this case has hosted thieves, I feel pretty safe suggesting who that is.
There was a mess around green man gaming, which is supposed to be a legit key seller and is in that list.
Around Witcher 3 release they started selling keys for it, however CDPR warned that they were not official partners and as such those keys were grey market. They told people not to buy from there.
Turns out CDPR had selected only a few stores to supplying them with keys officially (which is their right, obviously) and gmg wasn’t one.
Gmg made a rather… unconvincing answer in which they said all they wanted was to provide “Gamers” with the games they wanted and were disappointed with CDPR not letting them. They said they got their keys from legit stores themselves, but it cast a serious doubt about how reliable they were.
Was that not Fallout 4 rather than The Witcher 3, or did it happen more than once? Either way, they clearly sold enough keys during the kerfuffle that the only way they could have got them was buying them wholesale off one or more of their competitors who’d managed to get hold of some, and then it makes sense that they’d want to keep it quiet who it was so the publisher wouldn’t penalise them.
It’s basically the same as an independent game shop buying a box of games from GameStop (or your regional equivalent) when their normal wholesaler has issues so their regulars continue being regulars. As far as everyone’s concerned at the end, a retail key was sold to a retailer and ended up in the hands of a customer, and no one in the supply chain got scammed.
As a former indie dev, you also get innundated with scams. At least a couple of emails a day pretending to be moderately famous YouTubers or gaming sites.
It was a huge time sink to verify them but we couldn’t just ignore them occasionally one of them was a moderately famous YouTuber.
It was a shitty feeling. If you can’t afford the game, pirate it.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48908726
- https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/g2a-controversy-indie-game-developers-calling-out-illegal-key-resellers/
- https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303
It is better to wait for a Steam/GOG/Humble sale. Price tracking sites like this one can be helpful:
Some are legit, some are scams.
As a rule of thumb, of it is featured in isthereanydeal.com , then they’re safe
