It's not surprising that many gamers are constantly in search of a discount on the
titles they want. Lots of AAA titles cost around 60 US dollars at launch and tend to stay that way for quite
a long time after release. And with digital distribution being the norm these days, it becomes very difficult to sell
your games later on after you've gotten tired of them.
And even if your taste in games isn't big budget titles that require a big upfront cost,
you can easily spend tons of money on DLC, even after buying a cheaper game.
Or you can just pay on both ends. Easier.
As a result, a number of grey-market online stores have popped up, such as G2A and Kingwin,
that offer digital game keys from third-party sellers at prices often far lower than you'd
find from traditional stores or directly from the developers.
But how do they keep their prices so low? And is buying from these places a good idea?
Well these keys can come from a variety of places. G2A claims that many of the keys for sale on their site come from wholesalers that buy
them in bulk from game studios, while others are sold by folks who take advantage of promotions
such as humble bundles and giveaways, then flip those codes for a profit.
Entrepreneurs. However, many codes are acquired by much less ethical means.
It's not uncommon for unscrupulous resellers to pose as game journalists or YouTubers,
an attempt to trick developers into giving out review codes, or for them to buy codes
in one region of the world where a game is cheaper and resell them to folks elsewhere,
denying the game studio a sale in that other location.
But considering it's not that hard to steal a credit card number, many keys are simply
purchased with a pilfered Visa or Mastercard and resold at a very low price.
In fact, earlier this year G2A promised that it would pay developers 10 times what they
lost in credit card chargebacks for any stolen keys that ended up on the G2A platform.
However, G2A also downplayed how often this actually occurred.
And while G2A said that they wanted to allow game studios to block certain keys from being
sold on the platform, indie game developers specifically wanted many of their games to
be delisted from the site entirely since they're more vulnerable to financial harm than the
larger developers, but G2A refused to do this.
And this problem isn't just specific to game keys.
Many major online game stores like Steam no longer sell keys, instead assigning a specific
copy of the game to the account that bought it. Again, perhaps with a stolen credit card, yet it's still possible to transfer access
to buyers who might not be aware that they're buying a stolen game through gifting systems
such as Steam GIFs. And regardless of whether it bothers you that you might be buying a stolen or otherwise
ill-gotten copy of a game, you do run the risk of the game studios deactivating your
copy if you found out it wasn't legitimately obtained.
Ubisoft did exactly this back in 2015, to gamers who already bought and activated games
from reseller sites that were originally obtained with a stolen credit card.
The moves spurred outrage among gamers that didn't realize that they had bought a stolen
game. And although Ubisoft did ultimately restore access to players that had already activated
their games, they didn't give any other recourse for other resold keys.
Doing the right thing? Maybe not in the best way.
OK Riley, I get it. These game marketplaces are shady.
But how can I save money on games without using them?
I got kids to feed, man! Well the good news is that sites like Is There Any Deal make it fairly easy to find out if
a game you want is on sale at a seller known to be legitimate at any given time.
And you also have the option of buying game bundles at a significant discount.
There are also game subscription services such as EA Access and Xbox Game Pass that
let you play from a library of titles for a flat monthly fee.
And down the line, you may even have the option to legitimately purchase used digital games
from others. Earlier this year, a French court ruled that consumers have the right to sell their unwanted
Steam games, assuming Valve doesn't win their appeal.
So hopefully buyers or more silver digital games will soon become a thing of the past.
In the meantime, you might want to think twice before pre-ordering that copy of Dishwashing
Simulator 4. Even though it sounds incredibly fun.