Key resellers and what they mean for you

IsThereAnyDeal and CheapShark are the best ways to find deals from authorized sellers. It can also be worth keeping an eye on /r/GameDeals. If a store is included at one of these, it is probably fine.

Key resellers and what they mean for you (a link to the original)

One thing to remember is that even if you receive a working key from a reseller, this doesn't necessarily make them "legit". It's a bit like claiming that winning at Russian Roulette makes it a "safe game". When working with resellers there's always the chance of getting a bad key, or having a game later revoked from your account. And for many people it's a hard lesson learned.

What is a reseller?

"Resellers", better known as gray-market or unauthorized key resellers, are retailers that do not work directly with publishers to sell their game keys. Instead they'll buy codes from regions where games are cheaper, or through third-party sellers. These third-parties are generally unknown to the end buyer, which makes it a blind purchase.

Why are resellers dangerous?

There are a number of immediate risks associated with buying from resellers, but they also have long-term ill effects. We'll discuss some of those below.

The most obvious risk is simply that a key can be rejected. Resellers have no way of verifying if the key you have is valid or not, and cannot provide support (without extreme measures such as watching your screen during activation). In almost every case, you'll simply be told you're out of luck.

A common misconception is that keys bought from resellers are cheaper because they're "bought in bulk", and they can pass the savings on to the consumer. This is not the case. Instead, these keys typically come from regions where they've been priced for that economic climate. When we buy from sites that resell these keys,we are actively encouraging publishers to increase those regional prices or implement region locks on their games.

To dodge the region lock, many resellers now request/require buyers to use a VPN or proxy to activate and play the purchase. This is more than just an inconvenience, it is a violation of the Steam subscriber agreement and could get your account banned.

In some scenarios, keys are purchased in bulk via Humble Bundles, doing a disservice to the developer who chose to participate in the bundle and or charity.

Furthermore, fraudulent keys can be retroactively removed from your online accounts. We've seen incidents where developers have invalidated keys after being purchased with stolen credit cards.

Notable:

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