[PC] XCOM Enemy Unknown $29.99

I'm not saying they're not legit, but buying a game and receiving it in the past doesn't necessarily make them legit
 
User review on Web of Truth:

Bought an Arma II CD Key and it was already used. I tried to get a refund but they said that is not possible. The Support its horrible, they take days to reply and you cant even see the reply if you are no registered in the support page. I have opened a denouncement to this company. Also when i tell them that the key was used, they told me to use a crack.
DONT BUY HERE "
 
Well, a single first hand account usually IS the best way of determining a site's legitimacy. Sorry, but that kind of discount right away just screams "stay away".
 
Doesn't me the OP didn't have a successful purchase in the past. Every good scam usually includes some success stores (like a lottery), which helps keep the scam running successfully.

If you're one of the lucky ones that got what you bought, good for you, but there's definitely a chance at getting ripped off (or worse, losing your entire Steam account) when buying from a place like this.
 
They buy the game in countries where it's cheaper and they just resell the keys.

So no shipping, so it's cheaper, and the games they buy are legal.

For example, if you buy this game in the US it will cost 49.99$ but if you buy the same game in Germany it will cost 49.99 EUR So they just buy it where the game is cheaper and resell them.

Looking at FB:

20 000 followers in facebook and good reviews for over 3 years

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...7896463.-2207520000.1349035832&type=1&theater

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...7896463.-2207520000.1349035832&type=1&theater

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...7896463.-2207520000.1349035832&type=1&theater
 
It's not legal. They are unauthorized resellers. They do not have the legal right to distribute these copyrighted works, especially in the United States.
 
This is probably not a scam. I don't know if it isn't legal explicitly either.

I'm pretty sure with the latest legal pronouncements in Europe (a case was settled recently about digital ownership) and the advent of Steam Trading, Valve has no ground to stand on for doing anything about this kind of stuff.

I know Origin games bought this way are 100% safe.

I wouldn't use this service in particular due to the Web of Truth review, but there are others, CD keys discount (http://www.cdkeysdiscount.com/) which I have bought from and will vouch for. CD keys discount has never screwed me AND has x-com for the 30 dollar price tag.
 
I was so hoping this was a legit deal but I will probably wait a little bit longer for a better deal, I mean its been 18 years right!!!
xcom
 
I decided to roll the dice on Borderlands 2 for $25 just now on this site. They make you verify via text message but my CD key worked fine in Steam and I'm downloading the game now. I payed with Paypal.
 
This is one of those websites that buys Russian Steam keys which are dirt cheap to help alleviate rampant piracy in Russia by trying to offer the games legit at a serious discount, then they turn around and sell them to anyone but Russians, hence the weird text message verification process (they need to make sure you're not Russian). Purchasing and using Russian Steam keys outside of the Russian territory is against the Steam TOS, so if you lose your game or worse, lose your entire Steam account from it then you should know the risks beforehand.

For myself, I'm not touching this deal with a 20 ft. pole.
 
I wouldn't risk a valuable steam account on this. I think I have seen talk of people getting banned for using unauthorized resellers.

In either case the place doing it is shady because they do this by buying the keys in a cheaper region and then redistributing in a region that they don't have rights to do so. I would be wary giving my money to a business that doesn't care about doing this.
 
I just read through steams terms of use and I do not see anywhere that states you can not buy a key from out of the country. I have bought from sites like this before and have had zero issues. I think people just like to try and scare other people because they are too afraid to buy from theme
 
[quote name='pieczonka']I just read through steams terms of use and I do not see anywhere that states you can not buy a key from out of the country. I have bought from sites like this before and have had zero issues. I think people just like to try and scare other people because they are too afraid to buy from theme[/QUOTE]

You wont find it on Steams TOS that is why you didn't find it. These keys are sold in regions for much much cheaper and part of the TOS for that region is games can not be sold outside of it. Of course these grey market key sites will never tell you that.

Chances are you'll not have a problem with the game, but there have been plenty of cases of people having the game removed from their account or for people with a history of it have even had their Steam accounts banned.
 
Someone on another forum was linking to a reseller site for a Borderlands 2 deal the other day. I'll repeat what I said there:

Do the research and know what you're supporting.

Personally, I don't think the risk of losing my account on top of supporting clear copyright violations that inspire publishers to invest in DRM solutions is worth saving a few bucks today. The game will be on sale directly through Steam or through a more reputable reseller like Amazon or GMG soon enough.

Though in fact for this particular game I'll probably be paying full price on, because I want to support Firaxis and games like it.
 
I wouldn't touch this deal for fear of my steam account being locked but look at all the cag members who buy from amazon uk to save on blu ray prices and if you read the copyright on the back of most uk dvds and blu rays it says something about no exporting. I found this on the back of a WB dvd I have from the uk: "this DVD in not to be exported, re-supplied or distributed by way of trade outside the EU without proper licence from warner home video" So in a way Amazon is not following the rules either.

Yes I have and will keep buying non US blu rays when I can save a lot doing it or so I can get movies that will never come to the US or get a game that is not out in the US. My point is buying from a company like Amazon does not all at once make it any less of a "gray market". The studio that made the game or movie still gets a cut no matter what country the title is bought in. A different publisher may make some money off of it but the developer still makes money.
 
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[quote name='Rohsiph']
Do the research and know what you're supporting.

Personally, I don't think the risk of losing my account on top of supporting clear copyright violations that inspire publishers to invest in DRM solutions is worth saving a few bucks today. The game will be on sale directly through Steam or through a more reputable reseller like Amazon or GMG soon enough.
[/QUOTE]


Maybe you should do some research and know what you're supporting. You're supporting racial discrimination by claiming that game companies should be able to charge you more based on your race/what country you are from. I believe all races are equal and should pay the same price. Your bigotry has no place here.

And your idea of "copyright violations" is ridiculous. You need to learn the difference between legal copyright violations, and violating a TOS that is NOT law.
 
[quote name='pieczonka']I just read through steams terms of use and I do not see anywhere that states you can not buy a key from out of the country. I have bought from sites like this before and have had zero issues. I think people just like to try and scare other people because they are too afraid to buy from theme[/QUOTE]

Did you miss this:

Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so.


It's a catch all. A huge catch all. So yes, I am scared of risking my 400 game Steam account due to that.

[quote name='UltraMysteryDopplega']Maybe you should do some research and know what you're supporting. You're supporting racial discrimination by claiming that game companies should be able to charge you more based on your race/what country you are from. I believe all races are equal and should pay the same price. Your bigotry has no place here.

And your idea of "copyright violations" is ridiculous. You need to learn the difference between legal copyright violations, and violating a TOS that is NOT law.[/QUOTE]


I hope this is a joke. Russian is not a race. American is not a race. Stop being salty other countries get to pay less than you do and count your blessings that you are in a position that a lot of these people in poorer countries are not.

And I don't have the time to break down copyright law for you, but you don't know what you are talking about. To sell and distribute any copyrighted work you need the legal right to do so. These resellers do not have those legal rights. The Steam TOS do not give them those legal rights. So they are illegally selling these keys and by purchasing them you are participating in illegal behavior.
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']

I hope this is a joke. Russian is not a race. American is not a race. Stop being salty other countries get to pay less than you do and count your blessings that you are in a position that a lot of these people in poorer countries are not.
[/QUOTE]

Stop being a backwards bigot. It's 2012. Slavery ended a long time ago. We are all equals and entitled to be treated the same way by game companies no matter where we live or what color our skin is. It's sad that there are still people like you who promote racism from behind the anonymity of a computer screen. You'd be afraid to say this in real life, and rightly so.
 
I've purchased like 50 games from a site like this and haven't had any issue. I've also purchased keys from people on forums, essentially the same thing, so I guess that's also "illegal" as they don't have the legal rights. The fact that steam wishes to ban you from buying keys like this is a pretty bad way to lock you into buying games at a higher price, which they shouldn't be concerned about but rather making games cheap for everyone.

And oh man, what a crime. Selling games for a cheaper price then what you'd pay at retail. Lock these guys up ASAP!
 
[quote name='UltraMysteryDopplega']Maybe you should do some research and know what you're supporting. You're supporting racial discrimination by claiming that game companies should be able to charge you more based on your race/what country you are from. I believe all races are equal and should pay the same price. Your bigotry has no place here.

And your idea of "copyright violations" is ridiculous. You need to learn the difference between legal copyright violations, and violating a TOS that is NOT law.[/QUOTE]

This has nothing to do with race. It is do to cultures, exchange rates and distribution rights. I really hope you aren't that stupid to think that cheaper when converted to USD means racism.

[quote name='ParticleReality']
I've purchased like 50 games from a site like this and haven't had any issue. I've also purchased keys from people on forums, essentially the same thing, so I guess that's also "illegal" as they don't have the legal rights. The fact that steam wishes to ban you from buying keys like this is a pretty bad way to lock you into buying games at a higher price, which they shouldn't be concerned about but rather making games cheap for everyone.

And oh man, what a crime. Selling games for a cheaper price then what you'd pay at retail. Lock these guys up ASAP![/QUOTE]

Entitlement! You might as well just steal it since you don't want to pay what the company that has distribution rights decides. I am all for cheaper prices but I realize I am not entitled to have the game at whatever price I want. If they want to charge too much I just don't buy it until it is.

I mean we all know how greedy steam is. They rarely put anything on sale right? They are just trying to screw us out of money so how dare they ban someone for buying games from different distribution regions!
 
[quote name='ParticleReality']I've purchased like 50 games from a site like this and haven't had any issue. I've also purchased keys from people on forums, essentially the same thing, so I guess that's also "illegal" as they don't have the legal rights. The fact that steam wishes to ban you from buying keys like this is a pretty bad way to lock you into buying games at a higher price, which they shouldn't be concerned about but rather making games cheap for everyone.

And oh man, what a crime. Selling games for a cheaper price then what you'd pay at retail. Lock these guys up ASAP![/QUOTE]


Here's the thing, you are informed of the risks. Numerous unsuspecting CAGs have purchased from these postings thinking it is a legit retailer only to find it is an RU key. If these posts at least explained what was going on it wouldn't be as bad. It's not even from a moral high ground, it's because Steam can EASILY tell which keys were sold in which regions and if they wanted to they could easily remove all those keys from its servers if not activated in the correct region. At least with US sold keys they have no way of knowing if you got the key from Amazon or from someone who sold it second hand from Amazon. The risk is much less.
 
[quote name='Saablic']

Entitlement! You might as well just steal it since you don't want to pay what the company that has distribution rights decides. I am all for cheaper prices but I realize I am not entitled to have the game at whatever price I want. If they want to charge too much I just don't buy it until it is.

I mean we all know how greedy steam is. They rarely put anything on sale right? They are just trying to screw us out of money so how dare they ban someone for buying games from different distribution regions![/QUOTE]

Entitlement that I don't wish to spend more money than I have to? Christ, get over yourself and your magical high-horse. Do you buy your games directly from the publisher? Do you buy games at full MSRP? Why would I, as a consumer, not wish to shop around and save the maximum amount of money that I can?

The next then you'll tell me is I should never buy games second-hand from a person and not an establishment such a GameStop. After all, they don't have the rights to sell copywritten material because when you buy a game you aren't buying that product, just a right to play it at the publishers discretion.

And yeah, steam puts things on sale but XCOM isn't $30 right now, is it? And Saints Row: The Third wasn't $25 at launch, COD: MW3 wasn't $35, and Borderlands 2 wasn't $20 and yet those are the prices I paid at launch.

Are you really going to argue that people should be locked into paying the prices set for their regions? Because I'm sure Australians would love to hear that they need to constantly take it up the ass on prices when they could ask a friend to buy them the game for cheaper in their region and gift it over.

When I take my money over to another country my money doesn't stop having value, it just becomes more valuable or less depending on exchange rates and if I take advantage of that, that's being a smart consumer. Thanks to the internet, I can now do that from home and while it's Valve's right to step in and disagree with that as a private business, I (and many others) do not support punishing the consumer for doing whats in their best interest.

[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']Here's the thing, you are informed of the risks. Numerous unsuspecting CAGs have purchased from these postings thinking it is a legit retailer only to find it is an RU key. If these posts at least explained what was going on it wouldn't be as bad. It's not even from a moral high ground, it's because Steam can EASILY tell which keys were sold in which regions and if they wanted to they could easily remove all those keys from its servers if not activated in the correct region. At least with US sold keys they have no way of knowing if you got the key from Amazon or from someone who sold it second hand from Amazon. The risk is much less.[/QUOTE]

I will agree that people should know the risks and considering how these threads go, many people will hear all about them and be guilt-tripped into believing they are wrong for wanting to save money.

Many keys I've purchased have come in the form of an image that has full English text. Should I assume that they're evil Russian keys? Why would it even matter? What if a friend was in Russia on Holiday, purchased cheap games and gave me one as a gift on return? Should Valve ban users in that situation, if so, why?

All I can say is this: I have thirty-five games on Steam that I've purchased from a site like this and nothing has happened in that regard. Maybe they haven't caught up to my so-implied evil entitled activities yet and if they do then I guess I learned the lesson of not to try and save money.

You'd think though, that if Steam could easily tell which keys are "bad", they wouldn't let people use them in the wrong countries in the first place. Yet they do. Weird. It's almost as if they don't actually know that because it's up to the publisher to use region-locked keys like Call of Duty (which require a VPN, and is one of the most common games to get flagged due to said VPN usage) or region-free keys like THQ and other publishers use.
 
[quote name='ParticleReality']Entitlement that I don't wish to spend more money than I have to? Christ, get over yourself and your magical high-horse. Do you buy your games directly from the publisher? Do you buy games at full MSRP? Why would I, as a consumer, not wish to shop around and save the maximum amount of money that I can?
[/QUOTE]

Well at least on this magical high horse I at least know how the world works. You see there can be different publishers in different regions. They buy the rights to distribute them in different regions. They don't have rights to sell in other regions because someone else bought those rights. And yes guess what, part of my money goes to the correct publisher.

No I don't buy my games at full MSRP. I realize this is a big problem and this is why most things have region locks. A recent example is the new Persona PS3 region locked game. I don't like region locking because if no one wants to distribute it in the US I still would like to be able to buy the game. I try not to give them reasons to put region locking in by purchasing through someone that can resell in my region when it is available.

Lastly, yes you come off horribly entitled. You say you will pay what you want to pay even if it isn't a proper reseller because they don't offer at the price you want to pay. You can say I am being overly righteous but that is just the way it is.
 
Wow, never been called a racist for denouncing shady second-hand Internet resale of digitally distributed computer game keys.

Modern society rests on a rockbed of these things like rules called "laws." We have folks called "police" who tend to people who disobey the laws. Copyright laws can get pretty silly, but the literature is there for you to research. If law enforcers catch you breaking these laws, there's a very good chance you'll get in trouble. If you don't, the law will hopefully be overruled sooner rather than later.

Individual consumers purchasing goods through the Internet are unlikely to be punished for shady transactions at present because the tools for proving any certain wrongdoing are still less than perfect. It's not hard to imagine such tools being perfected in the years to come. Copyright law will likely become more instead of less complex. You can believe all you want that you have the "right" to pay whatever you want for something produced by someone else, but unless you're a policy-maker that belief won't get you very far in court if it ever comes to that.

I'll reiterate:

Do the research and know what you're supporting.

That first part is key: do the research. That second part doesn't work unless you do the first part. So go and read.
 
[quote name='Saablic']Well at least on this magical high horse I at least know how the world works. You see there can be different publishers in different regions. They buy the rights to distribute them in different regions. They don't have rights to sell in other regions because someone else bought those rights. And yes guess what, part of my money goes to the correct publisher.

No I don't buy my games at full MSRP. I realize this is a big problem and this is why most things have region locks. A recent example is the new Persona PS3 region locked game. I don't like region locking because if no one wants to distribute it in the US I still would like to be able to buy the game. I try not to give them reasons to put region locking in by purchasing through someone that can resell in my region when it is available.

Lastly, yes you come off horribly entitled. You say you will pay what you want to pay even if it isn't a proper reseller because they don't offer at the price you want to pay. You can say I am being overly righteous but that is just the way it is.[/QUOTE]

You know how the world works? Okay. So you understand that as a basic principle money is valuable and people will spend it to their benefit so they get a good deal and have more capital for other transactions? As such, businesses that offer discounted products would be sought after and taken advantage of and businesses looking to compete should do so by offering better service. Gabe Newell said as much on the topic of piracy.

So why doesn't Valve and game publishers seek to offer the best value to all markets? More so, if Valve really does have an issue with it and if it's such a big deal to publishers then why don't they follow Activision and use region specific keys instead of region free ones? By not doing so they're facilitating the purchase of CD keys from other regions at cheaper prices which sends a mixed message to the hard-working consumer simply wishing to save money. By their statement of it being against TOS to buy keys from other regions, they should lock you out of it from a system level. My question, is why don't they?

Furthermore, explain how I come off "horribly" entitled? I specifically said that it's Valve's right to step in and disagree with that as a private business and went on to say that I simply didn't support it. I don't think I have the right (which is the definition of entitlement) to those prices but believe consumers should have the choice in spending their money to their benefit. Did you overlook that by mistake or choice so you could throw around the buzzword of 2012?

I am simply offering a counter experience to users that say not to use services for those on the fence. Many people have purchased Xbox 360 game codes for titles like Alan Wake second-hand and yet nobody stepped up and said "Hey guys, you really shouldn't buy these as they're supposed to be sold as a bundle with the Xbox 360!". I've outlined that there's a risk that users should be aware of and shared my feelings on why I believe Valve shouldn't ban users but rather look at a solution to keep people buying in their regions. Again, if they wish to ban users that's their right as a private company I just don't agree with the lack of consumer choice. I have used these services to no ill-effects and don't believe that law enforcement care that some college kid saved $20 every so often on games due to grey-area sites. They are probably focused on actual "crimes".

You sir or madam come off as someone simply looking to appear superior to others by throwing around words like entitlement. I am bemused by this but will not continue to facilitate this back and forth that really doesn't go anywhere. Perhaps I'm not being as clear as I should or perhaps you just aren't understanding my position. Although again you could be ignoring specific points to make your position work, I am unsure.

Either way I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Good day.
 
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I still think it funny no one can find where steam says this is wrong other then saying they will ban you form doing illegal actions "duh". Is there a lawyer on the site that can state what region laws are other then what people assume they are I sure the hell do not know what they are, but people sure like to define the law like they know. oh well freedom of speech right? I guess this is a sore subject to each there own. i DO not think anyone wanted to cause an up-roar so calm down and buy games cheap like a cagger should legally of course
 
Steam will not ban you for activating a cd key from another region unless the key requires a vpn to be activated (against the SSA) or the CD key reseller sold you a stolen key and steam thinks you stole it. In this case you could probably explain the situation to steam support and, if you had enough evidence, get your account back with a warning.

If the publisher seriously didn't want the game to be activated in other regions, they would have imposed regional restrictions that check the ip address when the game is activated. I know some games that do this (mafia 2).

CDKeyHouse seems to be one of the more reputable cd key resellers so I think it's safe enough to shop with them.
 
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