>actually partnered with publishers
>often much cheaper than steam
Where's the catch?
I'd understand shady sites which launder scam money but how are the legit ones consistently cheaper?
What's the deal with sanctioned keyselling websites?
>actually partnered with publishers
>often much cheaper than steam
Where's the catch?
I'd understand shady sites which launder scam money but how are the legit ones consistently cheaper?
Steam allows developers to print out keys (I think the limit is 5000). Using one of these keys allows you get the game (as if you had paid for them). Some developers sell the keys to third party sites because:
1. It's another source of income
2. You might be able to get even more money than selling it on steam because now you don't have to deal with valve taking a 30% cut for each sale
>Steam allows developers to print out keys (I think the limit is 5000)
I never thought there would be a limit
Of course I've heard about devs being able to make keys for giveaways and to shill at streamers, but I never thought they could sell them independently to hijack steam's infrastructure without paying Valve's cut.
Still, 5000 is a very high number, hasn't Valve caught up on this and reduced the number?
Or demand they are given out by press releases through Valve?
just a few months ago they announced some restrictions but it hasn't had that much of an impact that I can see
There's a limit based on how many copies you've sold on Steam, because some developers were putting out zero effort games, generating a million keys, redeeming them on separate accounts, and then bot farming the trading cards to turn to dust to sell them on the marketplace. For real games the limit might as well not be there.
No way the limit is that low for larger publishers. Do they make money on just selling the keys to sites like gmg or they also take a percentage of the key sale?
you severely overestimate the number of people that pay for shit, much less pay through shady key websites
there's a reason westoid industries are collapsing
How is gmg or gamebillet a "shady" keysite. I buy most of my games from there.
If the product doesn't come directly from gaben's anus you're basically a pirate
Real answer, probably eceleb mouthbreathers on youtube making keysites sound scary to morons
But how does that make sense? The publishers sell the keys on here. Do they make a bulk amount through keys or is a percentage of the sale?
Steam doesn't have a "per activation" cost
Once a key has been generated, Steam doesn't take anything when it's redeemed, it only takes 30% cut from transactions done THROUGH Steam.
Imagine if you generated a key to send to a streamer to try your game, and one of you got charged.
Back in the day there was no limit to how many keys a dev could generate for free, so they openly sold them at other marketplaces and bypassed Valve's cut.
So now a dev can only generate 5000 keys for free that can be redeemed on steam and do whatever they want with them (Steam gets NOTHING from those activations).
If they want more keys, they need a direct agreement with Valve.
So games that are sold on retail as Steam codes (boxes with Steam keys inside) which obviously have more than 5 thousand copies, they were generated via a deal between the publisher and Valve, and the latter got their cut.
Yeah but I don't care about valve getting a cut. I'm asking if the publishers make good money from selling these keys on here. If you don't have to pay steam your 30% how much do they actually get from these keys? Especially since every big official key site has these games.
>I'm asking if the publishers make good money from selling these keys on here
Most likely an insignificant amount of sales, they can only sell 5k per game after all
Unless they already paid steam a lower cut in bulk to generate extra keys to sell, but I can't know that
It depends on the arrangement with key sites. Some sites claim they buy from publisher directly in bulk, which is why they can charge less than Steam. I doubt any publisher or site discloses the specifics of their deals.
>buy useless cd from Walmart with steam installation + steam key
Take that gaben!
its as OP says, whats the catch? to some people it simply seems too good to be true
The catch is you can find the game you want is no longer for sale because the seller ran out of keys.
The catch is you can't refund directly through steam. Also, you're dealing with the third party rather than steam directly if there is any issue.
It's like if you book a hotel through hotel.com and there is an issue. You have to deal with hotel.com and not the hotel directly.
there were no limits so several publishers would make asset recycled shovelware, print out literally hundreds of thousands keys to give away and then profit off mostly russian bots idling for steam trading cards to that sold for a couple cents each and the devs got a cut off
>inb4 ad
here's a competitor, now my shill cheque won't clear
These shills are getting so full of themselves.
probably the same site owner for both
The catch is no refunds and the devs being moronic and accidentally disabling all product keys in the future
They work by scaring schizophrenics and the unintelligent. Keysellers are legitimate and a viable option with a tradeoff of it being possible for a digital product to run out of stock.
lmao go frick yourself shill. Not interested in your grey market.
>you're a SHILL because you sometimes use key resellers (no specific site named) to get a game for cheapz
Actual, unironic brainrot. You don't even know what that buzzword means.
>My sketchy site is totally legit, fellow consumer!
Frick off, shill.
>it's sketchy because it isn't gaben's platform
You're the type who's afraid to shop at local or regional chain stores because they're "sketchy" compared to global brands like walmart.
The thread is about official retailers moron, not key resellers.
Stores like GMG, Gamesplanet and so on are completely legitimate and have way better deals, because they don't take a 30% cut like the Steam store.
>Stores like GMG, Gamesplanet and so on are completely legitimate and have way better deals, because they don't take a 30% cut like the Steam store.
So a grey market, okay.
Its not a grey market dumbshit it's like you buy a pot at walmart or you buy the same pot at a public market for cheaper.
Except it's not. They have deals with the publishers directly.
When CA slashed the price of Total War Pharaoh because it was an inexcusable piece of shit on release and were giving partial refunds, you could also claim refunds through those marketplaces
Because they're officially partnered with Sega
They aren't a grey market
Publisher gives keys to sites. By definition this is not a grey market. You dumb frick.
I think they removed it but I'm 100% sure that GMG once had a "work with us!" page that said they took 30%, wouldn't be all that surprised if most of these retailers took that much. If they ran on thin margins they wouldn't be able to do special offers like coupons and shit that eat into their own share.
Mafia & cartels buy key steam, sell it for cheaper, money laundered
Legal money laundering. More or less.
Every game listed 60 bucks on steam is 50% on every keysite. Only dumbfricks buy on steam during their 10% "sales".
my two cents on this is that the legit key resellers probably buy them in large blocks which is advantageous to the publisher who might not be sure of sales volume
also publishers might like the key seller sites because people who buy games there will have a lower or zero refund rate
Valve updated their TOS after all the EGS frickery in the beginning. It simply states that if you publish your game on Steam, you cant sell it for less elsewhere.
Publishers allocate a few thousand keys to resellers just to increase exposure. It's cheap advertising and they cap it so it doesn't represent a significant portion of sales, but can get the ball rolling in terms of generating a player base and word of mouth
>I'd understand shady sites which launder scam money but how are the legit ones consistently cheaper?
They keep games around the price they go for when they're on sale (the only time most people will buy). Sellers who want to go less than that are just trying to get rid of keys that aren't selling.