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CAVEAT EMPTOR
Hi Guys,
Love the mag and I’ve been reading since the very early days of PC PowerPlay, it’s taken me a while to drop you guys a line but here we go:
I am a bit miffed about the news that Steam (IMO an overpriced service) is now adding GST to the games if they are purchased here.
I have always tried where I can to be loyal to Steam but when I think about the last dozen or so games I activated through the Steam service I didn’t purchase them directly.
I’m a big fan of the humble bundle for a couple of reasons, it’s a feel good purchase as you’re doing something charitable whilst getting a great discount. Sometimes you come across gems you may never have purchased at full retail. It’s a great service and it’s very easy to use and activate. You can also be generous with unused or double up game codes which is pretty cool.
I’m much less of a fan of services like Kinguin and G2A, I hear bad reports about them and there are some sneaky subscription services that they will get you signed up to if you don’t read the small print. With this risk comes reward, and if you manage to stay away from the questionable offers on the site and you’re savvy you can dig out some incredible bargains.
From what I can gather these sites work like ebay but for game codes, the actual information you find on their websites is scarce and deliberately vague so it’s definitely buyer beware.
In saying the above I reluctantly use them for 90% of my purchases now, I’m married and we have a child and saving for a mortgage with one standard wage coming in, I still want to enjoy the latest games so this is my compromise.
Here’s a quick example, I recently was gifted a Logitech G29 by a friend, I wanted to purchase Project Cars and all of the DLC to get my race face on, through Steam this would have set me back $75.99 (US Dollarydoos!) which was well out of my range.
A quick search of G2A – located a key with all DLC – 19 bucks! How is that even possible? You’d never find a yawning gap like that in a product at retail level and I for one would have a serious case of buyer’s remorse had I paid the $75 USD for the exact same game.
I’ve heard the horror stories but in my personal experience all games I’ve purchased through these companies have been legit. I’ve never had an issue with activation and I have saved hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars.
I’d be interested to hear what experiences good or bad other people have had? You only see the negative online. Oliver Thresher.
Hi Oliver – from what we understand, most of the steam key reseller sites work as something of a go-between for people who have unwanted keys (or bought a bunch through sites like Humble, Bundlestars and the like to later sell for a profit), and those looking for keys. The Ebay analogy is pretty accurate. G2A, Kinguin and the like are intermediaries – a service for buying and selling rather than sellers themselves. With any service like that, you always have to read the fine print and be careful. On the GST front, at least Australia’s not alone in getting slapped with more fees. Now if only we could get some kind of price parity thing going on instead of getting an Australia tax added on to most AAA titles before the GST is even calculated.