- Recently my video editor, who barely does any work,
picked up Doom, Wolfenstein II, and Fallout 4
from Harvey Norman, not EB Games, not even Big W.
Harvey Norman, the guys that sell
furniture at the front and TVs at the back.
But here's the thing: they were selling Bethesda games
for five Aussie dollars a pop.
That's a Steam code, DVD, and retail packaging for less than
half the price you can get it from online key resellers.
Which brings us to today's slightly controversial topic:
the gray keys market.
(bright electronic music)
Now you may have seen me taking
key site sponsorships in the past and to this day,
and that's because personally I don't see anything
wrong with them, I quite publicly use them personally.
The people in the comments sections seem to criticize
the legitimacy and legality of these keys,
and the short answer is this: if the keys were not
legitimate, then Steam would revoke games
and Windows wouldn't accept an activation.
But yet they do and they continue to.
To further emphasize the point of Steam accepting
sites like SCDKeys and even the notorious G2A
as a legitimate distribution platform,
in the Steamworks key generator for developers,
the devs themselves offload directly to the site
so much that it's a dedicated option.
If this option exists in the first place,
then that means technically CD keys are being generated
deliberately for these sites to sell at their said prices.
More on this later.
The other big point some people love to make
is the origin of the said keys.
Stories of keys being stolen or forged for bulk distribution
then only to be followed up with the news articles
of said keys being revoked in the user's library
after the purchase have been published many a time.
Yes, once in 2015 Ubisoft disabled thousands
of Far Cry 4 keys because they were bought from Origin
using a stolen credit card and then resold.
Point in case being a stolen credit card.
And not to defend G2A but they are a marketplace
and not a reseller themselves.
I think if we are to classify a lot of these
CD key websites as gray market
and super dodgy, then technically this context
applies to Ebay, Gumtree, Craigslist, Amazon, and so on.
They technically are gray market
some or even most of the time.
You don't know the seller, you can't always verify
the origin of the product, if it works you pay
and usually everything is okay.
That's how reselling works in the modern day
But most sites will provide you with a money back guarantee.
Yes, there are a few dodgy sellers,
but that's to be expected.
I'd hazard a guess that there are way more Ebay scams
than there are reseller scams for CD keys,
though we will never know since Ebay
doesn't release these statistics publicly.
However ultimately the core of a good business is buy low,
sell high, so where do the legitimate keys come from?
Usually resellers or hustlers either getting bulk keys
from the developer or when the game is on sale,
mind you by a price pre-approved
by the distributor and/or the developer,
and still after all this they usually manage to make
a price that comes under that of MSRP.
But there's also giveaways and promotional keys too,
like those you get with new hardware and Gravis cards.
They're also another avenue for
hustlers to make a quick buck.
There's a really good article that I'll link
in the description, and they use the analogy of selling
unwanted or duplicate Christmas presents.
Case in point, or point at case,
even within my home country of Australia,
if you have an Australian business number, or ABN,
there are distributors here that can get you access to games
under MSRP, and even with quantities as minimal as one.
This can come under that of EB Games
and other retailers by quite a bit.
And technically, if I wanted to, I could start
churning out my own CD key business just by making an ABN
and applying for an account with the said company.
Another strong argument, and I guess something that ties
back to economics, is that not everyone
is willing to pay the same price.
So if the developers release cheaper codes, which usually
don't end up costing them sales, on their main platform,
and of course, and probably the most important thing,
don't cost anything to make, which in turn gains extra
sales, then it's a no-brainer, right?
Or wrong!
I just wanted to add that in there.
And lastly, if everyone buys it at a cheaper price
than MSRP and nobody buys it at the retail price,
then it's really just market research
into how much your game is worth.
This is also the case for pricing in different regions.
The exact same games can be cheaper
in some countries as opposed to others.
For example, Tom Clancy's "The Division Season Pass" costs
$39.99 USD, €39.99 Euro, which is $44,
Saudi Riyal 169, which is about $45,
and Russian Ruble 2,399, which is about $33.
It's tailoring how much the game costs to how much
people are willing to pay in that specific region.
So really when it comes down to it, lots of gray market
key resellers are just buying cheap keys legally,
and then reselling them to people who would normally
not pay MSRP in their own country.
And at the end of the day, that's
just how consumer behavior works.
Anyway, that's all for today's video guys.
If you enjoyed it, then be sure to hit that like button
and let us know in the comments section below
where do you buy your CD keys from?
Always love reading those thoughts and opinions as always.
And if you haven't already, you might wanna pick up some
merch, even though I am not wearing the
Tech Yes City shirt today, it's in the wash.
And I'll catch you on another tech video very soon.
Peace out for now, bye.
Yeah man I got the key but it didn't cost a fee,
when are you gonna take me back to 1993.