No matter whether you are just starting your gaming adventure or you are already an experienced player, you might be wondering what are other ways of purchasing video games rather than by using Steam.
If you have never bought any video games online, you should know that Steam is currently a leading online store of video games offering almost all of the video games currently available on the market including the best selling titles as well as underrated unknown games and the products which were made in a rather poor way. If you are interested in finding alternative ways for purchasing video games you will find some useful information in this article.
Why should you look for something else rather than Steam in the first place?
Steam is not a bad place to get your video games and it is not necessarily a rather expensive way to purchase them as the service is offering a number of discounts and is organising regular sales. Yet, many gamers prefer alternative ways of purchasing they games because of some issues concerning Steam.
The first issue is that there is an in-house DRM for the games purchased through Steam. In the majority of cases the DRM used by the service will make you launched your newly purchased game online for the first time. In practice it means that you might not be able to turn your games on offline at all as the access to the Internet will be always required for launching a game. At the same time, the games themselves might not need the Internet for being played at all.
Another issue which makes some gamers not willing to purchase their games on Steam is the fact the 30% of sales goes to Steam. This percentage is not extremely large and can actually be regarded as normal, albeit, you might not be willing to give it to the shop and prefer to pay more to the developer of a game.
Finally, as it has already been mentioned at the beginning of this article, Steam is a place where you can buy all sorts of games some of which can be of a rather low quality. This can happen if you are especially interested in trying of indie-games.
The difference between video game resellers and retailers
Regardless of the game you are willing to purchase on Steam, you should be aware of the fact that purchasing it you will get a one-time activation code. While on Steam you are getting the code from the retailer guaranteeing you its uniqueness as the shop is getting the keys directly from the publishers of video games, it is not the case with the resellers.
Resellers are reselling these unique keys which gives the whole process of shopping on such websites both advantages and disadvantages.
Needless to say, the major advantage of shopping for video games using the services of game resellers is the possibilities of getting games for rather small amounts of money. In fact, you might find them for less money than the prices of these games with the greatest possible discounts on Steam. Still, you should be aware of the fact the keys for video games offered by resellers also come from Steam most of the time.
What can possibly go wrong with reselling such codes?
The obvious problem is the possibility of getting a code which has already been activated. Unfortunately, the services of resellers usually do not have any tools for identifying non-activated codes, so you will not be able to find out whether a code can actually be used or not before purchasing it. Of course, trustworthy resellers have some procedures for the cases of fraudulent users selling codes which have already been used, yet, they are still not particularly efficient.
There is also another possible problem when it comes to resellers of video games. Unfortunately, some codes are purchased from Steam with the help of stolen credit cards so you are always risking to get a code which has been bought in an illegal way.
As you can see, video game resellers are working just like flea markets. If you are still willing to try your luck with one of them, you might be interested in shopping with top video game resellers such as Kinguin or G2A.
Purchasing games directly from first-part services
Do not forget about a possibility of getting your games from the first-party services. These services are a kind of official shops of publishers and developers. The most well-known of them are EA’s Origin, Ubisoft’s uPlay and the Battle.net which belongs to Blizzard.
The details of purchasing through these services can vary according to a particular company. For instance, some of them, especially Origin will allow you to purchase some top games such as flagship franchises only in this store. Basically, this service will sell you the Origin keys which are not available anywhere else.
It is not the same on all of the original stores of the game publishers. For example, Ubisoft offers the majority of its games on Steam, so you will get a Steam key for them. At the same time, you will still need to have a uPlay account and you will have to log into it.