GreenManGaming selling unauthorized Ubi/Acti/WB keys
- Thread starter nynt9
- Start date
Aztechnology
Member
I've never heard of anyone having a key disabled that they bought from GMG.
Yes they are probably a grey market seller.
Yes their keys are legitimate in that they aren't stolen or anything. They work fine.
Yes they are probably a grey market seller.
Yes their keys are legitimate in that they aren't stolen or anything. They work fine.
Mad Season
Banned
seems like they are feeling the pinch from sites like G2A
Yeah at this point we can't really say if they are telling the truth about being official partners with anything as they have been caught in a lie too many times.
Maybe jschreier can get in on this and do some research.
Visualante2
Member
Your question is arguably the problem. If you had asked are they trust worthy? I'm sure many would say yes.
It really depends on how much of a premium you put on the concept of "authorised" sellers.
Jag
Member
r/GameDeals is a fantastic resource. Much easier to navigate than CAG or Slickdeals. They may be a tad slower, but much easier to use.
Sure, but they shouldn't claim that they are - that is flat out lying to the consumer. Buying from an authorized source is unarguably safer and some consumers care and they have a right to know.
AHA-Lambda
Member
No
Because those keys are intended for markets where games retail at a cheaper price point - for example, Russia and other Eastern European states.
Angel Abaddon
Member
The thing isn't that they're a grey market seller, but they're actively masking it. I decided to go with them over cdkeys for Fallout 4 as it was a few quid more but I thought I was buying from an authorised seller. Granted they are authorise by Bethesda, but you can no longer be certain of that with all publishers any more.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Really feel like we need a gaf psa soon on the site's stance on these sites. The lines are becoming too blurred now :/
OnionPowder
Member
Yep, personally I think they should all be added to banned sites. I'm sad to say that if GMG is really doing this shady stuff that they should be added as well. I've used them for years but i'll stop if they're going to be doing this.
Wow. And I always thought I was buying legit going through GMG in place of other known grey market retailers.
An example of an authorized key seller would be Amazon. There are three ways unauthorized key sellers get their keys so cheap.
1. Buying from official sellers that sell in regions where there is low pricing to sell to poorer countries and selling them at a slight markup to normal-priced regions
2. Buying boxed copies from said regions in bulk, cracking open the boxes and selling keys
3. Theft, either via actual physical theft of boxes or buying keys with stolen credit cards.
Coreda
Member
How is one meant to know where keys are being sourced from anyway if a site is selling unauthorized keys?
No site is going to willingly state they sell illicitly gained keys, but nor are they likely to proudly state they are obtained in bulk from countries with cheaper prices and/or retail boxes (couldn't even find this on the cdkeys.com FAQ). Once a reseller goes grey the source of the game you're buying becomes unclear.
No site is going to willingly state they sell illicitly gained keys, but nor are they likely to proudly state they are obtained in bulk from countries with cheaper prices and/or retail boxes (couldn't even find this on the cdkeys.com FAQ). Once a reseller goes grey the source of the game you're buying becomes unclear.
From what we can tell, this started with the Witcher 3.
Yes they are legit. Possibly gray market though, if that bothers you. The keys are as guaranteed as GMG keys are.
You can't know, that's the problem.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
This site has always been super shady. I can't imagine why it has so many cheerleaders.
That's why you buy from official retailers. The big issue here is that gmg is claiming that they are official resellers at the bottom of their page but they actually aren't.
Linearskillz
Member
WTF man, that's some shady shit from them. I was even defending them the other day. I guess it's time for me to stop shopping at GMG then.
Fuck em.
Fuck em.
MiguelItUp
Member
I'm constantly buying CD keys from sites of all sorts, if it's legit to purchase from then I most likely have and will. I find this whole situation rather interesting considering I know some people are very iffy about a number of sites and I understand why. But after a situation like this it makes me want to ask, "How can we ever really trust a CD key site to be "legit"?" I mean, in all honesty it feels like we're going off of what a number of sites say, but how can we honestly know that they're being honest or not? In my opinion I'd like for a place to be honest rather than putting up a front to be something else. There's no reason for that.
lol, not even the authorized stores have an unlimited amount of keys.
Angel Abaddon
Member
In exactly the same way you know the source of a product you're buying on eBay or any "unauthorised" store, whether online or physical (do you think Poundland and the 99p Store are authorised?) - you don't. That doesn't mean you can't do some digging, either through peoples previous experiences, how publishers react to them or following the money trail of where your paypal is actually going and make your own choice from there. This is why I'm willing to take the risk buying from cdkeys.com but won't touch kinguin or g2a with a 10ft bargepole.
CrashPrime
Member
Sounds like GMG is basically nothing more than G2A with a fake alibi. Yuck.
Aztechnology
Member
Here's what I don't get. They've had their partnered page up for a long time. If they weren't I can't imagine those publishers legal teams wouldn't be down their throats about it months ago. Is GMG being screwed over here?
Vincent Grayson
Member
Yeah, it seems really weird that these companies wouldn't be all over them if this was true, and so far, all we have is the word of a reddit moderator and some screenshots of e-mails.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
No, they are akin to cd keys site and not to G2A, that's a whole diff business with individual sellers and g2a acting as a marketplace. Personally, I am going to continue using G2G as I have had really good service with them, and they do have legit agreements with some of the publishers like Bethesda.
Heck, I did buy Witcher 3 from them about a week post launch and haven't had any issues. They still seem more legit then other key sellers in at least they try to get some agreements in place.
That could be true. Or they could have done 1 legit deal with each publisher so they could get them on their publisher page then got grey market keys for the rest of their deals. Who knows. The only actual way to find out is to email every pub and ask which games they are authorized to sell.
It's possible that they used to be authorized sellers, but aren't anymore. Partnerships end, after all.
True.
Sometimes the keys being sold are meant to be review copies that are given to people posing as someone with a YouTube channel or something promising to give it coverage.
OnionPowder
Member
Steam has run out of stock before
Coreda
Member
See, for example I had no issues buying my MGSV key from eBay as it was from an Nvidia bundle (and activated as such through Nvidia's own process).
Shaved some off the retail price but I felt more comfortable in the decision knowing the source than not. If GMG isn't being upfront about where the keys are coming from for a game I'm looking to buy it becomes an unnecessary obfuscation that I frankly can't be bothered dealing with.
True, I forgot about that, but that's often a smaller amount of keys and usually indies are targeted with this.
Meanwhile publishers keep thinking how to morally screw our asses with half-baked season passes.
GMG-PlayfireCS1h1
I assume this might be a rhetorical question, but yes. The publishers do get paid for every single game that goes through us. We work through authorised distributors for every game.
The problem is that we are unwilling to share all of our deals. (Or go through all the issue of redacting the confidential parts of over 300 different contracts.)
https://m.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/3t0p9m/rgamedeals_and_greenmangaming/
Emails from support reps does not mean gmg does not have a deal in place with all the publishers they work with. One of the emails references their approved vendor list actually sort of proves that GameDeals is talking to reps at the publishers who don't necessarily know a whole lot.
At this point you basically just have gmg saying they are authorized, and GameDeals saying they aren't. Until ubi/wb/acti put out an official presser that gmg is not authorized, I'm not going to just take the word of support reps. Support reps don't know jack shit all the time.
I assume this might be a rhetorical question, but yes. The publishers do get paid for every single game that goes through us. We work through authorised distributors for every game.
The problem is that we are unwilling to share all of our deals. (Or go through all the issue of redacting the confidential parts of over 300 different contracts.)
https://m.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/3t0p9m/rgamedeals_and_greenmangaming/
Emails from support reps does not mean gmg does not have a deal in place with all the publishers they work with. One of the emails references their approved vendor list actually sort of proves that GameDeals is talking to reps at the publishers who don't necessarily know a whole lot.
At this point you basically just have gmg saying they are authorized, and GameDeals saying they aren't. Until ubi/wb/acti put out an official presser that gmg is not authorized, I'm not going to just take the word of support reps. Support reps don't know jack shit all the time.
OverBlood 3
Banned
You can help by not spreading misinformation, cdkeys.com ARE legit, they aren't involved in anything illegal and i've heard nothing but good things about them, which I and many gaffers can attest to.
They're still avoiding direct questions about their practices. They've been caught lying several times before so saying "trust us, we're legit" isn't really helping their cause.