Summary
In general, platforms like Steam and the Epic Game Store offer great discounts and competitive pricing for PC games. Many gamers turn to third-party “CD key” sites, though, to save even more money. How legal or risky is this practice?
What are CD Key Sites and How Do They Work?
A “CD key” site is a website that sells product activation codes for video games (andother types of software) usually for significantly less money than you’d pay directly on platforms likeSteam. Although PC gaming is almost entirely digital and PCs don’t even come with optical drives anymore, these product codes are still referred to as “CD” keys, to reflect the CD keys you’d get inside the jewel case of your shiny new big-box PC game back in the day.
How they work is pretty simple. Just put the product keys you want into your online shopping basket in the key site of your choice, and pay for them at checkout. The codes arrive via email or will show up in your order history. From there you simply have to follow the key activation process for the platform in question.
The exact way to do it will differ between Steam and GOG, for example. Assuming the code is validated, it will be added toyour game libraryjust like any game you purchase directly through the platform storefront.
Are CD Key Sites Legal?
If you take a minute to think about it, the fact that digital platforms like Steam or EGS even have the option to use third-party keys means that there’s nothing inherently illegal about using them. Add to that obviously legal and safe sources of third-party keys such asAmazon Prime Gamingand Humble Bundle, and it’s clear that the real issue isn’t the keys themselves, but where they come from and how they were obtained.
For example, some key sites might resell codes bought from users who didn’t want them. For example, if someone got a game code through their Amazon Prime subscription, they could sell it to one of these sites if they didn’t want it. The terms and conditions of that subscription might prohibit reselling the code, but since the code isn’t tied to a particular account it may not make much practical difference. If keys are created using a “keygen” orkey generatorthen they aren’t legitimate and definitely illegal, since they don’t come from an official source.
It is worth noting that services that offer game codes such as Amazon Prime Gaming are, at the time of writing, moving towards directlyredeeming games on your Steam(etc.) accounts directly with no product key ever exposed to you. It’s likely in an attempt to clamp down on key reselling or sharing.
In other cases, CD key sites may get their keys from legitimate sources, but these could fall in a “gray” area analogous to “gray” imports of physical items where something is legally imported into a country, but without the support or consent of the official importer.
The key takeaway here is that the legality of any site selling product keys for games or other software is down to where the keys came from. If the site is transparent about that, and you’re satisfied with the origin of the keys, then this is one part of the question you can put to bed.
What Are The Risks of CD Key Sites?
Just like the legality of the keys themselves, we can’t generalize about how safe CD key sites are, because the details matter. It’s obviously better to stick with sites that have a good reputation and have been around for a long time. Just as with most e-commerce sites, it’s also just good practice touse a virtual credit cardor a service like PayPal with these sites rather than give your real credit card details away directly.
If you use a safe payment method, the main risk you face is not getting your key, or getting a key that doesn’t work. In which case your options will vary by how trustworthy a given site is. Some might refund you or give you a new key, others may just ignore you. Either way, the worst that can happen is losing the purchase price of the key.
Purchasing through shady key resale sites exposes you to two large potential risks. First, in addition to the risk of losing the money you spent on the game key you might run into identity theft issues in a worst case scenario. Second, you might get in trouble with the platform where you redeemed the key. If it later turns out that the key wasn’t legally obtained, at best, the game will be deleted from your account, and at worst you might face an account ban or some other similarly serious penalty.
While in general, the most severe penalty isn’t likely to be meted out against a hapless user who probably didn’t know any better, the risk isn’t so small that it can be ignored when sizing up whether that cheap CD key is worth buying. Why risk an account worth thousands of dollars over saving a few bucks on a single game?
When in doubt, skip sites you’re unfamiliar with or that have deals too good to be true. There are otherways you can game on a budget. You’ll also want towatch for the next Steam saleas well. You can find plenty of deals if you’re patient without risking shopping on a suspicious key site.
