Deus Ex: Human Revolution, PC – £16.58
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, PC – £16.58 via serial reseller
Registers on Steam.
As pointed out by astute reader Isaac, this is the best price going at the minute, and is from a serial reseller that multiple SavyGamer readers have vouched for in the past.
I can’t vouch for them myself, you’re buying at your own risk here, but since your key is coming scanned from a retail copy, and they are not region locked, I can’t see any reason that you would run into any trouble.
The best price from an authorised distributor is £19.96 delivered.
If anyone decides to go for it, please share how it went in the comments.
Edit: It seems that these might be Russian locked serials, and they are instructing customers to either use a VPN, or give them your Steam login details and let them activate it for you. Hmmmmmm.
Serious question, how do people doing this make any money?
I presume they find the cheapest local supplier, buy in bulk, and have low margins and low costs compared to most retailers.
They find suppliers from Russia or Poland which prices are 2/3 difference then sell them to worldwide, so pretty much earn a lot though if I’m right i heard that regionlock games require your account information to activate
Here’s a coupon for another 5% off: e0ab2639a1
There is still a region lock on Deus Ex. The Russian version is still locked. I’m not saying it’s the case here, but I’ve seen this happen to several people, who bought from one of those serial resellers. They got a Russian key, which activates on Steam, but they can’t play it.
I wouldn’t buy from them, because seriously, why take the risk for £3 and you even get a shiny disc as an added bonus
Because you have to wait longer for the CD due to dispatch times, a CD that will get scratched/lost/eaten surprisingly fast.
The only advantage is install times, but it doesn’t compare to the dispatch time, unless you are using dialup. And if you are? What the hell are you doing, trying to game?
Never lost or had eaten a single CD/DVD in over 17 years, and mastered CD’s have high tolerance to scratches opposed to burned ones.
So everybody who has no broadband connection isn’t allowed to play games? Are you mentally handicapped?
Anyways… I have a broadband connection, but I have upload/download limits and that’s the reason, why I prefer my games retail, as long as the price is in the same range.
Yep, it has worked for me here in Italy, 18€ with the 5% coupon. But like nofing said, it’s a locked russian version. To make it works you have to use a program that lets you connect to a russian VPN which gives to your Steam account the ability to unlock these serials. More or less. It’s weird stuff definitely, and not-that-much-legal probably… but it works. Be warned though.
according to their onsite support, the DX:HR are the Russian ones (not EU) that require activation via Russian VPN. They link to youtube guides or offer chat support (or their support to add them for you to steam), but I haven’t tried it myself.
Risky biscuit. I’d stick to the old Gabe Newell device.
[Quote]I can’t vouch for them myself, you’re buying at your own risk here, but since your key is coming scanned from a retail copy, and they are not region locked, I can’t see any reason that you would run into any trouble. [/Quote]
There is the risk that they guy could use the retail copy to claim your account. Since he has the real copy and Steam ask in case of account hijacking to write the support ticket number next to the serial key. He could prove this way it’s his account. Bad if you don’t have another games where you can proof ownership on the account.
But even then Steam will go safe and disable the whole account under claim of sharing/selling whatever.
I bought CodBLOPS yesterday using this method (Russian version with unofficial English language patch provided via confirmation mail), but I do feel kind of dirty. I know the philosophy of SavyGamer has always been “whatever works, works, and only you are responsible for your own actions” etc. but I would probably rather not see any more promotion of these shady key sellers. On the whole it’s just not in the same category as regular gaming -related transactions.
Any one considering buying serial numbers on the grey market should be aware that even if they work at first Valve can ban the games later. They did this for the Orange Box and also for MW2. Apparently they can tell if the serial number came from an unauthorised reseller and the Eula allows them to ban it whenever they like.
Google “Valve grey market”for more details
^^^^^^^^^
or later revoke
“but I would probably rather not see any more promotion of these shady key sellers. ” I agree here. I think the informing level of discounts has steeped somewhat lower now that there’s these key-sellers. Those guys are shady at their best and in their worst your account might be disabled or key reselled after a few months.
Summa summarum: I hope we don’t see any of those smail dudes in future.
+1. If this could make me lose my Steam account, I don’t want to see it here.
I understand, but I’m not sure I agree. I can’t see that I would ever buy from shady Russian serial sellers, but how about UK based serial sellers? How about Polish based serial sellers (Poland being in the EU)?
I’m not sure how much I think it’s Lewie’s job to determine the cut off point between what I’m comfortable with and what I am not comfortable with.
In fact, he’s highlighted that it might be shady, he’s given all the information he has (including updating when it appears to be even shadier), I think he’s done exactly the right thing. Anything further is your choice.
I agree with you to a certain extend. HOWEVER, I think it really doesn’t benefit anyone to advertise these shady sellers. We don’t know exactly how they acquire their keys and it’s quite common that you’r game stops to functioning after several months. I guess, when the keyshop considers that you’re not playing it anymore.
Definetly, it’s no Lewies point job to determine, but as I said, it’s a new turn on this site that it has started to post about key-resellers. And in my own limited opinion, that’s the particular thing which have lowered quality of this blog.
I have no intentions of linking to these type of keysellers on a regular basis, I only do in exceptional circumstances (like when there is an exceptionally good deal on a highly sought after new release).
I certainly won’t post links to keysellers instead of other deals. As you can see in this post, I also included the best price from an authorised retailer, and I will do the same in any future posts that link to a keyseller.
I appreciate that some people might not ever be interested in using services like this, but clearly some people are interested, so I would be letting those people down if I were to ignore keysellers.
It’s just my role to inform you about what is available, it’s up to you to decide which deals to go for, and which to avoid.
We appreciate it, don’t worry!
Well, I talked with the chat support a bit, and this is what I found out. It’s true that they link you to a youtube video on using vpn to activate, as well as offering to activate it for you. However, that requres that you hand over your username/password… When asked where they get the keys, they apparently get them direct from the supplier. And as for keys getting banned, supposedly they’ve never run into the issue, but other sites have. Just relaying info for you guys.