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Are key selling websites really that bad?
This comes up all the time on discord servers. Personally I bought keys in the last years without any problems. I know people had some really bad experiences. But the support forum is filled with similar stories about the origin client. Other people always say to buy on amazon and origin. But they all get their keys from maxis because nobody else can produce game keys.
So is there actual evidence that the key selling websites are worse than amazon when it comes to reliability?
How does this work with "stolen" keys?
Or is that all just propaganda so people buy only on origin at full price?
So is there actual evidence that the key selling websites are worse than amazon when it comes to reliability?
How does this work with "stolen" keys?
Or is that all just propaganda so people buy only on origin at full price?
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Comments
So in short, if you buy a key from a key selling website there is a chance that it's a key that EA never got any money from and thus you are risking getting your key blocked. Some have even said that they have gotten their account removed. You have to check the sellers history and google around to see how reliable they are.
That's why I always buy from origin because it's not worth the risk in my opinion. Plenty of people here on the forums have said that they have had no problems though.
You’ll notice that it’s mainly expansions packs that are cheaper on these gray market sites, as expansion packs still have physical releases / are being sold to distributors. For other pack types, EA doesn’t sell them to distributors and those key sites have no way to obtain them for cheap.
I bought cottage living for 28$. In which region is the cost of expansion packs less than 40$? Or 28$ so the reseller to still make profit.
Actually its all three kinds of packs that are cheaper, not just expansion packs. Sometimes I got codes directly and sometimes a picture of the code taken directly from the box.
EA does investigations of fake key requests and figuring out credit card chargebacks. And those investigations often start because they get contacted by retailers or banks. If the keys were bought with stolen credit cards then there are often investigations.
I don't know how common this is and how often they block those keys but I can't imagine that they don't do this.
But like elelunicy said, it's more common that the keys you are buying are from another country. That's why they are cheaper. But that's another gray area since that is not how the keys were meant to be distributed.
Some key sellers may be fine, and exercise a commendable degree of advertiser integrity. But why risk it? For Sims content, EA has it all on Origin, which I use to load my game in any case. To the extent that they are farming metrics from my usage habits and purchase history, they are welcome to that data. Better a publisher I support than whoever is buying data from Games-R-Us, or whoever.
I don't do it for the Sims, but I 100% have bought codes and downloads off of Amazon. I just do not buy from private sellers for digital content because it isn't worth the risk. A disk or physical good doesn't carry as much risk.
Also, chargebacks and refund scams are absolutely a real thing. I linked a video in one of these threads about the Steam Spore EA Play scam that showed how to get the code and sell it to make a profit. It was done back during a sale for maximum profit, and to this day you still cannot get your Spore code so Steam copies cannot access Origin Spore servers.
Well, Amazon proper is. Amazon, the company, sells some codes. They also list codes from private individuals. The exact seller is listed on the buy page.
Edit: To be extra clear, I buy codes listed by Amazon themselves or some sort of verified retailer. Not from private individuals.
It is just the case of exercising common sense, if it's a random, unknown website, then it's probably best to give it a miss, but for the bigger ones 99.9% of the time there will not be an issue. If you stick to CDKeys you'll be good, it's the most popular one and I haven't heard of anyone having an issue with them. They also have refund policies so on the off chance that there ever was an issue you'd get your money back pretty easily
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
Are game packs/stuff packs/kits available for cheaper at launch? Like how much was Dream Home Decorator on these sites when it first came out? Even official retailers like Amazon will put these packs on sale after they are out for a while. Obviously the key selling sites are able to obtain keys cheaper after these packs went on sale.
Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding. I "pre-ordered" the key and received it one hour after release.
There was a thread on it last year, someone contacted EA support about it and they confirmed they wouldn't ban an account for using these sites
There's been quite a few topics on it, other than this EA staff just give a warning that you may have packs disabled if they are dodgy. You won't get banned for them but you could risk losing the pack and EA will not provide any support if this happens so it's up to the retailer.
I suppose that is why Maxis is introducing those pre-order bonus items again. It's all very well on one computer but you may have problems later. I did when I tried a couple of free "unlocked" items on another website for Sims 3. When reinstalling I couldn't remember which I had bought and which I hadn't and the game wouldn't load store stuff at all. Now I just use Origin.
When Sims 4 came out it apparently was triggered to misbehave after a short time if the game was pirated but that didn't seem to last!
That does sound like a ban. Or the phrasing is really unfortunate because to me it sounds like its contradicting the conversation above it.
Sort of, they are listing retailers on that EA Help site that EA_Leeloo linked.
I don't know if they ban you... I'm pretty sure they mean with their statement that you can't contact Origin support and get help with a product that doesn't work that you have not bought from a retailer that they work with. Some people have claimed that they have gotten banned so that's why I mentioned it.
To be honest I think those people got banned for different reasons.
They're referring to the item that was disabled, so if a pack is disabled you won't be able to play with that pack. I've had a pack disabled once in the past, the rest of my game was still fully there it was just that pack that vanished
Trustpilot is a good place to check which key sites have a good reputation.