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 Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 14:08 Post subject: www.gamekeystore.com |
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I recently stumpled over this site (http://www.gamekeystore.com/). This is a shop, which does not sell games, but it sells valid CD-Keys for new games. You pay less than 50% off the retail price but you only get a CD-Key per e-Mail. I wonder if anyone has used this offer or a similar one and if it is any good.
I mean, how can they do it? Do the publishers really sell CD-Keys? Or does this shop have to buy original copies of the game and then just sell its CD-Key. They couldn't make any profit if it was like this. I'm just asking, because this looks like an interesting, yet nonserious offer.
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 14:26 Post subject: |
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GameKeyStore.com sells genuine retail game CD Keys for use with ones legally owned game media. We guarantee that each CD Key purchased is 100% unique and from a retail box, and will work with online enabled games. The main purpose for all products sold on GameKeyStore.com is to benefit those who have lost their retail CD Key for games already owned by them, not as a means to pirate or illegally obtain the game media. All CD-Keys sold at GameKeyStore.com should be used along with a purchased copy of the game's CD's or DVD's. Any customer of GameKeyStore.com who obtains illegal and pirated software are respobsible for their own actions, as this does not in any way reflect GameKeyStore.com.
.. they only have 30 games titles.. but DOOM3 is $9.95. If you think about it.. someone gets a few extra bucks lost to piracy. If you can't beat them.. join them.
Might check it out sometime.
TVSharker
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 14:49 Post subject: |
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so you can buy a cd key and say that you have lost your original copy of the game when the police is staying in front of your door.
Would be legal isn't it?
FakeBitchKillah.inc:
iam really looking forward to the time that the games look REAL cause u dont have update your pc than.................. cause it cant look more real than real !
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 14:50 Post subject: |
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i bought a key for half-life 2 and it works perfectly
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poullou
Posts: 1746
Location: Internet Express
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 15:00 Post subject: |
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Why sell a Half-life 2 cd key cheaper when the procedure is the same: download from steam and activate.
I think its for those that want to keep extra copies for lan games or whatever. 10-15% off is not a wow bargain deal...
Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς - Μολὼν λαβέ
Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 16:24 Post subject: |
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| Cra$h wrote: | | lol cs 1.6 for 17$ when the original half life costs 2$ in the store. |
Yeah, that's pretty damn retarded. And you can get CS:CZ with CS for 15 bucks on Steam.
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 16:28 Post subject: |
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These guys totally got to their local Wal-Mart and tear off the CD-Key sticker on the inside of the box.
Lame.
dyn IP addys, subnet & mac spoofs, email routing, and if all else fails, wi-fi. banned? lol, its more like brb. =p
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 17:53 Post subject: |
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Who cares how they get them? I think this is pretty useful.
Im a cockfag
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 18:14 Post subject: |
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| dryan wrote: | | Who cares how they get them? I think this is pretty useful. |
Well, does that make it kind of like, well, stealing?
Aw. I forgot I'm at a sodding warez-website xD
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 18:28 Post subject: |
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hmmmm i wouldn't advise many people to buy steam keys from there due to the fact if they're mass sold Steam might stop it. However it's alright and would be useful for some games... o btw u get get cs 1.6 keys for about £5 from www.csbanana.com dunno if they still do em though
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 18:41 Post subject: |
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Well, it doesnt sell the majority of game keys. Theres shitloads of games not up including Swat 4. Yea, Swat 4 you dont need anyway because theres shitloads of cracked servers.
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whackazog
Posts: 194
Location: Coming straight out of Martha Sterwarts Ass
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| Posted: Thu, 28th Apr 2005 20:41 Post subject: |
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They dont have guild wars.
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 00:35 Post subject: |
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wtf SCCT=19.95$ i can buy new one in box with dvd for 25$,19.95 cd-key & dvd with sf3 for 5.05 lol
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Co[s]mo
Posts: 191
Location: eeehhhh......right here
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 11:20 Post subject: |
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| n00bCentral wrote: | These guys totally got to their local Wal-Mart and tear off the CD-Key sticker on the inside of the box.
Lame. |
Um, noob, you're giving them far too much credibility.
To steal a large amount of keys, they'd need a large network of teenagers working large quantities of retail stores... pretty complex operation.
I think it's more like this:
Step 1. They buy a shitload of keys off ebay (or some underground place). I mean thousands (tens to hundreds per game). These are generally from yet-unsold copies, usually leeched somewhere off a computer during production. Repeat for a few dozen popular games, profit.
Look at it this way:
The retail copies of any given game (say HL2) are probably only 75-90% of all valid CD keys. The rest are reserved for press, unsold, or OEMd... really simple:
Valve sends 100,000 valid HL2 CD keys to the outlet responsible for printing the stickers.
100,000 stickers are printed and sent to factories. Stickers are grouped into 3 boxes:
Immediate release: 20,000
Stock: 60,000
Reserve: 20,000
That way if stores' stocks suddenly drain, there are a few units left in reserve. Nobody will notice if 5,000-10,000 of these go missing, right?
Alt way: I'm pretty certain that even if reserves run out, Valve (or even that same printing company) has a few thousand (another 50k?) active, validated keys on file, ready to print on notice. Who will notice 10,000 of these keys being "borrowed"?
The keys are then dumped on CD en masse and sold for $0.10-1 per key. If there are 10,000 keys available, the compilers/retailers of the keys will pay the distributors maybe $1-7.5k for the compilation. That's 7.5k for plugging a stick into the USB drive and hitting "copy". I'm sure that there are people who would readily do this.
From there, it's pretty obvious:
- Chinese outlet (they have no laws there, anyway) pays above mentioned unscrupulous employee 7.5k for 10,000. Splits 10,000 up into packs of 500. Then adds 500 more of another popular game, and another, mix with unpopular games, repeat until you have 5000 or so keys on a disc. Sell that disc for $4-8 thousand on chinese black market.
The CD(s) are bought by startups running 5-6 of these sites simultaneously from high-sec chinese bulletproofs. In a month, they prolly sell about 1-10k of these from the 5 sites combined, at an avg of $15 each, so that's $15k-$150k average yield a month, with maybe $1-10k overhead on the keys and another $5k overhead on servers. Pretty good profit for server maintenance if you ask me.
Then again I'm taking all this out of my ass, so you might as well hold the FBI/RIAA/Michael Jackson lapdogs off.
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 17:34 Post subject: |
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Very imaginative, but it sounds a bit too illegal. I mean would they really make such an obvious internet outlet, if the key the sold were illegally obtained anyway? My guess is that there really is a legal market for those keys that the publishers serve, without having the public notice. Maybe because they think that they cant win against piracy so they at least hope to make at least a small profit from piracy. I mean this offer is directed to people, who own cracked games. If I had lost my originial key, I would simply send them an e-Mail and ask for a new one. They ask you about a serial number, which is engraved on the inner ring of your game's CD and then you get a new key (at least thats what I experienced).
When they got BF2 or Guild Wars for a reasonable price, I might check it out.
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 17:46 Post subject: |
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This site sure is illegal, i have found no info who is actually behind this site and there was no single address. And how should this business model work? They claim to get their keys from retail copies? So how do they make profit, the retail copy costs more than they sell the key for, and there is absolutly no sense behind this, if they bought the retail package why don't they sell the whole package and not only the key, to make a loss? Just because this site has a "website" and is promoting itself doesn't mean its legal. There has been a ftp server in germany who had a website for over a year and ppl could buy slots with their credit cards, and it took the cops over a year to bust the site.
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swebarb
Posts: 2154
Location: Vikingland
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 17:52 Post subject: |
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its not working 
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whackazog
Posts: 194
Location: Coming straight out of Martha Sterwarts Ass
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 21:07 Post subject: |
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Considering the low number of keys available I will assume they probably just buy large blocks of keys from the game makers just like the hardware people do at a discount cost and resale them on their website. Take for example the way AMD bought all those cd keys and gave them away to people buying AMD's series of 64 bit processors for Far Cry.
Hardware companye's have been buying these discounted copies for a long time though usually it is older games that have stopped selling well to begin with such as I am sure Doom 3 has.
Crios
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Apr 2005 21:07 Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
There has been a ftp server in germany who had a website for over a year and ppl could buy slots with their credit cards, and it took the cops over a year to bust the site. |
I suppose to get their CC information? Theres still quite a bit of sites out there that do charge ya money for leech slots. But IMO its no diff than actually supplying hardware to the site in exchange for the slots. Especially if you pay for that hardware yourself.
Theres also alot of scams out there pubicly for bullshit sites.
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| Posted: Sat, 30th Apr 2005 07:32 Post subject: |
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I bought a BFV key from them on ebay and the key was already in use. They sent me a different key and it worked great. Also said that my previous key would be disabled??? So do these guys have access to authentication servers or what??
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whackazog
Posts: 194
Location: Coming straight out of Martha Sterwarts Ass
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| Posted: Sat, 30th Apr 2005 19:17 Post subject: |
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Most likely the hosting company got a complaint and pulled the plug. They need to find a hosting company in the netherlands.
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