I have no intention to fuck over developers however when the PUBLISHER decides I have to pay £52 for Call of Duty: Black Ops when it's £39.99 in the UK then yes it's my right as a consumer to find the cheapest price and it's not Steam.

While there's a chance that it might not be fake and it might well be legal, buying CD Keys from some random site on the net does not fill me with confidence. I'll just grab it from Steam.

I disagree, the market has pretty well determined $60 to be too much for games. Nobody notices because people do shell out the $60, it's just that a significant number then sell them used to recoup their costs.

Now, with boxed versions requiring Steam, I'm having a really hard time coming up with any reason why I should care about a bunch of babies that can't handle a bit of competition. It gets old in the US knowing that I have to pay more money for things like Windows so that MS can sell at cut rate prices in parts of the world that have less respect for the publisher.

Kind of makes me wonder, wonder a great deal, as to why bother supporting them when they use it as an excuse to dick over the consumer.

Not got time to read the whole thread, but, if you're thinking of buying one of these keys, I'd advise you not to.

This is a Steamworks title and it's likely that one of two things could happen:

1 - The keys will be from Thailand or a similar location, in which case the keys will only activate in that region. Further, the game will also only be playable in that region. This is because Valve severely IP restrict access to such cheap versions of the games. It also means unless you're prepared to use a corresponding VPN every time you want to play the game, you won't be able to play it.

2 - Valve will simply revoke all the keys as they did with MW2 forcing you to rebuy the game.

If you really want the game for cheap, then just wait. Buy it in a sale a few months down the line either from retail or from an actual DD site.

Alternately, if you use GamersGate and have a bunch of blue coins, use those to discount the price.

Funny guy you are. Complaining about competition? There's D2D, Gamergate, GMG, Amazon, Impulse, GetGames, Gamestop and a ton of brick and mortar stores.

Why are so so quick to allow to defend them when they are either buying games that they cannot resell out of region, stole the games, or even if they bought copies at wholesale like a brick and mortar store, forget breaching the EULA, but they breach the damn contract agreement they sign in order to be allowed to resell the games.

There's plenty enouhg competition as it is as it pertains to buying games even steamworks ones.

Yeah, publishers are known to hold huge yard sales with cd keys well before release of their hottest new title /facepalm

The fact is, this business is illegal, because there is no way they could have gotten the keys in a legit manner and be able to sell them at such a low price with a profit.

They couldn't have bought the game legit in the US / EU / UK, because the price there is significantly higher than $28.49.

If they've somehow gotten their hands on copies that are flagged for return, destruction or otherwise not meant for distribution, then distributing those copies is illegal.

If they've bought copies in a country where the exchange rate is so favorable that they can underprice the western market, then that's illegal because they do not have import rights.

If they're just screwing you off with fake or limited number of keys then that's illegal - fraud.

Doesn't matter which way you way it, this business is illegal, likeness to piracy, and you should know better than fronting it on a site like this.

That's not competition. They typically sell the products for the same price and in some cases use the same DRM. And if the DRM isn't the same product, the restrictions are.

You keep using the word competition, I do not think it means what you think it means. I think the word you're looking for is "oligopoly."
Unless you've got some sort of citation or actual evidence, you really ought to stifle it. You assume that there's no way that they could do it, but I don't see any actual evidence that they can't do so legally.

All I see in your post is slander.

Have you tried those keys yourself? Because something tells me they will be like the Mafia 2 retail keys: IP locked to the US, meaning that they will only work for people in the US. Everyone else will be given a message stating that the game cannot be activated in their region.

More like common sense.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Yeah activated on steam already, it says Duke Nukem Forever (INT) which means international and that's region free keys. I tried tested this keys in USA,UK,Germany,Russia and Poland

They work fine everywhere

Hey, I get DNF for 30€ by just pre-ordering from UK!

Now that feels good man.

Nah, they are region free.. they work everywhere.

It's not common sense and common sense doesn't even apply to this issue.

He made a factually deficient claim about the legality, failed to assert any actual laws or precedence and as such this isn't a matter of common sense.

I realize that there are a lot of apologists running around this thread apoplectic because ZOMG somebody's gaming the system that allows publishers to game the system, but give me a break.

Unless somebody has actual evidence that this is illegal or that the store owner is breaking the law, they really ought to just cram it. Because making such false statements is slander in some parts of the world and in the rest it's merely because of the additional motive requirement.

And it comes in a box. With a T-shirt if you get it from zavvi.