Avoid GameKeyStore.com!

[InternalStorm]

To be honest, ipwnu or w/e his name is is Brandon. He set up the forums for me and maintains the forums in a technical fashion. He does not run the website in any way and has no records to e-mails/orders/or anything other than the forum admin panel. He has nothing to do with the operation, and I don't really care what his name is :p

My forum username is Internal_Storm.

[InternalStorm]

Website is open once again. Some big changes, you can read them over in Site News in the GKS Forums, I won't post a link here I don't want to break any NeoWin rules. Just to inform anyone interested ;)

[_Dom_]

i notice the site is now down?

[jas8522]

Yeah my buddy was hoping to buy another BF2 cd key yesterday... ended up buying the boxed game though because he wanted to play right away. However I think he still wishes to purchase a CS:S key, so hopefully GKS will be back up shortly!

Just for the record, for those who have not actually purchased a key from GKS, so far I have purchased three keys, two for CS:S, and one for BF2. I am still playing both games, and my buddy is still playing CS:S with his key as well. These are not fraudulent keys, and even the ones that people were saying were fraudulent were simply cancelled by the manufacturer as they had discovered the keys to be resold. That's a completely isolated situation that should not be mixed in with the rest.

The only thing I wish were better about GKS is that Josh could fulfill the orders sooner! I hope that comes accross as more of a compliment than anything else, because it's certainly not meant to be a complaint!

Think about how this works people. There's games for sale that are purchased in other currencies where the exchange makes them much cheaper. (This isn't unusual... people make tons of money from foreign currency exchange gambling, why not use the same thing to sell game keys?) They are shipped to Josh, where he catalogues the keys and sells them for a small profit. The keys are usually less than 50% of the cost of the game, so for those who were asking why anyone would do this when they could spend $10 more and get the full game, the keys are actually MUCH cheaper.

To further that explanation, these keys all work for ONLINE play... hell why would I want a BF2 or CS:S key that didn't work online? It'd be completely useless! If anyone has actually tried to use a keygen before to generate a working online key for any game published within the last 5 years will know that it's highly improbable that you will get a working online key from a keygenerator, even if you were to continue generating keys for your entire lifetime.

If I'm not mistaken, those people that got keys that did not work properly were able to contact Josh and get a refund or a working key! I think the only people that wound up posting about getting a bad key were those who didn't get an instant reply from him. Why is instant replies such a big thing? For those of you with the usual 1and1 or other popular web hosting companies, have you ever tried to email your web host? Last time I did with one of those companies it took a week to get a response! Absolutely unacceptable when you're paying for a service that hosts your business website! But when it comes to buying a game key? Who the hell cares how long it takes to get a response, as long as you eventually get everything sorted out.

I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of everyone who has purchased cd keys from GKS when I say that I would like to thank Josh, and everyone that was working with him to create GKS, for the time he's put in to this.

Jordan

[gshapiro]

So some keys were "cancelled by the manufacturer as they had discovered the keys to be resold."

Evidently the manufacturers do not think this is legal. If it was legal why would they bother to cancel resold keys in the first place?

I'm not saying the keys won't work. I am saying that providing CD keys in this manner is not as legal as you might think. But if you see nothing wrong in sharing copyrighted material with your buddies then you are not going to see a problem with this.

Caveat Emptor.

[Starcom826]

So some keys were "cancelled by the manufacturer as they had discovered the keys to be resold."

Evidently the manufacturers do not think this is legal.  If it was legal why would they bother to cancel resold keys in the first place? 

I'm not saying the keys won't work.  I am saying that providing CD keys in this manner is not as legal as you might think.  But if you see nothing wrong in sharing copyrighted material with your buddies then you are not going to see a problem with this.

Caveat Emptor.

586813778[/snapback]

It isn't illegal. It's absolutely fine. Companies don't like it because they feel they should get full price for the new player, and they have the (undeserved) power to ban indiscriminantly. But it is entirely legal to resell a product you own.

[jas8522]

To further my point, and maybe clear that statement up, I could be wrong about some of what I was saying, I was simply repeating what I had read about GKS from other threads on Neowin and from other web sites.

The part about reselling used keys, is different from selling keys. If you buy a game, open it up, but don't install it, then decide to sell it, do you think you should be able to sell it? I do... if i paid for a game, I want to be able to sell it for whatever price I can get for it.

These days when you're buying a game, you're really just buying the key for the game, not the CD or DVD. The key is what allows you to play the game. Take CS:S for example - you can buy just the key from the manufacturer, why not someone else?

This holds true for Windows XP as well - those customers that have XP OEM licences stuck to their case or laptop are entitled to have XP installed on their machine - no matter if the CD is a burned OEM cd or a legit CD with the full hologram galore. They cannot use Windows XP (for longer than 30? days) without activating it with the licenced key.

And regarding the keys being cancelled by the manufacturer, they were sold as pre-used keys, they were not advertised as brand new keys like I was talking about above, they were advertised as being pre-used. This is up for debate, as the manufacturers don't want people to be able to sell their accounts so that they can reap the profits of both of those customers, rather than just the seller. This is not illegal, but it may be against the terms of use of some games, which is why it was advertised as being pre-used, AND why a full refund was given if the key was not to work.

I was hoping to add this as an edit so as not to resurface this thread, but I could not do so.

Jordan

[JAbad28]

I actually recommend it, I don't know what happened lately... I was actually the first member in GameKeyStore.com and the first one to actually buy a key from there (CS:1.6), it was a great service, I don't know what happened now.

[Sil9]

I hope they haven't shut down permanently, their heatware page is still up tho! http://heatware.com/eval.php?id=36719

[Hottoast]

I dont feel sorry for you.

Sorry for being rude, but your an idiot, along with anyone else who has bought from this site.

You should not get your money back, and maybe that will teach to buy only from trusted sites, and to use a little common sense.

:rolleyes:

Sorry for being such an A-Hole, but thats my 2 cents.

...buying Game Keys online........ :no: