Modern Warfare 2: You will lose your game!

Of course it’s pity for these guys who lost their money, but seriously, it’s not like they wouldn’t expect it.

If it’s sold on Steam for 60 euros, and somewhere else, for 30 euros, for only a cdkey to activate on steam, it’s not obvious that there might be an issue?

These sites (onlinekeystore, g2play) are selling illegally their keys, using any possible mean to get cheap boxes or lower prices. But people find it normal, that they are able to buy a key for half the price.

Valve took the extreme measure, but it’s one of the only choices. To prevent people from buying there, they invalidate the keys.

Fact is, for such a problem, you should whine to your key provider, not to Steam. They are at the origin of the problem, so they should give you another key, a working one, no?

Simple fact for people complaining about regional/country pricing.

Prices are what they can be. There are people spending all their time thinking these prices, according to the region, the money people earn, the amount of money they are ready to spend for the games.

So yes, prices are not the same in different countries, leading to the 1€=1$ we all know. That annoys us mostly because we had it in the good direction. Let’s face it, we were able to buy games for cheaper than the “normal price”, we lost it, that’s why we complain.
Price of games is what it is, some think it is the correct price (most of, if it’s selling at this price), some think it’s too expensive, but this is another debate.

The problem here is that we consider the lowest price possible, from some country with lower income, as the “normal price”. But it’s not like this, this price was adapted, simply.

If you absolutely want global, international pricing, you would get the highest one, simply. Prices are adapted low for some countries, they are not adapted higher for “richer countries”. If there was only one price for all, it would be like 50 euros for most new pc games, as it is the highest possible currently. Finally, even Steam was like that a year ago, proposing only one price. We were glad because conversion was 1.6$ for 1€, but if it was the opposite, we would have been begging for this 1$=1€. Think about it.

These discussions about “illegal” shops like g2play or onlinekeystore are simply about that. They get their prices by cheating the regional system, that’s all. They get their games in the country where they can get them for the lowest price, and sell them for higher anyway.
Sites like play.com get their prices by cheating the taxes system. There are plenty other examples.

But these are not “normal prices”, that we would compare to “overpriced steam or else”. The real price is the regional one, the one matching (usually, I agree that some games are too expensive) to the people’s income. Keep that in mind.

@Dragoon, thank you for explaining me the bases of free market.

Besides this lesson, the important point I was making is “selling for the price people will buy”. Things are sold for the price people are ready to put. Or they wouldn’t sell, simply.

After, I have no doubt you are an expert in all this, thank you for taking the time to slap my answer. You are great and all this.

PS: I was curious why the icons rating were enabled for my own post, I clicked, and was surprised that indeed it voted for it. Glad you don’t “need” to do the same.

All the best.