Direct2Play - legit?

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Gigantism

Gawd
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Mar 3, 2008
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A few people have mentioned this site, and from what I could see every game is basically around 10-25% cheaper (brand new AAA titles) and even more discounted for smaller games or older games.
They provide CD keys for Steam, Origin, Uplay, etc…

There has to be some kind of catch, or is this is the best kept secret in the industry?

Thank you for sharing your experience(s) with this website.
 
Never used it myself, but from what's been said, it's legit but they use keys from other countries that are cheaper which may or may not have issues because of basically being in a different region and such.
 
pothb said:
Never used it myself, but from what's been said, it's legit but they use keys from other countries that are cheaper which may or may not have issues because of basically being in a different region and such.
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That's what I heard too. However, when looking at a game on the site, it specifies whether it is region locked or not.

I don't know if I can trust them lol... hard to find genuine impressions of this site online...
 
[strike=...]Direct2Play is now owned by GameFly. D2P no longer exists on its own.[/s]
 
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CrimsonKnight13 said:
Direct2Play is now owned by GameFly. D2P no longer exists on its own.
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Incorrect. You're thinking of Direct2Drive which did get bought up by GF awhile back. Which pissed me off because all the games I bought from them GF doesn't have :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Direct2Play is not legit. This is one of those sites considered gray area/borderline illegal (depending on the country) who obtain their keys through "alternative" channels.
 
Bought several game with them, always work. They get keys from other countries witch is cheaper. That's why I only be world wide unlocked games there otherwise you have to go through a vpn. Sometimes they resell bundle keys..
 
Gray market. I bought CoH 2 from them a while back, and they sent me a picture of the CD-key. Activated on Steam just fine, and still works, but it feels awfully shady.
 
It's not really shady. If anything, the fact that companies are selling the games at different prices in different countries is shady. Alot of people don't know that a game that sells for $60 here might be $5-$15 in Russia. You are buying legitimate keys.

A lot of publishers know that $60 for an AAA game in a country like Russia, which has heavy piracy and low per-capita income, just wont fly. So they sell it for what they think people will buy it for over there and elsewhere, which often turns out to be lower than what they sell for in NA. Note that most of these keys are for "international" versions of the game. You have to realize that the average household income might be around 40k here, it's going to be 1/4 of that in a place like Russia.

I've used sites like this a few times for older games and they've always been fine.
 
_PixelNinja said:
Direct2Play is not legit. This is one of those sites considered gray area/borderline illegal (depending on the country) who obtain their keys through "alternative" channels.
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Incorrect.. Retail keys sold online is not illegal.
 
Looks like I was thinking of Direct2Drive... Talk about a bit of confusion.

D2P is definitely a grey market site since it's not officially sanctioned by Steam, Origin, Uplay or any other digital distributor out there.
 
_PixelNinja said:
Direct2Play is not legit. This is one of those sites considered gray area/borderline illegal (depending on the country) who obtain their keys through "alternative" channels.
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So what you are saying is that someone who sells me a key they bought in their country at half the price of what we pay for the game in the US is shady and borderline illegal?

First of all, there is no borderline illegal, either it's legal or it is not.

Second, welcome to the global economy. About time we in the 1st world stop getting punished for being rich.

Also, get a clue.
 
^

It's borderline illegal because it violates the EULA DD services have, of course it's ultimately up to the courts to determine whether those terms are legally enforceable and to my knowledge that hasn't been challenged in a court case yet. The term "grey market site" is a reference to the fact that these sites operate in a legal grey area.

It's also not about punishing people in rich countries as much as it's about offering their product in poorer counties at a price that most people can afford(it's one of the few ways that publishers actually use a carrot instead of a stick to deter piracy). Personally I don't think that many games are worth full price these days but I simply wait for games to come down to a price I'm willing to pay, it usually doesn't take long for prices to drop and games are often less buggy by the time I play them.

Another reason game key sites are considered shady is that many of them sell stolen keys or keys that have been bought with stolen credit cards which is 100% illegal.
 
Steam has authorised resellers, and these guys certainly aren't among them.

That said, you don't really have much to worry about. No idea what the law has to say about this - in the dozens of discussions I've seen about this, I have yet to see someone back up a claim one way or the other - but they're sure as hell not going to bother prosecuting a buyer over a $30 purchase. Worst-case scenario is Steam revoking your game, but it's almost unheard of; the keys come from legitimate retail boxes, and these keystores (at least the reputable ones) acquire them all legally, so there's no way to be sure that you didn't just buy it off the shelf yourself.

Even if something does go wrong with your key, most of them will be happy enough to replace it. They're well aware of how shady they look, so they value their reputation pretty highly.

Anyway, don't take my word for it, read some reviews:
http://www.trustpilot.com/categories/gaming
http://www.trustpilot.com/categories/video_games
 
Dion said:
Incorrect.. Retail keys sold online is not illegal.
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In some countries, re-selling a purchased game key as these sites do is actually considered illegal. Hence the part between parenthesis.

Thuleman said:
So what you are saying is that someone who sells me a key they bought in their country at half the price of what we pay for the game in the US is shady and borderline illegal?

First of all, there is no borderline illegal, either it's legal or it is not.

Second, welcome to the global economy. About time we in the 1st world stop getting punished for being rich.

Also, get a clue.
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Here's a clue for you:

As the post following yours has stated, many of this sites obtain their keys via shady practices, some even via credit card fraud. There has been a big discussion about this over on NeoGAF, involving authorized Steam partners providing proof to NeoGAF staff that some of the keys were actually theirs; they had been stolen then resold on these websites. This has lead to key resellers (not to confuse with authorized Steam/Origin sellers) being banned on many forums.

You might also want to know that purchasing on these websites is partially what encourages publishers to enforce region locking on their games.

However, if you guys want to save money, support developers and have global economy going your way, instead of supporting these shady businesses you could go to sites such as Nuuvem.com.br which is an authorized partner and has good prices on games, or even better... *GASP* learn to be patient and wait for the sales.
 
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Azureth said:
Incorrect. You're thinking of Direct2Drive which did get bought up by GF awhile back. Which pissed me off because all the games I bought from them GF doesn't have :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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All the games I bought maybe 10 plus from direct2drive transferred over perfectly to gamefly in my account.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
It's not illegal to violate a contract. And if anyone's in the wrong here, it's the seller; the EULA is between the publisher and the end user.
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While IANAL and the only law classes I've taken had nothing to do with contract law but my understanding is that violating a legally enforceable contract is in itself a violation of civil law, the only question is whether those terms are enforceable which is why it's borderline illegal. This is again ignoring the criminal statutes that might apply if the keys are stolen. I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the second part but if we're talking about a key for a DD service then their TOS would certainly apply.

I don't expect steam or a publishers to ever sue someone for buying a grey market key but IMO these sites are shady and if someone gets a game removed from their library due to this it's their own fault.
 
Ebernanut said:
I don't expect steam or a publishers to ever sue someone for buying a grey market key but IMO these sites are shady and if someone gets a game removed from their library due to this it's their own fault.
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I know the pains of having Skyrim removed from my game library due to a grey market key. I need to repurchase it from a legit source one day... :(
 
Ebernanut said:
While IANAL and the only law classes I've taken had nothing to do with contract law but my understanding is that violating a legally enforceable contract is in itself a violation of civil law, the only question is whether those terms are enforceable which is why it's borderline illegal.
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My understanding is that, while violating a contract leaves you open to litigation, it is not in itself illegal. In other words, the law doesn't say that you must honour a contract, only that if you don't, then you are liable for any resulting damages. So it's well within your rights to violate any contract, as long as you're willing to pay up.

(But having taken approximately zero law classes, I'm even less of a lawyer than you, so I may be way off on this...)

Ebernanut said:
I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the second part but if we're talking about a key for a DD service then their TOS would certainly apply
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All I was saying is that the keystores seem like the ones in the legal grey area here, and it's nothing to do with the End User Licence Agreement, because they're not end users.

Ebernanut said:
IMO these sites are shady and if someone gets a game removed from their library due to this it's their own fault.
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Absolutely. But for some of us, it's still worth the risk. I have no DD alternatives for an uncensored copy of L4D2 (my one and only keystore purchase). And if COD was my thing, I'd be looking at $90 for a copy of MW2 on Steam; it's hard to feel bad about exploiting their regional pricing policies when they're trying to fuck you with their regional pricing policies.
 
The terms I was referring to are the ones you agree to when you use a DD service like Steam. I believe they all have terms that prohibit circumventing region restrictions and limiting you to authorized sellers.

It sounds like you live in Australia or some or other place with insane pricing and censorship which really isn't what I was commenting on, that situation is a little more understandable(I bought a UK version of the first Witcher game to avoid some minor censorship).

Edit: I also agree that the key sellers are much more in a legal grey area than the buyers are.
 
Ebernanut said:
^

It's borderline illegal because it violates the EULA DD services have
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^^^ clueless person detected. EULAs != laws, you should know that.

I wish had Russian prices. 50-60 euro vs 5-10 feels bad.
 
dgz said:
^^^ clueless person detected. EULAs != laws, you should know that.

I wish had Russian prices. 50-60 euro vs 5-10 feels bad.
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I do know that, you cut off the part where I said that it's ultimately up to the courts to decide whether a contract complies with laws and thus whether it's legally enforceable. There is tons of stuff thrown into EULAs that isn't enforceable but I'm not sure that this is one of those which makes it borderline illegal or more accurately puts it in a legal grey area. The fraud that many of the key sites are involved in also makes me think that description is fitting as well.
 
Ebernanut said:
I do know that, you cut off the part where I said that it's ultimately up to the courts to decide whether a contract complies with laws and thus whether it's legally enforceable. There is tons of stuff thrown into EULAs that isn't enforceable but I'm not sure that this is one of those which makes it borderline illegal or more accurately puts it in a legal grey area. The fraud that many of the key sites are involved in also makes me think that description is fitting as well.
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I didn't quote the stuff about the courts as it didn't make sense to me. You want courts to decide whether individual purchases of games are legal or not?

It's the companies who are committing fraud by selling virtually the same items at different prices.

Besides, these are mostly bundle keys (never settle, etc).
 
The courts are the ones that decide if a contract is legal if it's disputed, if a contract is agreed to by both parties and hasn't been disputed in court it's considered valid.

I fail to see how regional pricing is fraud when nothing is misrepresented, those that live somewhere that games cost more than in the US probably have a legitimate complaint but it still doesn't amount to fraud.

I'm also not aware of grey market sites selling bundle keys, I'm sure it happens but the ones I've seen are usually just selling a couple of the latest AAA titles.

Although I was the one that really got the debate going of legal vs illegal vs borderline illegal I'll admit that it's mostly a pointless debate over semantics. I think that these sites are shady and I think it's wrong to buy from them but it's also not some major crime or anything. Like I said in a previous post I think the reason it bothers me is that selling games for cheap in poorer countries is about the only positive way that publishers have tried to prevent piracy, I find regional pricing much more preferable than crippling DRM. If too many people try to take advantage of the situation then publishers are likely to drop this tactic and focus more on negative anti-piracy tactics, it could also make them realize that they could make more money on some games by dropping the price and selling to more people but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
 
Ebernanut said:
If too many people try to take advantage of the situation then publishers are likely to drop this tactic and focus more on negative anti-piracy tactics.
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Some of them already do (or have tried*) via region locked games. To the best of my knowledge, region locking occurs in one of two instances — the game has some region specific censorship, such as what often happens in Germany, or they are trying to circumvent people purchasing the game from grey markets.

*Square Enix tried to region lock Deus Ex: Human Revolution but it backfired on them since they announced the policy close to the release date and people had already prepurchased their copies from other regions. Square Enix consequently gave in to the online backlash, removing the lock at the last minute. The reason I remember this instance is because of the all discussions going on with people being worried if it would be signs of things to come; wondering if other publishers would start to enforce the same kind of DRM en masse.
 
_PixelNinja said:
In some countries, re-selling a purchased game key as these sites do is actually considered illegal. Hence the part between parenthesis.
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Why don't you go ahead and produce an actual reference to the particular country and law you are talking about. That way we can all be on the same page.

_PixelNinja said:
You might also want to know that purchasing on these websites is partially what encourages publishers to enforce region locking on their games.
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Publishers that region lock can go and fuck themselves as any 2-year old can google a solution to the problem when they cannot access the game they bought anymore just because their parents moved (or were deployed).
 
Thuleman said:
Why don't you go ahead and produce an actual reference to the particular country and law you are talking about. That way we can all be on the same page.
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It is illegal under French law for instance. This article is from 2009 but is still valid to this day:

Le Maître des (CD) clés (French)

Precisely articles L.122-3-1, L.323-1 and L.331-5 from the Code of Intellectual Property.

Thuleman said:
Publishers that region lock can go and fuck themselves as any 2-year old can google a solution to the problem when they cannot access the game they bought anymore just because their parents moved (or were deployed).
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That is irrelevant. The point is buying from shady key resellers contributes to publishers enforcing such DRM in the first place.

While I am at it, the thread from NeoGAF : Region-exploiting CD key reseller websites banned
 
US courts have upheld prevention of software license resale based on an EULA style contract.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_v._Autodesk,_Inc.
 
_PixelNinja said:
It is illegal under French law for instance. This article is from 2009 but is still valid to this day:

Le Maître des (CD) clés (French)

Precisely articles L.122-3-1, L.323-1 and L.331-5 from the Code of Intellectual Property.
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So what you are saying is that the interpretation of a French law by a guy who generates click bait on a web page is your evidence of a legal basis. It's almost convincing....

_PixelNinja said:
That is irrelevant. The point is buying from shady key resellers contributes to publishers enforcing such DRM in the first place.
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You can keep calling them shady all you want, that doesn't make it so. There's nothing shady about businesses that run on price differences in a global economy. I can buy almost any physical product for less directly from the country of origin than it costs me to buy it in the store. CD-Keys are no different.

Mozex said:
US courts have upheld prevention of software license resale based on an EULA style contract.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_v._Autodesk,_Inc.
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Hopefully it's obvious how the Autodesk case is completely different, if for no other reason than that US jurisdiction doesn't apply to non-US businesses operating outside of the US.
 
Thuleman said:
So what you are saying is that the interpretation of a French law by a guy who generates click bait on a web page is your evidence of a legal basis. It's almost convincing....
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Actually no; that is what you are saying.

The law articles are explicit enough and the journalist in question is doing his job — investigating and informing the consumer following up on the Blood Bowl incident that occurred the same year, in which entire batches of activation keys were revoked by Valve because they were unauthorized keys sold by key resellers.

Thuleman said:
You can keep calling them shady all you want, that doesn't make it so. There's nothing shady about businesses that run on price differences in a global economy. I can buy almost any physical product for less directly from the country of origin than it costs me to buy it in the store. CD-Keys are no different.
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Have you actually read anything I've written so far? Because I'd like to make one thing clear here: I totally agree with you that global economy should work both ways. However, that is not at all what I am debating, nor what is going on with key resellers. Since you seem to have ignored this so far I will write it again — key resellers are shady because many sources point to them obtaining their keys through dubious methods, i.e. stealing keys and/or via credit card fraud. I have already posted how Unknownworlds Entertainment have been victim of this, following up with the thread on NeoGAF addressing this matter. Ebernanut has also brought up some interesting points that you have equally chosen to ignore.

Furthermore, I have even directed you to an authorized Steam/Ubisoft/Origin partner in the name of Nuuvem.com.br by which you can benefit from regional pricing, while at the same time being sure you are still supporting the developers. You know, a win/win situation.

All you have contributed to the discussion so far is trying to justify your purchases through these dealers because "fuck the system" and implying any information I have provided to be nonsense just because it does not comply to your ignorant view on the matter.

If one wants to buy games through such mediums, fine, but know what you are getting into, know the risks implied and more importantly don't go around touting such outlets being legit when clearly they are not. And no, just because one of the six activation keys they sent you worked does not make them legit.
 
Thuleman said:
Hopefully it's obvious how the Autodesk case is completely different, if for no other reason than that US jurisdiction doesn't apply to non-US businesses operating outside of the US.
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While the business is non-US they are selling directly to US citizens. Being located outside the US does not give them unlimited freedom in dealing with US citizens.
 
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