Steam gives out batches of keys directly to publishers and developers who can then sell them to you. Key resellers, like G2A and Kinguin, are a bit different in that they operate almost like a flea market. If it is found that the key you bought was obtained illegally, a chargeback on a stolen card could lead to your key being revoked and the developer taking a financial hit. The important thing to note here is the difference between a retailer and a reseller.
The former, such as Fanatical , gets their keys directly from publishers, so there is usually no question that they are legitimate. A reseller works with third-party keyholders and often has limited ability to determine where the keys come from. Their claim to fame is that everything on their storefront is DRM-free. Most also include PDFs of the original manuals and box art, and often the original soundtrack in a DRM-free file format, which can be even harder to find than the games themselves.
Like Steam, GOG takes a 30 percent cut on sales of games not made by one of its studios. It rose to cult acclaim as a place where underground devs could post their small, experimental projects free or very cheap in a place where players looking for something new and weird could stumble upon them.
Many are free or available with a 'name your own price' download, and the developer can decide what percentage of sales goes to Itch. More recently, Itch. Humble is a storefront owned by IGN Entertainment where the author of this article sometimes writes on a freelance basis , but grew out of the Humble Bundle, a rotating grab bag of games that can be purchased together for a discounted price.
Purchasers of these bundles can also customize how much of their money goes to the developers, how much goes to Humble, and how much is donated to a few selected charities. The difference here is that 10 percent of the sale is always donated to charity, while Humble takes 15 percent. This leaves 75 percent for the developer, which is slightly more than if you bought from Steam directly. However, many flagship franchises are only available by going through them. EA is particularly fond of this approach.
Ubisoft takes a bit of a different approach—many of its games are available for purchase on Steam or through a Steam key but require you to log into a uPlay account simultaneously to run them, which can be a bit of a hassle. There is no separate share that goes to the storefront in these cases, since the publisher and the storefront are the same company. The Microsoft Store, which comes installed with Windows, is where you have to go to buy Microsoft-published games, unfortunately—it's by far the worst-designed store of the lot.
But where's the best place to buy PC games? Long-time PC gamers know that there's more to it than just signing up for a Steam account. Steam is ubiquitous and monolithic, but has disadvantages. There's much more to come, and it's all being made possible by Razer , which stepped up to support this months-long project. Thanks, Razer! Steam is the big dog around town. These typically feature a huge number of games on deep discounts, including new releases.
They also have a year-round rotating selection of weekly, daily, and weekend deals on a smaller number of games. What are the drawbacks? Well, Steam uses an in-house DRM that forces you to launch a game in online mode before you can play it offline, and allows third-party DRM from publishers who sell their games on Steam that may require an always-on connection.
Steam also takes a 30 percent cut of all sales. Every game you buy on Steam has an associated, one-time-use key that unlocks it for play. Steam gives out batches of keys directly to publishers and developers who can then sell them to you. Key resellers, like G2A and Kinguin, are a bit different in that they operate almost like a flea market.
If it is found that the key you bought was obtained illegally, a chargeback on a stolen card could lead to your key being revoked and the developer taking a financial hit. The important thing to note here is the difference between a retailer and a reseller. The former, such as Fanatical , gets their keys directly from publishers, so there is usually no question that they are legitimate. A reseller works with third-party keyholders and often has limited ability to determine where the keys come from.
Their claim to fame is that everything on their storefront is DRM-free. Most also include PDFs of the original manuals and box art, and often the original soundtrack in a DRM-free file format, which can be even harder to find than the games themselves.
Like Steam, GOG takes a 30 percent cut on sales of games not made by one of its studios.
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