When it comes to Steam games quite understandably everyone wants to get the best deal on their selected titles. Having purchased hundreds of games on Steam already, I know quite a few places you can get either the game keys themselves, or heads-up for the best deals available. Here is my top list of the very best websites you can use for both purposes. Enjoy!
Buying Games on Steam vs. Online Key Stores
The main difference between buying game keys in trusted online key stores and purchasing them directly on the Steam marketplace is the price, which is often lower with various third-party key resellers.
Still, there is also the question of in which case the developers of the game you purchase get the most of the money they deserve. This can vary depending on the key store you choose and on the way the keys were sourced by the sellers, however in general, when you’re buying your games from the official stores like the Steam marketplace, there is almost always a guarantee that most of the money you paid gets to the actual creators of the games.
Finally, it’s important to note that if you decide to use 3rd party key reseller’s sites, you should only ever purchase your games from the sites that are known to deliver and that have appropriate refund policies in place. If your key does not work, the key shop should be able to make a full refund of your purchase in a reasonable timeframe, most of the time being 24 hours after buying the key.
What to Look Out for When Using Online Game Key Stores
There is an ongoing, very much heated debate in various online communities, and it has to do with how legit an average game key store is, and is it wise to be purchasing your games exclusively from such places.
The answer is simpler than you might think, and it boils down to a few things:
- Do you want to ensure that the developers of the games you buy will always get a fair cut from your purchase? – As many game key stores reselling stores are simply a set of storefronts of different private key vendors, even with seller verification mechanisms at play, there might be some sellers that are distributing keys sourced using some rather grey-market methods. If you want the creators of the games and software you purchase to always get most of the money you pay for your games, it’s better you stick to the official game stores and marketplaces such as Steam.
- Does your chosen key shop actually deliver the keys you buy? – This might be quite obvious, as the key stores listed below all are proven to verify their key resellers and deliver their keys without any trouble, however if you decide to use some other site that’s not mentioned here, you might want to check their customers reviews first.
- How does the key store source its keys, and how do they verify their sellers? – This information is usually available either somewhere on the site of the chosen key shop, or when you attempt to go through the first part of the process to register a key-seller account on the site. Either way, a key reselling platform that can be trusted, should have a policy of manually verifying its sellers and making sure that their game keys are sourced either directly from the game developers, or from other legit sources. This way, you can be sure that you both won’t have any trouble with the purchased keys, and that the developers of the games have the chance to get their fair share in the process.
- What is the store’s key refund policy? – An ideal situation is when you can easily return purchase unclaimed game keys either if they don’t work as promised on the platform they were advertised to work on, or if you made a mistake, and have purchased the key for a wrong platform. Still, some of the 3rd party resellers have seller protection programs at play which don’t allow you to return the keys at all to avoid the situations in which people attempt to activate game keys which they have already returned, so that you cannot really dispute an unsuccessful purchase. Be mindful of your chosen store key refund policy, and use PayPal as the payment method if you can – then you can opt-in for a payment dispute in under 180 days, in case something goes wrong.
While there are quite a few areas in which online game key stores might be considered a grey market area, if you’re using a site with good reputation and good standing with the community, which sources the game keys either directly from the developers or from other legit sources and at the same time never fails to deliver the sold keys and has a good refund policy in case your key doesn’t work, you should be alright.
My 11 Best Sites for Steam Game Deals (Deal Aggregators & Key Shops)
With that said, let’s get to the list of 11 top sources for Steam game deals, all of which I’ve used and tested personally, and didn’t have any trouble with. This list opens with 4 Steam deal aggregators which you’re most likely interested in if for one reason or the other you want to avoid the game key stores altogether, and then follows through with 7 online key shops which I found to be useful for sourcing Steam keys for my private Steam account. Let’s get to it!
1. SteamDB
SteamDB is hands down the best site for listing out the most worthwhile deals from the Steam Marketplace, at least in my opinion. The site gives you access to neat tables listing the most recent discounts, and lets you easily sort them by the discount percentage, game rating, game release date and both the beginning and ending dates of the discount period. Other than that, it also lets you filter the results, for instance by setting the minimum discount that interests you, or the maximum price of the listed games. This is definitely the site I use the most when it comes to the deal aggregators.
2. IsThereAnyDeal
IsThereAnyDeal is another website that works in a similar manner to the previous contender, which among other sites (Epic Games Store and GOG), lists new and live updated deals from Steam. While their user interface is a little bit less optimized for quick browsing and the filtering of the discounted games isn’t as quick as on SteamDB, it’s still one of the better places to find games that are currently on sale, and its browser does feature a set of a few neat filters.
3. GG.Deals
GG.Deals features filtering mechanisms similar to the two previous sites, also letting you browse a few other game stores exploring them for newfound up-to-date deals. While using this one over Steam.DB only makes sense if you also care for the other game stores, you like their user interface better, or care for the site’s news section which is also there, it’s a great deal-aggregator site overall.
4. r/GameDeals
While this is not strictly a separate deal-browsing website, r/GameDeals is actually one of the more interesting and useful resources when it comes to digging for discounts on official online game stores. Frequent community updates and the Reddit’s upvote system make for a perfect ecosystem to share the new game discounts both on Steam and on various other game-selling platforms.
5. Eneba
With the number 5 on this list, we switch from the deal aggregators like Steam.DB or GG.Deals, to online game key stores, which rather than point you to a specific game on your chosen platform, sell you game keys which can be activated in the appropriate game store. First of these, and the one I use almost every month at this point is Eneba. While I am not affiliated with them in any way, I have purchased a few dozens of Steam game keys on their website already, and I even had one situation in which I needed a refund of an unclaimed key, which was given to me in less than 24 hours. Pretty neat!
6. CDKeys
Another website that I use pretty frequently is CDKeys. This key store, alongside Eneba is one of the best ones I found when it comes do game prices, and it does feature quite a few games that are not available on the other sites mentioned here. There really is nothing more to say here. Check it out if you want even more deals for game keys not only from Steam, but also from other marketplaces.
7. Fanatical
Fanatical is yet another key store which doesn’t really differ much from the two previously mentioned ones. The only major difference here, is that on their site you can find more game bundles and collections which often can be really worth getting if you’re into a particular franchise, or type of games, and you want to pick up a few titles at the same time, lowering the prices of each one of them. Overall, another great website that’s worth checking out.
8. Kinguin
Kinguin is yet a pretty well-known digital marketplace that I’ve also used quite a few times. Just as the few previous ones, it offers game keys for various platforms, including Steam. The prices are pretty good, and you can get further discounts after making your first purchase. The site’s interface is clean, the website works fast and I didn’t have any problems with getting my games here. Yet another great find.
9. G2A
G2A is a website that you might primarily know from their random Steam game key packages, which I had the pleasure to test out, deeming them largely not worth it if you want to avoid cheap low-quality games being handed to you in “Premium” packages. Still, when it comes to the regular game keys this site has to offer (and curiously, many software keys), they are very much reliable, and have pretty good deals out there.
10. Humble Store
This one is a little bit different. The Humble Store, most of the time associated with their “Humble Bundle” game bundles, which also do benefit charity organizations supported by the HB initiative has thousands of legitimate game key offers you can browse through right on their site. As technically there is only one trusted key reseller on this site, which is Humble Store themselves, you might consider this place one of the most trusted key resellers on this list. Still, their prices can be a little bit higher than for instance on Eneba or CDKeys.
11. AllKeyShop
AllKeyShop is one of the most interesting sites on this list, and for a good reason. It is essentially an aggregator of all of the other online game key stores (some of them not on this list). After you search for a game, you will be given a table with your chosen game listed on many different key selling sites so that you can choose the marketplace with the best offer. Combined with a great set of search filters and updated coupon codes available for many of the listed stores, this one is very much worth visiting!
That’s It – But That’s Not All
These are all the websites I personally know and have used in the past, however as you might already know, there are also many different key stores and deal-browsing websites out there which are not listed or mentioned in this rather short article, as I didn’t have the pleasure to test them out yet. With that said, always stay mindful of the things I’ve mentioned in the very beginning of this write-up, and you can ensure you get the best deals on all your Steam games. Until next time!