Kinguin.net is a website where you can buy, sell and trade video games with other patrons at Kinguin, in return for a fair price. All this is done through the platform they have created and all the transactions are carefully handled and monitored to make sure everything is done properly.
Seems like a good deal right? You have a place where you can sell your games you don't play anymore or don't like, to others who can get games they are looking for much cheaper than they otherwise would have. Since these are games you purchase online, you can't use up a game the same way you wear out a couch for example, so it just makes to have a place to do this.
When you buy a game through Kinguin, you are not buying a physical copy. You are only given a CD-key to input when you install the game you bought. A game which you need to acquire through download from another provider like Steam or Blizzard.
And here is the main problem arises: Kinguin does not check whether the CD-key that is being sold actually works or not. So you basically have to trust the seller when you buy a game there that they actually are going to give you a real key. And even if you get a real key, you have no way of knowing how they acquired those keys.
So there is a lot of opportunity selling fake and stolen keys at Kinguin if you have no morals, and unfortunately, that is what happens. Just check out our list of examples of people that are being ripped of in the list below:
And these were just from a quick google search I did. There were pages upon pages of these types of results.
Now you can buy Buyer Protection at Kinguin, but that only helps you get a priority with their support and they claim you will stop cheaters and fakes to be able to rip you off. Not sure how this differs from regular users that use the site, seems like all of these things should be pretty standard stuff for a legitimate business.
Basically yes. There is simply too great a risk of having to pay for a key code you cannot use on a game that I would not take a chance on it. Rather go buy a game directly from the developer, or through legitimate channels like Steam, GOG, etc.
Game developers themselves even urges people to rather pirate their games rather than use Kinguin (or G2A in this example) to purchase the game, like Lex Decrauw writes in this reddit thread. The reason why is because people will buy a bunch of games from these developers, sell off the keys at Kinguin and this is done with stolen credit cards or they just charge back from their own cards, leaving the developer at a loss and probably the one who purchased a game at Kinguin without a working key.
Does this all sound very familiar to you? That might be because it is the exact same business model that G2A uses and have used for some time. Exactly the same operation, and you should approach them with the exact same kind of caution.
