The market for PC video games has long since abandoned the physical format, which has caused that the only way to get 99% of the games is through digital purchases. This has led to the emergence of many stores that sell digital games at very competitive prices. Some examples are G2A and Instant Gaming. Is it safe to buy games on sites like G2A and Instant Gaming? Keep reading this post if you are interested in the answer.
How do the G2A and Instant Gaming stores work?
G2A and Instant Gaming are two platforms that sell keys for video games , PC programs and other digital products. The keys come from a multitude of users who put them on sale, many times at prices much lower than those we can find in other stores such as Steam, Origin or even Uplay.
You will always know who is selling the product to you, because that information is completely transparent. You also have to take into account the region for which the key is used . The latter is very important, since most keys tend to have regional blocking. What does it mean? That it is possible that a game that you find only works for a few countries, among which Spain may not be.
Let's see an example with the Borderlands video game that we have found while browsing inside G2A.
As we can see in the image above, this Borderlands key does not allow its activation in Spain , therefore it would not be useful for a Spanish player. G2A detects the country from which we have connected, in this way it will always indicate whether the password we are looking at is valid for our use or not, as you can see, it makes it really easy.
It also informs us of the platform for which the key is used, in this case it is Steam . Steam is the largest digital gaming platform for PC, therefore most of the keys that we can buy in G2A and Instant Gaming are used for Steam. However, it is something that you should always check before making the purchase, especially if you do not want to use a specific platform.
As for the seller, we see that in this case it is Gamescode . G2A is very transparent with the information it offers to the buyer. This means that it shows us all the evaluations that other users have made to the different buyers. In this case, we can see that Gamescode has 97% positive reviews, a very high figure that indicates that it is a good seller.
If we put the pointer on the seller information, a window appears that shows us even more information. From here we can see the number of positive and negative evaluations. We can even see all the comments that G2A users have made about this seller , something that is very useful to be able to detect possible scam risks.
The G2A platform also allows us to see the products of the different vendors . If you have made a purchase and everything went well, surely you want to repeat with the same seller. This is a great way to see all the products from a seller that you've dealt with before.
Is my money safe in case of scam?
Let's see an example of a game that can be activated in Spain. In this case a DLC of the game The Elder Scrolls Online. We will proceed to place the order to see if the process is safe or not.
G2A has a money-back policy in case of scam . This service is free and applies to all users. In principle, this should be enough to guarantee the security of our purchases, but we are going to be misjudged and we continue to analyze the options that the platform gives us when making a purchase.
We click on "Proceed to payment" and we get to the different payment options that G2A offers us. We can see that we are offered a large number of options when paying, we can even pay using Bitcoins. The most remarkable thing is that G2A supports payments through Paypal .
What is Paypal? It is the platform par excellence to make secure payments on the Internet. Paypal offers an excellent buyer protection policy for a period of 180 days . This means that you can claim any incident within that period, more than enough for all your online purchases.
Paypal has a great team of professionals who will help you recover your money in case of scam . This platform always usually favors the buyer in case of a problem in a purchase.
With this we already have two important security measures within G2A . On the one hand, there is the protection policy of the platform itself, and then we have all the guarantees that Paypal offers us. If you have been scammed and G2A itself does not offer you a solution to your liking, simply resort to opening a dispute in Paypal to get your money back.
In the case of Instant Gaming, the games are offered directly by the store , without other users acting as intermediaries. This should eliminate a risk factor for G2A.
It also offers us the possibility of paying with Paypal , so our money should always be safe.
So is it safe or not?
Nothing on the Internet is 100% secure, but we can get very close to absolute security. If you decide to buy your game keys at G2A or Instant Gaming, the first step is to always look for the best-rated sellers, don't trust someone with a lot of negative ratings , especially if the prices they offer are outrageously low. If something is too beautiful to be true, it is almost certainly a lie.
The next step that we recommend is to always pay using Paypal , but not only in these types of stores, but in all those that allow it. In the event that there is a problem in your purchase and the store does not want to be held responsible, you will always have the option of resorting to Paypal's excellent buyer protection team. This is considered as the best option.
Always avoid that you can pay with your credit card , because in this case it will be much more difficult for you to get your money back if you suffer a scam and the store ignores the problem. There is an unwritten rule that says that as long as you can pay with Paypal, we cannot agree more with it.
Have you made purchases at G2A or Instant Gaming? How did it go?