The latter option does leave you with the game in your Steam account though, which is infinitely more convenient than downloading a repack made by some Russian somewhere in 15 parts from 5 different filesharing websites
...I mean, I assume. It's not like I've ever bought a game... or several games... from resellers
downloading a repack made by some Russian somewhere in 15 parts from 5 different filesharing websites
Never had this problem with fitgirl but rinru users unfortunately end up using some awful rate limited site usually. It's always a pleasant surprise when it's a drive link tho
The latter option does leave you with the game in your Steam account though
This is why I use them. Someone hosted a zomboid server on here but it's set to steam only, I don't want to give any money to valve if possible and I'm definitely not buying the game a third time at full price so I just used a gift card and got it for ~$7.
Honestly if I end up in a similar situation I'll probably just do it again
It's even better when you click through all the captchas and countdowns and get that juicy, juicy link only to be greeted by "This file can be downloaded by Premium Users only"
I almost always buy games from resellers as long as it's the best price. I'd rather have something cataloged in my Steam/Epic/Origin/etc library than deal with having to deal with the installation manually.
I usually end up buying from resellers in cases where I've been waiting for one of the big Steam sales for a game, only to discover the price not discounted as much as I'd hoped.
Or, in the last case where I used cdkeys.com, I waited until the last day of the Steam Summer Sale to get a game but found out that game's discount had already ended, presumably due to timezone shenanigans or something. Went to check cdkeys and the game was still there with the discounted price so yeah, I ended up getting a grey market key.
Does cdkeys.com really count as grey-market? AFAIR, they directly purchase all their keys from legal sources. Unlike G2A and the like who shove fingers in ears and say "we're just a key marketplace".