As a PC gamer, you may have found yourself in situations where you wanted to buy a game but taken aback by the high price of that game.
This is actually a very common issue among most PC gamers, especially those who are always looking for discounted offers.
Well, what if I tell you that there is a place on the internet that allows you to buy both games, as well as Windows OS at discounted rates?
If you haven’t guessed it already, I am talking about Kinguin.
For those who don’t know, Kinguin serves as a marketplace for people who are looking to buy cheap games, as well as Windows keys.
How cheap?
Let’s say that you can find a Windows 10 key for as low as $10. But a question that arises from such low prices is whether Kinguin is legit or not.
For those looking for a short answer, It is not entirely legit.
Sure, you may get a Windows key or a game key from Kinguin, and it might even work for you, but this does not mean that their entire catalog will work as well.
To have a full and detailed answer, you need to understand some of the basics behind Kinguin first. We have to see just how it works. Let’s have a look, shall we?
How Does it Work?
Using Kinguin is perhaps the simplest thing you can do. You honestly do not need any type of rocket science in order to make it work. As a matter of fact, you just need to head over to the website and start looking for the key you want.
You can enter the name of the game, or program you want, and it will take you to the marketplace where different sellers will be selling the same thing at discounted prices. However, some will have region locks, while others will be of the global region.
Once you have selected the desired seller, the next step is as easy as taking a walk in the park. You simply have to click “Buy Now”, and you would be good to go.
Of course, as a responsible and sensible person, you should only trust a vendor who’s had a positive rating, because let’s admit it, you really don’t want to give your money to someone who is not trusted enough.
Once the process is complete, and you have checked out, you just have to pay for the key you are buying, and then redeem the key that you have just bought.
The Catch
Okay, the process above seems to simple for anyone who is looking to buy a key for Windows or a key for a game, but there is a catch.
There are situations in which the key does not work at all.
This is because Kinguin never really checks whether or not the keys that are being sold are legit or not. If you go through the internet, you will find so many articles reporting the incidents of the keys not working.
As a matter of fact, I remember buying the Battlefield: Hardline key for $25 bucks upon release, and when I redeemed it, I got an error straight away that the key has already been used.
I quickly contacted the Kinguin support to no avail, because the support was really, really slow at resolving the issue I was facing. After a week of struggle, I finally got a refund for the key.
After this incident, I decided to move to the internet and examine this situation further, and upon examination. I found out that there have been so many different issues from Kinguin, and it was not limited to one demographic.
As a matter of fact, people from all over the world had run into the issues related to Kinguin and their keys messing up.
So, is there a system working in place to avoid that from happening? Well, yes, there is, but even that system is shady. It is called Kinguin Buyer Protection.
Is Kinguin Buyer Protection Worth It?
Apparently, Kinguin has derived somewhat clever buyer protection for people who want to buy keys from their website. But the catch here is that this is not a one-time thing.
As a matter of fact, whatever key you are buying has buyer protection on it, and yes, you have to pay for buyers protection. This protection costs as high as $7 for Windows keys and is somewhat lower on games.
Okay, sure, this is good on Kinguin’s part, but if you look at it from a different perspective, you’ll realize that Kinguin is so desperately, and cleverly trying to tell you about how even they are not sure whether or not the sellers they have are legit.
This, to me, sounds like a joke.
Where are The Keys Coming From?
Now the glaring question that we must ask; where are these coming from?
To be frank, one cannot be sure about at all. Some sellers on Kinguin simply buy the keys in bulk every time they are on sale or promotion and then sell them to the consumers at a slightly higher price.
However, there have been incidents where hackers bought keys using stolen credit cards and then sold them to the sellers on Kinguin.
While that incident was isolated, and we never really saw another one of those, this only goes to show the level of fidelity you would find on Kinguin.
I am not saying that Kinguin as a whole is a complete scam, but the fact that they do not have a proper way of monitoring their sellers is just sad, because a lot of people fall prey to these scams, and that is something that we need to be careful about.
Should I Buy From Kinguin?
Now the most important question is whether you should buy from Kinguin or not.
I will be honest; I can’t really answer that question as an absolute for you.
However, I must mention that even if you pay for the Kinguin Buyer Protection, you are still not paying a lot of money when you compare the keys to the retail prices that normally start from $60 and above.
Kinguin is still a good option for people who are looking for cheaper keys.
To further solidify this conclusion, I am going to talk about the experience I recently had.
I built a PC for a friend, and he wanted to have Windows 10 on his PC, so I bought a key from Kinguin, and when I entered it, the key would come up as used. I was quick to contact the support, and due to the different time zones, they reached me after a day and inquired about the issue I was having. They proceeded to get the key verified from Microsoft, and asked me to test it again.
It goes without saying that the key worked.
My second experience with Kinguin was way better than the first one, and even the support helped me in more ways than I had imagined.
To conclude it, I would only say that Kinguin is certainly a good place to buy keys, but you just have to make sure that the seller you are purchasing from is legit because after all, Kinguin is just a marketplace.