Why does the same game cost ten bucks in one store and fifty in another?

Look up any popular game. Let's say Baldur's Gate 3. Steam US: 60 USD. Steam Argentina: 22 USD. EEneba: 41 USD. KKinguin: 37 USD. GG2A: 36 USD, but that specific seller has 87 percent positive ratings. GGamivo: 39 USD with an active promo code.

This isn't a bug or a manipulation. This is just how the secondary market for game keys works, and it pays to understand the rules if you buy games online regularly.

First law of the market: every key has a history

A Steam key is a string of five segments, five characters each. When Larian Studios sells a game through Steam directly, no key actually exists. Steam just adds the game to your library. But when Larian sells 100 thousand copies to a distributor in Brazil, they generate 100 thousand real keys. Each one costs the distributor maybe 12 dollars. The distributor resells to retail at 15. Retail sells to players at 20.

Here's where it gets interesting. Some of those keys never reach Brazilian players. They go to wholesalers in Hong Kong who specialize in buying overstock from lower purchasing power regions. They pay the distributor 13 dollars per key, list them on GG2A and EEneba for 20. Still cheaper than the US price, because the US price was higher to start with.

Second law: regions are not always a lock

This is where it gets complicated. A "regional" key can be:

• Hard region locked, checked through Steam billing address and IP. A Brazilian key only activates on a Brazilian account with a Brazilian address.
• Soft region locked, checked only during activation. A VPN for two minutes is enough, the game stays on your account forever.
• Tagged with a region for bookkeeping, but practically global. The publisher writes "EMEA" in the stats, the key works everywhere.

A reseller doesn't always know which category a given batch belongs to. They sometimes find out only when customers start returning. So a price two times lower than competition doesn't mean "deal", it means "risk shifted onto you".

Third law: prices move daily

When Larian announces Patch 8 ships in March, demand for BG3 rises. Sellers see this in GG2A analytics and raise prices by 5 percent in 24 hours. When CDPR gives away a Witcher 3 DLC for free, demand for the base Witcher 3 drops, because anyone who wanted it already has it. Prices fall.

On top of that, currency moves. Dollar gains 0.5 percent against the euro, imported keys get 2 percent pricier within a week. An EEneba "10 percent off everything" promo forces competitors to drop prices for 48 hours to keep their traffic.

Our comparator shows you all of this in one place, which is why the same game has five prices from different days and different stores. Some of those prices were current 15 minutes ago, some two hours. What you see is a snapshot of the market, not a price tag.

Fourth law: fees and hidden costs

The listed price is one thing. What you actually pay is another.

• Service fees. Some stores add 1 to 2 dollars in "service fee" at checkout. They show the low price on the list, the truth in the cart.
• Buyer protection. GG2A Shield and GGamivo Smart are paid options added to your cart by default. You have to uncheck them if you don't want them.
• Currency conversion. EUR prices converted by your credit card cost 1 to 2 percent more than direct EUR transfer. Small, but across 5 purchases a month it adds up.
• VAT. Some sellers outside the EU show prices without VAT, add it in the last checkout step.

I once saw Hitman World of Assassination listed at 18 USD on KKinguin. In the cart it came to 21, because insurance, instant delivery, and tax got added. A competitor's listing at 19.50 nominal ended up cheaper.

How to read this comparator without going crazy

Three rules I follow.

Look at the final price in the cart, not the listing. All comparators, ours included, show base price. Final amount needs one click into the store, but for differences above a dollar that one click can save 15 minutes of frustration.

Sort not by price, but by price/reputation ratio. The cheapest offer with 75 percent positive ratings is more expensive than the second cheapest with 99 percent, if you count the cost of dealing with a refund.

Check whether it's Sunday. I'm serious. On weekends publisher and store activity drops, fewer promos go live, prices sit higher than on a Wednesday afternoon. The best deals usually drop Tuesday or Wednesday between 2 and 6 PM in European time.

Does it always pay off to hunt for a 2 dollar difference? No. Sometimes the peace of mind from buying at a trusted store for 5 dollars more is worth it. Sometimes a key for 30 instead of 40 is meaningful. It depends on you and how much your time hunting is worth.

What matters to us is that you understand what you're looking at. The rest is your call.

A quick glossary of offers worth avoiding

Four phrases in an offer description that make me close the tab without reading further.

"Key only, no account". Sounds reassuring, like it implies full ownership. In reality that's how a normal key purchase should look. A store using this phrase wants to distinguish their offer from neighboring "Account" or "Login" listings. The very fact that they need to write this means the platform is full of sketchy offers and probably all of them need careful checking.

"Activate the key after contacting the seller". Nine times out of ten this signals the seller wants to use your account credentials for activation, not just send you a code. Either they activate the game on their side and hand you a login, or they ask for your Steam login to "help" with activation. Both scenarios are a credential leak.

"Price applies to activation in the selected region". Marketing-to-English translation: the key is regional, we won't be liable, if Steam bans your account that's not our problem. Honest stores write clearly "GLOBAL key" or "EU/EMEA key" without flowery euphemisms.

"Key guaranteed to work for 24 hours". Hey, a key either works or it doesn't. A 24-hour guarantee means "after that it's not our fault". Real keys don't need such clauses because there's no scenario where they stop working after 24 hours. Unless they're stolen and the owner notices the loss after two days.

Where the market is heading

Speculation, but over the last year we've seen two trends. First: AAA publishers are tightening control over key supply (Activision, Take-Two, Sony). That means fewer keys at lower margins for resellers. Second: indie and mid-sized studios (Larian, Devolver, Annapurna) are going the other way, flooding keys to build a player base.

Consequence for your wallet: AAA will get pricier on the secondary market, indie and AA will stay cheap or get cheaper. So if you mostly chase the newest Call of Duty and Madden, your marketplace savings shrink. If you play Hades, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, you're going to keep doing well.