Not sure who might find this info useful or not, but Green Man Gaming changed a few things. I used to use them for a few games I wasn't sure about and the 20-25% off really helped me justify not having a physical PC box from Best Buy with their Gamer's Club Unlocked or from the newer Amazon Prime thing. Here are some details;

Our NEW members pricing means that you get the lowest prices without the need to use our site wide vouchers; it's our new way to shop.

If you've got a Green Man Gaming account, you're now entitled to even better deals with our new 'Members Price' - that means you get treated like a VIP! As long as you sign in before you start shopping, you'll see the VIP corner flash on the product you're searching. This means that you're seeing the lowest price.

We're replacing our site wide vouchers to make it simpler, faster and easier for you to shop.

They state a few times this is to "make things easier" and things seem to be at least easy to see that's the price you'll get. I can't say I love it just yet personally, as something like Watch Dogs 2 is currently listed at $50.99 (15% off) where they had it for 20% off just a few days (maybe weeks?) ago around the E3 trailer. Mafia III is $48.79 (19% off). There are still some savings to be found, just thought this might be of interest/newsworthy to the thrifty PC shopper.

@joe_mccallister: Their deals fluctuate with time. One week it might be 15% off, the next it could be 25% off. Normally you'll find a big push close to release day which will bring it up to 20-25% off.

It sounds like a better system. If you're already a member, it saves you the step of copy pasting their codes, or before you could copy paste them, manually entering them in.

If their prices stop being as cheap as they are, people will move on.

@jesus_phish: very true - this saves me the time of trying to copy/pasta the codes and get a "this doesn't qualify" for sure.

Yeah always better to avoid that stuff. To me it's the cousin of "ADD TO YOUR CART TO SEE THE PRICE" which I hate.

@artisanbreads: Ebay can rot for this. I recently made a bulk purchase from a single seller. I wanted to get a quote for the shipping costs but instead of being able to I had to agree to purchase everything before Ebay would allow me to request a quote. I contacted the seller instead and got my quote upfront.

it feels wrong buying from these guys still but i can't seem to help myself for cheap day 1 releases. i should look into those claims CD Projekt Red made about them (though i guess they can't be that valid as their games are still on sale on the site).

@jesus_phish: Yeah that's insane for Ebay to do. It's just insulting to me.

I got some real good deals from them in the past but nothing last forever, probably just end up waiting for steam sales again or skipping out on a lot of games. Site's going real slow now to see what the difference is.

*edit* what it looks like is the real difference will be the amount of games you get at a discount now, which is much lower. Before you could apply the 20% to almost anything now you just get a further discount on what they decide to put on sale.

I pretty much only buy from GMG because they allow me to pay $60 with their deals where as Steam would charge me up to and beyond $100. Regional price hikes + currency conversions are the devil GMG takes one of those out of the equation thankfully.

So yea this is good to know, I hope it doesn't lead to a way for them to quietly reduce their sales but what am I gonna do? They're allowed to reduce them if they want.

I would pay 1-5% more to not have to copy paste codes

Why does it feel wrong, because you are saving money? GreenManGaming is one of the few legitimate distributors that actually gets new games directly.

i question their legitimacy. there's the whole thing about cd projekt red asking people not to buy witcher 3 from GMG http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/7/8565947/green-man-gaming-and-cd-projekt-red-in-a-public-spat-over-sale-of-the

and at least of 7 months ago ubisoft doesn't have them as an authorized retailer: https://forums.playfire.com/gmg/thread/125087

i last bought DOOM from them and wasn't paying close attention but they apparently show the source and time you receive the keys now. so i guess i don't know what i'm talking about like usual!! always seemed a bit weird that they were regarded as "official" yet ended up being the only supposedly legit company with such deep discounts. i suppose my reasons were unfounded, but it isn't ridiculous to feel a little wary of how they operate.

The one time I used Green Man Gaming to buy a game, my credit card company put a restriction on my card within 12 hours for potentially fraudulent activity. Definitely gave me cold feet about ever using them again. I also have questions about their legitimacy.

@ripelivejam:As of March 4th they are authorized again by Ubi (most recent version of Ubi's list I could find), I think there was a brief moment where they weren't when the allegations of them being a grey market reseller were levied against them

https://support.ubi.com/en-US/Faqs/000022581/Approved-Retail-Vendor-List

fwiw the Witcher 3 fiasco was the first time I ever bought from them. So I was in the thick of it as it happened. Not sure why i decided to do it for that one as I never really messed with resellers before, I think the discount was too good to pass up and their rep at that time had been spotless.

It didn't go real clean at all, ppl on their forums were losing their minds. I imagine the incident had to have hurt the company super bad, there definitely was a huge timezone issue since GmG is in London which factored into what seemed like extremely so slow responsiveness.

Communication was exceedingly poor, I eventually got my key about 72 hours after launch but didn't really have any assurances I would for about 36 hours (I decided against demanding a refund because I became morbidly curious to see how it would play out. It works but GoG Galaxy storefront acts like I don't own the base game in terms of recognizing it as part of a DLC package etc (e.g. it always suggests I buy the base game if I want to buy the expansion etc, but I can play and download the game normally). They ended up giving me a 40% off coupon for my next purchase which I used on Arkham Knight. That went terribly too although for different reasons. GmG did their part just fine, though again I don't think I got the key for about 12 hours after launch.

I assume GmG is at the mercy of their key suppliers with that.

I've since bought Transformers: Devastation, Mad Max, XCOm 2 and Rise of the Tomb raider from them. All those went super smooth but I also made sure not to get anymore pre-orders from them.

In theory though GmG shouldn't be anymore unethical than your local grocer buying groceries (it's not like most people buy Milk straight from Dairy), but the question all comes down to sourcing of their product given how easy it is fraudulently obtain keys. And given how Steam has reined in the discounts, the option is more appealing lately.

fwiw they strike as well meaning but perhaps badly understaffed with some ambitions too big for what they can probably handle (the playfire stuff), perhaps due to running such low margins on games. The way they have responded to each crisis so far suggest to me they are trying to do the right things even if they aren't always great getting that message across. Don't truly know if they are honest or not, just my impression from my dealings with them.

The biggest downside to GmG and it's a pretty big one imo, is that their return policy sucks, compared to Steam's newish one. TBF I don't know if they can help it since they can't verify you aren't trying to scam them. But yeah not a place to buy anything from that you aren't rock solid sure about.

I think the best way to use them is for things that are already out, that you definitely know you want, that are below 30 bucks and list the Game's publisher as a source if you are on the fence.

GMG is a key reseller, that is why they have crazy deals, it's not the same as a steam or uplay or origin or gog. They don't have some big secret the other digital stores don't know.

There is an illicit aspect to their sales that i find not to be worth the savings.

@mikemcn: GMG are largely recognized as an authorized key distribution network though. They've had their legitimacy questioned like... once during their whole lifespan and there never has been any evidence, really, that they are actually illicit

Ever since they changed their prices to British Pounds for whatever insane reason in my region it stopped being profitable to shop from them.

@yesiamaduck: Yeah, this is what I find a bit silly.

Before the Witcher 3 SNAFU, GMG was largely thought of as one of the good guys. I wonder how many people see a 3 character acronym beginning with a G and think it's G2A?

There was a EU law passed a year or two ago that requires VAT to be charged on all online purchases made in that reason, effected pretty much everyone.

@korwin: all I know is that there is a stark difference between paying 10 euros and 10 pounds for something.

@dave_tacitus: GMG is really the only one that I feel remotely ok about - I haven't had problems buying from them in the past - even though it's been only maybe 2-3 titles it still always feels like a normal transaction. G2A in particular just feels gross, it has the look and the pricing fluctuations that make it seem like it's a penny auction site instead of a game purchasing site. I'm not sure if GMG says anywhere that they're a reseller or purchaser of keys, they seem to not specifically say "reseller" anywhere but say they obtain keys by pubs devs and "distributors" so that's a little fluffy from a language perspective but I still keep them in fairly high regard in terms of quality of service and overall status.

They've been mostly great for me other than Mirror's Edge Catalyst being a day late and Sleeping Dogs being 2 days late. The few times I had an issue it was resolved quickly. This is a terrible change though. I just bought DOOM for $30 a couple of weeks ago. Now their sale price is 10% off and their best price member deal is 15% off and it's $50. Doubt this will last long.

@joe_mccallister: Apart from Steam, GOG etc I only use GMG and Gamesplanet these days. I think Gamesplanet showed where their keys come from before GMG did.