Dear Total War Community,
this thread might come a bit late but I hope not too late for everyone.
As I haven't seen a similar one up as we had for Attila and Rome 2 I am going to start it right now.
Goal of this thread is to gather the best pre-order (or later) prices for Total War Warhammer, or future DLCs from trustworthy sellers. What qualifies a trustwurthy seller and why buying a key from just any keystore might bring you in troubles will be outlined below. Hence it is not generally forbidden to do so if you take rules of precaution.
As I assume that the general rules gathered for Attila back then still apply to the current Steam procedures and ToS, I copied and pasted them over from the Attila thread (including potential spellings ) and made some adjustments and additions. If you spot any differences please let me know.
Please let this thread prosper too and share your information you have about better prices here as we did on Rogue's Rome 2 thread and my Attila thread.
Please be fair and do not post affiliate tagged links without mentioning it.
Thank you very much!
I will try to maintain your submissions and list the best deals in the OP.
FAQ:
Q: why there are 2 different types listed?
A: There are a lot of portals that only sell you a valid a Steam key. You save a lot because you do not pay a boxed version with an installation media. Buying a key only is traditionally much cheaper.
You may prefer this type if:
- you do not insist to have an installation media
- don't care about a box in your shelf
- don't need a manual, most games don't have printed manual that is worth to be called it anyway.
- if you have a good internet line speed for downloading the game from Steam entirely.
- please read the offers carefully. Some boxed editions either do not contain a DVD anymore but also just a Steam key and you need to DL the product as well.
If you are a collector or have a slow line speed and mind waiting for the download the boxed version is certainly your prefered choice.
Q: If a buy a key outside Steam, does this harm my rights of Valves refunding policy?
A:I have not yet make use of the new Steam return policy and a key that I have not bought at Steam so I cannot tell.
If you want to make use of the Steam return / refund policy please read the conditions carefully. In doubts please contact the key seller support. A good key seller should offer quality support too. As a rule of thumb, please know that you might not "play" a game longer than 2 hours regardless to fulfill the return policy of Steam.
Your individual accounted play time is visible in your Steam account when you select the game (hours / time played). Trying to launch the game does count as "playtime".
Q: Can I be sure that the game will have my language supported if I buy from a foreign key store
A: Generally speaking: Yes. The language of the game will match the supported and officially language and audio support as listed in the Steam store. If there are exceptions, those will be mentioned in statements at the key sellers site. But in general terms they will also list the supported languages.
Q: Some sites offer different editions with and without the Chaos Pre order DLC. How about that?
A: This is true, very unfortunately. Please know that some pages will try to lure a higher price for the preorder DLC "Chaos Race". This should not be valid and necessary as everyone that boughts a valid Steam key will get the Chaos DLC, if the game is bought within the first week after release date according to CA.
Example: g2play.net Warhammer with DLC / g2play.net "without DLC"
Q: When is the release date of Warhammer ?
A: Around the 24th May depending your time zone.
Q: is it legal to buy Steam keys from such portals
A: it is generally but there is one expection: there are some dubious key sellers. But also many undubious have several sites with different or similar names.
There are a few keys that might bring trouble like (some are marked as "russian VPN activation" etc), means they sell you a key that needs to workaround the region protection of Steam. Russian keys are very very cheap so misusing this protection might save the most. Please notice that I will not include such dubious keys here.
Q: why are the keys so damn cheap?
A: several theories:
1. the captured the truck or the palettes with Warhammer boxed games just fell of a truck *joking*
2. they buy big amounts at wholesalers or perhaps directly at the publisher SEGA and get more discounts.
3. In addition to that I read about they buy packaged games galore unpackage them and sell the keys only. This is still legal too. So they save the upkeep for a storage and the costs a stationary or other online retailers have.
Q: how much can those portals be trusted?
A: Again I will not list untrusted sites in my OP, so I will not include offers "at any cost" but also look out for some checks like site security scoring or preferably list sites I know or I have bought from without troubles. For boxed version I do a basic check but list them more likely.
Q: Do you think it is ok to buy abroad?
A: Depends. Within the EU shopping is very comfortable across borders. You will not have to pay additional taxes or customs. The price you pay at the store includes all VAT and other taxes. Shipping is mostly for free or quite cheap. Sometimes the savings are so high that this makes even a lot of sense. It did make sense to buy Rome 2 at amazon.co.uk for example (saved 15 € comparing to amazon.de or compared to the Steam Store). Please know that also here Steam region restriction applies, so e.g. EU users cannot buy keys or boxed versions from Russian stores etc.
Q: Don't you think that supporting that agressive prices will harm the developers or Steam?
A: Well at the end that is your own decision. We have free market economy, so why not use it for your own profit?
Others do not ask you kindly if you are ok with them to raise your monthly bills / debts, right? It is a fact that especially Steam is milking EU and US customers with extraordinarly high prices compared to other countries with other currencies. Especially when you care to have a look at the exchange rates.
Please read warnings and limitations below. Gifting is no longer possible across Steam regions e.g. your friends account reside in Russia and you are from US / EU etc.Q: What about getting the game gifted from a Store or friend?
A: Yes there is one I know actually. A friend that you trust can buy a copy of the game for gifting. For this purpose I will list several Steam prices in the OP, so you can guess if it is worth to ask him / her about. The friend will retain the key in his inventory and can gift you the game via Steam directly, this is still a legal way to workaround the different regional Steam prices. You could then pay this friend via paypal or similar trusted payment services.
Warnings:
Limitations to friend or store base "gift" offers:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?673022-Best-TW-Attila-Prices&p=14260448&viewfull=1#post14260448
and here
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14420206
Avoid to buy keys that are part of a key auction or marketplaces. If you want to buy a key, please obeye all security advices (read FAQ) I gave, plus ONLY buy keys suitable for your region that are DIRECTLY OFFERED by the sites above.
More details: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14335732
I have listed simplycdkeys earlier but I received a report about they ask your a driver license information. This is why I removed their offer.
Same for cdkeys.com. I removed them from my listed offers.
More details: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14368211
Additional information:
-> Many Steam key resellers run several shops under different flags, means different sites or domain names but you might spot similarities. Also it could happen that some sites are even faked. Be strongly advised to choose a trustwurthy known site, instead of doubtful ones for the sake of paying a little higher price.
-> There are some comparisons sites like Allkeyshop: http://www.allkeyshop.com/blog/buy-t...compare-prices
Boxed:
amazon.de (EU) - 49,99 € - Type: Key - Additional Information: select the correct edition manually
amazon.de (EU) - 59,99 € - Type: Boxed incl. DVD
Steam-Key only (digital / no DVD)
g2play.net (worldwide) - 35,91 € - Type: Key - Additional information: [base price = 35,99 € + 1 € buyer protection - 3% discount (Code: allkeyshop3),
p.s. I had serious issues to complete order using Paypal Express checkout, normal Paypal worked fine though.]
g2a.com (RUS / CIS) - 23,49 € - Type: Key - Additional information: obey Steam Region limit
cdkeys.com (worldwide) - 36,59 € - Type: Key - Additional Information: none
EXPLAINATIONS:
< same seller, regional sites
*Steam authorized official reseller
Link to offer (valid Steam region) - price and currency - Type - Additional information
Offer / Best offer for this type