Steam Store vs CD Key Sites vs SteamGamesBazaar: Price and Safety Compared

Short answer: Sekiro is ₹4,997 on Steam and you keep it forever. A CD key costs less and also goes on your own Steam account, provided the key is legit. We sell it for ₹199, but on a shared account that you use in offline mode. Each cheaper route gives up something, and this post shows what.

SteamGamesBazaar is our store, so we have an obvious interest here. That's why we kept it to one game and real numbers. The game is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. FromSoftware released it in March 2019, it won Game of the Year at The Game Awards that December, and on Steam India it still lists close to five thousand rupees.

Route 1: Buy Sekiro on the Steam Store for ₹4,997

Pay once and Sekiro is in your library permanently. Patches come down by themselves. Saves sync to Steam Cloud, which matters if your hard disk ever fails. If you don't like the game, Steam refunds it when you request within 14 days and your playtime is under 2 hours. Keep an eye on that timer, because the tutorial and the first area of Sekiro alone can take close to an hour.

Money is the obvious problem. Almost five thousand rupees on one game is hard to justify for most students.

Payment can be a problem too. Some Indian debit cards simply fail at Steam checkout.

If you can wait, wait. Sekiro has gone on discount during earlier Steam summer and winter sales, and FromSoftware's older games usually do. Add it to your Steam wishlist and you'll get an email the moment it's discounted.

Route 2: Buy a Sekiro CD key

A CD key is a 15-character code (like XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX). In the Steam app you go to Games, then "Activate a Product on Steam," and paste it in. Sekiro then sits on your own account like any other purchase, with patches, cloud saves and achievements. If the key is legit and cheaper than Steam, that's a good buy.

Legit is the key word, though.

Keys sold by authorised retailers come from the publisher directly, so they're safe. Open marketplaces work differently. Any seller can list there, and a share of those keys were paid for with stolen card details. Once the real card owner raises a dispute, the publisher may revoke the key, and Sekiro gets taken off your account. Steam Support doesn't usually restore games in that situation.

There's also the region issue. A key meant for Europe or North America may refuse to activate on a Steam account set to India, and not every listing mentions this clearly. Plus, a lot of these websites accept only international cards and charge a conversion fee on top, which cuts into the discount.

Route 3: Get Sekiro from SteamGamesBazaar for ₹199

₹199 is around 4% of the Steam price. The reason it's so low is how the game is delivered.

Sekiro comes on a separate Steam account that is shared with other buyers. You sign in once, download the game through Steam (the files come from Valve's servers, not from us), start it one time, and then put Steam in Offline Mode. The same license is used by several people, which is how the cost comes down.

There are limits you should know about. The account is not yours, and the game can't be moved to your personal account later, because Steam doesn't allow transfers at all. Offline play means no multiplayer, though Sekiro is single-player anyway. There are no cloud saves, so you need to copy your save folder yourself, and updates don't install automatically. Account sharing is also against Steam's terms, so an account could get restricted. If that happens, we re-activate the game for you.

The gap is similar for other games we sell. Spider-Man Remastered is ₹149.99 here and ₹3,999 on Steam. God of War Ragnarök is also ₹149.99 against ₹3,999. Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition is ₹149.99 against ₹4,138. Our prices change from time to time, so check the product page for the current one.

The three routes, side by side

What we'd actually do

Play Counter-Strike, Apex or anything with friends every night? Buy it on Steam. Don't cheap out on a game you'll put 500 hours into.

Want to finish Sekiro once, cry a bit at the Owl fight, and move on? ₹199 is hard to argue with.

Lots of PC gamers end up doing both, and that's fine. Spend properly on the two or three games you live in, and go cheap on the story games you'd otherwise never touch.

If you want something in between, with an account whose email and password you can change to your own, read about preloaded Steam accounts. Going the offline route? Our offline activation guide lists the rules that keep your game working.

Questions we get about this

Is a CD key safer than a shared account?

A key from an official retailer, yes. It's on your account and nobody else touches it. A key from a random marketplace seller is a gamble, because you have no idea how it was bought.

How can ₹199 be possible when keys cost more?

Because a key buys you a license, and we don't sell you one. You're getting access to a game on an account that several people use offline, so everyone pays a small slice of the cost.

Can I move the game to my own Steam account later?

No, and nobody can. Steam has no way to transfer games between accounts.

Does Steam really refund games?

Yes. Ask within 14 days of buying with less than two hours played and you'll usually get your money back. It's a genuinely good reason to buy direct.

Decided on the cheap route? Here's how buying with UPI works, step by step. Or see every option in our guide to cheap Steam games in India.