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Buying games online and playing seems simple. But most single-player games end within a few days. It makes you question the very reason for spending hundreds of dollars for a game that would end in a matter of days.
Fanatical is a one-stop destination for buying authentic games at huge discounts. It will provide you with the perfect opportunity of buying games in place of getting just one.
Fanatical was originally established in 2012, named Star Bundles for selling video games online. But was renamed to Fanatical in October 2017. The company was originally selling PC games on CD ROM during the ’90s which sums up to nearly 3 decades of experience, selling video games.
Currently Fanatical has over 60,392 reviews on their Trustpilot page averaging a rating of 4.7 out of 5.
It has over 2 million satisfied customers in over 200 countries (far more than the members of the United Nations, which is 193). They claim to have a collection of over 7000 game titles licensed from more than 1000 different publishers.
Is Fanatical Legit?
Fanatical is well known over the internet for its highly discounted game bundles. While most of the games in their collection are for Steam, there are some for Epic Games. Fanatical has already established itself as a market leader in selling original game keys in the United Kingdom.
Where Is Fanatical Based?
Fanatical, formerly known as Star Bundles, was launched in 2012 by the United Kingdom-based Focus Multimedia. They currently have operational headquarters at Rugeley town of Staffordshire, England.
Fanatical Website Review
Offering cheap services is fine but without a simple user interface, it becomes very difficult for new users to select and buy a game. Today we will dig deep for this fanatical review, checking out the user interface, ease of usage, purchases, and customer support.
User Interface
Fanatical website is truly ‘fanatical’ about the design which is 100% free of advertisements, pop-ups or redirects. The interface is very simple yet unique with attention to small details. It displays the key features of this website, 100% Official keys only and Instant digital delivery.
It provides a search bar, sign in option along with intuitive features such as a wishlist and cart. These features are available on every webpage making the process of searching and buying more convenient.
The color contrast and different classifications are very well placed making the user interface very helpful for a user.
Each of the snapshots mentions the available price in a dark theme over a slashed original price. Scrolling your cursor over each snapshot will offer more screengrabs and clearly show the platforms supported by that game.
It also provides users with options to add to cart, view product and wishlist. Selecting the add to cart option from the snapshot will open a floating dialogue box asking you to register or show all the games in your cart. This small attention to detail will win your heart
On the downside, we found forceful promotion(upsells) of its bundles which may be overwhelming.
Sorting Mechanism
The website is so well organized that it doesn’t feel lacking in terms of classifications. It features bundle offers, trending games, top sellers and recently viewing tabs horizontally.
It has a dedicated section for its official partners with the number of deals offered by them. The website displays 15 official partners which include reputed gaming giants such as Sega, Ubisoft, Disney, Rockstar Games, and many others.
Opening any of the tabs will take you to a different webpage designed especially for sorting games from partners.
But there is no sorting option available on this webpage which may contain over 100s of deals. These games are randomly organized and it can be quite time-consuming to sort through them manually. Alternatively, you can look for the game of your choice from the search box.
While sorting games according to the operating system, you will find Windows, Linux and macOS as well to choose from.
Here, you will be able to select games according to the platform, genre, and many other options to find the best deal. It also allows you to sort for games according to 21 different languages.
Purchasing Process
The purchasing process of games usually takes just the time needed to add your card details but fanatical takes it a notch forward.
While most other websites do not differentiate between buyers, fanatical ask users for their age. Any differentiation from the minimum age required displays the message ‘You are not old enough to view this content’.
After adding your game to the cart, you need to click on proceed to checkout and select the mode of payment. It supports all the leading payment merchants.
Once your payment is complete, the official keys will be delivered to you in the next few minutes.
To join their affiliate marketing feature, you can contact their Affiliate Manager. There is no fixed rate of commission, it can vary as per your discussion with their manager. They already have a lot of popular websites promoting their games.
Why Is Fanatical so cheap?
Fanatical claims to have brokered deals with top game publishers, allowing them to buy game keys in bulk which they sell at cheap rates to gamers.
They also have strict policies to avoid reselling and have put a limit on the number of times a game can be purchased from a single account.
Is Fanatical Safe?
Any service should be judged on their response to bad comments about them. After reading a lot of fanatical reviews on Trustpilot, we think that they are 100% legit.
All bad reviews were responded to by the Fanatical team, offering clarification or alternatives.
The issues raised with 1-star ranking were mostly related to hacked payment accounts, purported late response from the support team, reminding for a review, manual authorization, purchase limits, bank fraud, or spam mails.
It is a registered company having serial number 2408658 and VAT Registration No. GB 661 4081 52. As such we deem fanatical reliable and safe for use.
Are There Any Alternatives to Fanatical?
You will find a lot of alternatives to Fanatical. Most of the gamers are after buying authentic games at huge discounts online.
Some of these alternatives may offer something unique. Below, mentioned are some of the most sort after and busy alternatives to buy authentic games at deep discounts.
1. Instant Gaming
Established in 2020, Instant Gaming has already clocked the top charts in European markets. It offers games on all the platforms at deep discounts which often crosses 50% of the original price. It is rated 4.8 at Trustpilot with a tad bit less than half a million reviews of which 89% is rated 5 stars.
2. HumbleBundle
Humble bundle is yet another alternative in the deeply discounted arena where you can buy the latest game keys for the cheapest price. These keys are accessed directly from the publishers. The games are free from Digital Restrictions Management, meaning it provides you with complete access and zero restrictions.
3. Greenman Gaming
Founded in 2009, Green Man Gaming explores the problematic aspect of providing the latest authentic video games online.
It boasts a huge catalog supporting multiple gaming distributions and platforms with its inventory of over 6600 games. As per company reports, it generates 95% of its revenue by sales outside the United Kingdom.
Conclusion
When selecting a website for buying game license keys at huge discounts, it is important to check for the authenticity of the website. Such websites can infect your computer with malware. We advise all buyers to review the website in question from online sentiment and trusted review sites such as Trustpilot.
Also, go through the website certificate, check for common content errors in domain names, and make sure you stay away from redirects. There will be a lot of other players in this deep discount domain. But if you are still wondering about Fanatical, we didn’t find any shortcomings!
