Direct2DriveReviews of direct2drive.com

In last two years I purchsed 3 games from D2D. 1st and 2nd were just serials. So I could not had bad experience with famous D2D downloader. My 3rd purchase (preorder) went wrong. When I checked day before game should have been released I found thet D2D changed some info. Game release potponed (not D2D fault). Regions where game can be purchased. We in EU can't purchse that particular game anymore. So I went to D2D-support to ask what's going on. After 15 minutes I got robot generated reply which had nothing to do with my question. After 22hours I provided info about wrong UK/EU site redirection to US site when I look for my game. Now, after 51hours of waiting and 2 working days I still got NO reply from D2D-support. So I decided to wait another day to get info if they will deliver playable game or refund me. Otherwise I will have no other choice than paypal dispute. That is my story with D2D. My rating is based on following: 1. Number of successful purchases which could have gone wrong (0/3 as delivery of serial can't get wrong) 2. Number of unsuccessful purchases which could have and went wrong (1/1) 3. web site - not so bad, but if you redirects people from one continent to zone for other, it's wrong. 4. Ability to distinct between countries from which customer purchases games (I do not think you even had this idea) 5. support = store which have so much problems as D2D gives to customers should have massive SUPPORT. I measure my experience by 3.5 of 10 points as D2D is able to keed serial keys in your account and resend them. Edit: Support solved my problem soon after this review. I update my ratting to 4.0 of 10 points for acting honorary.

I just had the most horrendous time trying to purchase via the website, i couldn't even get to the point of being able to pay for an order. Firstly, i added an item to my cart. Then went to checkout and during the process create my new account. It said the email already existed and therefore i couldn't. So i click "forgot password" even though i know i never had an account before. Doing this the system forgot about me again. And so we went in circles. I managed to get an account in the end by getting out of the cart area and creating an account separately on the signup page. Great! I was happy now... Went through the order process... on to phone verification. It wouldn't accept my phone number and told me to contact customer services. I tried paying via a different method and same thing, saying my phone number isn't correct, etc. I submit a request for support (which due to the very bad design on their site i had to go through yet another tedious process of creating a further account just to get support). I get an automated response asking me to get back in contact with them when my bank has fixed my account (yeh, bearing in mind i never even got that far as paying yet). Also some junk about how i have to be in the same country as my address, etc, which i am in every way possible, physically, by IP, bank, etc. The phone number i entered into their system was a standard UK landline number and not via an IP phone service, just a standard phoneline. I can only assume that something is wrong with their system. Anyway, i'm just about done with this company now, i feel almost relieved that the payment didn't go through. A very frustrating experience with all taken into account, yes nothing huge but all put together, --- very annoying! The only reason for me to buy online instead of going down to the shop is the convenience - take the convenience out of ordering by making it so hard and i'm suddenly not interested anymore. I was even more shocked to read on here that the company is owned by people who should really know better. I thought it was some amateur start-up who didn't understand web development ;-). I make a living in online business and i know my company wouldn't be in existence if i expected my customers to go through the kind of inconvenience direct2drive expects of its customers...

I have had some great experiences with D2D. Downloads are fast, programs always work, etc. Unfortunately, however, I just encountered my first problem. Purchased a second copy of a game from them (Titans Quest & Immortal Throne Expansion) and got the same CD keys that they gave me for the first set. Of course this makes multi-player impossible and defeats the entire purpose of my purchasing a second copy. I have received nothing but generic responses to what should be a simple solution, (A) give me a unique set of keys, (B) refund my purchase. Of course this also begs the question, was this a technical glitch or fraud... Given my past experiences with the company I would say technical, but the longer I have to wait for some sort of response, the less confident I am... Will update when/if i ever hear from them. *I updated in my comments below but will also clarify here. I left my rating at 2 stars because my product was never delivered, money was refunded. Apparently, you can't purchase two copies of a game through D2D. Of course they gladly take your money and will provide a brand new link with a new DRM code, but the CD key will be the same as your first copy - if that isn't borderline fraud i don't know what is... Fortunately, they did refund the money in a fairly prompt manner. I am done using their service, however, as much for the irritation factor as anything.

Some time ago I wanted to get my friend a game for a gift. This was before direct2drive had added the option of "Send as a gift". I used my PayPal account to purchase a game through his direct2drive account. Recently I attempted to use PayPal on my own account. Apparently, once you've used PayPal with a given account you can never use it with another. So, I can't use my PayPal account with my direct2drive account because it is permanently linked to someone else's. Moreover, the support involving this has been, well, lousy. The error message I received was a generic "There was an error. Clear your cache, restart your browser and try again. If this fails, contact support." It took over a day to learn that the PayPal account might be the issue. Then nearly a week of "Try again" and "Get your friend to delete your PayPal from their account and try again" (Friend had already done this, but we re-added and deleted). A week after that they finally came out and said that there was nothing they could do about it - the PayPal account was unassociated with any direct2drive accounts, but somehow the restricting of my PayPal account "cannot be undone." Meanwhile, although they did end with "sorry for the inconvenience" the first part of the email basically pointed out how this was all my fault for using my PayPal account (not that they gave any warning) and not using the (non-existent at the time) gift feature. Quite frankly, having waited a week to hear that something that should be technically possible (assuming they use some sort of modern database for their records) can't be done, getting limited information except for "try again" as well as getting the explanation for how it's really my fault and not theirs that this happened, I'm not much inclined to use their services or to recommend them to anyone else.

I am a repeat customer with Direct2Drive but I must now sadly say that I will have to be much more cautious about choosing to purchase from them in the future. It is thoroughly disappointing to see this company cave to steam. The market needs more competition from retailers that work independently and stay true to their values. The reason I bought from Direct2Drive in the past was to avoid having all of my purchases tied to an account where they could be revoked at the whim some company. I also do not trust Valve to lead the entire market for PC games. They clearly want the dominate market share and I foresee them redesigning the PC market to look exactly like the console market should they achieve a sufficiently dominate position. If we can expect that every independent retailer will compromise their values and bend to the will of Valve then we will see exactly that. Value will achieve sufficient bargaining power with developers to bring even more products under their system and to dictate in part what those games will look and act like. This will become oddly similar to how Microsoft is able to operate in the console market. I understand the need to make a profit, but there has to be a way to sell games without allowing one company's system to dominate the entire market. I urge the people at Direct2Drive to re-evaluate their most recent moves and strive to make deals with the developers such that they may still sell these most popular games but in a non-steam version. I will continue to look to Direct2Drive as a source for products that I actually own in a more real fashion. However, I must refuse to buy any products from them which require a 3rd party system to operate. Not only does it make more sense to just buy it from steam if I will have to get it from steam anyway, I cannot support a move that will ultimately break Direct2Drive's business model.