Are you ready for our full Enjify Review? The company Enjify (Universal Gaming) claims that it can sell video games with a discount of up to 70% in comparison to the regular pricing. Gaming is great, and everybody loves to save, but one has to be careful not to get caught in fraud and scams. So does the game marketplace from Enjify actually work, and do they keep their promises? We tested their service, so you don’t have to. Please read on to find out more about our experience with Enjify and buying video games from them.
We tested Enjify for you and here’s the full review
Enjify established an ecommerce store in which they sell digital copies of new and old video games for platforms such as Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo. Digital means that they do not send you physical copies, but the buyer expects a code, also known as a license key, that can be redeemed at the official stores so they may download the game for free since they already paid for the key indirectly. This is not an unusual approach these days and certainly not illegal in itself.
We browsed the Enjify store to find the recently released title Elden Ring for Xbox Series X and found it with a price of 36.52€ instead of about 70€, which was the regular price at launch. Getting a new game for roughly half the official price sounds good, am I right? Maybe too good to be true, but let’s not be too hasty with our verdict here. Let’s see how it continued.
We purchased the game from Enjify and received an email confirmation and some instructions on how we could play it. Now, wait for a second. What do you mean by “instructions“? Are they not going to send the buyer the keys? No, they are not. Right now, all kinds of red flags suddenly went up, and we were curious how this was going to work out.
They send you a username and password as credentials which you can use to log in on your console, and inside this account, they have purchased the digital title, in this case, Elden Ring. So in order to play, you would need to add an alternative account to your console and leverage a home console feature that would let you download and play the game.
Technically this works, but you don’t own the title, and it’s not added to your account’s game library either. It’s all a trick to bypass license and rights management, giving you access to the title. And it’s more than likely that they sell the same access to at least one other person, and that is how they make their revenue. This is how they can provide “discounts.” By buying a license normally and then sharing the access in exchange for a price.
Is Enjify legal?
Now it gets tricky. After doing the review, I would say that the Enjify service offering is not legit. Sharing accounts and the entitlements, like digital game copies, is not in line with Microsoft’s terms of use. On the one hand, this means that the account you received access to could be deleted and suspended by Microsoft at any time, meaning you can no longer play the game. In the worst-case scenario, they might even penalize your own account for participating in such schemes. Knowingly or not, you are violating the terms, and this makes you vulnerable to suspension and potentially losing all previously purchased digital assets, and this means the end of your game library. Not a bargain anymore, suddenly perhaps. Being identified by Microsoft by doing this might be unlikely. Still, if there are two users, or more, playing the same game under the same license in entirely different regions, this might be easier to be identified by them then.
What does Microsoft have to say about this? Here’s a direct quote from their Xbox Enforcement site about marketplace theft: “What are some signs of a fraudulent seller? Purchasing a game online and receiving an account or email address and password. Whether you’re attempting to purchase a game, downloadable content, or consumables such as loot boxes or in-game currency, a legitimate store will never supply the content in the form of an account. Selling Xbox Live accounts is a violation of the Code of Conduct, and many sold accounts are stolen, “hacked” by unsuspecting players, or funded through illegitimate means. If you receive an account after purchasing a game or content, don’t use it.”
I am only taking Microsoft as one example here because this is what we went through. Sony and Nintendo have similar terms in place for their users. But can this get any worse? Why, good that you ask. The support team never reacted even once, and despite various attempts on canceling or getting a refund, we received zero response, and the money is gone for good. As of now, I would not recommend you to use the Enjify service, and the sheer lack of response makes me think they are a fraud.
Verdict about Enjify after the review
You’ll not get any more surprises here in the final chapter of my Enjify review. The marketing of Enjify is misleading, if you actually want to try, you might end up with a banned account, and there is no support team and no option to get a refund – ever. When you’re a bargain hunter, there is always a risk of ending up losing money on a scam, but this is possibly one of the worst I’ve experienced so far.
I am very surprised that Microsoft (or any other of the previously mentioned platforms) has not taken legal steps against this seller yet. I am further surprised that Google has not banned them from using their shopping functions either, which places them oftentimes in the first position when sorting the results for the best price, which makes me wonder why Google would lead their users to be scammed like that. This did not increase my trust in them either. Update from November 23th, 2023: It appears as if Google has removed Enjify from their shopping features but they still appear in the regular search results.
We are currently reviewing other options for buying digital games online in a legal way that still gives you a bit of a discount. Make sure to visit us again in the near future for reviews of Enjify competitors and other options.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Denis Denisenko. The photo showing a male player with dog was taken by Vasiliy Budarin. The picture with an upset female gamer in red clothes was prepared by Kraken Images.
