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Let's talk about how G2A is buying itself in
- Thread starter PetriP-TNT
- Start date
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I've purchased dozens of Steam keys and gifts from G2A over the last year and a half, not one has been revoked. The only problem I've ever had with the service was recieving a key that had already been used. I was issued a new one in three days, without having purchased the "protection," I resolved the issue with the seller through G2A's inbuilt resolution center.
Being concerned over the legitimacy of G2A as a marketplace is similar to refusing to use eBay because stolen goods happen to be sold there, despite that certainly not being the norm. Yes, the buyer assumes a risk buying from individuals rather than from businesses, but that risk is minimal when mitigated by paying attention to seller feedback.
Games being sold below their regional MSRP aren't evidence for the claim seen previously in this thread that G2A is primarily in the business of selling stolen keys, either. You, the reader, ought to understand that one doesn't buy a key from G2A, one buys a key through G2A. Perhaps substituting "G2A" with "eBay" and "key" with "product" makes this idea easier to understand. Further, the lower prices aren't the result of theft, rather the difference in price determined by conversion rates from the sale of keys that aren't region-restricted.
Being concerned over the legitimacy of G2A as a marketplace is similar to refusing to use eBay because stolen goods happen to be sold there, despite that certainly not being the norm. Yes, the buyer assumes a risk buying from individuals rather than from businesses, but that risk is minimal when mitigated by paying attention to seller feedback.
Games being sold below their regional MSRP aren't evidence for the claim seen previously in this thread that G2A is primarily in the business of selling stolen keys, either. You, the reader, ought to understand that one doesn't buy a key from G2A, one buys a key through G2A. Perhaps substituting "G2A" with "eBay" and "key" with "product" makes this idea easier to understand. Further, the lower prices aren't the result of theft, rather the difference in price determined by conversion rates from the sale of keys that aren't region-restricted.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
RE: Our position on blocking key resellers. First, I want to say that there are some parts of this post that are me speaking "as administrator" and some parts of this where I'm speaking as myself, just a person thinking about this.
As an administrator, the reason we have blocked key resellers is because in the past, we've had to spend a lot of effort following up on issues from people buying keys and then running into problems, especially circa 2010-2011 when resellers were typically bulk-buying Russian resale, stripping the CD keys, and selling them. We still occasionally get issues from this. It's a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I hope you find an understandable one. We want casual users of the site to be protected from people randomly posting "You can get AC Syndicate for $0.05 at RuKeys.ru" and then buying it and getting hosed or whatever.
As a user, I'm cognizant that rules are mostly about shaping user behaviour, and when they fail, they serve little purpose. An example of this in the past is our prohibition against scans. We put it in with good intentions, but increasingly over the years there have been fewer and fewer sources for Japanese news coverage without scans, and the addition of "digital scans" has made things more complicated, as has the growth of content aggregators like reddit. That's why today we are a lot more flexible with how we enforce and respond to scans. I think the same thing will eventually be true about key resellers; as they sponsor more and more gamers and buy more and more ads, and as they increasingly become warehouses for cross-region trading rather than directly acquiring the keys themselves, it'll be harder to tell the difference between sites that we need to prevent and sites that we need to allow. Another big issue this year was GMG, ordinarily an authorized reseller, signalling their willingness to become an unauthorized reseller for major games they can't officially sign. How the fuck do we respond to that coherently? So as a user, I'm a practical, pragmatic guy. I recognize that plenty of people buying from key sites are able to do so successfully, that they're an increasing part of the landscape, and that it's getting harder to tell the difference between allowed and disallowed.
In the mean time our primary response to cd key stuff will be doing domain blocks on particular resellers and deleting posts and relying on users to clarify when a site is an unauthorized reseller versus an authorized one.
As an administrator, the reason we have blocked key resellers is because in the past, we've had to spend a lot of effort following up on issues from people buying keys and then running into problems, especially circa 2010-2011 when resellers were typically bulk-buying Russian resale, stripping the CD keys, and selling them. We still occasionally get issues from this. It's a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I hope you find an understandable one. We want casual users of the site to be protected from people randomly posting "You can get AC Syndicate for $0.05 at RuKeys.ru" and then buying it and getting hosed or whatever.
As a user, I'm cognizant that rules are mostly about shaping user behaviour, and when they fail, they serve little purpose. An example of this in the past is our prohibition against scans. We put it in with good intentions, but increasingly over the years there have been fewer and fewer sources for Japanese news coverage without scans, and the addition of "digital scans" has made things more complicated, as has the growth of content aggregators like reddit. That's why today we are a lot more flexible with how we enforce and respond to scans. I think the same thing will eventually be true about key resellers; as they sponsor more and more gamers and buy more and more ads, and as they increasingly become warehouses for cross-region trading rather than directly acquiring the keys themselves, it'll be harder to tell the difference between sites that we need to prevent and sites that we need to allow. Another big issue this year was GMG, ordinarily an authorized reseller, signalling their willingness to become an unauthorized reseller for major games they can't officially sign. How the fuck do we respond to that coherently? So as a user, I'm a practical, pragmatic guy. I recognize that plenty of people buying from key sites are able to do so successfully, that they're an increasing part of the landscape, and that it's getting harder to tell the difference between allowed and disallowed.
In the mean time our primary response to cd key stuff will be doing domain blocks on particular resellers and deleting posts and relying on users to clarify when a site is an unauthorized reseller versus an authorized one.
7DollarHagane
Banned
So are these sites using stolen credit cards or account takeovers to buy product keys? Or people who do that sell them to the sites for cheap who resell?
How does this stuff work and why is it shady?
How does this stuff work and why is it shady?
Source? How do you define "often" as well? Because there was only one notable instance of someone on G2A mass selling keys with a stolen card and they took action to correct that as far as I'm aware.
Also I find this post from you kind of funny considering you abuse region pricing here on GAF and at CAG just as much as most of the sellers on G2A do.
People buy tons of keys at wholesale in regions like Ukraine and other places that publishers sell cheaper to, and then resell the keys on these sites at low prices. Because the games are region free, they can be activated anywhere in the world. It's just region pricing abuse. Not illegal, but a grey area for some.
Its pretty obvious that the provenience of the keys in some cases is dubious... at best.
I bought a Dawn of War 2 key ages ago and it was disabled by Steam on suspicion of being bought with stolen credit cards or something like that... was a long game ago so i can remember the exact wording.
Kinda weird how much theyve been expanding these last 2-3 years, though. I see either a G2A or Kinguin banner everywhere.
I bought a Dawn of War 2 key ages ago and it was disabled by Steam on suspicion of being bought with stolen credit cards or something like that... was a long game ago so i can remember the exact wording.
Kinda weird how much theyve been expanding these last 2-3 years, though. I see either a G2A or Kinguin banner everywhere.
SirJackDaniels
Member
I'll try and elaborate to clear things up as there is so much confusion about key sellers.
The 2 biggest are G2A and Kinguin-Group, both originally Polish companies although in the past they were registered in Hong Kong and Operating from Poland.
Kinguin is owned by VIWA Entertainment: http://viwa.me/en/
They run sites like Kinguin and many localised portals like fast2play, acheterlecle etc.
I supply both G2A and VIWA. For bigger releases like MGSV our business does like 50.000 - 80.000 units. Smaller releases a few thousand on Day 1.
I buy directly from ALL publishers. I do not exclusively sell games but other stuff as well like merchandise, computers, sporting goods , jewelry. We basically trade all kinds of goods. If there's demand we supply.
How they got big:
As everybody is aware of there was a huge price discrepancy between western boxed retail games and Polish/Asian and Russian retail games. The fact that publishers didnt region lock game keys at the start gave G2A and VIWA a big advantage.
Also there was a VAT Loophole. In Europe non-EU companies selling digital goods to EU consumers didn't have to pay VAT. G2A and VIWA profited enormously from this as they registered in Hong Kong and had a 20% (VAT) extra margin to price lower than competitors.
This was completely legal until last january. Cheaper games + no VAT in the early days = very cheap games.
As the EU got its shit together by by introducing this new law (VAT MOSS) last january:
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/index_en.htm
and Publishers locking down on retail pricing or locking keys out in western territories G2A and Kinguin saw their current businessmodel on shaky grounds.
Regarding region locked keys, EA games nowadays for example are all region locked, Warner Bros games are still wild wild west. EA games prices are fairly stable but Warner Bros is shit, you can get a key within a week of release for 10 euros.
What G2A and Kinguin both did was change their businessmodel instead of selling the keys they created a marketplace a la eBay and Amazon marketplace. Take a average 10% commission of every sale. All older titles are available on these marketplaces. As far as i know G2A and Kinguin-group only sell new games which havent been released yet, which they buy for me.
Kinguin allows pre-orders for marketplace sellers but on their own sites they sell their own stock, which could be sourced from me. G2A locks out all other marketplace sellers for Pre-order titles. So basically all the pre-orders on G2A are sold by G2A, which i sometimes supply.The following question that arises is how can i supply titles to G2A/Kinguin which still allows G2A/Kinguin to sell for below marketprice?
Ladies & Gentlemen: The publishers allow me to.
In the EU almost every publisher has its own local branche. EA UK, EA France, EA Germany, EA Spain etc. Each of these offices have performance targets for each title. Local offices opt to sell me games at dealprices at bulk qty's if they do not reach their sales target.
For example for a certain MMORPG releasing soon, we sold an extra few thousand to G2A at a special lower market price given me by the local publisher.
The title didn't meet their pre-order targets but they needed to reach HQ targets. Local publisher calls me, i need to sell xxxx units more, what can you do at what price?
The local offices dont want to know who i am selling it to as it could put them in a nasty situation as they disrupt (global) marketprices. Ignorance is bliss for them.
Marketplace is a different monster. Kinguin and G2A are dealing with an influx of suppliers whose sources can not be tracked. Keys could be stolen etc.
How G2A/Kinguin deals with them is their own. However for they games i supply i can confidently say they are 100% legit. I made a lot of money off you guys ^_^
If there are more questions just let me know i'll try to anwser them.
The 2 biggest are G2A and Kinguin-Group, both originally Polish companies although in the past they were registered in Hong Kong and Operating from Poland.
Kinguin is owned by VIWA Entertainment: http://viwa.me/en/
They run sites like Kinguin and many localised portals like fast2play, acheterlecle etc.
I supply both G2A and VIWA. For bigger releases like MGSV our business does like 50.000 - 80.000 units. Smaller releases a few thousand on Day 1.
I buy directly from ALL publishers. I do not exclusively sell games but other stuff as well like merchandise, computers, sporting goods , jewelry. We basically trade all kinds of goods. If there's demand we supply.
How they got big:
As everybody is aware of there was a huge price discrepancy between western boxed retail games and Polish/Asian and Russian retail games. The fact that publishers didnt region lock game keys at the start gave G2A and VIWA a big advantage.
Also there was a VAT Loophole. In Europe non-EU companies selling digital goods to EU consumers didn't have to pay VAT. G2A and VIWA profited enormously from this as they registered in Hong Kong and had a 20% (VAT) extra margin to price lower than competitors.
This was completely legal until last january. Cheaper games + no VAT in the early days = very cheap games.
As the EU got its shit together by by introducing this new law (VAT MOSS) last january:
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/index_en.htm
and Publishers locking down on retail pricing or locking keys out in western territories G2A and Kinguin saw their current businessmodel on shaky grounds.
Regarding region locked keys, EA games nowadays for example are all region locked, Warner Bros games are still wild wild west. EA games prices are fairly stable but Warner Bros is shit, you can get a key within a week of release for 10 euros.
What G2A and Kinguin both did was change their businessmodel instead of selling the keys they created a marketplace a la eBay and Amazon marketplace. Take a average 10% commission of every sale. All older titles are available on these marketplaces. As far as i know G2A and Kinguin-group only sell new games which havent been released yet, which they buy for me.
Kinguin allows pre-orders for marketplace sellers but on their own sites they sell their own stock, which could be sourced from me. G2A locks out all other marketplace sellers for Pre-order titles. So basically all the pre-orders on G2A are sold by G2A, which i sometimes supply.The following question that arises is how can i supply titles to G2A/Kinguin which still allows G2A/Kinguin to sell for below marketprice?
Ladies & Gentlemen: The publishers allow me to.
In the EU almost every publisher has its own local branche. EA UK, EA France, EA Germany, EA Spain etc. Each of these offices have performance targets for each title. Local offices opt to sell me games at dealprices at bulk qty's if they do not reach their sales target.
For example for a certain MMORPG releasing soon, we sold an extra few thousand to G2A at a special lower market price given me by the local publisher.
The title didn't meet their pre-order targets but they needed to reach HQ targets. Local publisher calls me, i need to sell xxxx units more, what can you do at what price?
The local offices dont want to know who i am selling it to as it could put them in a nasty situation as they disrupt (global) marketprices. Ignorance is bliss for them.
Marketplace is a different monster. Kinguin and G2A are dealing with an influx of suppliers whose sources can not be tracked. Keys could be stolen etc.
How G2A/Kinguin deals with them is their own. However for they games i supply i can confidently say they are 100% legit. I made a lot of money off you guys ^_^
If there are more questions just let me know i'll try to anwser them.
Corronchilejano
Member
No, you're just kind of a douche.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Thanks for your side of the story, that more or less confirms what people have been saying here since the thread started: that G2A is sourcing games from wholesale distributors without regard for where those keys originated. Additionally, the fact that the regional offices for these studios are selling these keys so cheaply without regard is absolutely mind-blowing.
In your case this seems like a huge supply chain issue on the part of the major publishers. For example, EA France is selling the game for pennies on the dollar to you who marks it up and sells it to G2A who marks it up and sells it to a US customer that might have otherwise paid full price. And since EA doesn't have tight enough control over this process, the middle men are profiting.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
On the Steam developer forums, I have seen some devs talk about some really tacky and shady tricks G2A has done to get Steam keys from developers of their game by using different people and emails to email them for keys passing themselves off as reviewers or YouTubers or the like, and some tactics range from trying to say they want to do giveaways and other stuff, and straight up lying to obtain free keys to sell. Sometimes these happen en mass.
I think I'm allowed to mention this as this has nothing to do with the inner workings of Steam, and something that has been brought up by several to be careful about.
I think I'm allowed to mention this as this has nothing to do with the inner workings of Steam, and something that has been brought up by several to be careful about.
Maybe you should get some info first because G2A doesn't sell keys.
Yes they do
No they don't.
NormalFish
Banned
Did you read the thread? we literally have someone selling keys to G2A to resell.
This is a good perspective, thanks for this.
Come on man, for someone who's used them you should know better.
Icon of bag with Steam logo - Steam Gift
Icon of key - Key code
It's the digital version of grey importing really.
If I go to Poundland (UK discount retailer), I can find branded products that have been imported from places like South Africa, Poland etc (Cosmetics being the biggest category) where the only difference between this and the UK market version is the cost.
Yes, I'm sure the manufactures probably don't like it, but aside from EU trade laws meaning that intra-EU trade cannot be blocked anyway, I'm sure that they would rather consumers buy their products cheaply, than not at all.
The same applies here, if a G2A or whatever buys a wholesale consignment of games from a regional branch of a major publisher and it isn't region locked, then it's fair game. Again, I'm sure EA and the like probably don't like it, but again, some money is better than none.
That side of things I fully support, as a consumer, I fully believe in free trade of goods and services, so long as they are procured through fully legitimate means. The other side of things, the G2A marketplace where people gain cd keys through fraud of any kind, and profit from shady behaviour such as scamming devs, cc fraud and so on should be cracked down upon.
Has it been proven that this is actual G2A or people who sell on the G2A marketplace?
Sounds like someone needs to get more indo first and it isn't him...
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Your logic is a bit of a fallacy - the only way customers could be profiting would be if perhaps they were able to resell the keys themselves for an even higher markup? Or make money from Steam Trading Card sales? I think what you're trying to say is that the customers are benefiting from this practice, and I suppose that's true.
Not really. They've specifically lowered the price of a game in a particular part of the world to encourage sales in weaker economies, and instead that game was sold to someone who otherwise wouldn't be eligible for that discount. In a way it's like coupon fraud - why should Proctor and Gamble care if they issue a coupon for $5 off a bottle of Tide detergent to be given away with a new washing machine, only to find out later that the washing machine salesman is selling them for $1 and keeps requesting more coupons saying he's sold a shitload of machines? They're still getting some money for their product, why should they care? The sales guy is making a killing on his $1 coupon business, and customers seem to love it.
Yes I'd say that's a good equivalent / comparison. The difference here is that these game companies are also acting like the government in your analogy and could easily shut the whole thing down with a few
"Not eligible", that's a new one.
Aside from the wrong analogy, the only defences of parallel importing (Which this is a digital form of) are to protect companies, not consumers. After all, GAF on the whole supports region free console gaming, which facilitates this and railed at Nintendo especially for locking the Wii, 3DS and Wii U. Importing games from other regions is also parallel importation, only on a physical scale and usually because of games being unavailable in some regions. Aside from that the premise is the same.
Well, in the EU at least, they're either going to harmonise prices, or accept digital trading fully, including from "poorer" EU countries as the EU wants to create a "digital single market"
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
Could be either since users can send keys, but some developers think there may be some wrangling going on, since sometimes its for games a bit after they released and happens en mass sometimes, which would either imply everyone got the same idea at once, or they were directed by someone.
Corronchilejano
Member
There's a link in this very thread of someone getting scammed off keys of his game.
I mean, if you want to push that analogy (and I'm just doing this for the sake of arguing here, so bear with me), you can steal a game and sell it to gamestop. Or sell it on ebay/amazon.
Hamster Plugin
Member
I wonder if I'm a crook for buying retail PC games (actual legitimate boxes) for €40 instead of paying the insane price of €60 that every publisher seems to charge on European Steam these days.
I find it difficult to sympathize with publishers or developers here, because they are constantly overcharging the Euro regions on Steam. But when actual legal boxed copies are sold for 30% off the Steam price, it's no wonder some people are just selling the important part via G2A: the activation key.
So it's a matter of the business not putting in measures that guarantees the products they resell aren't stolen? Because Gamestop doesn't do that either. From what I know neither does the Buy/Sell/Trade thread here.
Karak
Member
I know that just recently I was informed that over 40 people pretended to be me and request keys. A few got out and resold. And I am a very small fish compared to others.
derExperte
Member
Makes you wonder if he has a deal with Konami for selling those MGS keys that originally were bundled with graphics cards. Point being that GAF's shit stinks about as much as everyone else's (the G2A ads aren't helping) which is why I went from actively trying to discourage users from buying at those big resellers to barely caring anymore. Though if someone asks I'll tell them to buy somewhere else to be safe because some keys get revoked and that G2A 'guarantee' you have to pay for can end up being completely useless.
Euro? Ask Australians, the mark-ups down there are almost criminal.
capitalCORN
Member
I sell keys on G2A. In the sense that my collecting habit has made me repurchase many games OVER AND OVER, due to short sighted buying habits. I used to just give them away at Steamgifts(Anyone else remember that place?), but I decided even a few cents in profit was a better investment.
So G2A themselves acquire these keys and not people outside of the G2A business looking to resell?
What I was saying is that they don't sell games an an official store. It's a marketplace, and G2A themselves don't sell anything. Think of it like Steam community store for trading cards. Their "G2A offering" is just a selected seller who people have used extensively and haven't faced any problem in redemption.
giant_frying_pan
Member
I only use the non-mobile site and I see the ads all the time.
G2A also sell things themselves, so that's wrong again.
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
When I saw that you can buy a protection plan for your key, I kind of figured that it wasn't 100% legit. Even if there are legit keys over there, it's a little weird for GAF to let these guys advertise here, who could possibly sell you a dud that gets revoked.
Dance Inferno
Unconfirmed Member
Very interesting. So how do we know whether a game is sold directly by G2A/VIWA (and therefore a legit, non-stolen key) versus a third-party reseller just using their site as a storefront?
If one knows the risks involved and still chooses to play along, what exactly is gullible about it?
While its true some shady dealings are handled through the site, ultimately G2A is just an unauthorised marketplace. Nothing more and nothing less.
Corronchilejano
Member
If someone approached GameStop with a truck full of Splatoon copies, you bet they'd look where it came from.
Haunted
Member
Yeah, they seem to be everywhere lately. They've done some really aggressive marketing with all the ads and sponsorships I'm seeing around streamers and esports tournaments.
Without judging them (because I don't really know their practices), just as a theoretical - this would be a great way for a not so legitimate business to appear as one.
edit: interesting post by jackdaniels, I suppose it's tough to separate the authorised from the shady keys on an open marketplace that doesn't differentiate
Without judging them (because I don't really know their practices), just as a theoretical - this would be a great way for a not so legitimate business to appear as one.
edit: interesting post by jackdaniels, I suppose it's tough to separate the authorised from the shady keys on an open marketplace that doesn't differentiate
Just checked the site out, apparently they're partnered with Hi-Rez studios and Symantec among others.
I don't know, but it seems like you can click on a seller and see the feedback they've received. So perhaps you can tell bad sellers apart from good ones?
I don't know, but it seems like you can click on a seller and see the feedback they've received. So perhaps you can tell bad sellers apart from good ones?
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