• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Let's talk about how G2A is buying itself in

cris7198

Member
I thought G2A was super shady with their low prices and because of that I never bought anything from them.

Until last week when I bought FF XIV from them for pretty cheap. 10/10 will buy from again. NoKappa

lol I think that's how most people who buy there feel (including me), I most of the time try to buy from the legit sellers (Steam, Amazon) but sometimes the prices are just to good and I'm a weak person
 

b4mv

Banned
Gonna be honest, Had never bought anything from G2A, but wanted to check it out because of this discussion thread.

Went to the website, and the first thing that caught my eye was 5 random keys for a dollar. Went for it, Had no problems with any of the keys.

Ended up with:

3SwitcheD
Battle vs Chess
Chicken Shoot 2
Commander: Conquest of the Americas Gold
Pressure


So pretty much what I expected for 20c a piece, a bunch of things I've never heard of with really bad reviews.
Ha.

As far as the site, It works. I don't really find it shady, since you know what you're buying. 2nd hand steam keys. It is what it is.

I might buy Aquaria since I want it and it's a dollar on there, as opposed to $10 on steam.
 
Knowing of the various shady, and sometimes illegal, ways in which keys sold on sites like G2A may have been acquired, and having no way of telling the origin of keys, makes me uncomfortable with the idea of buying games from them.

I suspect the majority are gray imports, which I'm iffy on. Steam's €60 is ridiculous, but RU/BR prices tend to be too far in the other direction. I would like to pay a price I reckon is fair (GMG usually provides). Because I like games and want to support the people producing them. And I don't want to feel like I'm encouraging a proliferation of bullshit practices. If I want to go around complaining about microtransactions and stuff, I can't really demand they lower new game prices by 40% at the same time.

G2A's marketing, aside from that disgusting mobile ad someone posted, isn't in itself a problem. I am disappointed in streamers and tubers who do promotional deals with G2A though. Like, you use the games by these publishers and developers to produce video content which makes you money. And point viewers to G2A, which makes you money, and the pubdev less/none. Kinda shitty.
 

nynt9

Member
Paul from Mode 7 Games (Frozen Synapse) just posted this pretty in depth look at some of the legal aspects of key reselling.

https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963

I don't agree with the line "It appears that UsedSoft v. Oracle hasn’t swayed the big players in the games industry just yet." when he says Nintendo did not consider that ruling valid. Nintendo is a publisher, of course it is not in their best interest to recognize that ruling. Publishers want to maintain an iron grip on the distribution of their product, and the ruling says they can not, thus a publisher would obviously not be in favor of this.

He also seems to be missing the fact that EULA are not enforceable in a court of law, especially in the EU.

It wasn't deserved though, CDPR was at fault there and should have got all the blame.

It's bullshit CDPR didn't get more backlash because I know it has stopped me from buying anything from them until it's super cheap and I wish more people would do the same against CDPR.

How is CDPR at fault again? I can't remember all the straw man arguments and appeals to emotion that were made in that thread earlier, so please remind me which one you'd like to bring back up.
 
It wasn't deserved though, CDPR was at fault there and should have got all the blame.

It's bullshit CDPR didn't get more backlash because I know it has stopped me from buying anything from them until it's super cheap and I wish more people would do the same against CDPR.
They didn't get more backlash because they were not at fault.

Sure their way of handling that particular case with GMG is not the most "pretty" way, they were not the one in the wrong here.
 
I'm a little disappointed at all the people giving the finger to streamers, of all people, for accepting support from g2a. Meanwhile it has been already sufficiently pointed out that the site we are discussing on uses g2a.

One person pointed out that streamers are actually making money by getting games off g2a to stream. Isn't that also helping out the game developer by show casing their game to the streamer's audience?

Anyway, just wanted to point out that hypocrisy for damning a streamer for being sponsored by g2a on a forum that advertises g2a.
 

nynt9

Member
I'm a little disappointed at all the people giving the finger to streamers, of all people, for accepting support from g2a. Meanwhile it has been already sufficiently pointed out that the site we are discussing on uses g2a.

One person pointed out that streamers are actually making money by getting games off g2a to stream. Isn't that also helping out the game developer by show casing their game to the streamer's audience?

Anyway, just wanted to point out that hypocrisy for damning a streamer for being sponsored by g2a on a forum that advertises g2a.

Also I've pointed out multiple times in this thread without anyone acknowledging it that G2A are an approved partner for Hi-Rez studios, a few other game studios and Symantec.
 

Denton

Member
It wasn't deserved though, CDPR was at fault there and should have got all the blame.

It's bullshit CDPR didn't get more backlash because I know it has stopped me from buying anything from them until it's super cheap and I wish more people would do the same against CDPR.

Please explain how was CDP at fault there.

Paul from Mode 7 Games (Frozen Synapse) just posted this pretty in depth look at some of the legal aspects of key reselling.

https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963

That was awesome. Deserves its own thread.
 

ghibli99

Member
People are conflating different issues here.

- Selling keys for games from Russia/China/Brazil because they're cheaper there:

Can't see much of a problem. Publishers have the ability to lock that down very easily, so if they don't that's their fault. Also this is/was happening directly on GAF as well in the BST thread, Dunder was the best thing that ever happened and people loved it. (RIP)

For a while a few years ago it was much, much cheaper to import all physical games from the UK to mainland EU. Is that shady as well?

- Selling keys that were stolen/bought with stolen CC/fraudulently obtained:

The first two are things that can not be avoided and happen with physical goods just as much. The only thing that needs to happen is that the marketplace sellers or sites that are caught doing it are banned or penalized somehow.

People pretending to be someone else and getting "review" keys for free can be fixed by publishers being less naive and setting up more sophisticated distribution systems.

G2A themselves aren't really the problem here, even though I never use them because I don't like it too much myself. In the end it's more of a moral issue than a legal one.

It's a free market, and unless you use the systems available to you (locking down keys to regions) you have no control over who sells your stuff.
This is worth quoting, IMO. I mean, let's say I receive a free PC code, and I don't want it because I had planned on playing that game on PS4 all along. Even though average digital price for this game is ~$55, I decide to sell it for $10. Just because I'm selling it for a "too good to be true" price, that doesn't mean -- nor should it be assumed -- that it's not legit or that it's stolen or otherwise obtained through illegal means. I just don't want it and don't care about market value. That's my choice, and thank god I have that kind of freedom.
 
I'm a little disappointed at all the people giving the finger to streamers, of all people, for accepting support from g2a. Meanwhile it has been already sufficiently pointed out that the site we are discussing on uses g2a.

One person pointed out that streamers are actually making money by getting games off g2a to stream. Isn't that also helping out the game developer by show casing their game to the streamer's audience?

Anyway, just wanted to point out that hypocrisy for damning a streamer for being sponsored by g2a on a forum that advertises g2a.
NeoGAF displaying that ad is also disappointing, It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering the site is banned. Since I don't know how these ad systems work, I'm giving NeoGAF the benefit of doubt on that one.

Streamtubing always helps with exposure, which is why most pubdevs are ok with it, but I don't know how they feel about streamtubers then pointing these exposed viewers to key resellers.
 

nynt9

Member
After reviewing all the events and statements and articles I've come to the conclusion that while G2A operate rather loosely, there is no evidence of them doing something illegal. They operate a marketplace, and they let people do whatever, but they offer a guarantee for like a dollar or so, and when they discover illegitimate sellers they boot them. If a publisher suspends keys that people brought through them, they will protect the consumer even if they don't but the shield. Key reselling is and should be legal. It's unfortunate that sometimes illegitimate keys will be sold through their site, but the same can be said for eBay or craigslist or any other open marketplace, so there's not much to do about that. And sometime legitimate sites have discounts so deep that one can't really tell if what someone is selling on G2A is obviously illegal. And they have a feedback system so you can find reliable sellers. The site is also partnered with legitimate developers and PayPal.

I can't speak for other gray market sites, but G2A are not straight up frauds based on what I have seen. And they tend to side with the consumer in disputes.
 

tuxfool

Banned
NeoGAF displaying that ad is also disappointing, It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering the site is banned. Since I don't know how these ad systems work, I'm giving NeoGAF the benefit of doubt on that one.

Streamtubing always helps with exposure, which is why most pubdevs are ok with it, but I don't know how they feel about streamtubers then pointing these exposed viewers to key resellers.

The ads here are served by adwords. GAF has little control. I've seen ads for exploitative mobile games, gamergate sites and g2a. These are the people with money to buy ads.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Mad Max steam key on G2A = $22
Mad Max steam key on steam = $59.99

Mad Max steam key on actually legit authorised reseller= goes from between 22$ and 30$ all the time. Get from them instead of risking buying from someone that bought the key with a stolen credit card?
 
Unfortunately, I've dealt with them and learned what that site is the hard way (I read about it later on after getting scammed). It is basically a black market in which G2A carries (insecure) transactions and makes money of people selling keys (throughout their shield shit).

I wish I knew earlier; fuck G2A. I only deal with Steam now.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
My take is that reselling an unused CD key you paid for should be 100 percent legal, and is in no way immoral or shady. I don't buy from these sites anymore though, because there have been too many cases of games being taken away due to credit card fraud or things like that.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Mad Max steam key on G2A = $22
Mad Max steam key on steam = $59.99

The Steam key from Steam is legit

The G2A key has an unknown source, and obviously being able to undercut the RRP so grossly is indicative of a shady background. You risk having your game revoked or even account locked if their is prior history of the violation of (most) distribution services the key applies to.
 
The Steam key from Steam is legit

The G2A key has an unknown source, and obviously being able to undercut the RRP so grossly is indicative of a shady background. You risk having your game revoked or even account locked if their is prior history of the violation of (most) distribution services the key applies to.

GMG is selling Mad Max for $25

just saying
 
Sometimes you'd rather shell out $20 bucks on something you'll receive with no issue 99% of the time than shell out $60 for the 100% chance.
 

nynt9

Member
The Steam key from Steam is legit

The G2A key has an unknown source, and obviously being able to undercut the RRP so grossly is indicative of a shady background. You risk having your game revoked or even account locked if their is prior history of the violation of (most) distribution services the key applies to.

This:

GMG is selling Mad Max for $25

just saying

And also GMG were selling Witcher 3 keys with an unknown source as well, and they also undercut RRP quite a bit.
 
This:



And also GMG were selling Witcher 3 keys with an unknown source as well, and they also undercut RRP quite a bit.

There aren't many sources for GOG keys, so they probably just ripped them out of retail copies manually. Retail PC games can be dirt cheap in UK
They could have handled the situation much better though
 
And I used to trust GMG, until they started doing the same tricks and getting into trouble. See the Witcher 3 release
I knew GMG would be a bad example lol

Funstock Digital
GamesPlanet

same price

Let's just face it, Steam prices for most "AAA" games are bullshit

Digital games need to be cheaper. If you try to charge the same price as console retail games, people will go look for alternatives. You don't get to cut out the entire used game marktet, get much higher cuts on sales and still charge the same amount of money.

If cheaper alternatives like G2A are eliminated many people will just turn to piracy instead.
 

nynt9

Member
Interesting take on this subject from Mode7 games (frozen synapse/frozen cortex)

https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963

It quotes me, as someone disagreeing with him. I broadly disagree with his viewpoint, but he also raises interesting points.

It was posted on the last page :p

Paul from Mode 7 Games (Frozen Synapse) just posted this pretty in depth look at some of the legal aspects of key reselling.

https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963



My take on it:

I don't agree with the line "It appears that UsedSoft v. Oracle hasn’t swayed the big players in the games industry just yet." when he says Nintendo did not consider that ruling valid. Nintendo is a publisher, of course it is not in their best interest to recognize that ruling. Publishers want to maintain an iron grip on the distribution of their product, and the ruling says they can not, thus a publisher would obviously not be in favor of this.

He also seems to be missing the fact that EULA are not enforceable in a court of law, especially in the EU.
 
Seems like a bunch of posters are too soft to buy games at cheaper prices, so G2A just has to be morally gray and illegal...

I know where I'm buying my games when I get to PC gaming now.
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
Reminder than some of this can be tracked and you can have keys you bought revoked.
6IoROjy.png
 

nynt9

Member
Whoops, dunno how I missed that.

I sort of think the legal situation is irrelevant, it's what actually happens in practise that is worth discussing

Chaotic good 4 lyf.

I don't disagree with you, I just found that leap of logic by the author particularly egregious and wanted to point it out.
 
I don't disagree with you, I just found that leap of logic by the author particularly egregious and wanted to point it out.

Pretty sure it's touched upon in the section with the lawyer.

I find the leap from reselling licenses to reselling digital copies weirder, like that had nothing to do with the topic.
 

LewieP

Member
I don't disagree with you, I just found that leap of logic by the author particularly egregious and wanted to point it out.
Yep. You are bang on the money. Of course anyone with a vested interest in doing so interprets rulings in a certain way.
 
Interesting take on this subject from Mode7 games (frozen synapse/frozen cortex)

https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963

It quotes me, as someone disagreeing with him. I broadly disagree with his viewpoint, but he also raises interesting points.

I personally think that your blog post and especially your reply, where you try to play down your victim blaming with even more victim blaming was rather pathetic. Rules of capitalism and all that, but I didn't find your stance surprising at the least: after all, you are doing exactly the same as G2A and other key resellers: reaping profits from someone elses doing. At least I expect that you do get some financial benefit with your referrals, otherwise you would just directly link to the stores, right?
 

nynt9

Member
I personally think that especially your reply, where you try to play down your victim blaming with even more victim blaming was rather pathetic. Rules of capitalism and all that, but I didn't find your stance surprising at the least: after all, you are doing exactly the same as G2A and other key resellers: reaping profits from someone elses doing. At least I expect that you do get some financial benefit with your referrals, otherwise you would just directly link to the stores, right?

What? If you go on savygamer you can see that none of the links are referrals links and the codes aren't exclusive to the site. It's just a deal aggregator.
 

LewieP

Member
I personally think that especially your reply, where you try to play down your victim blaming with even more victim blaming was rather pathetic. Rules of capitalism and all that, but I didn't find your stance surprising at the least: after all, you are doing exactly the same as G2A and other key resellers: reaping profits from someone elses doing. At least I expect that you do get some financial benefit with your referrals, otherwise you would just directly link to the stores, right?
I have always consistently linked to the cheapest retailer regardless of whether they offer me a cut of the sales. I've not put a gun to anyone's head to force them to engage in capitalism, that was their choice. I simply act as an agent for consumers, forcing the game of capitalism to work in their favour wherever possible. How exactly do you think things would play out differently without my involvement?
 
What? If you go on savygamer you can see that none of the links are referrals links and the codes aren't exclusive to the site. It's just a deal aggregator.

Well if you actually go to the site and see a link such as:

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-XXXXX-...tion/bully-scholarship-edition/?gmgr=cizizohi

to be an affiliate link, I guess I could be wrong too.

How exactly do you think things would play out differently without my involvement?

In no way at all. Other than you most likely getting slightly less traffic / financial benefit and G2A would get slightly less sales. But you choose to participate anyway, turning the blind eye in for hopes of some profit. I can believe the "good guy" angle of yours too and I believe that you sincerely want gamers to get best deals around.
 

Lothars

Member
How is CDPR at fault again? I can't remember all the straw man arguments and appeals to emotion that were made in that thread earlier, so please remind me which one you'd like to bring back up.

They didn't get more backlash because they were not at fault.

Sure their way of handling that particular case with GMG is not the most "pretty" way, they were not the one in the wrong here.
The keys were completely legit even if they weren't got from CDPR directly, CDPR handled it in the worst way possible in public if they had an issue with it and instead called out GMG publicly.

GMG was the one in the right. CDPR deserves to lose sales over how they acted about that and anyone defending CDPR should shake their head.
 

LewieP

Member
I don't think that's true.
Some links look like referrals
Yes I plainly describe my relationship with retailers on my about page.

Whether or not I am offered a cut of sales has zero bearing on whether I link to a given retailer. It is worth far more to me that my userbase implicitly trust me to direct them to the best prices than any increase in revenue I would get from giving those retailers that offer me a cut of sales preferential treatment is worth.
 

nynt9

Member
The keys were completely legit even if they weren't got from CDPR directly, CDPR handled it in the worst way possible in public if they had an issue with it and instead called out GMG publicly.

GMG was the one in the right. CDPR deserves to lose sales over how they acted about that and anyone defending CDPR should shake their head.

How do you know the keys were legit, exactly? GMG repeatedly refused to state the source of their keys when asked.

Also, GMG's mission statement says they only sell authorized keys directly from the source, and they were caught selling keys that weren't from the source and they weren't an authorized distributor for CDPR, so they are flat out lying.

GMG got caught, and they only got caught because CDPR spoke up. For all we know, they do more "shady" things but have never gotten caught before.
 

KingV

Member
Letting this persist but throwing shade at it is actually pretty brilliant of publishers.

It allows them to exploit individual price elasticities for different people at different prices while simultaneously painting these sites as semi-legal or immoral.

The publishers could shit this down if they wanted to. It is 100% in their power, but they choose not to. The reason is that they know they are getting incremental sales by having their games available for cheap.

For example, I bought Mad Max for $16 and AK season pass for $18. I wouldnt buy either at full price. They would obviously rather have people pay $60, but that is not always an option.
 
The publishers could shit this down if they wanted to. It is 100% in their power, but they choose not to. The reason is that they know they are getting incremental sales by having their games available for cheap.

For example, I bought Mad Max for $16 and AK season pass for $18. I wouldnt buy either at full price. They would obviously rather have people pay $60, but that is not always an option.

The reason is the bad PR moves like those generate outweigh the cons of gray market profiting in 100:1 ratio. Where are the publishers getting "incremental sales by having their games available for cheap". See: the Ubisoft Far Cry 4 case.

Pro tip: it's not the publishers or the actual retailers that profit from reselling keys: it's the ones scavenging the sales and reselling them forward for twice as much but most importantly, it's the heads of the operations that take a 10% cut for just making sure that the gray market supply keeps going on.
 

LewieP

Member
In no way at all. Other than you most likely getting slightly less traffic / financial benefit and G2A would get slightly less sales. But you choose to participate anyway, turning the blind eye in for hopes of some profit. I can believe the "good guy" angle of yours too and I believe that you sincerely want gamers to get best deals around.
The vast majority of authorised retailers offer me affiliate deals too. I really wouldn't stand to gain anything by pushing unauthorised retailers over authorised retailers. I've have had so many opportunities to sell out and undermine my principles regarding getting the best deals for my users were I so inclined, but that's not what I'm about. Every time any retailer (big or small) contacts me to ask how to get more coverage on SavyGamer, I give the same reply: "offer industry leading value consistently". I'm not for sale.
 
The vast majority of authorised retailers offer me affiliate deals too. I really wouldn't stand to gain anything by pushing unauthorised retailers over authorised retailers. I've have had so many opportunities to sell out and undermine my principles regarding getting the best deals for my users were I so inclined, but that's not what I'm about. Every time any retailer (big or small) contacts me to ask how to get more coverage on SavyGamer, I give the same reply: "offer industry leading value consistently". I'm not for sale.

And I believe that you are sincere with that. But even if you don't stand anything to gain by pushing unauthorised retailers over authorised retailers, you do have something to lose by not including them at all. So in the current situation, you get some benefit but you have nothing to lose either: if one of the big unauthorized ones bite the dust due to whatever reasons, you can just play the "guilty until proven" and "I didn't know" cards. And to me that is selling out.
 

LewieP

Member
And I believe that you are sincere with that. But even if you don't stand anything to gain by pushing unauthorised retailers over authorised retailers, you do have something to lose by not including them at all. So in the current situation, you get some benefit but you have nothing to lose either: if one of the big unauthorized ones bite the dust due to whatever reasons, you can just play the "guilty until proven" and "I didn't know" cards. And to me that is selling out.
But I have no idea about the supply chain of any retailers. It's really not my place to investigate them either. If a given developer or publisher has a problem with a given retailer, they should go through law enforcement, or the courts, to get them shut down. Why would that require my involvement? Either they have no grounds on which to get retailers they disapprove of shut down (which my intuition suggests is the most likely case), or despite having a valid legal argument for some reason they are opting not to pursue it. Either explanation leads me to conclude that pitting all retailers against each other to offer the best value is the best strategy, and is in my users best interest.

Why should developers or publishers interpretation of the law be accepted as fact when it has not been definitively proven in court, and there is zero evidence of law enforcement being on their side? They have a clear vested interest in defining the law in their own favour, how about until legal bodies with any actual power in these areas make a judgement otherwise, I stick to providing my users with the most accurate information over which retailers are currently offering the best value.

To turn a blind eye to a retailer just because a particular developer or publisher objects to their business model would be madness. There are some developers or publishers that object to Steam's business model too, should I turn a blind eye to steam too?

My role is to serve my users, not the industry. I'm happy to perform inventory management for any developers or publishers, and my rates would be fairly reasonable, but to date none have hired me to do so, as such I'll stick to my unwavering policy of fighting for my users before anyone else.
 

Fractal

Banned
Not really. It's fairly common practice within the industry. Trade marketing is used to promote games on different sales channels. For example channels like Amazon and Game get huge amount of trade marketing money for marketing games through their product pages, dedicated landing pages and banners etc.

They get way more than the 1 euro per unit (10000/12000) i would have gotten. Sometimes channels make way more profit on the trade marketing than selling the actual games themselves.
10K on 12000 units is nothing for bigger publishers.
Damn, you're pretty good at this. Just don't go kicking any safe boxes! :p
 

KingV

Member
The reason is the bad PR moves like those generate outweigh the cons of gray market profiting in 100:1 ratio. Where are the publishers getting "incremental sales by having their games available for cheap". See: the Ubisoft Far Cry 4 case.

Pro tip: it's not the publishers or the actual retailers that profit from reselling keys: it's the ones scavenging the sales and reselling them forward for twice as much but most importantly, it's the heads of the operations that take a 10% cut for just making sure that the gray market supply keeps going on.

The Far Cry 4 case is one specific example that is not necessarily indicative of the wider market. Unless you can actually prove it, I assume that the vast majority of key reselling is, per the Medium article, reselling of retail keys, humble bundle keys, or taking advantage of geographical pricing differences.

In all of these cases, publishers and devs profit somewhat. If they don't like it, don't participate in bundling, end regional pricing, or institute other methods to shut it down.

If they think their EULA will hold up in court, then sue G2AA, cdkeys, and kinguin and see how it shakes out. They could set up an industry group like the RIAA and probably sue all of these guys out of existence, regardless of the quality of the legal merit of their case.

They haven't done these things because they probably think this is, in general preferable to either piracy or just not selling copies at all.
 
Top Bottom