Buy games from G2A? You should just stop already, tinyBuild lost out on approx $450K of sales

Im never buying on G2A... but Im buying on Steam, GOG or Huble only cheap games or in sale. Other game in full price more than 20 euro? I prefer buying in my local country stores, box or digital version (cdp.pl, gamesrepublic, techland store or muve.pl), because Steam price calculator is unreal for my country.

Simply in Poland for new game I pay 100 złoty (polish zloty) (~22 euro) for digital key or 120 złoty (28 euro) for BOX. If I buy it on Steam, I need to pay in euros, so this same game I should pay 49 euro, so this is about 215 polish zloty.
So until steam not provide support for my currency, many gamers in my country, not bying in Steam and buying only cheap games or only in Poland stores.

I hope you understand my opinion and why people in Poland skip steam?

So maybe anyone know, If steam plans to introduce a new currency?

I don't know about Steam but I know we have support for PLN on GOG :)

I used to have an online shop selling hardware and software but we closed it immediately after the first hacks/frauds we noticed.
We had it online for like 2-3 years and Lost like 700-800 Euro because of that, not much but it really destroys any plans you have for the future.
So in short I understand the situation and especially if there are a lot of money involved.

Unfortunately as a developer you cant revoke all the steam keys because you will make your fans angry but maybe if developers distribute the keys to less shops at the start and after a 3-6 months period to distribute it to more less secure shops?

I want to blame a bit the developers as well..
We all know the reason why people do this...buying cheaper...
Sometimes or actually most of the developers on their games release date they are demanding extremely high prices for their games.
Lets say for example Planetary Annihilation was like 60-90 Euro on Early access
I find games like that overpriced and ofc I would save my money to buy something else
And yes there are a lot of games that are extremely overpriced for their content.

These overpriced games lead the users to find ways to get some cheap games or at least to find a better way to get the games they want cheaper. Most users they can easily pirated the new game and when it gets cheaper they buy it from a legal store.
if the developers could put a logical price I believe that most of the users would buy from a legit store than to find it cheaper elsewhere or wait for summer sales or bundle games.
Before years ago we had steam Russia Market where you could buy steam games on Russia prices but unfortunately valve blocked cross region trade so you cant do this anymore :P
For example you could buy SteamWorld Heist for 6.52$ instead of 20$
Well steam has some issues with currencies because in some regions some games are overpriced and in some other regions are cheaper.

Anyway lets hope valve will find a way to deal with this but is not actually valves problem.
Is more about the developers and how they distribute their keys provided by Steam.


Last edited by wolfyrion on 20 June 2016 at 9:42 pm UTC

it seems that someone is DDoS Attack tinybuild.com :><:

Added a screen-grab of their article on it: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/uploads/articles/article_images/1466459516tiny.jpg

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlexNichiporchik/20160620/275379/G2A_Sold_450k_worth_of_our_games.php

just to calm things a bit down

Party Hard
SpeedRunners

have been in bundles and SpeedRunners could be sold in a 4 pack before ages ago with russia market on sales for 1 cs:go key around 2$ split pack.

Here is an example how trades are working (i think this guy buys a lot of keys and cheap from humble monthly buyers)
https://www.steamgifts.com/trade/hFEU8/h-csgo-keys-w-the-forest3khurtworld3k-life-is-feudal-your-own35k-humble-bundle

Tiny build lost a lot from Punch Club since it has not been in any bundle so the amount he lost is like 13k and not the extreme amount of 450k

Thats my humble opinion...
credit fraud is disgusting and I am against that and all kind of thievery.

I don't see the issue of G2A though. If they were not explicitly for this target of fraud keys, what would be the issue to get the key list of fraud-keys, revoke them and revoke the payment.

Someone would loose the cheap key, but would get back their money. So would the developers. Forcing the developers in special key-offers for this is ridiculous.

I'm not sure where they're located, but legally that's not a good terrain to stand on. That's fencing / assistance to fraud, and that's certainly not allowed in most countries of the world.

For instance, let the cheap Russian version only have the Russian language

Limiting language selection is pretty crummy for expats living in places where they don't speak the local language well enough.

Off-topic, but I completely agree with this. Another case is that of using games for language practice. I hate it when region locks of any sort block my access to German and French versions of games.

Playing a long RPG, or a strategy in a foreign language is a great immersion technique.

For instance, let the cheap Russian version only have the Russian language

Limiting language selection is pretty crummy for expats living in places where they don't speak the local language well enough.

Off-topic, but I completely agree with this. Another case is that of using games for language practice. I hate it when region locks of any sort block my access to German and French versions of games.

Playing a long RPG, or a strategy in a foreign language is a great immersion technique.

Obviously they need to allow paying full price for the international version.

Anyway, not doing that means you get G2A. And since it's perfectly legal, there's not much that can be done about it. And you can be sure that most will not consider the ethical implications of it.

Obviously they need to allow paying full price for the international version.

That's...the opposite of a good fix for this issue.

The price differences exist because of the different cost of living in certain places. A non-native-Russian person living in Russia, who would like the "international" version, will not magically earn more than his native Russian co-workers.


Last edited by DrMcCoy on 20 June 2016 at 11:21 pm UTC

And in a perfect world, that would be fine. But the practice is that the cheap Russian purchases get put on G2A for the rest of the world to buy. It sucks, but there is no good solution for this.

But the practice is that the cheap Russian purchases get put on G2A for the rest of the world to buy. It sucks, but there is no good solution for this.

...You can region-lock the key itself, so that it's only usable in Russia?

Just to name one other solution from the top of my head. Just because you can't think of anything else than your silly idea, doesn't mean there aren't any other solutions.

...You can region-lock the key itself, so that it's only usable in Russia?

Steam supports that, but it's not used in practice. Back when Witcher 3 was on pre-order, there was mayhem because Russians were trading them for CSGO items and there was talk of region locking them. But they didn't and only prevented trading. I suspect there are legal issues with locking out owned games.

I've never done business with grey market key resellers, they have zero ethical standards. With reputable retailers like Steam and GOG constantly running deep sales, why would I? How much money would I really save potentially buying a stolen key from a grey market reseller? Not much.

Obviously they need to allow paying full price for the international version.

That's...the opposite of a good fix for this issue.

The price differences exist because of the different cost of living in certain places. A non-native-Russian person living in Russia, who would like the "international" version, will not magically earn more than his native Russian co-workers.

I think a lot of Americans (like myself) sometimes have a hard time comprehending this. My family and I live in Peru where $1 is about 3.5 Soles and 1 Sol will buy you about what $1 will buy in the US. To put it plainly for other Americans it's like buying a new release of a AAA game but instead of paying $60 you now have to pay $200. Or for a an indie game that is released for $20, you now have to pay $70.

As an indie dev I also realise that it's very hard to adjust prices for different regions. We don't have a team, or even an individual who can find out price conversions for cost of living. Is there a resource out there that does cost of living comparisons in an easy to understand format? That would be really nice to have! :)

I don't buy games on G2A, but I indeed buy Steamwallet codes there; is the ONLY possible way to do that from Argentina...
And is the ONLY international store that accepts the two most popular payment systems here in Argentina: PAGOFACIL and RAPIPAGO, two payment systems ideal for the people who don't have a credit card; you pay CASH with argentinian currency...

I wish that Steam, GOG, Humble, Gamersgate and Greenmangaming do an agreement with Rapipago and Pagofacil. That will make our gaming life more easy here in Argentina.

It's way to late here for me to read all comments, so I apologize if this has already been said. I can agree as far as keys bought with stolen credit cards go, this is bad and should be prevented. However, I am completely against developers preventing people from selling excess keys, which is exactly what they want to do. It's a free market and if I have a spare key I should be able to sell it.

This seems like more of a technical problem than anything. Why wouldn't tinyBuild revoke specific keys for which the payment was charged back? Just do it, let the blame fall on g2a where it belongs. The fact of the matter is as much as I love the devs of these games, they are trying to operate without a secondary market. It sounds like the same complaints big media and gaming industry has against the rental and used gaming market, that somehow transferring ownership of something because you don't want it anymore is stealing billions each year. Sorry I don't buy it.

Also, defending region pricing is BS. A lot of us are poor here in America as well. I lost my job in April, maybe I should get preferential pricing? If you ask me whether I'd rather pirate a game or buy it from g2q, I would probably buy it form g2a. At least then there's an initial sale/issuance of some kind.

Also, defending region pricing is BS. A lot of us are poor here in America as well. I lost my job in April, maybe I should get preferential pricing?

This isn't/shouldn't be forced on anyone, but is always a preference to the developer/publisher. The truth of the matter is that I'm very confident I will make more sales in a place like Peru if I make sure I have prices that are friendly to that region. I know that I can sell copies at the standard rate in the US (regardless that a few people might have lost their job). This isn't about forcing an idea on people, it's Economics 101. If your game costs too much for most people in Russia, they will pirate it instead, so instead of getting $3 for your $10 game, you will get $0. I'll take the $3 :)

I know that I can sell copies at the standard rate in the US (regardless that a few people might have lost their job). This isn't about forcing an idea on people, it's Economics 101. If your game costs too much for most people in Russia, they will pirate it instead, so instead of getting $3 for your $10 game, you will get $0. I'll take the $3 :)

Then you have to region lock it so people can't trade it or use it if they travel/move. If not then don't complain when people are buying it for export. Economics 101 is also about scarcity which hardly describes modern computing.