We've had colourful discussions about G2A in our Telegram group, IRC, reddit and other places. Some people don't care and just want cheap games, but for those of you who want to support not only Linux, but gaming in general—read on.
I've written before about how IndieGameStand has to deal with fraud, and it's not pretty.
The developer tinyBuild originally had their own shop on their website, which they had to shut down due to chargebacks. They noticed that later G2A would suddenly get a bunch of keys to their games.
Here's the developer tinyBuild on how G2A has sold approximately $450,000 worth of their games without them being compensated.
Note: Seems their website is now suffering problems, here's a screen-grab of the article.
The developer emailed the store, and got a reply along the lines of "you won't get a penny from us, start selling your games on our store or we won't do anything about it".
Stores like G2A make me very angry, ripping off developers and gamers and by the looks of it they don't give a hoot, disgusting.
If you didn't know about this, fair enough, but I urge you to stop now. If you buy from G2A and you understand this, you're not helping developers at all. I implore you: if you use G2A just stop.
I should note, that I don't personally see anything wrong in selling on keys you legally own and haven't used to someone else. The problem is that stores like G2A built a business around it, which has obviously attracted the attention of a fair amount of scammers using stolen credit cards to buy keys and sell on. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I've written before about how IndieGameStand has to deal with fraud, and it's not pretty.
The developer tinyBuild originally had their own shop on their website, which they had to shut down due to chargebacks. They noticed that later G2A would suddenly get a bunch of keys to their games.
Here's the developer tinyBuild on how G2A has sold approximately $450,000 worth of their games without them being compensated.
Note: Seems their website is now suffering problems, here's a screen-grab of the article.
The developer emailed the store, and got a reply along the lines of "you won't get a penny from us, start selling your games on our store or we won't do anything about it".
tinybuildIn short, G2A claims that our distribution partners are scamming us and simply selling keys on G2A. They won’t help us unless we are willing to work with them. We are not going to get compensated, and they expect us to undercut our own retail partners (and Steam!) to compete with the unauthorized resellers.
Stores like G2A make me very angry, ripping off developers and gamers and by the looks of it they don't give a hoot, disgusting.
If you didn't know about this, fair enough, but I urge you to stop now. If you buy from G2A and you understand this, you're not helping developers at all. I implore you: if you use G2A just stop.
I should note, that I don't personally see anything wrong in selling on keys you legally own and haven't used to someone else. The problem is that stores like G2A built a business around it, which has obviously attracted the attention of a fair amount of scammers using stolen credit cards to buy keys and sell on. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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This doesn't seem to be so much as a G2A problem but rather those offering their games on the platform. G2A is not responsible for illegitimate material. The statement G2A made should be enough for tinyBuilds to start a criminal investigation and lawsuit with actual damages to be claimed. And the claim here is far more valid than the average copyright claim because customers believe they bought a legitimate copy of the game on sale and thus are not likely to purchase it again. As said before, if someone pulls a chargeback on a key, you disable that key. Then the customer has a way of knowing if he bought something illegitimate and can then sue the retailer.
EDIT: oh and also, gamergate found something: http://archive.is/tLs2H#selection-2587.0-2627.80
Seems to be a hoax up to some degree.
Last edited by reaVer on 21 June 2016 at 11:23 am UTC
EDIT: oh and also, gamergate found something: http://archive.is/tLs2H#selection-2587.0-2627.80
Seems to be a hoax up to some degree.
Last edited by reaVer on 21 June 2016 at 11:23 am UTC
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Quoting: reaVerThis doesn't seem to be so much as a G2A problem but rather those offering their games on the platform. G2A is not responsible for illegitimate material.That is the single stupidest thing I will probably read all week. A store is not responsible for illegal content? Paleeeease.
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Quoting: liamdaweIt's a market place, not a store. Maybe you should read before saying things...Quoting: reaVerThis doesn't seem to be so much as a G2A problem but rather those offering their games on the platform. G2A is not responsible for illegitimate material.That is the single stupidest thing I will probably read all week. A store is not responsible for illegal content? Paleeeease.
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Quoting: reaVerA market place is a store, you buy things from it. They provide the platform and the service, they are responsible.Quoting: liamdaweIt's a market place, not a store. Maybe you should read before saying things...Quoting: reaVerThis doesn't seem to be so much as a G2A problem but rather those offering their games on the platform. G2A is not responsible for illegitimate material.That is the single stupidest thing I will probably read all week. A store is not responsible for illegal content? Paleeeease.
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No a market place contains sellers and buyers. A store is one seller who owns the to be sold products (until sold) and a market place owns nothing. A store can sell to a market place. G2A owns none of the games. They are providing the market place, which is susceptible to the same problems of any real life market places. The organisation that facilitates these buyers and sellers with a means of meeting eachother by creating a direct online link or by allowing them to enter the market floor irl; is not responsible for each buyer/seller's actions.
Last edited by reaVer on 21 June 2016 at 12:51 pm UTC
Last edited by reaVer on 21 June 2016 at 12:51 pm UTC
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Quoting: reaVerNo a market place contains sellers and buyers. A store is one seller who owns the to be sold products (until sold) and a market place owns nothing. A store can sell to a market place. G2A owns none of the games. They are providing the market place, which is susceptible to the same problems of any real life market places. The organisation that facilitates these buyers and sellers with a means of meeting eachother by creating a direct online link or by allowing them to enter the market floor irl; is not responsible for each buyer/seller's actions.Here's the thing, a marketplace is responsible for the stuff that is being sold there, even if the sellers and buyers are separate from the marketplace itself. Stolen or otherwise illegal products are not allowed to be there. It's the same thing with e-marketplaces just like with any and all websites ever: the website is responsible for all content on it regardless of the source, be it a webmaster or a random user.
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Quoting: SamsaiA website cannot knowingly support illegal goods. But checking for these kinds of things is impossible and the buyer/seller still remain responsible for the product they buy or sell. The streets have never been under arrest for drug trafficing and thus G2A is similarly not responsible.Quoting: reaVerNo a market place contains sellers and buyers. A store is one seller who owns the to be sold products (until sold) and a market place owns nothing. A store can sell to a market place. G2A owns none of the games. They are providing the market place, which is susceptible to the same problems of any real life market places. The organisation that facilitates these buyers and sellers with a means of meeting eachother by creating a direct online link or by allowing them to enter the market floor irl; is not responsible for each buyer/seller's actions.Here's the thing, a marketplace is responsible for the stuff that is being sold there, even if the sellers and buyers are separate from the marketplace itself. Stolen or otherwise illegal products are not allowed to be there. It's the same thing with e-marketplaces just like with any and all websites ever: the website is responsible for all content on it regardless of the source, be it a webmaster or a random user.
Now I'm sure that if able, G2A would implement a method to check whether a product is legitimate. This however would require steam to set up a key testing API which is one of the fastest way to get brute force attacked; so that is not going to happen.
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Mountain Man Jun 21, 2016
Quoting: GempalmAs a developer the technical aspect of linking a key to a sale then revoking it is fairly simple to solve. It'a so simple it's pretty much unfair to the consumer.What I'm asking is, are there currently systems in place that would allow a developer to track Steam keys in this fashion, to tie a specific key to a specific sale or user? I suspect there isn't, because otherwise unauthorized or shady key sales wouldn't be a problem. I wonder if Valve obfuscates keys precisely because of your concerns.
Edit: what I mean is from a consumer standpoint buying a 'License Key' you are already pretty much boned because it can be revoked at any time for any reason. You don't actually own anything. /Tangent
Last edited by Mountain Man on 21 June 2016 at 1:56 pm UTC
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Quoting: liamdaweI've adjusted that one bit
Thank you!
Quoting: liamdawethe rest of the editorial stands. G2A built a business around key reselling, they know fully well this is a big repeating issue.
Key reselling would not be a big earner if it was just legit sales. I will never buy from G2A and I stand by my thoughts on them.
I'm wondering, as G2A states, they don't take a share of the price, just the commission they get from their payment providers. This could be not the truth of course.
So it's just the mass of sales. And those are probably quite high, when the prices of the games are cheap.
On the other hand that would also work with completely legit keys. Sad that the credit card system allows it so easily to do fraud and the scammers win.
I'm just thinking about it... isn't there any law that forbids knowingly selling stuff that is stolen? Like dealing in stolen goods? There has to be a way to get justice for tinyBuild!
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Quoting: CorbenI'm just thinking about it... isn't there any law that forbids knowingly selling stuff that is stolen? Like dealing in stolen goods? There has to be a way to get justice for tinyBuild!Fencing is illegal. So now you also know the related law :p However, G2A isn't fencing anything, the seller is fencing. G2A can be held responsible as an aid if it knowingly does so; and it doesn't. If tinyBUILD wanted to gain anything, they should be more concerned about people buying products and then using chargeback (or stolen creditcard) to get their money back; that namely is theft. And going to the police can get the thief on the interpol lists.
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