Key reseller G2A is back in the spotlight again, as a petition is up to ask them to stop selling indie games

I buy all my games on Steam. So I am sure, to support the devs and Valve :-)

G2A (and other grey market sites) are not the problem, they are a symptom. The whole system is flawed and G2A are simply taking advantage of it. This misdirected anger will ultimately solve nothing.

i'm just gonna say it and let it sit here, unsupported because i won't write a book in a comments section: the IP system itself does not reflect reality, and resulting business models are screwed at a fundamental level. inb4 angry mobs. i have some theories about what the future holds, however... =P''

EDIT: i shouldn't have to say that this is not in defense of G2A whatsoever. shady Ayy Eff, as the kids say.


Last edited by doomiebaby on 9 July 2019 at 12:30 am UTC

But, remember that in the 90's it wasn't necessary to buy the games for to play them. We were able to RENT games for consoles like Sega Genesis, SNES and playstation Cd's, etc..
And We were able to rent games for computers with MSDOS, totally DRMFREE in Cd's, or even Floppy disks.
I miss that freedom!

yeah, it wasn't perfect, but they were still much better times for consumers. remember when the game you bought was the game you were still playing years later, and wasn't patched into an entirely different experience from what you paid for? golly i miss being treated like a human being

The video game market is broken as shit. You have publishers gouging money from gamers everywhere you turn, so people turn to other sources in order to buy games for less. Its been happening for decades. Remember when copied games were sold in the market for a fraction of the retail price?

(Not talking lootboxes and nonsense into account here..)
In my humble opionion, most games are way too cheap.
In the 90ies, a game usually costed 100 german marks.
With inflation, this translated to 83 euros / 93 dollars.
Back then a game was made by, dunno, a handful or two of people?
Nowadays, even productions by hundreds of people cannot ask for 90 dollars.
And productions by a handful of people are often condemned if they take more than 20 dollars...

If you where lucky back then you could afford one game per year, so the many hours we spent as kids looking at the backsides of games in the store so not to end up with the shitty game for the whole next year. O boy have the times changed, and then there are plenty of people crying all over the steam forums that 9$ for a game is a rip-off... Sometimes the old grumpy me wants to smack those kids on the head and tell them to get off my lawn!

But, remember that in the 90's it wasn't necessary to buy the games for to play them. We were able to RENT games for consoles like Sega Genesis, SNES and playstation Cd's, etc..
And We were able to rent games for computers with MSDOS, totally DRMFREE in Cd's, or even Floppy disks.
I miss that freedom!

Not back in the 80ies and early 90ies where I live (there might have been some NES games for rent in the later part of the 90ies in larger cities at the video stores however). Today however you can borrow PS2-4, XB360-One, Wii, WiiU, GameCube, DS and Switch games at our local library for free.

edit: some research shows that we indeed had NES rentals as early as 1987 in Sweden but this must have been in major cities only, I never saw one on the villages where I grew up.

edit2: seams to have been later than 1987, the company that did this was launched in 1987 but they only rented so called video boxes (VHS players) initially so I have no year of when they launched their NES rental business.




Last edited by F.Ultra on 9 July 2019 at 12:39 am UTC

with physical games, there has always been a used games market.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't like paying "full price" for digital games. Besides that, by the time I get around to playing them, they have usually been out for quite a while...

the continued failure of the credit card industry to secure their systems from such rampant fraud.

They could care less about fraud, they screw either the consumer or the merchant, and get their transaction fees regardless.

I'd love to see Steam allow selling and reselling keys as often as you like. If they already have the ability to take away one's access to a game after verifying a fraudulent purchase, then they should be able to manage the hand off of a used game from one owner to the next.

Sounds great to me!

One of the (many) problems with sites like G2A is that, yes, they do allow developers to contact them and ask keys to be removed.
However:
A) That forces the developers to become active, when it really should be done by the store runners (who won't do it, as it would lose them money).
But if you are an indie dev team with a handful of people, just how much time do you want to devote to unending email communication with some fraudster store? All of that takes time away from making or marketing your game. That's really stuff developers shouldn't have to deal with.

B) If something is illegal or not can be arbitrarily determined by the store. No matter how shady the devs point out a single person owning hundreds or dozens of keys of a game that was never on sale for such a low price to be... until you have 100% proof, you've effectively got nothing and are just wasting your time.

G2A (and other grey market sites) are not the problem, they are a symptom. The whole system is flawed and G2A are simply taking advantage of it. This misdirected anger will ultimately solve nothing.

You are not wrong that shouting at G2A will solve nothing, because they know what they are doing and will continue to do so as long as it is possible and they have customers that see things equally as G2A: "I just want to have more for less, regardless of the consequences for others." Almost all people who buy there and have said so in topics about the whole thing do know what is happening there. They just don't care (but still create some bullshit explanations why it is fine to buy there).

There are so many flawed systems on this planet. And there are so many assholes who abuse those flaws. It is correct that you have to protect yourself from the flaws to solve the issue with assholes. That still means that assholes are assholes. And dam, G2A is the biggest and nastiest bunch of assholes I've ever seen. And their customers are right up there with them.


Last edited by Doc Angelo on 9 July 2019 at 7:55 am UTC

The video game market is broken as shit. You have publishers gouging money from gamers everywhere you turn, so people turn to other sources in order to buy games for less. Its been happening for decades. Remember when copied games were sold in the market for a fraction of the retail price?

(Not talking lootboxes and nonsense into account here..)
In my humble opionion, most games are way too cheap.
In the 90ies, a game usually costed 100 german marks.
With inflation, this translated to 83 euros / 93 dollars.
Back then a game was made by, dunno, a handful or two of people?
Nowadays, even productions by hundreds of people cannot ask for 90 dollars.
And productions by a handful of people are often condemned if they take more than 20 dollars...

That may be the case , but the market still decides what goes and what doesn't.
Also bear in mind all the editions and launch DLC that come with a game. A lot of stuff gets cut out on purpose when a game releases and you can buy it as "DLC" despite it being available on launch day.
Another reason why i think the 90 dollar price tag might not work is wages. You might restrict your consumers to high income individuals. There is no cost for the phyiscal media and given enough bandwidth/storage you can sell infinite copies of a game.
So what makes more sense ? Sell 90$ game to a few who will buy it or sell 60-40$ game to many more people ?

And I want to finish with two important points:
- G2A is not a cause, it's an effect. If it somehow gets taken don, other stores will take its place. It'd be just like the war on drugs, but on a much smaller scale.
- I fully despise the practice of what is in reality, stealing. I don't have any problem with legitimate sellers tho, but in it's current state, G2A is for the most part a theives den.

Your second point is what makes G2A a cause.

The fact that they are so famous and gives guarantee of money refund is what let end users accept the risk of buying keys from their re-sellers (they give trust to their clients). But in the other hand, they also don't care if a key has a fraudulent source, so their service gives a quick way to credit cards robbers in order to sell what they bought with the stolen information (resell speed if another key factor for credit card fraud).

The real value of their company is the trust that they have with their costumers; that is what would be very difficult to gain to any other G2A replacement that gets into the market. So, if G2A closes or adds fraud countermeasures then the game keys fraud would definitely be reduced due that without their market the fraud operation would become harder to exploit.

From my point of view, there many fishy moves from their side and right now is quite obvious that their only purpose is to extort indie devs so they sell their keys on their market.

I leave here some interesting articles regarding the way the reselling scam works (it also gives some numbers regaring on how this fraudulent moves affects indies):

https://kotaku.com/g2a-scammer-explains-how-he-profited-off-stolen-indie-g-1784540664
https://kotaku.com/notorious-game-key-reseller-g2a-gets-torn-to-shreds-in-1791943348

I agree it's very common people whose cards got fraudulently used to buy game keys make complaints to their card issuer (e.g. their bank) and the issuer is claiming a chargeback on that payment. The publisher who allowed for that stolen card to be used (by skimming on a risk management service) not only looses the transaction money but also pays a hefty fee. However, this is where all that anti-G2A logic falls short because that's not the end of the story. I had a talk with several card association reps and apparently the real story begins after the keys get revoked. You see, people who bought stolen keys also make complaints to their card issuers. Now card issuers claim chargebacks on those payments and guess what - G2A can't cede penalties on the users who already left their platform which all crooks do as soon as they liquefy their assets so now G2A looses not only money in refunds and fees but also their fraud rate goes up. Up to 3-4% can be perfectly normal for any long term business. But digital goods retailers get special treatment. When their fraud rate goes to something like 3%... They go *poof*! Card associations and IPSPs ban their asses for life.

Now try to guess fraud rates at eBuy before you google them.


Last edited by cprn on 9 July 2019 at 9:42 pm UTC

However, this is where all that anti-G2A logic falls short because that's not the end of the story. I had a talk with several card association reps and apparently the real story begins after the keys get revoked. You see, people who bought stolen keys also make complaints to their card issuers.

G2A has their own countermeasures for the penalties. For example, remember that G2A users can opt-in for a purchase secure, so they get their money back (most of the time to their G2A wallet) without having to execute the chargeback.

As I said, the problem for indie devs is the chargeback they get because G2A simplifies the money laundering operation. And of course, G2A doesn't care about that... so that is the real complain from the indie devs.

G2A has their own countermeasures [...] a purchase secure [...] without having to execute the chargeback. [...]

They have, but why do you think these countermeasures exist in the first place? Because G2A doesn't want their fraud rate to go up. And yes, some percentage of their customers does fall for that but most just pay with a card specifically so they could claim a chargeback in case they've been wronged. I work for one of the biggest IPSPs in Poland and G2A used to be our customer (they might still be, not sure, I don't deal with customers any more). When dealing with them fraud prevention was the most important subject while talking about any new payment channel.

I don't understand this. People don't expect eBuy to "clean their act" and take care of counterfeits or to check if every goods sold there are legit and not stolen. Why is it not the same when it comes to similar platforms but dealing with licence keys? How's that different?


Last edited by cprn on 13 July 2019 at 10:58 am UTC

I don't understand this. People don't expect eBuy to "clean their act" and take care of counterfeits or to check if every goods sold there are legit and not stolen. Why is it not the same when it comes to similar platforms but dealing with licence keys? How's that different?

I would not make a parallel between software and physical products. There are some big difference that keeps users away from something with a fishy origin when it's a physical good (many ethical and security reasons).

As I said, the difference is the speed. G2A gives a fast way to sell your keys without caring about keys origin. So, here what it's important: The way they handle the market affects developers and they don't care. The "I don't care" behavior they have completely justifies the devs statements in this case.

By the way, I don't think that opinions will change between platforms that have the same or a similar behavior. If G2A is getting all the attention that's just because they are the big fish.

So what makes more sense ? Sell 90$ game to a few who will buy it or sell 60-40$ game to many more people ?

I cannot really tell what a game should cost, I never saw the numbers of a game producer (and couldn't evaluate them anyway). I got the feeling of a middle ground breaking away (or beeing bought away), something between indie and AAA, but I'm not sure about that either. What I see (in the Steam forums mainly) is people complaining about the price of 20$ indie games threatening to just download them, which I find quite ugly.

If I understand how this all works (and that's a mighty big "IF") it seems to me that the core of the problem lies in the keys themselves.

It would seem that the fix for Dev/Pubs would be to either stop issuing keys or expect that they'll need to spend X dollars/euros/etc each year in determining whether a key is fraudulent or not and then rolling that into the asking price of the game.

If the devs want to sell games through their own site to individuals then they could sell actual digital downloads only---wouldn't that remove them from the key market entirely?

If someone like Humble Bundle wanted to sell the dev's game, then Humble would license the right from the devs to also sell actual downloads. If Humble wanted to sell versions of a game that could be downloaded within Steam, then similarly they would need to take that up with Steam in addition to obtaining the right to do so from the dev/publisher.

Maybe we're seeing the beginning of the end of the key reseller market entirely. A system that sprung up to fill a niche until another (largely criminal) system obsolesced it.

But like I said, I don't understand this whole thing very well. This is just what I'm able to glean from what little online reading I did before writing this.


Last edited by Nanobang on 10 July 2019 at 2:00 pm UTC

If I understand how this all works (and that's a mighty big "IF") it seems to me that the core of the problem lies in the keys themselves.

It would seem that the fix for Dev/Pubs would be to either stop issuing keys or expect that they'll need to spend X dollars/euros/etc each year in determining whether a key is fraudulent or not and then rolling that into the asking price of the game.

If the devs want to sell games through their own site to individuals then they could sell actual digital downloads only---wouldn't that remove them from the key market entirely?

The first thing to note is that all this has a cost. With Steam keys Valve absorbs all of it. You go on your own and it's your costs.

The second thing to note is that... it won't solve the issue! It will just force you to handle it directly! Say you run your own site to sell your copies. How do you identify your copies? With a string? Then G2A will sell your key instead of a steam key. You link the copy to username and password. Then Username and password are sold. you link it to an email? Then a bot will create an email address and that will be sold (yeah, you can ban addresses that don't come from trusted providers, but then it's again it's more work for you and you risk to keep out buyers). Facebook accounts? These can be faked too.

The thing is that as long as payment circuits work as they do now, digital goods will always be exploitable for money laundry. So either you sell your copies only on stores that absorbs the costs and hassles of this issue by themselves (and ofc you give them the cut they want) or you save the cut but you have to dedicate resources to handle this. Avoiding humble bundles is for sure a first reasonable step to mitigate the issue (unfortunately for us).


The issue with G2A though is not its business. It's true that if they don't somebody else will. It's hypocritical to say the opposite. The issue is they don't contribute to fight it. The example in the tweet with that user selling like 200 keys in a day you don't need a multi million dollar AI algorithm to catch that. If you don't fight even these obvious abuses, you are partner in crime. You're not contributing to fight the issue, you're making it worse with the intent of profit from it.

If I understand how this all works (and that's a mighty big "IF") it seems to me that the core of the problem lies in the keys themselves.

It would seem that the fix for Dev/Pubs would be to either stop issuing keys or expect that they'll need to spend X dollars/euros/etc each year in determining whether a key is fraudulent or not and then rolling that into the asking price of the game.

If the devs want to sell games through their own site to individuals then they could sell actual digital downloads only---wouldn't that remove them from the key market entirely?

If someone like Humble Bundle wanted to sell the dev's game, then Humble would license the right from the devs to also sell actual downloads. If Humble wanted to sell versions of a game that could be downloaded within Steam, then similarly they would need to take that up with Steam in addition to obtaining the right to do so from the dev/publisher.

Maybe we're seeing the beginning of the end of the key reseller market entirely. A system that sprung up to fill a niche until another (largely criminal) system obsolesced it.

But like I said, I don't understand this whole thing very well. This is just what I'm able to glean from what little online reading I did before writing this.

Yes, keys aren't the best solution to distribute digital licenses. API to add license directly exists, though. SEGA's website games2gether.com is using it for example. You log in with your Steam account and press "Redeem" - voila, you have the game in your Steam library. No need to deal with keys at all.

The real issue, though, are card payments. Whole world is dumping them for better payment methods but US unfortunately doesn't. Americans were fed with ads about how convenient and safe cards are until they believed it but the truth is cards are unsecure by design. It's so unfixable card associations invented insurance in form of chargebacks. It's as simple as that.

It's so unfixable card associations invented insurance in form of chargebacks. It's as simple as that.

Chargebacks just charge sellers with the responsibility of identifying the buyer. Which makes also sense in the real world. You can ask for an ID card or something to identify the card holder. It's easy, fast, cheap.

But the evil is when lawmakers use real world common sense to regulate the digital one. Clearly you can't ask sellers to do something even large multi nationals have issues to do. Common sense is that the payment circuit identifies who is taking advantage of its credit service.

That and eliminating seller commissions would create the conditions to solve the issue in few years.

So what makes more sense ? Sell 90$ game to a few who will buy it or sell 60-40$ game to many more people ?

I cannot really tell what a game should cost, I never saw the numbers of a game producer (and couldn't evaluate them anyway). I got the feeling of a middle ground breaking away (or beeing bought away), something between indie and AAA, but I'm not sure about that either. What I see (in the Steam forums mainly) is people complaining about the price of 20$ indie games threatening to just download them, which I find quite ugly.

I think what you are referring to is AA.
Games that have some budget and a bigger team than 3 indie devs in a debroom but nowhere near the millions of AAA with teams of a hundered+ people.

20$ for an indie game is fair. In my personal opinion it depends on the mileage you get from it.
Terraria , Minecraft etc with huge replay value would deserver 20$ easy.

As for threatening to pirate games , on the steam forum of all places seems the stupidest thing possible.
Might as well post in all caps "please ban my account"

It's so unfixable card associations invented insurance in form of chargebacks. It's as simple as that.

Chargebacks just charge sellers with the responsibility of identifying the buyer. Which makes also sense in the real world. You can ask for an ID card or something to identify the card holder. It's easy, fast, cheap.

But the evil is when lawmakers use real world common sense to regulate the digital one. Clearly you can't ask sellers to do something even large multi nationals have issues to do. Common sense is that the payment circuit identifies who is taking advantage of its credit service.

That and eliminating seller commissions would create the conditions to solve the issue in few years.

Clearly, you can. Showing ID in a physical world is nothing more but using a 2nd trusted factor. In cards world it's called a 3DSecure gateway - using 3rd party API (in this case the bank or card issuer's API) to 2nd factor the authentication between two endpoints (i.e. buyer's browser and seller's website). But banks dictate the cost of each 3DS request and it's not cheap so small publishers skim on it (as well as other risk management services). This is the reality of what's going on and the true cause of the issue. Cards are flawed. Extra security to mitigate responsibility for those flaws costs money. Publishers don't like to spend money so they don't buy it. They get burned with chargebacks.

What's more, it's not enough to integrate and pay for 3DSecure. G2A has that integration but over 95% of US cards doesn't have 3DS active. At least a year ago you had to call your bank and specifically ask them to activate it! If you do, you'll be bothered with 2nd factor every time you make a payment but at least nobody else is able to use your card (in theory). Still, people don't want it because if the 2nd factor is used during transaction, your card issuer can't claim a chargeback from the seller - 3DS cedes all the responsibility onto you.

Do e-commerce platforms have an alternative way of securing card payments? Sure they do! And it's almost free! I remember G2A once made a survey about adding extra security to card payments on their website and it came out very negative. It was rumoured they'll do it anyway and that's how Kinguin came to life, BTW. All they wanted to do is what Steam does now: one time 2nd factor authentication of each new payment method (e.g. new card) by charging a small random amount they later refund, and you have to tell them what amount it was proving you have access to the card's statement (i.e. you have credentials to your online banking). According to that survey (numbers are from the top of my head, it was years ago) G2A would loose around 50% of their card payments, realistically maybe up to 20%, but they are a big platform that lets people sell licenses for many many different games - not 10, out of which 7 are outdated. While people might feel incentivised to register their account and jump through hoops to add their card to that big platform, they wouldn't feel the same about a small publisher. Small publisher would probably loose about 70-80% of sales this way.

It's better than loosing 95% but still too much. So card payments security remains unfixed.


Last edited by cprn on 13 July 2019 at 10:57 am UTC