G2A has paid Wube Software over illegitimate Factorio keys

Good for Wube. It shouldn't be on the studio or publisher to prove it. G2A should have to provide an audit trail. From my perspective G2A is a scourge on the industry for creators and consumers. The only ones who benefit are scammers buying and selling. Let's watch the EU do nothing about since it's HQ'd in the Netherlands.

I wonder if that amount was enough to cover the bank chargeback costs that were always the bigger issue with these illegal sales.

In any case, good for them. Wube are one of the nicest devs out there and Factorio is beyond amazing.

I wonder how can they even flourish a business out of stolen keys...

Are there any rogue agents trying to generate collisions ?
Or do they actually stole them from phishing, unauthorized access or from the inside ?

That's the kind of questions I'd love G2A to answer as they might know better.

I wonder how can they even flourish a business out of stolen keys...

Are there any rogue agents trying to generate collisions ?
Or do they actually stole them from phishing, unauthorized access or from the inside ?

That's the kind of questions I'd love G2A to answer as they might know better.

Beginner's guide to laundering money using G2A

1. Steal credit card details using phishing techniques.
2. Buy loads of game keys on Humble or game developers' own websites.
3. Sell keys on G2A to cash out.
4. Leave game devs to deal with chargeback fees while G2A gets rich off of the cut they get from stolen keys.


Last edited by Samsai on 21 May 2020 at 8:03 pm UTC

The only problem is still Wube not having knowledge on how to make a decent online store. They wanted to cut corners they should have implemented 3-D Secure and such and kept an history of key binded to transaction id, it's not rocket science.

I wonder how can they even flourish a business out of stolen keys...

Are there any rogue agents trying to generate collisions ?
Or do they actually stole them from phishing, unauthorized access or from the inside ?

That's the kind of questions I'd love G2A to answer as they might know better.

Beginner's guide to laundering money using G2A

1. Steal credit card details using phishing techniques.
2. Buy loads of game keys on Humble or game developer's own websites.
3. Sell keys on G2A to cash out.
4. Leave game devs to deal with chargeback fees while G2A gets rich off of the cut they get from stolen keys.

Why don't they just revoke the keys?

If so many stolen keys are actually sold in G2A, the user will know, everyone will say on the Internet that their key bought in G2A has been revoked, even though not many buyers denounce G2A, it would be a problem for them, and they would worry about doing something.

I wonder how can they even flourish a business out of stolen keys...

Are there any rogue agents trying to generate collisions ?
Or do they actually stole them from phishing, unauthorized access or from the inside ?

That's the kind of questions I'd love G2A to answer as they might know better.

Beginner's guide to laundering money using G2A

1. Steal credit card details using phishing techniques.
2. Buy loads of game keys on Humble or game developer's own websites.
3. Sell keys on G2A to cash out.
4. Leave game devs to deal with chargeback fees while G2A gets rich off of the cut they get from stolen keys.

Why don't they just revoke the keys?

If so many stolen keys are actually sold in G2A, the user will know, everyone will say on the Internet that their key bought in G2A has been revoked, even though not many buyers denounce G2A, it would be a problem for them, and they would worry about doing something.

They could revoke the keys but since that key now belongs to somebody that thinks they bought a legitimate key, they risk pissing off people playing their game. The devs already have to deal with the chargeback but on top of that they risk PR damage if they actually try to do something about it. So, not exactly a perfect solution.

Beginner's guide to laundering money using G2A

1. Steal credit card details using phishing techniques.
2. Buy loads of game keys on Humble or game developers' own websites.
3. Sell keys on G2A to cash out.
4. Leave game devs to deal with chargeback fees while G2A gets rich off of the cut they get from stolen keys.

Makes sense :O

That's why I buy on GoG, itch.io or steam. They take their cut, sure, would expect nothing less of a service provider/distributor. But I am sure devs receive their agreed share.

I still think the 30 percent cut steam takes too much, especily on smaller titles, but it's not my decision to make.

And I disagree still that I can not give games I bought to friends. But the times probably changed too much for that.


Last edited by STiAT on 21 May 2020 at 11:34 pm UTC

So uh, excuse me for my ignorance, but what would be the 'legit' key reselling service? G2A saved my neck so to speak several times before when I missed a sale by a week or something and I figured most keys sold there come from shrewd people who buy a bunch of them on such sales.

So uh, excuse me for my ignorance, but what would be the 'legit' key reselling service? G2A saved my neck so to speak several times before when I missed a sale by a week or something and I figured most keys sold there come from shrewd people who buy a bunch of them on such sales.

I always thought the 'legit' way was to suck it up and wait for the next sale.

I always thought the 'legit' way was to suck it up and wait for the next sale.

So, you're saying my best option is to spend hours wishlisting hundreds of games across various stores and spam my email account with a bunch of games I might or might not want to buy at some point?

I always thought the 'legit' way was to suck it up and wait for the next sale.

So, you're saying my best option is to spend hours wishlisting hundreds of games across various stores and spam my email account with a bunch of games I might or might not want to buy at some point?

That's unfortunately the way it is. Key market places (not just G2A) are way too easy to exploit by criminals. So using them is risking being a part of that practice.

I always thought the 'legit' way was to suck it up and wait for the next sale.

So, you're saying my best option is to spend hours wishlisting hundreds of games across various stores and spam my email account with a bunch of games I might or might not want to buy at some point?

And you're saying we should all be entitled to sale prices after a sale has ended, even if that means purchasing from a random dude on a shady key reselling site like G2A?

I wishlist games I actually do want to buy, and if I miss a sale, I wait a few weeks or months for another one. There's always something else to buy or play anyway.

So, you're saying my best option is to spend hours wishlisting hundreds of games across various stores and spam my email account with a bunch of games I might or might not want to buy at some point?

You didn't use to go to actual real world markets to see if it has got the game you want and for which price back in the times, right?

And you're saying we should all be entitled to sale prices after a sale has ended, even if that means purchasing from a random dude on a shady key reselling site like G2A?

I wishlist games I actually do want to buy, and if I miss a sale, I wait a few weeks or months for another one. There's always something else to buy or play anyway.

That's the problem, isn't it? There are tons of games, games go on sale en masse and it's very easy to miss one amidst everything else. Or maybe the sale's timing sucker punches you in a different way - it comes right before your payday, it comes right when you were on a vacation with no internet access or maybe you just plainly haven't used your computer for a while. Then when you do miss one, you can't be sure it will go on sale anytime soon or even ever again. So yeah, if I've just missed one, I went to G2A to get it. I guess my point is that time-limited offers such as these have proven inconvienient numerous times and G2A is the service that provides that convienience (for a while, after a certain point the prices there are the same as everywhere else anyhow). I always figured some purchase is better for both parties than no purchase or a maybe-down-the-line-if-the-stars-align-later purchase. It would be better if there was a more direct way that pays the devs better, but that's the can of worms you open with time-limited offers. Either you ax those completely or find a way to improve your service/store so that I don't have to go to G2A to make my purchases.


Last edited by LungDrago on 28 May 2020 at 10:36 am UTC

You didn't use to go to actual real world markets to see if it has got the game you want and for which price back in the times, right?

Exactly once, to find out that retail prices are way too high in my country for a kid to ever buy a game. Back in the day, I got nearly all of my games from my favorite game magazine that came with a CD. When you did buy a game back in the day, you often got it in a nice large case to store the medium in and display on your shelf and you got a bunch of doodads like game manuals, art books, soundtracks. Back in the day you owned your game and you could lend it to your friends, or lend it from them. Not to mention back in the day there were way less games in general to keep track of.
Times have indeed changed.

And you're saying we should all be entitled to sale prices after a sale has ended, even if that means purchasing from a random dude on a shady key reselling site like G2A?

I wishlist games I actually do want to buy, and if I miss a sale, I wait a few weeks or months for another one. There's always something else to buy or play anyway.

That's the problem, isn't it? There are tons of games, games go on sale en masse and it's very easy to miss one amidst everything else. Or maybe the sale's timing sucker punches you in a different way - it comes right before your payday, it comes right when you were on a vacation with no internet access or maybe you just plainly haven't used your computer for a while. Then when you do miss one, you can't be sure it will go on sale anytime soon or even ever again. So yeah, if I've just missed one, I went to G2A to get it. I guess my point is that time-limited offers such as these have proven inconvienient numerous times and G2A is the service that provides that convienience (for a while, after a certain point the prices there are the same as everywhere else anyhow). I always figured some purchase is better for both parties than no purchase or a maybe-down-the-line-if-the-stars-align-later purchase. It would be better if there was a more direct way that pays the devs better, but that's the can of worms you open with time-limited offers. Either you ax those completely or find a way to improve your service/store so that I don't feel the need to go G2A to make my purchases.

This has a number of problems. Firstly, this is based on an assumption that game sales are random. They are not, the biggest sales are seasonal and if a game is going to go on sale, that's most likely when it happens. You have at most a few month window when you cannot know if a game is going to be on sale. You are also still clinging to an entitlement to a temporarily lowered price but haven't made arguments why that entitlement is justified. Hell, you even mentioned that stores could stop doing sales entire, so why aren't you willing to buy the game at full price? That's what you'd be doing if stores didn't do discounts at all.

Secondly, "some purchase is better than no purchase" isn't really valid when there's a bunch of devs who would rather that you pirate their game than buy on G2A. With many of these purchases no benefit goes to the developer. At best they profit nothing, at worst they take an actual financial hit from it.

Basically, nothing you've mentioned is an insurmountable problem and thus a justification for going to G2A. Sales aren't random, they can be reasonably tracked and games aren't such a vital commodity that you can't wait for the next sale if you happen to miss one. Just because you can get a small amount of convenience from going to a grey market doesn't justify it.

That's the problem, isn't it? There are tons of games, games go on sale en masse and it's very easy to miss one amidst everything else. Or maybe the sale's timing sucker punches you in a different way - it comes right before your payday, it comes right when you were on a vacation with no internet access or maybe you just plainly haven't used your computer for a while. Then when you do miss one, you can't be sure it will go on sale anytime soon or even ever again. So yeah, if I've just missed one, I went to G2A to get it. I guess my point is that time-limited offers such as these have proven inconvienient numerous times and G2A is the service that provides that convienience (for a while, after a certain point the prices there are the same as everywhere else anyhow). I always figured some purchase is better for both parties than no purchase or a maybe-down-the-line-if-the-stars-align-later purchase. It would be better if there was a more direct way that pays the devs better, but that's the can of worms you open with time-limited offers. Either you ax those completely or find a way to improve your service/store so that I don't feel the need to go G2A to make my purchases.

This has a number of problems. Firstly, this is based on an assumption that game sales are random. They are not, the biggest sales are seasonal and if a game is going to go on sale, that's most likely when it happens. You have at most a few month window when you cannot know if a game is going to be on sale. You are also still clinging to an entitlement to a temporarily lowered price but haven't made arguments why that entitlement is justified. Hell, you even mentioned that stores could stop doing sales entire, so why aren't you willing to buy the game at full price? That's what you'd be doing if stores didn't do discounts at all.

Secondly, "some purchase is better than no purchase" isn't really valid when there's a bunch of devs who would rather that you pirate their game than buy on G2A. With many of these purchases no benefit goes to the developer. At best they profit nothing, at worst they take an actual financial hit from it.

Basically, nothing you've mentioned is an insurmountable problem and thus a justification for going to G2A. Sales aren't random, they can be reasonably tracked and games aren't such a vital commodity that you can't wait for the next sale if you happen to miss one. Just because you can get a small amount of convenience from going to a grey market doesn't justify it.

Okay, explain to me what makes anyone entitled to purchase a game at a time-limited discounted price? There are no limited supplies, no manufacturing costs, no shipping costs. No entry fees, club memberships or raffles. I am just as entitled as everybody else, no?
It's just that real life does not bend over backwards over a dev's sale. Sometimes I find myself excluded from this entitlement due to third party circumstances that have nothing to do with me as the buyer or the devs as the seller. Buying the product at now full-price feels bad, I believe understandably so.
Yes, none of this would be a thing if time-limited offers weren't around. But they are. They even come en masse seasonally as you mentioned. Even though there is NO guarantee that the game you want will be on sale, a large enough quantity does go on sale, enough so customers can ask questions such as 'Am I willing to buy this at full price or am I willing to buy this only on sale price?'. Reviews today have a "buy at sale" rating. You're calling me entitled, but it seems to me that everyone is entitled. It's the reality of things when you show you're willing to lower the price - it just might become apparent that your product was never worth the original price in the first place. In other words, if there was no discount, there would be no purchase. Some games I do buy at full price - if I have faith they are worth it. I usually do so right away and I do not need and don't use G2A for that either.
I want to reiterate the fact of oversaturation of discounted games on those large big sales you mentioned. I don't know about you but I don't sit around all day on the Steam page filtering the games. Real life is a thing. Filtering is needed though, as the primary sales-keeping feature I'm aware of, wishlists, have one major problem: you have to know a game exists for you to add it to a wishlist. Second problem is that wishlists really stop working once you add too many games to them, so you can't use them as a "maybe buy at sale" list either. This is why I find myself discovering games after a sale and end up retroactively buying them on G2A so to speak.

Also let me point out that I did ask for better options. It is not my intention or wish to rip of the devs, if it was, I would indeed pirate the game, but I am not using that option. I am arguing though that G2A does provide a convienience service that is not available anywhere else. There are use cases for it and if it weren't around, games would go unpurchased and unplayed - after all, when I missed it once, what's there to stop me from missing it again?

Okay, explain to me what makes anyone entitled to purchase a game at a time-limited discounted price? There are no limited supplies, no manufacturing costs, no shipping costs. No entry fees, club memberships or raffles. I am just as entitled as everybody else, no?

People are entitled to a time-limited discount because the proprietors of the store set a time-limited discount. We can argue whether games are appropriately priced but that is an entirely different issue.

It's just that real life does not bend over backwards over a dev's sale. Sometimes I find myself excluded from this entitlement due to third party circumstances that have nothing to do with me as the buyer or the devs as the seller. Buying the product at now full-price feels bad, I believe understandably so.

Yeah, it sucks to miss out on opportunities. But that's life and opportunities are passing you by constantly. Getting stuck on what-ifs isn't productive here or anywhere else.

Yes, none of this would be a thing if time-limited offers weren't around. But they are. They even come en masse seasonally as you mentioned. Even though there is NO guarantee that the game you want will be on sale, a large enough quantity does go on sale, enough so customers can ask questions such as 'Am I willing to buy this at full price or am I willing to buy this only on sale price?'. Reviews today have a "buy at sale" rating. You're calling me entitled, but it seems to me that everyone is entitled. It's the reality of things when you show you're willing to lower the price - it just might become apparent that your product was never worth the original price in the first place. In other words, if there was no discount, there would be no purchase.

This goes back to whether games are appropriately priced or not. In our economic system prices are set by sellers and it's up to the buyers to determine if that price matches their demand for a product. In some cases that means waiting for the product to be on sale for the price to match demand. This is not relevant to the discussion though and you feel you are entitled for that price to match your demand even if that means working around the economic system.

I want to reiterate the fact of oversaturation of discounted games on those large big sales you mentioned. I don't know about you but I don't sit around all day on the Steam page filtering the games. Real life is a thing. Filtering is needed though, as the primary sales-keeping feature I'm aware of, wishlists, have one major problem: you have to know a game exists for you to add it to a wishlist. Second problem is that wishlists really stop working once you add too many games to them, so you can't use them as a "maybe buy at sale" list either. This is why I find myself discovering games after a sale and end up retroactively buying them on G2A so to speak.

So, on one hand you are complaining that you cannot know for certain that the one game you want will be on sale but the next moment you complain that it's hard to keep track of multiple games. So I'm not really sure which of the two is the issue here. It's a fact that you cannot keep tabs on every discount ever, so you need to prioritize and keep tabs on the discounts you consider important. This may require, for example, pruning your wishlists. In either case, I don't believe that because keeping tabs on everything that might be on sale is inconvenient, you now get to use illegitimate means to acquire a product for that price.

Also let me point out that I did ask for better options. It is not my intention or wish to rip of the devs, if it was, I would indeed pirate the game, but I am not using that option. I am arguing though that G2A does provide a convienience service that is not available anywhere else. There are use cases for it and if it weren't around, games would go unpurchased and unplayed - after all, when I missed it once, what's there to stop me from missing it again?

Games go unpurchased and unplayed anyway. Either because you miss a sale and have to wait for another one or because a game didn't receive enough publicity and fades into obscurity. Not everyone gets to play all the games. If this was an argument for something, it would probably be another argument for piracy, since one's economic status is a limiting factor on their ability to play all the games they want to.

And regarding convenience, there are lots of convenient things people can do. For example, it might be extremely convenient for me to throw my trash on the street so that I don't need to inconvenience myself with a trip to the trash bin. However, we typically don't tolerate people taking advantage of such conveniences because it makes other people miserable. Something being convenient doesn't justify it, which is a thing I'm trying to focus on here. We know that grey market key trading causes harm to devs, we know that G2A has repeatedly lied and acted scummy about this. Just because they happen to be a convenience for you doesn't override these things.