In a world where developers and consumers
lived in peace, or not peace because some
developers have a history of screwing over
their consumers to the point where they cannot
be trusted; in a world where developers and
consumers lived inside, one company decided
to take it upon themselves to mess with the
world order and gain notoriety within the
gaming community for their fraudulent practices,
which in theory should put them out of business
but for some reason they are still alive to
this day.
I’m of course, talking about G2A.COM.
G2A limited is a company that specialises
in selling gaming products.
I need to put that fact out of the way before
I delve into the video, and this is because
I’m planning on letting you all know what
type of environment and the risks you are
putting yourself under if you buy from G2A.
Before you claim that I’m jumping on some
sort of bandwagon, which in all honesty is
pretty much non-existent outside of Reddit
and some areas of Twitter, a few of the things
I’m going to be talking about are from personal
experience, as well as the experience of many
other users and developers that have been
screwed over by this company.
Technically continuing on from what TotalBiscuit
started when he made his video about the situation
of Gearbox and G2A.
G2A is notorious in the community for its
various shady business practises, for example,
G2A Pay and the fact that a significant portion
of the games that are sold on their website
are sold from stolen credit cards, which could
potentially hurt the developer.
Before I go into G2A’s controversies and
shady business practises, I will provide a
hopefully brief introduction into G2A as a
company.
I know the title of the video is quite general
in it’s wording, I will be talking about
key resellers in general, G2A is the biggest
and the most relevant out of all the grey
market key resellers, which is why I go into
detail about them and not other organisations
like Kinguin or cdkeys.
Formerly known as Go2Arena, G2A was established
in 2010 by Bartosz Skwarczek and Dawid Rozek
in Poland as an online game retailer, with
its main objective being to sell video games
at the lowest possible price, which sounds
like what it is now, doesn’t it?
As in, you can go and search for a game on
their website and you will find a copy of
the game at a substantially lower price there
than on retailers like Amazon, Steam and GAME
amongst other places.
He claimed that developers did not want to
talk to G2A.
Maybe they felt that the company was too young
to be of any interest or too small to be taken
seriously.
As a result of the lack of interest from many
developers and rapid variations in the market,
the primary objective of G2A was not to be
a seller, but become a marketplace for young
gamers.
This statement will become extremely important
later on in the video, so remember it.
G2A delivers the platform for digital products
to be sold, acting as an intermediary by connecting
the buyer to the seller and for frequent customers,
G2A runs a subscription program called G2A
Shield.
This will also become extremely important
later on in the video.
G2A have a multitude of products that they
offer to their potential customers, such as
clothing, games, partnership programs for
publishers, a VR amusement park and 3D printing,
attempting to expand their reach in the community
into places where you wouldn’t think they
would ever reach.
G2A is also heavily involved in eSports, investing
millions in the scene and sponsoring professional
gaming teams such as Cloud9, Natus Vincere
and Virtus Pro.
They also do a lot of charity work, partnering
with various companies and charities to provide
help for people in need, such as Save the
Children.
With over 12 million users and availability
in over 15 countries, it isn’t surprising
that G2A is a very large and influential company.
This spills over into their business practises
however, and a lot of them are very very shady,
so now you know what G2A actually is, I guess
it’s time to discuss all of their shortcomings.
There are many many things that are wrong
with G2A as a company.
And they all boil down to the same debate
that is flung around the internet.
Are they legit?
The simple answer is ‘YES’ but the more
complicated answer lies in this thread, where
it is stated that: One thing to remember is
that even if you receive a working key from
a reseller, this doesn't necessarily make
them "legit".
It's a bit like claiming that winning at Russian
Roulette makes it a "safe game".
G2A’s marketplace can be likened to something
like eBay, or Craigslist, which would probably
be a more realistic interpretation of their
practices, in which the consumers are essentially
putting the trust in the sellers to give them
exactly what they want without any issues
or complications, and most of the time, further
down the line, there may be some complications.
So let’s break down their most glaring problem,
which is their tendency to harbour stolen
Steam keys.
G2A is a grey market.
Now a grey market is one that legally circumvents
authorized channels of distribution to sell
goods at prices lower than those intended
by the manufacturer.
So right off the bat, getting keys from G2A
or even other resellers such as Kinguin is
not illegal, but there are a lot more issues
down the line that you may potentially run
into if you were to buy from G2A in particular.
The most obvious risk that can arise from
buying from any grey-market reseller is the
fact that your game can be pulled completely
from your library; I will elaborate on this
later on in the video, but in essence, resellers
have no way of verifying if the key that you
have is valid or not, and cannot provide support
without extreme measures such as watching
your screen during activation.
Because of this, the developers of many games
will most certainly be uncertain as to whether
the copy of the game that you have in your
library is legitimate.
This in turn would lead to it being pulled
from your Steam Library without warning.
According to Polygon, in 2015 Ubisoft were
the subject of debate (as if they haven’t
always been the topic of debate) when they
revoked game keys of an unknown number of
Uplay members, removing the games from the
offending accounts in question, which in turn
would block them from being launched remotely.
According to the report, many of the game
keys Ubisoft found in the perpetrator’s
systems had been bought from Kinguin and G2A.
Ubisoft had determined these keys were bought
with stolen credit card numbers, so it revoked
the keys, highlighting an issue with G2A’s
integrity as a market for players to buy keys.
In 2014, Valve removed the game Sniper Elite
3 from the Steam libraries of over 7000 members,
reported by Rebellion, the developers of the
game.
In essence, Steam keys were stolen (or bought
using counterfeit credit cards) and then given
to resellers, like Kinguin and G2A, who then
passed them on to unknowing buyers on their
site.
The only way that Rebellion and publisher
505 Games found out about this act was when
they didn’t see any revenue from the sale
of these keys, and they informed Steam, who
revoked access from their games immediately.
If you do the math, that could account to
a lot of missed revenue from that game, as
of 2017 the game costs £15 for its PS4 edition,
if you multiply that by 7000, this would mean
that Rebellion and 505 Games lost over £100,000
in revenue from people buying second hand
keys.
For a company like 505 Games, maybe that isn’t
a large amount, but if you then look to smaller
developers of Indie games who may have their
keys stolen, then charged back unfairly by
credit card providers.
Now as a result of these practices and many
more, League of Legends developer Riot Games
banned G2A from sponsoring any team that competes
in League of Legends eSports tournaments,
meaning no G2A branding was to be seen in
any LoL eSports event.
In an article by a game developer named Leszek
Lisowski titled ‘How to get every game on
Steam for free,’ he highlighted the issues
of scam artists and coin resellers, claiming
that on September 4th, him and his company
Wastelands Interactive were working on a game
entitled Worlds of Magic and they made the
collective decision to release the game on
Early Access on Steam rather than sign with
a publisher so that they can maintain their
independence.
In their press release on the same day, they
encouraged journalists, YouTubers and everyone
of the like to request a preview copy of the
game, as any other reasonable developer would
do.
They then uploaded Steam keys for Kickstarter
backers on September the 5th but some people
were unable to redeem their keys and Leszek
decided to help them manually by sending about
1000 emails with Steam keys, or with requests
to confirm their previous emails.
After this they received tens of hundreds
emails from ‘YouTubers’ asking for copies
of the game and various other sites asking
for similar demands from the developers, with
emails being flung back and forth and their
forums blowing up with reports and reviews
of the game.
All of these emails from various YouTubers
were answered quickly and the developers were
so happy about all of this publicity they
didn’t check their YouTube channels for
legitimacy.
One forum thread later and the developers
soon realise there is a problem.
It had been reported that Worlds of Magic,
their game was available for purchase on G2A.com.
For a much lower price than the original retail
price.
After some investigation they bought some
keys from the store and realised they were
the exact same ones sent out to the ‘YouTubers’
that contacted Wastelands Interactive.
This is when things get really shady.
The developers went back to the emails that
were sent to them and checked them thoroughly
and discovered that most of them were gmail
accounts with a single letter or number difference
between the email name and the YouTube channel,
some of them were from eastern European regional
mailing domains and other random domain names.
After finding this out, Wasteland added more
authentication to their process, stating that
in future, every YouTuber that applied for
a Steam key would have to send them a message
directly using their YouTube channel.
From 20 requests, only 2 YouTube channels
confirmed.
70% of the keys they had given out were taken
under false pretences.
Now you can offer the excuse that they were
blind and naive to the popularity of their
own game, but as pointed out later in the
article and by other organisations such as
Kotaku in their own article detailing the
works of a scam artist.
The day after it was revealed that most of
their keys were stolen, the developers under
proxy decided to check if they weren’t the
only ones who were victims of such a crime
by testing this same method on other up and
coming developers.
They edited those emails to say something
else and created multiple Gmail accounts,
then went onto Steam, sorted by NEW and UPCOMING
releases, then got to work emailing these
developers asking them for a Steam key with
a claim that they are a YouTuber with 50K
subscribers.
In 3 hours they got 16 keys for 15 games worth
more than 400 dollars.
Now imagine if you had bots doing this for
days and you could be making ridiculous amounts
of money doing such an act.
Of course the developers who tested gave them
their keys back and didn’t resell them,
but this is a common issue amongst many indie
developers.
They want people to test their game and probably
wouldn’t think twice about sending a client
a Steam key.
It is the joint mindset of the scammer and
the scammed that allows organisations like
G2A to thrive, and the worst part is that
in G2A’s eyes, this is completely and utterly
fine.
Why wouldn’t it be?
You’ve acquired a Steam key from the developers
themselves.
In a similar story, the boss of the multiplayer
game SpeedRunners publisher, tinyBuild sent
an email to Eurogamer accusing the site of
laundering $450,000 worth of its games.
He described the business as fundamentally
flawed, facilitating a black market economy
amongst other things.
He noted that he’d ‘start seeing thousands
of transactions and their payment provider
would shut them down within days.
Moments later one would see G2A being populated
by cheap keys of games they had just sold
in their shop.’
After discussing with G2A about the financial
impact the marketplace has had, and asking
for G2A for compensation, they simply replied
with NO.
Even going further as to cite popular site
Eurogamer as their source of how legitimate
their business practices are as a large company.
The real question is, how much of an effect
has
Many people wouldn’t have much of a problem
with G2A if they audit their Steam key collection
methods and actually looked at how people
are acquiring these keys.
Similarly, their website is equally as shady
as their practices, as well as this their
staff members are quite unhelpful a lot of
the time.
Recently, G2A themselves held an AMA session,
with the intention of trying to distill a
lot of the misconceptions that people had
about how shady the company is, and it ended
in a disaster for the company PR.
In a conversation thread funnily enough about
stolen keys, they claim to do what they can
to prevent stolen keys, going through an ‘extensive
process to look for sketchy behaviour,’
suspiciously refusing to go into details.
The person who they are replying to is a G2A
user and seller, and he claims that every
single game key he’s ever sold is never
checked by anyone and is put up straight to
the marketplace.
He then shows G2A that they’re full of bollocks
by setting out a self-described ‘fake sale’
that lists the key as Active, meaning it can
be purchased, and demonstrates that the key
is on their site and is active.
As a result, and I shit you not this actually
happened, instead of looking into the issue
of verification, G2A bans his account.
I have no idea how you can possibly think
banning this person is the right thing to
do, especially if public relations are down
the toilet.
This point is reinforced by the fact that
various banking outlets for example NatWest
have expressed their distaste at having an
entity like G2A gain notoriety for it’s
shady practices and end up earning over two
hundred million users a month, which is an
absolutely astounding number especially owing
to the fact that a lot of these people are
essentially purchasing keys that have been
stolen or purchased through stolen credit
cards, with the key term being ‘stolen’.
Now my experience with the website, like many
others has been less than stellar, with a
lot of issues in the user interface, and their
subscription services being ridiculously difficult
to get out of.
For example, G2A Shield.
As G2A themselves don’t sell the keys there
are sometimes issues with them failing to
work properly, and this is why G2A offers
a subscription service called Shield.
This protects you apparently from keys that
don’t work, but there’s actually very
little information on the website that actually
tells you how the system works.
According to PCGamesN, G2A’s customer service
representative stated that G2A can still refund
you if you get keys revoked or dud keys, but
Shield shortens the waiting time for refunds
from nine days to five days.
Now at the described price of around £2 a
month, you’d probably be wondering why this
is even a thing because it’s a difference
of four days to potentially get a refund.
The main issue with G2A shield is that it
is ridiculously difficult to cancel.
It takes an average of 16 clicks across 10
screens, with the very first screen asking
you to confirm which Shield benefits you want
to disable, and before allowing you to cancel,
you have to click all six options, then it
asks you to tell them why you’re leaving.
After this screen it offers you a half-price
deal or something similar to entice you to
stay, then on the next screen it offers you
another deal.
Then on the next screen it asks you why you
want to leave again, then it tries to guilt
trip you into staying.
After this, you then have to verify your payment
option, whether it be a credit card, debit
card, Paysafe or PayPal, then you have to
confirm the email.
Also, when you get a game on G2A it’s a
small-ish option compared to the other payment
information, and when you click to disable
it it offers a big pop-up encouraging you
to re-enable it, offering ‘buyers protection’
which in all honesty, it should be a free
provision.
This in turn leads to random charges on unknowing
buyers’ bank accounts, and that could lead
into a lot of problems down the road.
Recently, there was a tiny bit of drama when
YouTuber TotalBiscuit refused to partner up
with Gearbox Software, known for titles such
as Borderlands, Battleborn and…
Borderlands 2 because of their association
with G2A, and, well, I’ll just let him do
the talking.
And there you have it, the tale of G2A and
it’s shady at the very least practices.
Now after all of this and even more, I
bet there are still a lot of people that will
still be buying from G2A under the same and
simple reason that it’s cheap and ‘convenient’
for them to use, and I honestly don’t blame
you.
The idea of G2A is so enticing for one person
to go to and use for their needs, but what
if I told you there are other organisations
that offer games for cheap, and are actually
ethical, for example, Humble Bundle: a system
where a developer or a group of developers
make a pack of games where you pay what you
want for the games, with the money going to
the devs, the charity of their choice and
the Humble Bundle site by allocation; and
yes.
It’s legitimate.
Also why not wait for a Steam sale?
The discounts would surely be bigger depending
on the game and it’s from Steam themselves!
There are alternatives, but you need to be
willing to actually look for them.
It is an interesting concept to hold, there
are no lies that can be told about that, but
when it comes down to it, G2A is not a good
organisation for one to be downloading content
from, owing to the fact that it’s extremely
shady and doesn’t offer things that should
be offered for free to customers, such as
buyer’s protection amongst various other
things.
