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[Bullet Club]

G2A pays Factorio developer $39,600 over illegally obtained game keys

Reached for comment, marketplace owner issues apology

In July 2019, G2A, the company behind the controversial G2A Marketplace, offered to open its transaction history to an independent auditor. The goal was to clear its name of any wrongdoing after years of accusations it helps facilitate the sale of stolen goods. Only a single developer took them up on the offer. Now G2A will voluntarily pay them nearly $40,000.

Among its many lines of business, the Polish-owned and Hong Kong-based G2A runs a storefront where users from around the world can sell game keys. It likens that service to retailers like Amazon and eBay. Developers of all sizes have complained for years that the G2A Marketplace allows for the sale of stolen goods. The situation has led to shouting matches and heckling between developers and G2A employees in the real world.

In 2019, G2A made what it claimed to be a bold offer, promising 10 times the value of any fraudulently obtained game keys sold on its marketplace. There was only one catch: Developers had to work with G2A and an independent auditor. Only one company, Czech-based independent developer Wube Software — makers of Factorio — signed on to the program. G2A told Polygon at the time that it intended to use either PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KMPG or Deloitte to perform the audit.

Unfortunately, according to a blog post issued on Wednesday, G2A couldn’t come to terms with those large firms and just did the audit themselves.

“Wube reported to G2A a list of 321 keys that it believed had been sold online illegitimately,” G2A said in the blog post. “After assessing a number of independent auditing companies and finding none that would meet our agreed requirements, Wube and G2A decided that G2A should proceed with an internal investigation. This investigation confirmed that 198 of Wube’s keys had been sold via its Marketplace between March 2016 — June 2016.”

As a result, GamesIndustry.biz reports that G2A has paid out $39,600 to Wube, which is — as promised — 10 times the value of the full-price game keys in question.

In its post, G2A accepts no blame for allowing the illegally obtained keys to be sold.

“When we launched this offer, we wanted to send a clear message to the gaming community that fraud hurts all parties,” G2A said in the blog post. “As we spell out in this blog, fraud directly hurts individuals who buy illegitimate keys, it hurts gaming developers and it ultimately hurts G2A because we are forced — as the transaction facilitator — to cover costs related to the sale. We wanted to amplify that message and capture people’s attention.”

It went on to add that, going forward, it is now committed to compensating developers in full for any fees incurred “for any keys sold via G2A Marketplace, if they are able to prove they were illegitimate.”

Update: G2A responded to Polygon with a statement.

“We would be the first to admit that, in our formative years as a company, we took too long to recognize that a small number of individuals were abusing our Marketplace,” said a G2A spokesperson. “However, the criticism we received was the wake-up call we needed, and over the last years we have been totally committed to tackling any incidents of fraud on our site. Today we use some of the most sophisticated proprietary anti-fraud AI technology of any online marketplace for digital products.”

Source: Polygon

 

[DoctaThompson]

Once I was informed about their bad practices a couple years back, I stopped giving them any money. Then I heard about how hard it is to cancel an account with them... Oh man.

 

[GHG]

The only time I've ever bought a key online that was already redeemed and didn't get my money back as a result was through them.

With the amount of information they were requesting from me to verify I hadn't redeemed it they would have been able to get access to my steam account via social hacking. Maybe that's what they wanted...

It's the one key shop that needs to be wiped from existence.

 

[lyan]

G2A couldn’t come to terms with those large firms and just did the audit themselves.

LOL

 

[Raphael]

Good to hear they kept their word, seems they have improved on combating those keys over the years. The service seems alright overall, its like eBay but just for keys. There will always be some rotten apples in there.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

*Cough*

Maybe the Factorio Devs can put a sale on their game now seeing as it's never had one..

Uh, what? I didnt say anything.

 

[Dontero]

If developers want to solve problem with stolen keys they can just deactivate those keys and instantly they would know who has legit copy or not. They can also patch their games and make the detect stolen keys sending message to player that this gamekey was stolen contant your shop becuase we won't help you.

Arguments about : "Who is responsible for support then" also are invalid because games are just like any other merchandise which means if thing is stolen shop is the one you go to not producer of an item.

If developers don't want to do that for whatever reason then fuck them and their opinions.

The fact is that developers themselves fully know that 99% of those keys are legal and bought from sales etc. They just don't want those keys to exist because they want to have full input on game price and where it is sold which is why they drive this stupid "those are stolen keys". Few developers literally checked where those keys come from and they all came from sales, some youtubers selling them when they were given those keys, shops dumping not needed stock etc.

 

[Spukc]

I hope they never put factorio on sale otherwise i will go to their forums and waaaah like a whiny little bitch

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Huh, kinda anticlimactic. I remember when the original drama broke. $40k isn't chump change but it's not a lot when it comes to the overall profit margins of a worldwide-available videogame.

 

[IntentionalPun]

If developers want to solve problem with stolen keys they can just deactivate those keys and instantly they would know who has legit copy or not. They can also patch their games and make the detect stolen keys sending message to player that this gamekey was stolen contant your shop becuase we won't help you.

Arguments about : "Who is responsible for support then" also are invalid because games are just like any other merchandise which means if thing is stolen shop is the one you go to not producer of an item.

If developers don't want to do that for whatever reason then fuck them and their opinions.

The fact is that developers themselves fully know that 99% of those keys are legal and bought from sales etc. They just don't want those keys to exist because they want to have full input on game price and where it is sold which is why they drive this stupid "those are stolen keys". Few developers literally checked where those keys come from and they all came from sales, some youtubers selling them when they were given those keys, shops dumping not needed stock etc.

Uhhh.. developers generate those keys and sell them to the key stores in the first place, quite on purpose.

Steam lets them do it for free, so they can sell a key for $45 for a $60 game and actually make more money than what Steam would pay them ($42).

You have absolutely no clue what in the world you are talking about and you should feel bad.

And your first suggestion is just fucking insane.. de-activate all legit keys to break legit buyers games just to detect the non-legit ones? WTF? lol

 

[ThatGamingDude]

If developers want to solve problem with stolen keys they can just deactivate those keys and instantly they would know who has legit copy or not. They can also patch their games and make the detect stolen keys sending message to player that this gamekey was stolen contant your shop becuase we won't help you.

Arguments about : "Who is responsible for support then" also are invalid because games are just like any other merchandise which means if thing is stolen shop is the one you go to not producer of an item.

If developers don't want to do that for whatever reason then fuck them and their opinions.

The fact is that developers themselves fully know that 99% of those keys are legal and bought from sales etc. They just don't want those keys to exist because they want to have full input on game price and where it is sold which is why they drive this stupid "those are stolen keys". Few developers literally checked where those keys come from and they all came from sales, some youtubers selling them when they were given those keys, shops dumping not needed stock etc.

Got a few small games shops near me that when the shelf space becomes too much and the box just has a digital code that they'll start busting them open and throwing them up on shops like that

Huh, kinda anticlimactic. I remember when the original drama broke. $40k isn't chump change but it's not a lot when it comes to the overall profit margins of a worldwide-available videogame.

Exactly my thoughts. On top of the fact that an investigation can only go so far before it becomes unprofitable to continue it
Anti-climatic, yeah, but it fucking sure as hell put devs in their place when talking about selling keys on a market place outside of their realms

EDIT:

Uhhh.. developers generate those keys and sell them to the key stores in the first place, quite on purpose.

Steam lets them do it for free, so they can sell a key for $45 for a $60 game and actually make more money than what Steam would pay them ($42).

You have absolutely no clue what in the world you are talking about and you should feel bad.

And your first suggestion is just fucking insane.. de-activate all legit keys to break legit buyers games just to detect the non-legit ones? WTF? lol

Yep; and if the original person bought it, they've made their money. If you're able to actually steal-steal keys, then Steam is to blame for how their security is on their key generations and verification. Salt your tables.

I don't think he meant disable ALL keys; most keys are generated in blocks, and if you notice a certain block being hit in weird ways, doing a scream test is 100% a viable troubleshooting method
Though it can be an ass hole/bad way to test things, it's still a valid way to do it

 

[jshackles]

And your first suggestion is just fucking insane.. de-activate all legit keys to break legit buyers games just to detect the non-legit ones? WTF? lol

Ubisoft tried this a few years ago and absolutely got roasted alive by their customers.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Once I was informed about their bad practices a couple years back, I stopped giving them any money. Then I heard about how hard it is to cancel an account with them... Oh man.

Same.

I just started using www.isthereanydeal.com as the sellers that site seems to pull from are all legit, from what I can tell

Ubisoft tried this a few years ago and absolutely got roasted alive by their customers.

Definitely did no go over well.

 

[Dontero]

You have absolutely no clue what in the world you are talking about and you should feel bad.
And your first suggestion is just fucking insane.. de-activate all legit keys to break legit buyers games just to detect the non-legit ones? WTF? lol

Deactivate stolen keys not legit ones. Learn to read. The only party that generates those keys are developers and they are the ones who have full information if keys were stolen or not. Because it is as simple as checking key in database if that key was sold and if they received money for it. They also have a way to check who those keys were sent too. If they see key on those keyshops they can buy one and instantly know where that key comes from. So the whole talk about not knowing what is ratio between stolen or not, is completely bullshit because developers know that from get go.

Not only that. Most of those keys are steam keys which means that developer can check everytime someone runs game if they game has stolen key or not.


So no i don't care about developers moans about not being able to control their own hand where they are selling those keys and on what therms. Just like i don't care if shoes i made were sold via legit Adidas chain or some sort of 3rd party shop that got them via some big shop removed their latest collection via dumping.

Developers basically play victims when it is entirely on them and then they dare to harpy about key reseller sites because they are fucking losers and can't go to chain their sold their keys to to ask why they just dumped their keys for much less that other places.

The top of it being "stolen" keys. I can understand if they sell their keys via their own site and then someone scams them, it is pain. But they are the ones who agreed on Visa/Mastercard therms that they will reimburse people after cards were stolen. No one put gun to their head and asked them to sing contract like this. They directly benefit from ease of use of CC cards and they can sell even milions of copies without printing any disc or go to bank but they don't want to acknowledge their own part of bargain. Don't like it ? Don't sign it.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Though it can be an ass hole/bad way to test things, it's still a valid way to do it

Well I'm pretty sure for the most part we aren't talking about fraudulent keys; just keys obtained from fraudulent transactions. Bought and then charged back behind the scenes, or bought with a stolen credit card and then sold to the reseller (at a "loss", but not their money anyways.)

Devs who sell keys on their own websites and not necessarily wholesale are the ones who get taken advantage of,

 

[rofif]

how do You steal keys. There are no trucks transporting keys

 

[keraj37]

I recomend instant gaming - never had any issues with keys from them.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Deactivate stolen keys not legit ones. Learn to read. The only party that generates those keys are developers and they are the ones who have full information if keys were stolen or not. Because it is as simple as checking key in database if that key was sold and if they received money for it. They also have a way to check who those keys were sent too. If they see key on those keyshops they can buy one and instantly know where that key comes from. So the whole talk about not knowing what is ratio between stolen or not, is completely bullshit because developers know that from get go.

Not only that. Most of those keys are steam keys which means that developer can check everytime someone runs game if they game has stolen key or not.


So no i don't care about developers moans about not being able to control their own hand where they are selling those keys and on what therms. Just like i don't care if shoes i made were sold via legit Adidas chain or some sort of 3rd party shop that got them via some big shop removed their latest collection via dumping.

Developers basically play victims when it is entirely on them and then they dare to harpy about key reseller sites because they are fucking losers and can't go to chain their sold their keys to to ask why they just dumped their keys for much less that other places.

Learn to write something that makes sense then because if they know all stolen keys then they.. know them.. before de-activating them lol

But sure the issue is partly the devs not having robust systems in place for tracking stolen keys, and then having to manually de-activate them in the Steam system for doing so.

Which requires having employees dedicated to these tasks, something either manual or technology based for going through chargebacks and tracking what key they are associated with, etc.

What's the point of selling your own keys at that point if you need to have an expensive system in place for monitoring them and banning keys? lol

How about key resellers only deal with the devs thesmelves? What fucking reason do they have to buy a key from some shady individual?

Your entire point is just kind of dumb, sorry.. "OMG DEVS JUST WANT TO CONTROL HOW THEIR GAME IS SOLD"... uhh.. yeah? Like pretty much every product ever. And controlling price? LIke.. are you serious? Of course they want to stop people from STEALING their product and selling it at an unreasonably low price.

Is Apple supposed to be OK that I know a guy that sells Apple Watches for $150?

 

[Dontero]

Learn to write something that makes sense then because if they know all stolen keys then they.. know them.. before de-activating them lol

Literally what you wrote doesn't make sense. IDK what is with your reading comprehension but i said that they should deactivate keys that they know were stolen. And here you are saying exactly the same thing what i said.

But sure the issue is partly the devs not having robust systems in place for tracking stolen keys, and then having to manually de-activate them in the Steam system for doing so.

You do realize that for tax purpose you are MANDATED to keep track of all of your sales and products ? They literally have to operate database otherwise they would be shutdown by basically any gov.
Not only recent but years back.

Even if they were total idiots working in black, creating export import script for freaking computer programmer is basic thing. You don't even need to be one, just some SQL basics and you can do it yourself after 3-4 hours of learning how to do it.

Which requires having employees dedicated to these tasks, something either manual or technology based for going through chargebacks and tracking what key they are associated with, etc.
What's the point of selling your own keys at that point if you need to have an expensive system in place for monitoring them and banning keys? lol

I already explained it above when it comes to database and again when it comes to chargebacks they are free to not use Visa/Mastercard. There are shitload of businesses that don't use them and somehow they live. If some pops shop that makes shoes can make a living without Visa then for sure some game maker can.

How about key resellers only deal with the devs thesmelves? What fucking reason do they have to buy a key from some shady individual?

Not from shady individual but from anyone who wants to sell them those keys. Key reseller sites are basically bazaars and they sell used keys. I find it shocking that you can't get to your thick head that craiglist/ebay are the same thing.

It is not their job to contact developers because developers didn't contact them and they were never party for them.

Your entire point is just kind of dumb, sorry.. "OMG DEVS JUST WANT TO CONTROL HOW THEIR GAME IS SOLD"... uhh.. yeah? Like pretty much every product ever.

What is dumb about it ? Here is simple explanation to you: I don't fucking care where i buy games. I will buy them for the lowest price available from anywhere where they are available at lowest price.

I don't care if developer likes it or not. Much like i don't care if Ipod i bought was sold to me via ISpot or some pops shop. They are free to make deals how they want but don't ask me to fucking care if they got shafted on deals they signed on their own.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

1. Are companies complaining about stolen keys complaining AFTER the fact and already sold?

2. Or are they being proactive and telling G2A to don't allow sales of certain keycodes which are stolen?

If it's #1, can't blame G2A. If someone sells a stolen TV on ebay, how is ebay going to know? But if Samsung tells ebay certain products showing up are stolen and take it down, they should comply.

 

[SirKicksalot]

G2A used to have commercials playing before movies in Eastern European cinemas.
They're one of the few places where you can still find Steam keys for Prey 2006.

 

[Dontero]

1. Are companies complaining about stolen keys complaining AFTER the fact and already sold?

2. Or are they being proactive and telling G2A to don't allow sales of certain keycodes which are stolen?

If it's #1, can't blame G2A. If someone sells a stolen TV on ebay, how is ebay going to know? But if Samsung tells ebay certain products showing up are stolen and take it down, they should comply.

1. They signed deal with Visa/Mastercard that stolen stuff will result in chargeback
2. Someone steal Visa/Mastercard and makes legit key/gift purchases with those cards
3. Those purchases gets placed of forums/keyresellersites/ebay/craglist and other bazars where they are bought by legit users with legit cards. That money goes toward thief.
4. Original owner blocks card and calls Visa/Mastercard to do chargeback because card was stolen.
5. Visa/Mastercard sends first in chain invoice to return money they received.
6. They have to spend worktime to find and return money which cost money and time.

But stolen keys are absolute minority here. What drives them nuts is that they can't control where they send their keys. They make shitty deals thinking some shop will not fuck them over and will keep the price up but then some shop lowers price and dumps his stock instantly selling most of those keys which later goes to those reseller sites and developers are butthurt that now someone can buy their games for much less than officially. This is what makes them livid not those stolen keys.

AS you can see from this simple description G2A and other key reseller sites are last place to look for guilty.

I still remember one butthurt post on some forum when one of developers behind small indie game send for free nearly 1500 keys to various youtubers to make them play game and maybe do some giveaway and later on most of those keys ended up on some key reseller site. Game didn't even sell 1000 copies on steam after a year.

Basically they look for scapegoat for their own mistakes and they want consumers to pay for it.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Dontero : Of course they know the sale. I'm talking about tracking the chargebacks; which are a big source of stolen keys. I've worked on numerous online store backends and chargebacks generally come through via an email. It's not something generally automated; meaning you'd need to pay someone to look at those emails, search your system, find the key and then manually disable it. There's no automation in Steam for this and generally no automation available form payment gateways (I've used AmazonPay, WePay and a few others in the last 5 years and none of them had that.)

And let's not forget that by the time the chargeback happens, someone who THINKS they are buying a legit key has bought it... and so if you disable it you are just fucking over someone buying a key from a key reseller, not the person who stole the key.

"Get my thick head around it"... man get a grip. And maybe re-read your first post to see why you confused me.. "If developers want to solve problem with stolen keys they can just deactivate those keys and instantly they would know who has legit copy or not. " Why would they need to de-activate stolen keys to "instantly know who has a legit copy or not"? It sounded like you were describing something else.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

1. They signed deal with Visa/Mastercard that stolen stuff will result in chargeback
2. Someone steal Visa/Mastercard and makes legit key/gift purchases with those cards
3. Those purchases gets placed of forums/keyresellersites/ebay/craglist and other bazars where they are bought by legit users with legit cards. That money goes toward thief.
4. Original owner blocks card and calls Visa/Mastercard to do chargeback because card was stolen.
5. Visa/Mastercard sends first in chain invoice to return money they received.
6. They have to spend worktime to find and return money which cost money and time.

But stolen keys are absolute minority here. What drives them nuts is that they can't control where they send their keys. They make shitty deals thinking some shop will not fuck them over and will keep the price up but then some shop lowers price and dumps his stock instantly selling most of those keys which later goes to those reseller sites and developers are butthurt that now someone can buy their games for much less than officially. This is what makes them livid not those stolen keys.

AS you can see from this simple description G2A and other key reseller sites are last place to look for guilty.

I still remember one butthurt post on some forum when one of developers behind small indie game send for free nearly 1500 keys to various youtubers to make them play game and maybe do some giveaway and later on most of those keys ended up on some key reseller site. Game didn't even sell 1000 copies on steam after a year.

Basically they look for scapegoat for their own mistakes and they want consumers to pay for it.

And if that's how it works, then game companies have to suck it up with the digital key era. Don't think they'd have this kind of issue if this was 20 years ago and anyone needing to pawn off stacks of PC games would have to physically ship them around to liquidators. Stores have upkeep costs. That's why back in the day, stores weren't dumping games at 50% a month or two later. Maybe $10 off but not half price.

And with digital sales being a clean way of doing business without the physical hassle of trucks and warehouses, I'm sure some businesses or ebay kinds of peope are happy selling off loads of digital codes for $2 profit. Just get rid of them.

In brick and mortar, any supplier needing to dump stuff has to heavily discount it to get rid of it. And whomever buys it (liquidator) has to them take ownership, stock it, and mark it back up to make money. And something worth $50 isn't going to be marked up only $2. Much harder hassle of money and logistics to quickly and cheaply dump stock.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

how do You steal keys. There are no trucks transporting keys

It's a series of tubes; you can break into tubes

Well I'm pretty sure for the most part we aren't talking about fraudulent keys; just keys obtained from fraudulent transactions. Bought and then charged back behind the scenes, or bought with a stolen credit card and then sold to the reseller (at a "loss", but not their money anyways.)

Devs who sell keys on their own websites and not necessarily wholesale are the ones who get taken advantage of,

I don't think that's a problem with G2A though; it's like saying Ebay is responsible for that shit. They're just a web site with easy publishing for e-commerce

The pawn shop takes its due diligence to not accept stolen goods, but as long as they did their due diligence, the law doesn't give a shit

Inherently, the real issue is the completely relaxed nature we take towards identity theft and protection of that sort of information

For instance, the credit industry hands your credit reports back and forth between systems as raw data XMLs over TLS/SSL
With TLS 1.2 only being a requirement of PCI compliance in the past year, and TLS 1.1 being able to bled of its information for years now

This is why fraud departments at banks exist; rather than solve the issue, the bank would rather cash in.
So why wouldn't other companies?

 

[IntentionalPun]

I don't think that's a problem with G2A though; it's like saying Ebay is responsible for that shit. They're just a web site with easy publishing for e-commerce

It's all a TOS violation.

Which are legal grey areas; but as a key reseller you know if you are buying a key from someone who isn't the developer, that the key isn't supposed to be sold to you.

While obviously a TOS violation is not the end of the world; the fact is the reseller really has no clue where the key came from. I don't consider "well the law doesn't do anything about it" where I draw ethical lines on issues like this. If your business depends on possibly buying shady products maybe your business model sucks. Truth is many more reputable key resellers survive just fine almost entirely on publisher/dev supplied keys.

Digital products can't really be compared to the physical world well either way; don't really love the pawn shop example. Used items actually being USED and therefor worth less, or stolen items with no way of knowing if the product is real/damaged/etc. help in the physical world encourage people to buy new products from legit places. A key is a key... there is no realistic way to have a used marketplace that makes sense, and due to the anonymity of the online world it's easier to defraud people too. The pawn shop industry in general is just fucked up.. legal or not, a ton of unethical activity going on.. and lots of uncaught outright illegal activity.

Not saying G2A even needs to change anything; but I still can understand the developers plight here. Nobody is fully right or wrong and devs certainly don't deserve the ire Dontero is throwing their way. But G2A COULD change something.. that's for damn sure.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

It's all a TOS violation.

Which are legal grey areas; but as a key reseller you know if you are buying a key from someone who isn't the developer, that the key isn't supposed to be sold to you.

There's no legal grey area with a ToS; it's just Terms of Service. You break the terms, they don't have to provide the service. There's laws about guaranteeing what's in your terms, but those aren't laws about ToS themselves, more things like false advertising and shit

Okay, so ONLY the game dev can sell their keys? What about all the retail stores out there? Where does that put Steam, and GoG, and Humble Bundle?

While obviously a TOS violation is not the end of the world; the fact is the reseller really has no clue where the key came from.

Shit, sales people have sold stolen goods from their own company to customers plenty of times

Hence why PRA systems exist; more profit in letting the problem continue than to actually solve it.

I don't consider "well the law doesn't do anything about it" where I draw ethical lines on issues like this. If your business depends on possibly buying shady products maybe your business model sucks. Truth is many more reputable key resellers survive just fine almost entirely on publisher/dev supplied keys.

Oh neither do I, but every business does this. It's called risk assessment. Some companies play more fast and loose than others. Risk assessment is based upon the current laws.
Make harsher laws or more secure systems, and risk assessment gets more controlled

Digital products can't really be compared to the physical world well either way; don't really love the pawn shop example. Used items actually being USED and therefor worth less, or stolen items with no way of knowing if the product is real/damaged/etc. help in the physical world encourage people to buy new products from legit places. A key is a key... there is no realistic way to have a used marketplace that makes sense, and due to the anonymity of the online world it's easier to defraud people too.

Only in tangibility from a consumer stand point; a company providing a product is a company providing a product. Most of the business models are going to be the same because of that.

Pawn shops can sell digital goods too; shit one down the street from my office cells gift cards for Amazon and all sorts of shit, cell phone refill cards and stuff

Though, if you want to look at it from a consumer stand point, no one should give a shit if a key is stolen BECAUSE it's a digital good.

The core issue isn't the business model; banks charge a fee for extra identity and fraud prevention. Why not just upgrade your shit from KOBOL and be secure in the first place?
Solve root problems, don't band aid the effects.

Not saying G2A even needs to change anything; but I still can understand the developers plight here. Nobody is fully right or wrong and devs certainly don't deserve the ire Dontero is throwing their way.

Devs 100% deserve scrutiny from their demographics
And Dontero has an incredibly valid point on why some of these devs/publishers are bitching

They failed to plan for proper risk assessment and instead of admitting "Yeah we didn't take into account people might do fraud in such a relaxed age of identity protection..." they bitched about G2A

You want businesses to stop having fraud happen?
The banks security is the issue, not G2A
G2A wouldn't have the ability to do any weird stuff with chargebacks if banks actually secured their shit and tried to prevent fraud in a meaningful way

 

[IntentionalPun]

Okay, so ONLY the game dev can sell their keys? What about all the retail stores out there? Where does that put Steam, and GoG, and Humble Bundle?

No, pretty much 100% of the time the developer who gives out or sells a key to an individual states that it is not to be resold. When they sell a key to a reseller (totally allowed) they sell in bulk with the caveat that only the developer is supposed to sell in bulk (per Steam TOS.) The reseller then has a TOS allowing them to sell to the public (with a no re-sale TOS.) It's a 3 party system TOS wise in general. Any developer who doesn't have these stipulations (I don't know of any personally) well.. they don't care, so aren't really the topic of discussion.

They failed to plan for proper risk assessment and instead of admitting "Yeah we didn't take into account people might do fraud in such a relaxed age of identity protection..." they bitched about G2A

Sorry don't have time to respond to the rest of your post in detail (all valid points, I just think differently).. but we are generally talking about small operations here. Even a medium sized publisher selling keys is incredibly small time in the grand scheme of things. So while yes, it's a risk they are taking knowingly.. they likely literally can't afford to do it any other way. So I see no issue with them campaigning for sites that contribute to financial losses for them to change their policies or for their customers to not shop there.

It's 100% their right to say these things and I think you have to be kind of a dick to not at least see there point. Anyone committing these frauds or knowingly enabling them is not on the "right side" to me whether or not they are following the letter of the law.

And violating a TOS IS a grey area; because while you might not be breaking criminal law you are certainly opening yourself up to civil liability. There was a huge case that escapes me right now that ensured that.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

No, pretty much 100% of the time the developer who gives out or sells a key to an individual states that it is not to be resold. When they sell a key to a reseller (totally allowed) they sell in bulk with the caveat that only the developer is supposed to sell in bulk (per Steam TOS.) The reseller then has a TOS allowing them to sell to the public (with a no re-sale TOS.) It's a 3 party system TOS wise in general.

Right, and terms of service aren't legally binding, and would only get some sort of fine levied on either party if they broke actual law
The only party that did is the third party; which falls back to merchant services and banks needing to actually secure and validate transactions better

Sorry don't have time to respond to the rest of your post in detail (all valid points, I just think differently).. but we are generally talking about small operations here.

I hear ya; feel free to post later or PM me or whatever homie g. Forums are for convenience in speaking, not demanding conversations

So while yes, it's a risk they are taking knowingly.. they likely literally can't afford to do it any other way. So I see no issue with them campaigning for sites that contribute to financial losses for them to change their policies or for their customers to not shop there.

That is 100% something you should have an issue with; because the merchant services and banks have poor security, companies can start running around demanding money from one another because of fraud that isn't even a part of their system?
G2A had no legal recourse that could be taken against them; they literally gave out the money as a PR move
If the Devs actually understood what was going on, they'd go after the merchant services and banks for poor security standards to let fraud happen in the first place

Not only that, but now you're getting into territories where businesses shouldn't fail due to poor planning, and chasing other companies for money because of that.

It's 100% their right to say these things and I think you have to be kind of a dick to not at least see there point. Anyone committing these frauds or knowingly enabling them is not on the "right side" to me whether or not they are following the letter of the law.

Oh yeah, the people actually committing fraud are douche bags for sure; but G2A is doing what every online store out there does. PRA through their merchant services and self work flows on risk assessment.
G2A isn't the criminal here; they paid out because they had some shitty sellers at their swap meet
Should the state pay out to a community if drug dealers sell drugs at the park?

And violating a TOS IS a grey area; because while you might not be breaking criminal law you are certainly opening yourself up to civil liability. There was a huge case that escapes me right now that ensured that.

Yeah, then it falls to civil laws.
You can have ToS terms that contradict laws and shit gets thrown out
It's not a legal gray area, ToS just falls to civil law; class action law suits are still civil
You can keep calling it gray if you want, but it's not.

 

[Bullet Club]

Last year, G2A smugly offered to pay ten times the costs for any game proven to be sold fraudulently on their site. One developer took them up on it and is now owed almost $40,000 after it was demonstrated that, yes, many stolen keys were being sold.

G2A has battled credible accusations of enabling fraud for years. The grey market business has made plenty of cash reselling cheap keys for games, but many of those keys are alleged to be stolen. G2A has always disagreed it's a problem, until now... but now THEY'RE the victims!

Retconning recent history, G2A is pretending that it's always been concerned about fraud, and that it's the one "ultimately" suffering at the hands of game thieves. You couldn't make it up, but G2A could... it makes stuff up all the time!

 

[Caffeine]

ye i had 2 $5 games revoked from my steam account thats when i stopped using g2a.