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G2A, the key reseller that isn't particularly liked by most game developers is having some time in the spotlight and as usual, it's not for good reasons.

They have a bit of a history with developers, something I've written about before and even the first comment on that article was about keys being revoked that were purchased from G2A. They're a very shady company and I shall continue to urge people to support developers and shop elsewhere. You would think after Gearbox pulled the plug on their deal with G2A, that lessons would have been learned but it appears not.

So why are they back in the spotlight now? G2A decided to take out sponsored adverts on Google so that they show above more legitimate sources, as noted by Mike Rose on Twitter from the publisher No More Robots. Rose urged people to just pirate the game instead of buying on G2A, as game developers see nothing from G2A. Developer RageSquid, who made Descenders (published by No More Robots) also jumped in to say the same on Twitter "Please torrent our games instead of buying them on G2A". The situation gets then even murkier when Rose goes on to explain (Twitter thread) how some games end up on G2A and it's not pretty but it boils down to this:

- Someone sells a copy of a game using dodgy links and "Steam Gifts", waits until the game is in their account and they're happy
- At that point, they have plenty of options regarding how to kill that key and not pay for it

They're not alone in this feeling. Rami Ismail of Vlambeer also mentioned on Twitter:

If you can't afford or don't want to buy our games full-price, please pirate them rather than buying them from a key reseller. These sites cost us so much potential dev time in customer service, investigating fake key requests, figuring out credit card chargebacks, and more.

Even Fork Parker, the Chief Financial Officer at Devolver Digital chimed in on Twitter to say:

G2A is getting a lot of flak lately but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a garbage company.

Then we have Gwennaël Arbona, the developer of Helium Rain, who also jumped in to say:

Our game has never been offered on giveaway or wholesale, but you still did not take it down, despite our multiple demands.

Further Twitter posts from Arbona also note how they reached out to G2A back in November last year but are still waiting on responses. The list of developers complaining about G2A just goes on and on.

G2A has recently put up a blog post to claim they will bring in a "reputable and independent auditing company" who will look over claims of fraud. G2A also said they will pay developers "10 times the money they lost on chargebacks after their illegally obtained keys were sold on G2A". Their team also took to Twitter themselves, to say:

Let's say that petition goes and G2A decides to stop selling any indie game. "Nature abhors a vacuum". Sellers would move to the next platforms (there is like 20 of them) and then to Ebay and other marketplaces.

They're clearly aware there's an issue, but part of their argument seems to be that if they didn't offer this "service" someone else would. Not exactly a good foundation to an argument. Remember, this is the company that charges people every month, if they don't login to their account regularly! Yes, they still do that.

What's also brilliant is that G2A seem to be asking people to publish their "unbiased" article for payment, yet not mentioning that it's sponsored which is probably against some advertising laws, as well as being incredibly immoral and only continues to show how shady they are willing to be.

So now it has resulted in Rose from No More Robots creating a petition to ask game developers to sign their name to get G2A to stop selling indie games, since they're one of the most affected by it. The petition has so far managed to reach over three thousand signatures.

If you're wondering why things like the Humble Indie Bundle are a lot rarer now, websites like G2A are part of the reason. Too many developers worried about people mass-buying keys to sell on G2A, causing their games to be devalued over a very long time.

Updated after publishing, to add in a note about how G2A are trying to pay people to publish their article.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial
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46 comments
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x_wing Jul 9, 2019
Quoting: HoriAnd 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
cprn Jul 9, 2019
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
x_wing Jul 9, 2019
Quoting: cprnHowever, 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.
cprn Jul 10, 2019
Quoting: x_wingG2A 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
x_wing Jul 10, 2019
Quoting: cprnI 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.
Eike Jul 10, 2019
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Quoting: razing32So 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.
Nanobang Jul 10, 2019
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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
Mal Jul 10, 2019
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Quoting: NanobangIf 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.
cprn Jul 10, 2019
Quoting: NanobangIf 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.
Mal Jul 10, 2019
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Quoting: cprnIt'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.
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