G2A
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You are currently reading a thread in /v/ - Video Games
You are currently reading a thread in /v/ - Video Games
Can somebody sum up the whole g2a drama, with proof and links and/or link me to an already existing post please, i only know a bit about whats going on.
Also general g2a discussion thread.
its all fear mongering, buying goods from grey markets has never been illegal, but it has been frowned upon by the jews because their profit margins aren't quite what they should be
>>343070682
Weren't there accusations about them stealing shit though?
>>343070527
>buy tons of keys with stolen/fake credit card from 3rd world stores for a fraction of the 1st world price
>sell them on g2a for 60% of the 1st world price before the charge back
>customer has to deal with the key being revoked
>pocket the money
>g2a keeps the fee and whatever is left in the sellers g2a account
It's indie devs crying about people buying their keys in bundles for next to nothing and selling them on for a profit. The whole stolen keys shit doesn't apply to indie games, they only really happen to big AAA games and it's almost always(if not always) preorders. I have never once seen a report of indie games beng revoked, it's always AAA games that were preorder keys.
Indie devs should just stop being crying little bitches, if they don't want this happening then don't sell your fucking keys on cheap as shit bundles.
>>343070527
from what I know, G2a are the middle man between selling and buying game keys, but these game keys can be bought and then sold on G2A with a stolen credtit card, with the money getting back into the theives hands before the credit card company clicks on.
once the do they get a charge back, keys get disabled and someone has to pay the bill.
I heard there was a indie dev getting massive bills and complaining about their game being sold on G2A/
that is all I know.
in my advise, if you are going to buy digitally buy from GOG a steam sale or torrent from TPB
>>343070527
Fuck off, redditor. Buy from valve if you are scared and do you your own homework. Better yet, just buy a fucking console and fuck off.
i'll buy from whoever has what i want for the cheapest. its not my job to fight your morality crusade.
>>343071246
>>343070969
Or just buy from someone with thousands of sales and 100% feedback so you get a key that works
It's a grey market retailer. They sell keys bought during sales, bundles, because the owner of the key never used it and decided to make back some of the money, or with stolen credit cards. This doesn't really affect you unless, when the chargeback for the stolen games goes through, your games may get revoked and you're down however much the game was on g2a. This is because from steam's perspective, someone bought a game on a dummy account with a stolen credit card and then transferred it to their main account; they can't really see it was bought via a third party by you.
It's usually safe to buy non-AAA games, or even older AAA games, but brand new AAA games going for $30 is probably because it was acquired through shady means. I would honestly suggest pirating the game instead of buying it from g2a if possible, if only so you don't run that risk, but I can say I've bought a few multiplayer AAA games at launch at discount there because I'm a poor jewwy college student. So far the games (Mortal Kombat X, SFV) are both still in my inventory.
tl;dr don't buy games from g2a if you can pirate them; games may disappear.
>>343071712
Or just buy a legit key from GMG for 20-25% less. If you really need a 50-60 dollar game to be 30 or less on launch maybe it's time to get your priorities straight.
>>343071990
Or just buy a legit key from g2a for even less
>>343070527
https://www.n3rdabl3.co.uk/2016/06/23/158083/g2a-vs-tinybuild-saga-continues/
>>343071990
Good goy.
>>343070527
I've never had an issue once with G2A, and I've even sold some stuff there. Obviously that doesn't guarantee it to be safe, but here's what I usually do:
>find market that has a shit currency compared to mine (usually Canada)
>pay ~$45 USD for a $60 CAD game
>sell game for $50 or so USD
>profit
>repeat
While this isn't illegal at all, companies seriously frown upon exploiting currency differences because it makes them "lose" money (you didn't pay "full price" for the game, and the buyer is giving you money instead of them).
>>343073103
They can't really complain about that, once you bought the key it's yours, you can do whatever you want with it. They could add region locking (which some do) but that could potentially hurt their sales.
it's a piracy and black market keys website disguised as an official retailer
it's the cheapest place to buy keys but also the most likely to get you in trouble
>sell keys to russians and whatnot for dirt cheap
>still charge full USA price in Australia
I buy what I can't pirate from G2A or wait for steam sales. If they're going to jew me I'll jew em right back. Fuck the cunts.
thoughts?
>>343074443
Is this for real?
what are the chances of these getting revoked?
How do you even buy steam keys? Who sells keys to G2A?
It's fear mongering over a complex issue. Key resale isn't illegal, but it may violate the terms of the key's license/sale agreement (e.g. bought in a region where the game is cheaper to sell in a region where the country is more expensive), making them grey market. People will also buy keys using stolen debit/credit cards and launder them into cash by selling them on sites like G2A. Person gets game, developer reports key is illicit, key gets blacklisted, person can no longer play game.
A game dev called TinyBuild claims that G2A allowed users to buy keys that were obtained fraudulently and said they lost nearly a half a million dollars. G2A gave a retort that Tinybuild assumes each copy would have sold for maximum price online (most places were selling keys far cheaper including others). Tinybuild had shit fraud detection for blocking people from using stolen cards, then people reversed the charges when they found them.
G2A said if they can identify keys that were done in such a fashion then they will blacklist the sellers and remove them from G2A.
the whole thing is kind of dumb IMO, if you buy grey market keys you're taking a risk to get the game much cheaper at the risk of the key potentially not being kosher. if the place where you consume the key or where the key was sourced from finds that it's legitimately a bad key (e.g. paid for with a stolen credit card) then you may lose your money and have your steam account or whatever you redeemed it on banned.
>>343074576
I've never seen an old game get revoked, it's always new releases.
>>343074683
Physical copies, humble store, GMG, etc etc
There are plenty of legit stores that sell steam keys.
>>343074683
resellers largely list the keys on G2A and G2A takes a cut for handling the transaction. since these resellers can be people in eastern europe or asia who used stolen credit cards to get the keys (or otherwise illicitly obtain them), you can get illegitimate keys from G2A.
>>343074576
Decent, as others said older games may be less troublesome. never bought from G2A shield but if you pay the $1 per game for it then they will refund your money if a key doesn't work/gets revoked.
here it is summed up
>butthurt indy devs mad that there exists a disruptive business undercutting them that doesnt directly bring them profit
>they astroturf drama on reddit with "the journalists" and pretend its about fraud when it isnt
>g2a's public response stating they should publish an investigation publicly if their claim are true
>indy dev fag responds with some bitter bullshit about "helping developers"
>>343074981
No I mean where do the resellers get the keys to sell.
>>343074683
>>343074810
>>343074981
>new releases
I bought rust early access from G2A, shit still works fine. Same as space marine when it first released, and dark souls 2 I think was from there shortly after release (within a week). None of my keys have been revoked, new games or otherwise.
>>343075107
from anywhere. humble bundles, bundled with hardware, trading with someone else, etc. thats what makes it so great and so cheap. thats why the indyfags are mad. its like used games. someone doesnt want it so they sell it for cheap to someone who does and the publisher doesnt get a cut. thats what this is about. indyfags, reddit, and fake journalists are trying to make it about credit card fraud, its total astroturf.
>>343075180
I didn't say it always happens, i said it's always new releases. Big difference.
>>343075107
see >>343074892
>>343075035
G2A is shady as fuck in how the keys are obtained, selling keys is against many terms of sites like Humble Bundle that sell them. That being said Tinybuild hasn't identified the channels or specific keys so G2A can investigate the problem and ban the resellers. It's also likely on Tinybuild as Steam and Amazon at least are pretty strong on fraud detection and banning/blocking people who use stolen credit cards.
>>343075180
It's very YMMV, some people buy 20 games and have no issue and some people get the key revoked a week after redeeming it from their first G2A purchase.
>>343071990
GREEN MAN GAMING SHILLS hahahahahahahhah
enjoy paying max price retard
G2A never scams anyone and i spent over 250 with them
the marketplace is buy at own risk.
I bough Dark Souls 2, DOOM and Black Ops 3 through them. Essentially any new release I buy through them because the Canadian dollar is shit. For some reason Dark Souls 3 ended up cheaper on Steam so I didn't use G2A for it.
inb4 key companies are just slandering each other to steal customers and steam doesn't really give a fuck.
Can't the dev just ban keys that get hit with a chargeback?
>>343074683
>Steal Credit Card info
>Buy keys
>Sell keys
When a chargeback happens either the key seller (humble bundle, Indiegala etc) or the dev have to pay the money back.
>Buy a game
Dev gets £5
>Torrent a game
Dev gets £0
>G2A
Dev pays £5
You would actually be doing better by torrenting the game.
Its not all like this of course, I could even sell legit kety there, But don't ask don't tell.
If you're going to buy from shit like g2a, might as well save your money and just pirate the game.
>I buy stolen goods instead of just pirating
>>343075238
I agree that G2A is very disruptive, but it's of dubious legality. When you have a sale on Amazon or Humble Bundle the idea is to not allow people to stockpile the game keys at a low price for resale forever. On the other hand, you have balancing the right of first sales as a concern.
The EU has explicitly backed the first sale doctrine on software even if it goes against the terms under which the key/software license was sold. US courts have traditionally not backed this doctrine (see Oracle Corp v. SAP AG, although this applies to download redistribution after paying for them - software license key resale is a really grey area).
The bigger problem is re-sellers like G2A give avenue for people to stockpile keys at a low price, especially with stolen credit cards (where the charges are reversed and dev loses the money) and then sell them on G2A.
However, this is why a lot of devs sell through Steam and Amazon - fraud detection is *tough* and if you don't do a good job of it, not only are you going to lose the sale, the key gets sold to someone else and meanwhile you're on the hook for the lost sale AND a fee for the reversed charge from your bank which can be $25-$35 per reversed charge. It's not reasonable for G2A to be expected to somehow "guess".
G2A's entire business model is shady, it's bad for developers and good for users. Eventually I think they will probably get sued - I imagine this hasn't happened yet because they are in Hong Kong - but eventually they will probably fuck a large developer over and it'll end up in a lawsuit.
>>343074576
Keys almost never get revoked and with shield even if it would get revoked they give u a new one.
>>343074981
>decent
retard..... keys almost never get revoked
>>343075468
I doubt game sales even make up that much of Valves income, they make money everytime someone sells something on the Steam marketplace anyway and shit sells there every nanosecond.
>>343075830
>what are multiplayer games
>>343075830
>>343075986
The only reason to use G2A is for multiplayer games you donuts
>>343070527
MFW ALL THE NORMIES SIDE WITH TINYBUILD ALL OF A SUDDEN BECAUSE THEY NEVER HEARD OF G2A
top fucking kek enjoy buying at maximum price you valve drones.
>>343075567
>Can't the dev just ban keys that get hit with a chargeback?
You can if you can report them to Steam, and if you give the keys to G2A they will also ban the reseller who sold them. How easy it is for a G2A reseller to just pop up a second account, I don't know though.
Even when you have chargebacked keys, not only do you lose the entire amount of the charge but you lose a chargeback fee. If your fraud detection is good and you have decent volume the first few chargebacks will be waived, but if not or you have a lot of them, you can lose a chargeback fee - usually $20-$35 - but sometimes up to $100, depending on the merchant bank.
>>343076047
>shield
>need to pay for it
yeah no, fuck off
Okay so some indie dev who's a fucking loser for not releasing his video game unless people played his idiotic Twitch Plays Punch Club or whatever the fuck it was.
Anyway he set up a site where you could buy Steam keys from his site directly. He didn't set up a limit to the amount of keys you could buy, and some BR with a stolen credit card bought thousands of copies of the game and put it up on G2A, and shitloads of people bought them before the dev caught wind of it, the card got faulted, but people kept the games and he lost out on a shitload of money. Oh wait, he didn't lose out at all, because people who are buying the game on G2A wouldn't have bought the game on Steam in the first place.
Did he lose SOME money? Yeah. Does it suck to be him? Yeah. Maybe next time don't sell your shit on some rinky dink website and limit the purchases of keys to like five so that people can't just buy a thousand of them.
>>343076297
>I play multiplayer games
>>343076003
>g2a
>Hong Kong
That's now how you spell Poland. EU.
>>343076474
>I play single player games
>>343076313
>How easy it is for a G2A reseller to just pop up a second account, I don't know though.
its not easy. people dont usually buy from any account without thousands of sales and 99% feedback. the campaign against G2A is total astroturf. all you have to do is tell them what keys were stolen and they remove them from the site. its a new kind of business and that means there will be risk until they create innovative ways to lower risks. similar to intellectual property misuse and youtube when it first started or something and how mad music and television studios got about p2p sharing and stuff. theyre just butthurt that g2a is disrupting the industry.
>>343076303
Please go back. You clearly don't understand the words you are using and are just cramming in words you've seen on screencaps from /r/4chan.
>>343070527
In 7 years of PC gaming I have never ever had a single problem with G2A, Kinguin, CDkeys or any other grey market site.
So far this year I've bought 9 games off G2A, 11 keys from Kinguin and 2 from CDkeys without issue.
>>343076504
Nope. G2A.COM limited, the entity that runs the site and sells to you, is based in Hong Kong. The entity G2A.COM Sp. z.o.o. is based in Cracow, Poland.
>>343076456
And this is why it's dumb to process credit cards directly when you're indie, it's not worth the hassle to come up with good fraud detection or deal with merchant banks. 25 cents a transaction is nothing compared to having a trusted payment partner do your transaction and notice odd things, like one guy doing tons of transactions or buying an unusual quantity, or using a US based credit card from a VPN/different country.
>>343071246
Jesus that was volatile wtf anon.
>>343070969
so this isn't about g2a as a seller itself or about the sellers with 99% positive feedback? then this is just complains that some people who steal use this as a money wash (i don't know if it's called this way in english but the meaning should be clear anyway)?
Someone linked me this video of someone trying to cancel G2A shield. The whole process is pretty much an automated comcast agent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR3pj52JAMY
>>343071246
savage
>>343076859
no one buys g2a shield subscriptions. the guy is clearly retarded. youre supposed to only use it for the one game you buy to get no questions asked refunds if you need to, not subscribe to it for months.
>>343070527
>Buy from cdkey sites for years
>Haven't paid full price for a game in years
>Whenever I mention this people tell me I'll get what's coming to me because all of those keys will soon be revoked
Why are people so jealous/mad? They can do it too, it's not some secret thing.
>>343077119
Being a moralfag is all they have keeping that fragile ego of theirs intact.
>>343071124
>in my advise, if you are going to buy digitally buy from GOG a steam sale or torrent from TPB
i bought a few games from g2a itself and never had a problem. also there are sellers with literally over a hundred thousand reviews though i'm scared to buy from them desu.
>>343075035
>butthurt indy devs mad that there exists a disruptive business undercutting them that doesnt directly bring them profit
Learn how it works. They keys are usually mass purchased using stolen credit cards. Then the keys are resold on G2A and other sites. When the cards charge back, the developers get hit with the bill because that's where the initial purchase was made.
>they astroturf drama on reddit with "the journalists" and pretend its about fraud when it isnt
And the only people that defend G2A are twitch streamers and the kids that watch them such as yourself.
>g2a's public response stating they should publish an investigation publicly if their claim are true
Which G2A even outright says they'll only consider if the developers partner with them. Aka sell their game on their site for less than any other market, while G2A gets a cut of the profit.
>>343076709
CDkeys doesn't use resellers, IIRC. They may get grey market keys that aren't technically kosher for resale (e.g. Humble Bundle terms explicitly disallow it) but they probably aren't using stolen credit cards to get the keys.
G2A is doing well because blocking all fraud is a hard thing and not all of it is explicit fraud but merely grey market (e.g. buying keys for games for $5 when a humble bundle is on, then reselling them once the humble bundle ends).
In the end I expect to see more region locking of the keys - this won't prevent all fraud, but it will make it harder to buy games in a region where the game is cheaper and resell them to areas where they are more expensive.
Also expect to see more smaller developers using third party payment services rather than trying to roll their own, since fraud detection as a small merchant can be tough.
For online key sales, rather than giving you a key you can redeem anywhere at any time on a steam account, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see direct purchase redemption APIs where sellers like the Humble Bundle can pass you to Steam/uPlay/Origin for login via oAuth before the purchase is completed and then directly credit the purchase to the relevant account once the payment processes.
This would prevent people from stockpiling keys as nobody is going to want to buy a single account with one game on it from these stores. It also gives the developer perfect control and insight on where keys are sourced from when they are redeemed.
>>343077521
>usually
you mean barely ever, right reddit fag? people dont get 100% positive ratings on hundreds of thousands of sales if it is "usually"
lol kill yourself
>>343076826
G2A offering an insurance against revoked keys and pocket the transaction fee from keys sold on their marketplace, that means they directly profit from keys sold whether they're legitimate or not. Sounds like a fence to me.
>>343077667
Keep on donating to that twitchwhore kiddo. Maybe she'll be your e-girlfriend one day!
>>343077692
yes they make money from a new venture with inherent risks, just like every other industry or business that was ever born before it became a giant legitimate business. remember ebay?
now go back to your safe space at reddit, you wont have any risks there kiddo.
>>343077521
>usually
No,it's a tiny number of the keys offered.
Do you really think G2a would have such a good reputation if almost all keys where fraudulent? The internet would be full with people complaining about revoked keys,as opposed to a limited number of them.
>>343077813
>Redditors insulting Twitchfags
What the fuck? You're the same fucking people you idiot.
>>343071051
It's crying over stolen credit card schemes where resellers on G2A use stolen credit card databases, use these cards to buy keys from other sites, then resell on G2A. Then when the cardholder realizes their card has been stolen and used, they chargeback. And it's taken back from the original key seller, not G2A. If it was just legitimately purchased keys being resold, it wouldn't be an issue. But that's the whole point of the scheme. To make profit selling the keys for less when the seller is selling keys bought with stolen credit cards. The only legitimate way to make profit off key reselling is when games go on sale or you get the keys as part of a discounted bundle. And that's not the problem is here. If the keys have been purchased legitimately before reselling, and no chargeback ensues there's no problem.
With the former happening on G2A, it literally hurts the developer less if you pirate the game opposed to looking for a resold key. Which is kind of hilarious and sad.
If buy a steam key and there's something wrong with it will I get arrested, will they ban my account, or just remove the game?
>>343077237
best not to support corruption anon, you help to kill devs that could eventually destroy the cancer in gaming.
even pirate and crack teams advise you to buy and support the devs if you like it.
I would suggest pirating over this shit.
>>343077970
You'll be arrested.
>>343077861
Ebay was the wild west for about a year, then they started heavily regulating their marketplace and now it's even more curated than ever.
>>343077970
They will simply remove your game.
>>343077939
there is no scheme reddit fag. its called an inherent risk, kinda like the inherent risk you took when ebay first started. maybe youre too young to understand how the world works. but if you stay at college and at reddit, youll never encounter any risks in life faggot.
>>343077692
eh, true but they profit anyway from every key. why would they allow to let people sell keys there if they wouldn't get money? also the protection isn't costly just for the sake of making money. they have to pay the people who watch you activate the key.
>>343070527
The legitimacy of it all depends on who you buy from. It's like eBay.
>>343077920
kek
>>343078021
I only ude g2a for multiplayer ot denuvo games.
>>343070527
Everyone always links to the recent tinybuild shit, but there's been shit way before that.
https://twitter.com/devolverdigital/status/466577590606520320
>>343070682
>be a jew
>call other jews
I never understood this sub.
>>343078021
>best not to support corruption anon,
there's corruption everywhere and you're acting as if every key is stolen there. also everything is just rumors. the devs still make money if you buy from the legitimate sources i just told you so piracy is worse.
>>343077970
you'll get charged for murder.
>>343078082
>why would they allow to let people sell keys there if they wouldn't get money?
That's fine, really. But G2A not actively policing the marketplace and instead just offering an insurance is just not enough. If G2A were really interested in becoming a legitimate key site they wouldn't need to offer an insurance, instead they'd non-stop curate and police every single offered key and either reimburse scammed customers and developers and definitely not pocket the transaction fee.
>>343078021
Pirating is likely better than the G2A Marketplace in many cases. Let's consider the scenarios.
>developer has a sale directly, grey market seller buys them using a real credit card and doesn't reverse the transaction
Result: Dev gets sale price minus credit card fees, may lose a higher priced sale later
>developer has a sale through Humble Bundle, Amazon, etc., purchased with real key
Result: Dev gets sale price minus a cut, may lose a higher priced sale later
>developer sells directly, someone uses a stolen credit card and charge is reversed
Result: The dev not only loses the sale but typically a chargeback fee per transaction reversed of $20-$35.is charged as well. Piracy is actually less harmful than reversed charges to many devs.
>developer sells through a site like Humble Bundle, Amazon, etc. and stolen credit card is used, charge is reversed
Result: Dev gets no money (or money taken back), but usually the chargeback risk is borne by the third party seller otherwise.
>developer sells game cheaper at retail/online in another region, legitimate credit card is used
Result: The developer makes less money than they would have if they had sold the key in the original region.
In all cases, the G2A sale "cheapens" the game. The dev may not have made the same number of sales, but they likely would have made more money (sales * price paid). It can put a game on perpetual sale if people stock sale keys from a site like Amazon or Humble Bundle, since they can sell their stockpile of keys for months or years. This isn't as nearly as bad as keys purchased via fraud which the dev can lose tons of money on.
In the end G2A is likely to prevail in the meantime, but in the long term the way that third party sellers sell keys to other services will probably change to prevent this type of thing.
>>343078543
how do you police a 12 digit code? lol youre fucking retarded. if you contact them with knowledge of something fraudulent, they will take care of it.
>>343078171
>>343078676
thats like asking ebay to police defective goods. you wont know its defective until you receive it.
>>343078060
>reddit fag
>stay in college
>missing the point
Summer is in full swing.
>>343078543
>instead they'd non-stop curate and police every single offered key and either reimburse scammed customers and developers and definitely not pocket the transaction fee.
holy fuck, do you know how much money and effort that would be? it would make it virtually impossible for small time seller, i.e. someone who found a key he'll never use, to sell their key. they wouldn't be able to maintain prices, they may turn more expensive than steam.
why do they have a video about Ramadan on their youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7fWmZCiDAk
>>343078676
>key offered at 50% or lower
>support catches wind
>hi there, key seller, it seems you're offering the key for an extremely low price, would you mind telling us where you got it and for how much? thanks.
It's not fucking rocket science.
Piracy is less damaging to publishers than G2A is
>>343078616
true, developers shouldn't be selling their games anymore so they don't lose money or worse "may lose a higher priced sale later".
>Buy doom in CZ for 28€
>sell it on g2a for 45,earning 17€ minus fees, buyer saves 15€ compared to full price
>LOL WORSE THAN PIRATING
Since when it's against law to sell something you own?
>>343079172
When it is not allowed in the rules
>>343078963
>implying that exists at all
go to g2a right now and find one. youll find that 99% of the stuff there is all similarly priced, and all the recommended sellers have thousands or hundreds of thousands of positively rated sales. these reddit fairy tales simply dont usually exist.
>>343078616 here
So let's consider our types of fraud. They mainly boil down to three things:
1) Keys purchased in a region where they are cheaper (eastern europe) and sold in one where they cost more (US, just one example)
2) Keys that are purchased legitimately at the time of a sale from the developer or a third party, but then resold later.
3) Keys that are purchased via stolen credit cards.
In all likelihood we will see developers retaliate in a couple ways, there are easy ways to prevent the above.
The first solution to #1: Region lock the keys. This causes legitimate grievances for players that move, and probably isn't going to e strongly visited for a while, since at least the dev gets some money. If key resale from cheap regions becomes a big problem, especially for a new AAA title, then we might see more region locking.
Problems 2 and 3 can effectively be prevented by removing the visibility of the key and anytime redemption from the user and instead making open authentication to the service against which the key is redeemed. Login flow works like this:
>go to checkout page for the site selling your key
>During checkout, redirect to the identity provider at Steam/Uplay/Origin/etc.
>user logs in there
>public key signs the request and via oAUTH/SAML2/etc. a signed request saying "this is steam/uplay/Origin account JOHNSMITH"
>user is redirected back to store to complete purchase
>user completes purchase, payment info is promised
>store selling the key says "Credit key abc-123 to Steam account johnsmith), signs via private key, steam (or other store) validates response from public key
>Key is redeemed directly, user never sees it
>can't stockpile keys since you never see the key
>only buy keys from trusted sellers on g2a = never have any issue and enjoy cheap games
>>343079267
That's literally nonsense, unless I redeem the key I can give it or sell it however I see fit, it's literally same as steam gifts, and why those rules do not apply to the rich who literally make living out of reselling then?
>>343079267
depends on wether the rules are allowed by the law in whatever country they apply in.
>>343079084
You miss my point, which is that G2A reduces the average price per game sold (not ideal for a dev) but in some cases serves as a marketplace where the dev can lose half the game price (if the key was sold for $60 originally) or four times it or more (three times if $10 game, $30 chargeback fee, and a stolen credit card was used, $10 + $30 = $40 loss).
The end result will be developers tighening controls on where games are sold, region locking keys/title purchases more heavily, and disallowing the direct sales of keys but instead authorizing the credit of a digital entitlement against the Steam/uPlay/Origin account specified at time of purchase. This allows the developer to see the flow of key purchase to key redemption easy, and makes it hard for resellers to use stolen credit cards to stockpile keys, and making it easy to revoke keys if they are purchased illegitimately.
>>343070527
There is no drama; there's only butthurt developers crying a river because they region locked keys are too hard for them.
>>343078060
explain what is inherent risk instead of being a fuck maybe?
>>343078334
>be a jew
>call others jews
Just like Jesus!
>>343070816
Oh yea some keys are definitely stolen. That's why you use PayPal, and avoid the shady looking ones.
I've bought dozens of keys from them, mostly Steam but some Uplay and even xbox
>>343079491
Reselling as authorized by the terms of sale from the developer and reselling as authorized by the reseller/developer you purchased from in violation of the terms of sale are two different things. Humble Bundle's terms of sale, for instance, are that you can gift a key freely, but selling keys you got from Humble Bundle is against the terms of sale.
The difficulty to enforce is one hand, and how this is construed against consumer protections is another.
>>343079387
The problem with "invisible keys" is they make it impossible to buy Steam Keys outside of Steam, which kills shit like Humble Bundle
>>343076047
>Shield
Fuck no. PayPal exists and they take it.
>>343079615
alright. now please show me the charts that prove that the additional sales the developers get through low prices are outweighed by credit card fraud to a point where the costs for the additional efforts are justified. you know all this is pure speculation and thus the conclusion to this entire thread is: buy from g2a itself or the highly reviewed sellers if want low prices or buy from somewhere else. pirating is never beneficial to the dev in these cases assuming that in these cases pirating is literally a lost sale.
>>343079997
Not necessarily. It depends on what valve offers. About a year ago, Valve removed oAuth support. Before they did, sites like the Humble bundle could (and at one point the humble bundle DID) require you to log in with your steam account. This was accomplished by logging in with Humble Bundle account, going to your preferences, logging in via oAUTH (essentially, HB redirected you to steam, you logged in on steampowered.com, you granted permission for HB to redeem keys on your steam account, and then HB got an oAUTH token to store on their server that allows them to directly credit a game on your account).
Interestingly Jan 2015 steam killed oAUTH which killed direct key redemption, which put Humble Bundle and others back to manually giving you the key for a copypaste.
Yop, wassup guys, Jack here and today's video is brought to you by G2A.
>>343079615
i'm>>343080318
i just wanted to add my post is only relevant until the charts i mentioned come into existance and give conclusive evidence to either side.
>>343080585
>not "today's post"
lost oppurtunity for 10 cents.
>alright. now please show me the charts that prove that the additional sales the developers get through low prices are outweighed by credit card fraud to a point where the costs for the additional efforts are justified.
I'm not a game developer so I can't give you stats on losses in each category per triple A title. Tinybuild claims to have lost about half a million, although their claims are questionable for a variety of reasons. Directly implementing these redemption APIs is not difficult, and if the dev didn't sell directly but instead via Amazon, Humble Bundle, etc. then the development effort is theirs to bear if they want to do it (HB used to have direct steam key redemption without the user seeing the key, but Steam discontinued oAUTH support).
>you know all this is pure speculation and thus the conclusion to this entire thread is: buy from g2a itself or the highly reviewed sellers if want low prices or buy from somewhere else. pirating is never beneficial to the dev in these cases assuming that in these cases pirating is literally a lost sale.
Of course it's speculation, I'm hypothesizing a potential future based on current trends. Based on the trouble developers are seeing with sites like G2A, I came up with theories on how they can be controlled. None of them are far fetched.
None of what I said is far fetched either. Now, as far as whatever uPlay and Origin offer, fuck if I know, but in terms of Steam, region locking is allowed; you can give a user one key if they say they're from Europe (and the IP matches, GeoIP is trivial, as does credit card billing), and a different one if they say they're from the US.
Steam KB article "Region Restrictions on Steam"
>I purchased a CD key from another retailer. Is it restricted to a certain region?
>Region restrictions on CD Keys vary by each individual publisher. >There is no standard or universal restriction placed on retail games.
>>343077970
>there's something wrong with it
if you mean it doesn't work or is invalid you can write g2a/the seller and you will most likely get a refund, though another key is also possible if the seller has multiple.
>>343081078
i don't think so. they have an insurance for extra money and they watch you over teamviewer redeem the key.
The biggest part that baffles me is that Tinybuild claims that 450k worth of their games was given without them actually getting the money themselves.
I doubt this is even the truth, I swear that company has ever made a hit indie game and frankly they're all bad.
>>343080481
If Valve removed it we can probably assume they had a reason on their end; and, good or bad, Valve's reasons dictate how all this works. At the end of the day they make the market and they set the rules because they're far and away the largest player in the PC game sales space.
Valve could decide today to start transaction-chaining each key and when a key was revoked for chargeback, permanently banning every Steam account that ever owned the key. G2A would essentially go out of business (Origin keys won't sustain them and we know it). Speculating on what Valve could do is sort of meaningless because Valve doesn't particularly fucking care, the issue doesn't hit their bottom line.
I think the real question is what other players can do to work within whatever confines Valve has set to make this functional.
>>343081010
was meant as a reply to >>343080318 >>343080592
And steam USED to support direct redemption of keys, via oAuth - user never saw them. Unfortunately, oAUTH support was discontinued in Jan of 2015, and shortly before that Humble Bundle stopped requiring the direct redemption of keys:
http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/107906804069/changes-in-steam-key-redemption
This is likely due to the oAuth 2.0 leader leaving the project:
https://hueniverse.com/2012/07/26/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/
Nonetheless, it's possible to get the login for a user and authenticate them with steam and get data from Steam. Enhancements to the Steam web API could allow a key redemption - if publishers bitch enough and valve does it.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Web_API#License_and_further_documentation
It's all hypothetical, but Tinybuild theorizes that they lost around $500K in keys (number of identified stolen keys * retail pricing). That number may be a bit suspect due to the use of retail pricing for all sold keys, but it's easily over $100K. That doesn't include losses from Chargebacks from keys purchased directly from tinybuild were not included either, which costs even more money.
I'm just coming up with theories. If the key redemption stores (Steam definitely does, dunno about uPlay and Origin) support region locking, then the devs can order region locked keys and give them out accordingly.
Steam USED to allow key redemption via API for places like Humble Bundle, but oAUTH support was discontinued for technical reasons. Other APIs (web for instance) could exist if steam is willing to make them. IT would depend on the store's willingness to do it, but if publishers that sell steam keys push in large numbers, then it may become a reality for Steam again.
>All these people saying they only buy from g2a but not g2a marketplace
uh what? How do you buy from g2a? They literally just list a marketplace key as a "featured" pick.
>>343081517
See the post after yours. It was a technical decision, one where Steam has yet to succeed it.
>Valve could decide today to start transaction-chaining each key and when a key was revoked for chargeback, permanently banning every Steam account that ever owned the key. G2A would essentially go out of business (Origin keys won't sustain them and we know it). >Speculating on what Valve could do is sort of meaningless because Valve doesn't particularly fucking care, the issue doesn't hit their bottom line.
It depends, if it reduces the amount of devs that list on dev, or use steam keys as their store, then it reduces the stickiness of Steam client if another store is willing to do it. Even if steam doesn't charge money for devs generating keys that will be sold elsewhere (unsure), that's one reason. If Steam DOES get a cut per generated key, even small, then keeping devs offering to sell steam keys elsewhere is a revenue source, and making it easier to redeem or revoke keys in a way that discourages third party resale helps. When keys are stockpiled for games from a temporary sale through dev/HB/Amazon, etc. then it makes it more likely a site like G2A can sell the key for months or years at a price Steam can't even touch, meaning they lose out on the sale too.
It's all theory, but seeing all the recent indie dev complaints about G2A and elsewhere I think pressure will be put on Steam on ways to address that. I don't think as nearly as many places sell uPlay or Origin keys.
>>343070682
except this is exactly why ebay doesn't do digital downloads, G2A offers "insurance" on their keys because they get it from dubious places, and they have shut down companies on charge back fraud. Literally the nazi's of gaming.
>>343074576
i have only seen origin and ubishit games getting revoked
battlenet i am not sure of but steam global games mainly run fine
My issue with G2A is that many of the indie games I want to buy aren't that much cheaper, so I just buy them from Steam anyways. There's definitely a sweet spot where the game has to be popular enough to get a decent enough deal on G2A.
New releases usually have pre-order discounts, so it's not worth getting it immediately from G2A, and indie games may not be popular enough for it to be worth listing a game on G2A or other grey markets.
If I'm only saving $1.50, I'm just grabbing it from Steam.
