What's Going on at G2A?

tinyBuild are clearly unhappy with G2A. In a post on their website, (since updated following G2A's reply) they have accused the company of causing them to lose out on nearly half a million dollars worth of revenue. Their allegation is based on a claim that a number of keys available for purchase on the site were not legitimate.

If you're not familiar with G2A, they are a key reseller site. Essentially they are like eBay for your game keys. Let's say you buy a bundle that includes a couple of games that you already have, you can go to G2A and put the spare keys up for sale. G2A take a cut out of it and everyone is happy. Except, that is, when the keys aren't obtained legitimately. You see, there's a possiblity of abuse here, and that's where tinyBuild's issue comes in.

The indie developer are claiming that some of the higher volume sellers are putting stolen keys on the site. The system in use, according to their suggestions, involves using stolen credit cards to buy keys in bulk. The cards will be cancelled and the owners refunded, but the keys are already up on G2A, meaning that whilst the money will not get to the developer, the key has already been claimed.

Who is responsible for fraudulently obtained keys?

G2A have issued a response via their own website, stating they are prepared to work with tinyBuild, however they have not received a list of keys and therefore aren't currently able to do anything about the situation. In it, they stated:

"It is important to note that G2A is an open doors marketplace where everyone is allowed to sell all types of digital gaming goods. G2A is a common and legitimate point of sale for many developers to sell keys outside of retail distribution, with more than 200 thousand sellers in total. Before tinyBuild reached out to G2A, we identified more than 200 tinyBuild product auctions on the G2A Marketplace and suspended all of them because they violated G2A.COM Terms and Conditions and security procedures."

It's not the first time that such accusations have been levelled at the Hong-Kong based company. Ubisoft revoked keys bought through a number of resellers last year, citing suspected fraud as the primary reason. G2A issued a statement back then, stating that they were not responsible.

It's not just tinyBuild either. There's a number of developers who have begun expressing doubts as to the business practices employed by G2A. An anonymous small developer told us they estimate they have lost around $30k to keys sold on the site, and are attempting to get all of their keys removed, however they have found the process to be particularly challenging. Scott Hartsman, CEO of Trion Worlds has also spoken out: 

Our CEO Scott Hartsman, on fraud in the game industry: https://t.co/jqtVWfemko "Someone's getting hurt; it's just a question of whom."

— Trion Worlds (@TrionWorlds) June 22, 2016

As G2A themselves don't sell keys, they are merely a facilitator, the issue is one of culpability. A similar situation has previously been seen with eBay being forced by the European Court of Justice to take steps to prevent counterfeit goods being sold on their site. This is a debate that is likely to rage for some time, and we will keep you updated as to any developments here on GameGrin.