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General discussion" G2A sold $450k worth of our game keys"(66 posts)(66 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 22, 2016
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Shadowstalker16: Still applies : http://archive.is/tLs2H

The figure of 450k was arrived by taking their 3 games and finding how many had been sold on G2a and putting the current retail price on them. Which works well provided the games have never been on sale or in a bundle. if they have then we need to look at the lower price as that is the lowest potential loss figure.

Punch club was 1,251 copies @9.99 = 12,497
Party Hard was 890 copies @12.89 = 11,472
Speedrunners was 24,517 @14.99 =367,509

Punch club has been sold for 4.99 from bundlestars so we need to half that one.
Party Hard has been as low as 4.84 from bundlestars so that is slightly over 1/3rd the quoted loss.
Speedrunners has been 2.49 on steam. so we need to drop that to 1/8th

The new figures are 6,242 + 4,307 + 61,047 which comes to 71,596.

There's more...Punch Club is the only one that hasn't been in a bundle. Party Hard and Speedrunners have been in the same Humble Bundle (Orbyt play). Speedrunners was one of 3 games in the $1 tier and Party Hard was in the $8 tier. This changes our figures again.

Speedrunners was effectively sold for $0.33... 33cents. Giving us a new total of 8,090 in lost sales for speedrunner.

So the final figures are actually 6,242 + 4,307 + 8,090 which gives us a minimum loss of 18,639. A figure 24 times less than the original post.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry that they feel there were significant loses due to G2A, however the prices they've sold speedrunners in particular, suggests that they had written it off as a loss leader already.

tl;dr Actual losses are 24x less than headline figure due to bundles and sales.
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Shadowstalker16:
#REKT
And even if everything the dev says was true I don't see why do they blame reselling site and not people using stolen credit cards.
Posted June 22, 2016
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richlind33: The only reason they're able to sell these keys for so much less is because cards are stolen and fraudulently used faster than the card issuers can respond to it.
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drewpants: It's a possibility, but as has been expressed elsewhere there are also a lot of legitimate users and ways of getting free/cheap codes through sales and bundles.
Those codes are issued under an agreement that they not be resold.

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drewpants: It might be the case that the majority of these codes are stolen, but if that were the case it would be fairly simple to track the sales and eventually shut down the site no matter how fast the codes sell. There is still a trail.
Shut down which site, G2A? Fine by me.
Post edited June 22, 2016 by richlind33
Posted June 22, 2016
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drewpants: It's a possibility, but as has been expressed elsewhere there are also a lot of legitimate users and ways of getting free/cheap codes through sales and bundles.
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richlind33: Those codes are issued under an agreement that they not be resold.

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drewpants: It might be the case that the majority of these codes are stolen, but if that were the case it would be fairly simple to track the sales and eventually shut down the site no matter how fast the codes sell. There is still a trail.
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richlind33: Shut down which site, G2A? Fine by me.
It is also technically illegal to sell a physical copy of a game, CD or movie second hand... however the law also says that owners that have bought and own property can sell it. Hence the term 'grey market'.

It's a shame that devs are struggling, but it the indie games market is over saturated right now and stopping the sale of codes through third parties isn't really going to magically result in more sales.
Post edited June 22, 2016 by drewpants
Posted June 22, 2016
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richlind33: Those codes are issued under an agreement that they not be resold.

Shut down which site, G2A? Fine by me.
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drewpants: It is also technically illegal to sell a physical copy of a game, CD or movie second hand... however the law also says that owners that have bought and own property can sell it. Hence the term 'grey market'.

It's a shame that devs are struggling, but it the indie games market is over saturated right now and stopping the sale of codes through third parties isn't really going to magically result in more sales.
Fer chrissakes, this is a huge part of why we have DRM, and get charged more and more at the same time we're getting less and less. What's so friggin' hard about doing the right thing???
Posted June 22, 2016
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drewpants: It is also technically illegal to sell a physical copy of a game, CD or movie second hand... however the law also says that owners that have bought and own property can sell it. Hence the term 'grey market'.

It's a shame that devs are struggling, but it the indie games market is over saturated right now and stopping the sale of codes through third parties isn't really going to magically result in more sales.
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richlind33: Fer chrissakes, this is a huge part of why we have DRM, and get charged more and more at the same time we're getting less and less. What's so friggin' hard about doing the right thing???
Shutting down a business because of somebody else's actions isn't the right thing. Closing G2A will do exactly nothing to stop piracy/credit card fraud.

This is the music industry on tapes all over again...
Posted June 22, 2016
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richlind33: Fer chrissakes, this is a huge part of why we have DRM, and get charged more and more at the same time we're getting less and less. What's so friggin' hard about doing the right thing???
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drewpants: Shutting down a business because of somebody else's actions isn't the right thing. Closing G2A will do exactly nothing to stop piracy/credit card fraud.

This is the music industry on tapes all over again...
G2A should be shut down on account of *it's own* scummy behavior. It's a parasite that encourages other people to become parasites.
Posted June 22, 2016
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Petrell: Actually the devs in question had their own shop and had it shut down due to chargebacks
Yes, and that sucks big time, but that makes it clear that the ones hit by chargebacks now are the resellers, right?

The developer makes it sound like it's impossible to revoke charged-back keys. I don't see how the resellers are unable to revoke keys via the developer or the corresponding digital distribution platform. They must keep records of what keys are associated to each transaction and just tell whoever is in charge of revocations.

Since I guess we're talking mostly about Steam keys, it's trivial to remove a game from an account. After an unaware buyer loses a game or two, G2A will be losing that customer.
Posted June 22, 2016
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richlind33: Fer chrissakes, this is a huge part of why we have DRM, and get charged more and more at the same time we're getting less and less. What's so friggin' hard about doing the right thing???
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drewpants: Shutting down a business because of somebody else's actions isn't the right thing. Closing G2A will do exactly nothing to stop piracy/credit card fraud.

This is the music industry on tapes all over again...
Shutting down grey market key sellers will actually have some impact on credit card fraud in gaming. Without a market to offload the fraudulent keys in bulk for monies, there is very little point in the fraud in the first place. Remove the source of income, and it will help. The credit card fraudsters need to find a different niche to operate within.
Posted June 22, 2016
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nepundo: Actually, if I understand the matter correctly, in this case the developer isn't losing any money. And the title is quite accurate, "G2A sold $450k worth of our game keys". It's not "We lost $450k worth of our game keys due to G2A".

The keys sold in G2A have been given away by the developer or gone through a reseller. Then those resellers get hit by chargebacks, not the developer. Surely tinybuild is not selling 5k keys to, let's say, Humble Bundle by credit card and then Humble Bundle charges it back, right? It's people buying from HB who charge it back, then sell it in G2A. So tinybuild got diligently paid by HB, and now HB is the one not making any money here (or losing some due to transaction fees, as you say).

Or, I might as well have gotten the whole thing wrong, in which case I'd be glad to be enlightened and stop saying nonsense :)
G2A isn't a reseller. They are a storefront for people to resell keys themselves. Often the keys were bought from the publisher or a store like Steam if they weren't just obtained from HB or whatnot.
Posted June 22, 2016
Bought the latest issue of Finland's largest gaming magazine, Pelit, and was really surprised to see them advertising G2A. It even had a 3 euro gift card for it.

I don't know what to think. Thought they knew better.
Posted June 22, 2016
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paladin181: G2A isn't a reseller. They are a storefront for people to resell keys themselves. Often the keys were bought from the publisher or a store like Steam if they weren't just obtained from HB or whatnot.
Yes, so the developer sells the keys to a reseller (Steam, HB, etc), people buy the keys from those resellers with stolen credit cards, then sell the keys at G2A. Is that so?
Posted June 22, 2016
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paladin181: G2A isn't a reseller. They are a storefront for people to resell keys themselves. Often the keys were bought from the publisher or a store like Steam if they weren't just obtained from HB or whatnot.
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nepundo: Yes, so the developer sells the keys to a reseller (Steam, HB, etc), people buy the keys from those resellers with stolen credit cards, then sell the keys at G2A. Is that so?
Steam, Humble and so on are not re-sellers. G2A is a re-seller.

Humble, Steam et al have a (un)limted amount of keys. For each key they sell, they take a % (Humble take 15%, gOg and Steam take 30%), and give the rest to the publisher/developer. The keys are generated usually at the point of sale.

G2A's keys are not from publisers/developer/first party sites (like Steam or gOg), but keys which have been bought in a different store (or are stolen) which is then sold on. which is why they are called re-sellers.
Posted June 22, 2016
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drewpants: snip
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amok: Shutting down grey market key sellers will actually have some impact on credit card fraud in gaming. Without a market to offload the fraudulent keys in bulk for monies, there is very little point in the fraud in the first place. Remove the source of income, and it will help. The credit card fraudsters need to find a different niche to operate within.
"The credit card fraudsters (will -sic) need to find a different niche to operate within."

Which is why what you are suggesting is pointless.

All you will have done is shut down an otherwise legal site to the detriment of legit users, while fraudsters operate elsewhere. Like it to not, G2A does cater to some legitimate users regardless of what their numbers actually are.

The simple fact is that the service that G2A provides its not in itself illegal, but the actions of some of its users are. Those users are the problem and the necessary targets of any legal action.

That's why leading magazines are able to advertise them, that is why they haven't been taken down.
Posted June 22, 2016
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nepundo: Yes, so the developer sells the keys to a reseller (Steam, HB, etc), people buy the keys from those resellers with stolen credit cards, then sell the keys at G2A. Is that so?
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amok: Steam, Humble and so on are not re-sellers. G2A is a re-seller.

Humble, Steam et al have a (un)limted amount of keys. For each key they sell, they take a % (Humble take 15%, gOg and Steam take 30%), and give the rest to the publisher/developer. The keys are generated usually at the point of sale.

G2A's keys are not from publisers/developer/first party sites (like Steam or gOg), but keys which have been bought in a different store (or are stolen) which is then sold on. which is why they are called re-sellers.
Ahhh, reading your response and the article again, I see I got "reseller" and "distribution partner" mixed. Thanks for taking the time to explain that.

Still, naming confusion aside, I still don't see why keys associated with chargebacks can't be easily revoked. Something must be terribly wrong in their systems or in communication between different actors here.
Posted June 22, 2016
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amok: Shutting down grey market key sellers will actually have some impact on credit card fraud in gaming. Without a market to offload the fraudulent keys in bulk for monies, there is very little point in the fraud in the first place. Remove the source of income, and it will help. The credit card fraudsters need to find a different niche to operate within.
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drewpants: "The credit card fraudsters (will -sic) need to find a different niche to operate within."

Which is why what you are suggesting is pointless.

All you will have done is shut down an otherwise legal site to the detriment of legit users, while fraudsters operate elsewhere. Like it to not, G2A does cater to some legitimate users regardless of what their numbers actually are.

The simple fact is that the service that G2A provides its not in itself illegal, but the actions of some of its users are. Those users are the problem and the necessary targets of any legal action.

That's why leading magazines are able to advertise them, that is why they haven't been taken down.
This is only true if people deny that they have any ethical obligations to one another. I would strongly caution against that choice, though, because ethics are what hold human society together.
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General discussion" G2A sold $450k worth of our game keys"(66 posts)(66 posts)
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