Several developers and publishers are currently angry at the key reseller G2A. They would even prefer if their games were simply pirated rather than bought on this platform.
What is G2A? G2A is a reseller marketplace primarily where one can offer and buy keys for games. According to their own statements, there are around 16 million customers and 400,000 sellers active there. The advantage of G2A for customers is that the game keys offered there are often cheaper than when purchased regularly from a retailer or publisher.
However, it is often unclear where the keys come from. Through bots, shady vendors can quickly sell hundreds of keys bought with stolen credit cards or invalid keys.
Developers have a problem with resellers
How developers are reacting: Since developers/publishers ultimately don’t see a cent for illegally obtained keys and even have to deal with angry customers complaining about non-working keys in support, some industry representatives are not pleased with G2A.
For instance, Mike Rose from NoMoreRobots reacted extremely angrily when G2A had placed its advertising on Google above the search results for the official shop page with a new marketing campaign.
“Please, if you buy a game on G2A, then just pirate it! Seriously! The developers aren’t seeing any pennies anyway, so we would prefer if G2A doesn’t get any money either.”
These accusatory words were quickly echoed by other developers. People from Squid Games and Vlambeer also advised players to download the games illegally from any torrent sites rather than buy them from what they see as the shady reseller G2A.
What does G2A do? Since key reselling remains a legal gray area, resellers like G2A strive for a good image. Recently, a campaign was launched where streamers explain why the reseller is doing nothing wrong.
This, in turn, is vehemently rejected by angry developers, such as the aforementioned Mike Rose:
“Hopefully not too many people believe the crap they are saying!”
