In July 2019 there was a big drama around G2A and game developers. You’ve probably seen it, as almost every media outlet in the world wrote about it, not to mention thousands of tweets, videos, etc.
G2A was also very active during that time, for the first time in history reacting more aggresively, even with challenging devs (which was pretty cool idea, by the way). To make entire case simple, I divided problems: each one has its own paragraph.
Advertising
Ah, that’s what kicked the entire thing off – one tweet from Mike Rose, head of a small indie publishing studio. In it, Mike showed that G2A is using Google Ads to place themselves higher than his store. This in turn lead to people seeing the G2A offer faster than his own. Is that legal? Sure, Google sells ad space to whoever pays the most. Can G2A do that? Yep, as long as they pay for the ad space. Is it fair for them to do so? That’s a loaded question, but in my opinion – yes. If you search for a movie DVD and the first offer you get is eBay instead of an official store, that’s fair as well. Not for everyone, though, as it seems…
Keys bought with stolen credit cards
This is the topic I’ve covered in the different post. TL;DR: there’s no proof od that, and the situation is highly unlikely.
Review codes
There’s a lot of articles about that (e.g. this), to put in short: folks pretend to be influencers, ask developers for codes, and sell them on G2A. One scammer who did that even made an AMA on Reddit. Why do developers get tricked so easily? They say they don’t have enough time to check all incoming requests. In my opinion it’s rather strange, because it’s just like inviting scammers who just want their games for free. Anyway, G2A offered a key-blocker for devs to solve the issue. From buyers perspective, these codes are safe to use, but they were definitely obtained in a scummy way.
Selling keys from giveaways
I believe that’s quite popular way to acquire keys – if you actively follow developers on social media, Discord etc., you have plenty of occasions to get freebies. And you can either use or sell these keys. Most developers don’t like the fact people are selling them, but they can’t do anything about it. With some giveaways, especially those that are automatized, it’s possible to use bots to harvest big numbers of keys. G2A offered to solve this issue with a key-blocker mentioned above as well.
Selling Steam gifts
Steam’s TOS (terms of service) says it very clearly: you cannot sell or buy Steam gifts. People are still doing that, and Steam is turning a blind eye. Why? The answer here is simple: they earn money. Developers also earn money on Steam gifts, but not as much as on regular sales. Why? It’s because sellers on G2A take advantage of regional prizing. This is how it works.
Developer sets different prices for different regions (or he allows it to be done by Steam’s algorithms). You can gift a game to someone from different region, if the difference in price is below 15%. Example: game X costs 10 euro on Steam. On G2A you can get the same game as a gift for 9.50 euro. Why? Because seller is using bot that buys this game in a region where it’s cheaper (let’s say: 8.90 euro). Then he sells it for 9.50. He doesn’t earn much on this transaction (G2A’s commission cuts his profits in a big way), but the fact he uses bots for that makes it profitable, because he doesn’t need to put an effort to do anything.
By the way: BBC published an article about the topic. There is a lot of mistakes in it, but there’s also one more lead: quote from Mike Rose, who said people buying gifts are cancelling credit card transactions afterwards, leaving him with no income. The fact is in that case the game would disappear from gamer’s library, and I just can’t think of someone who bought the game and wouldn’t make a chargeback/complaint to the seller.
Summary
This is definitely the most complicated topic. G2A is doing the same thing as all marketplaces, but the question stays the same. Do marketplaces hurt developers? Some of them definitely feel hurt. However it’s worth to see it from the larger perspective. Devs who has problems with G2A are very loud, but honestly: I didn’t know them and their games before the drama.
G2A is a place where you can buy every game, not only indie titles (especially those that almost nobody cares about). Honestly, I don’t understand why G2A just won’t delete these indies from their marketplace for the peace of mind. Anyway, in general: marketplaces such as G2A don’t hurt all the devs. Some of them – yes. But saying “G2A is hurting developers” is exactly the same like saying “children die in schools”. Is it true? Well, yes, some of them, on very rare and unfortunate occasions. But in general: no.