Do you agree game keys should be extinguished?
I feel like I've missed something. What's specifically wrong with keys?
Are the keys fake and costing Devs money like piracy(allegedly)? If they are then they'd be easily identifiable and could be stopped right?
Are Devs or retailers giving them away for free and people selling for profit? Maybe. Answer - Stop giving away so many free keys and expecting people not to be opportunistic.
Are Devs being fairly paid for those keys, but they're just being paid from regions where the prices are lower because people in those countries earn less? Answer - region lock the keys.
Surely the cause of the issue is the general disparity in wealth around the world, and whilst I appreciate that isn't the fault of devs and requires a pricing structure, what else do they expect to happen? It happens with everything but digital media will be the easiest to import by far.
I mean you can hardly blame people being asked $40 for a game selling elsewhere for $5 to be happy paying $40. Are rich countries therefore subsidising the whole industry? Or are games actually possible to price lower if companies wanted to cut their profit a little? Are the gamers the ones actually being ripped off?
What about the studios in poorer countries? And heck manufacturers frequently outsource to poor countries to keep costs down so why hasn't the gaming industry?
Isn't this just the B/S piracy argument all over again? "Oh our 4 billion profit just isn't enough, and we refuse to believe it's dented by a highly competitive market where our products are inferior to some others - it's quite clearly people ripping us off, and we know they've all got their own billions to pay us!"
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you are misunderstanding the problem of G2A.
The problem is G2A has basically no check on whom sells there. This means that you can use that site to sell stolen keys. Here is an example:
Person who owns credit card does charge back. Indie title stores and bundle stores not only return the money but also pay for that charge back. Then they have 2 approaches:
To my knowledge the problem is not the price difference in several regions. The devs can already control that by locking keys if they so desire.
The thing is if you buy from G2A CHANCES are that you are activaly harming the devs! To some indie studios they would prefer people pirate their games to buying from G2A.
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I didn't realise G2A (specifically) had such a high rate of criminally obtained keys? The article itself says there's no way to know how often this happens, so isn't this all just trying to solve a problem that may not even be a big issue?
Don't get me wrong I'm sure it's happening to a degree, criminals are very resourceful and permeate the online world, but to be honest that's the case on any marketplace/website and stolen credit cards can be used anywhere. I've known people become victims on ebay or purchases on other websites. Maybe the real issue is that there is no two factor authentication on most online purchases to begin with? Stop them purchasing the keys (or anything else for that matter) in the first place and they can't resell anything.
If the G2A business model lacks any security checks then it's down to individuals if they want to take that risk and the more people get burned, the less will use the site and it will naturally collapse. That's not really the devs responsibility though.
You could appeal to peoples morality, but without statistics to show how widespread it is, wouldn't that just be slanderous? Besides, some people just don't care anyway.
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We don't know the rate of the criminally obtained keys since the platform that sells them refuses to even address the problem. The problem is big enough that nowadays most small indie titles don't even bother selling steam keys directly from their site.
(in case you don't know steam keys give 0% of revenue to valve).
The problem is not that "stolen cards can be used anywhere"! the problem is a platform that makes it extremely easy to sell stolen merchandise WHILE the devs take the blunt of the PR and financial damage.
The problem is not only on the costumers that buy G2A, the problem is that G2A itself doesn't care about having standards. If there are no standards then both the costumer and the devs can't make good trustworthy business. G2A is a lose lose scenario for most costumers and devs.
Think about this in another way: how many stores IRL do you buy a "G2A shield equivalent"?
Stopping the steam key sale only benefits valve and in fact it would be what i'd do if i were valve; not because of G2A but because of the current EGS pressure. If valve clamps on the market they can drive most other competitors out and at most pay a small fine for being a monopoly. Yet stupidely valve is just playing the risky game...
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But surely there are enough complaints for the police to look into and get an idea how widespread this is? This kind of fraud is after all a police matter.
I agree that G2A offers no protection (unless purchased) and that in itself is shady enough to put me off using them, but the PR damage should be G2As, not the devs. Unless people are blaming the devs for selling the keys in the first place and then that is down to their website and card issuers lacking additional authentication. Card issuers and websites have been very slow to adopt two factor authentication but it has been around for nearly 2 decades, either by a text message or secret password. It should be mandatory and would massively cut online fraud including keys.
The devs don't have to replace any keys from G2A, that is G2A or the sellers responsibility(which neither will take) so their only losses should be from banks claiming back money for the fraudulent purchases which re-enforces my point above. The blame should go to the right places - G2A, the fraudsters, and the card issuers/websites.
I don't agree that G2A is equivalent to a store though, it's more of an online marketplace facilitating 3rd parties. Amazon marketplace and ebay offer more buyer protection as standard, but any normal marketplace or car boot won't offer anything either. You can take your chance that the goods aren't fake, stolen, or broken, but you can't go back to the manufacturer and ask for a refund or replacement.
Over time G2A will need to adapt their business model towards protection or they will gain a poor reputation and people will stop using them anyway, which in some ways is a shame for the sellers who sell genuine keys from cheaper markets, but I don't think keys themselves are a bad thing at all, especially now steam is almost mandatory for DRM.
Valve could stop the sale of steam keys, they might benefit but other platforms do have their own keys (Uplay, Origin, Epic etc) and they'd risk opening up the market for those stores to sell cheaper keys of their own, especially if they can take a lower sales cut from the devs. Steam would need to ensure they get a lot of exclusives, but they're losing their edge a bit because their own pricing and sales aren't as competitive anymore, and not just with Indie sellers. They do continue to retain a position as a DRM activation platform for other seller though.
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Just because it is a police matter doesn't mean that the rest of the people should ignore it. If I see a crime happening am I suposed to think "this kind of action is after all a police matter." so i'll just pretend i don't see it?
You say a G2A is not a store so i'll use your examples. Both ebay and amazon don't charge you anything for protection... Just so you know portuguese law requires that the buyer insure insurance in all products for 2 years (even used). the EU law requires that every product can be traded back for 2 weeks. So what you are saying has no logic. To have the "risk/chance" you speak off requires that the transaction be between 2 individuals with no registered companies. So unless you are saying G2A is not a company then they can't offer a service where you have a chance to be deceived and have 0 mechanism to repair you of that damage.
You are also wrong about other platforms having "keys" (with the exception of origin). they don't! at least not how you thinking of them. It is that phrase that makes this the last post as i understand now that i'm talking with someone that only buys on grey market and are trying to defend a (hopefully) guilty conscience.
For your info Both uplay and EGS don't sell keys digitally. Uplay does direct activation on your account. EGS only sells keys for metro.
Also steam isn't a drm platform (for your info, you should read most things here before comenting as that would help you understand steam https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/home) and saying they are losing edge when they are having 16M peak users per day is dishonest at best. (for those that don't follow the industry steam is as large as PSN and bigger then xbox live).
This is my last post on this thread as i don't want to continue this discussion further. have a good day.
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You seem to be missing the point a lot, but given my statement that I don't use G2A and consider them 'shady' your attempt at claiming the moral high ground is futile.
Unfortunately I'm not convinced you're really reading what is written, and despite throwing out one or two valid points, lack any verifiable facts and figures and so largely turning this into disingenuous non-sequitur at best.
I agree there isn't much point continuing this discussion. You may want to look up Steams role in DRM though, it sounds like it would surprise you.
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you could have read the documentation but you say I am just having a disingenuous non-sequitur.
So here is a list of drm free games in steam. https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
No steam isn't a DRM. Steamworks does offer that feature alongside cloud saving for example; but what would i know? I'm just taking the moral high ground right?.
Bye
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As you just said yourself, steam does use DRM. It doesn't have to be exclusively DRM based or for 100% of products to serve a purpose as a large DRM platform, which it most certainly is.
The act of applying a key to your account is often part of this and is now also frequently applied to physical, store bought copies which will not run without steam and cannot be transferred.
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Let's follow your example:
Attempt #1:
Attempt #2:
Attempt #3:
Should I go on?
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Atempt 1 doesn't bother devs because when that happens the justice system should be able to pay (at least some of) the damages.
Atempt 2 and 2 don't work that way because people will blame the dev. Is your memory shot enough to rememebr the backlash when ubisoft did that?
Just read the comments here: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-26-it-looks-like-ubisoft-is-going-after-third-party-key-sellers#comments
And that is a AAA publisher that has a PR machine. Remember when rebellion did it?
Imagine if a small dev did that...
Should i go on on how you are ignoring reality?
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Attempt #1 bothers you - because you're in jail now. And I'm sure you don't want to be in jail.
Attempt #2 & #3 doesn't end well for you either, because you get caught on the 1st/2nd revoked key you sell.
People won't start huge complaint backlashes, because of 1-2 keys bought on G2A, and revoked the next day.
And G2A wouldn't be a behemoth it is, if any asshole could sell tons of fake keys with impunity. Why even steal keys, if you can just make up 10,000 Steam-key-looking numbers and sell them on G2A to chums?
Ubisoft was a completely different story - IIRC they revoked hundreds/thousands of keys, some activated weeks/months prior and some people bought the keys from 3rd party resellers (GMG, IndieGala, etc.) and not from grey market sites (G2A, Kinguin, etc.)
It's 99% definitely wasn't a single guy buying with a stolen credit card.
They probably had a vulnerability in their supply chain, and someone used it. It reminds me of Metro Exodus Steam keys that were sold recently, after being scanned from game boxes meant to be scrapped (because of the move to Epic store).
In all of your attempts, the theft was discovered the next day, so hardly any working keys would have been sold.
Have you ever been to G2A? Have you seen their game sale pages?
A single seller will hardly sell a couple of copies of a game per day. Nowhere near enough to make it profitable.
And he won't survive long if he starts selling revoked keys.
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EDIT: Just noticed that Hunggar28 above me has made the same point.
As I like to gift games from time to time and rarely also trade something I would like to keep keys simply for convenience sake. Also if I buy a bundle I don't want everything added to my account as I don't like having stuff I will never play. But there is no denying that bundles and key reselling has warped people's mind on games value in an insane way. What most do not accept is that computer games are generally a luxury item. Also the developers have to cover the cost in the production land, so going down with prices to cover all regions of the world is only possible to an extent. And anyone having more than 50 unplayed games on his account has no point to make in saying that games are to expensive. If you have more or acquire faster than you play it is basically to cheap.
Instead of removing keys altogether, keys should get an expiration date so that after three months the key will stop working. Retailers can ask for the key the moment they sell. Resellers on the other hand have keys they have to get rid of or they will make losses. As such they have to be more prudent in mass buying bundle keys meaning less keys at one time will be in circulation. Also after three months, the developers don't have to compete against their own bundle price. As such bundles can again used as promotional tool without devalueing your game for all eternity and maybe people will get again a sane perspective of games value.
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It's kind of funny how here is the discussion about how keys are bad (oversimplification, root of many stupid conclusions) and "greedy devs" shouldn't sell their games so cheap in bundles if they don't like people reselling them.
Meanwhile the weekly theme of SG: where are mah bundles?!?
It's almost like the "greedy devs" are learning from others' mistakes.
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The whole article is built on the well-known problems with G2A, and eliminating keys is a way to permanently shit down sites like that. While surely the kind of shortsightedness you're talking about is very annoying to see, the topic is gray markets being saturated from the once-cheap games of bundles for (sometimes literally) years to come. Also quoting a quote from the article:
"These sites cost us so much potential dev time in customer service, investigating fake key requests, figuring out credit card chargebacks, and more,"
This time it's really not about devs throwing their games around for free, but the annual re-discovery that gray markets, mainly G2A is shit.
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Ignoring the gray markets (tbh the credit card frauds are the real problem there, and G2A's arrogant communication) you were almost perfectly correct. :P While some devs are just greedy and realise that nobody would buy their trash outside of the bundle they panic-deactivate keys, but then there are some ... very simple ones who have no idea what they are doing :D mass key revokes are 95% shitshows because of greed/stupidity
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From the article:
there's room for abuse wherever keys are being resold: someone can buy keys with a stolen credit card and sell them, or grab cheap keys from a region like Brazil and then resell them in the US, or beg for free keys from developers by claiming to be an influencer (which is more annoying than effective). There's no way to know exactly how much these things are happening, but a couple of high-profile incidents landed the entire reselling business on a lot of shitlists.
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Because for them to be a burden on the developers, these things (frauds caused by grey market sites) need to actually happen. Which we don't know if they do, or are just imagined by the developers.
Maybe grey market site are just a boogeyman used by the devs/pubs every time they are scammed by anyone (completely unrelated to any grey market sites)...
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Which we don't know if they do, or are just imagined by the developers.
So you're saying that because of an article, written by a journalist tells that we don't know how many fraudulent transactions happen together, globally, overtime ( because they don't get all reported [to who? FBI?] and automatic paypal chargebacks happen), that developers just imagine them.
It's a logical fallacy jumping to denying the whole phenomenon just because we don't know exact numbers (and ignoring actual info that it does exist).
That's like me saying that brazilian people don't exist because I we don't know exactly how many german citizens exist at this very second. Also claiming brazilan people were just imagined by drunk sailors.
You are free not to believe any of this, but trying to support it with made-up logic makes it really icky. Just say "lol, stupid indie devs" or something alike. you save everyone's time.
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I'm not saying the phenomenon does not exist, just because I said so.
I'm saying you need to be an idiot to be convinced the phenomenon does not exist just because I said so.
And you equally need to be an idiot to be convinced the phenomenon exists all the time just because some publisher said so.
I'm saying we don't know the extent of the phenomenon, it may be 1 persion in the entire world, in may be 1000 people every minute. We have no data on that.
tinyBuild claimed all their games sold on G2A are fraudulently obtained.
That's an obvious lie, obviously not backed by any proof, and only an idiot will believe them.
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tinyBuild claimed all their games sold on G2A are fraudulently obtained.
They never did say that it happened with all of their games. And this is literally just one of your "facts" that is far from reality, just by glancing at your comment.
You're continuously misrepresenting facts and tailor them to fit your agenda of it being "an obvious lie". There is no use talking to further, you already made up your own reality and ignoring anything you don't like.
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I completely stand behind the fact that "tinyBuild claimed all their games sold on G2A are fraudulently obtained."
Here's the proof, from the horse's mouth:
https://www.tinybuild.com/single-post/2017/04/28/G2A-sold-450k-worth-of-our-game-keys
tinyBuild:
G2A sold $450k worth of our game keys
If you look at the story closely, you will see where they claim all their keys on G2A are stolen:
The shop collapsed when we started to get hit by chargebacks. I'd start seeing thousands of transactions, and our payment provider would shut us down within days. Moments later you'd see G2A being populated by cheap keys of games we had just sold on our shop. Coincidentally, this is when we were having discussions about partnering up with G2A and how that'd work.
And later, after showing a table that shows all G2A sales of tinyBuild games over time, they write:
The total value of these transactions on G2A was ~$200k
Meanwhile, if these transactions happened at Retail price, it's closer to $450k.
This is how tinyBuild "proves" that all keys sold on G2A are fraudulently obtained.
A naive reader might even understand from the story that G2A directly stole $450k worth of games from tinyBuild.
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I was refering to your latest comment.
You wrote:
They never did say that it happened with all of their games. And this is literally just one of your "facts" that is far from reality, just by glancing at your comment.
For which I provided detailed proof, with links & quotes from the text showing I'm right.
What is your problem?
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removing keys would make consumers wholley dependant on the platforms that we want to buy them on, meaning valves 'virtual' monopoly and control on pricing would increase massively. expect games to go to 70-80 as standard.
third party sellers are one of the reasons we consumers even have choice, and have access to fairer priced options, and as a consumer yourself(ves), you should be more focused on your wellbeing, your 'slice of fairness', and what you can get, rather than concerned that these wealthy companies can exploit us for even more.
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Then you would have to also get rid of EVERY OTHER marketplace like amazon, ebay, etc.
I believe the USA Supreme Court made it clear that "you bought it, you own it, you can do whatever you want with it".
And that anything that trys to prevent this is antitrust or anti-whatever;
such as locking bought content to accounts, and NOT letting the users transfer their license, which they lawfully bought.
So hiding away the right to resell via having your license being held hostage on a companies server will hopefully get challenged in court soon.
Aka you buy a physical music cd, the license is on said music cd, so you can easily transfer it,
vs digital music cd, the license is held hostage on some server, that you CAN NOT even access, let alone transfer it.
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I honestly wouldn't have any problem with buying games that activate directly to Steam, like when I buy on Steam. Bundles are pretty much dead anyway. If that means devs are not getting robbed, it's fine with me.
I don't trade or resell my keys so it's all the same to me;
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As long as developers ban customers because of critism (like the Descenders developer, thank you) and complain on a highlevel, nothing will change.... They censor, move topics, delete entries and hide themselfs from consumers.
The root of the problem is splitted into several points. Here some...
Consumers do not own what they buy
Customers are told what to buy, where to buy and at what price they have to pay.
The currency is of course also determined...
Exorbitant regional prices for the same content we know and buy since many years -> Lack of innovation
Regional restrictions that determine what we can see and what we have to buy
Language restrictions as well
Gift restrictions - It is prescribed what and how we have to give away
Product activations can be withdrawn at any time without a reason -> Consumers have no rights
Price differences of up to 80% and more for the same product
Ubisoft will do a silent activation during the purchase process in future. So consumers won't see a key/serial for their purchased product. As mentioned prohibition of ownership and transfer of property...
Sites like g2a and dozens of other sites are more a syntome as a problem. The problem is a complete different one, but the whole industry lives in a dream world and unfortunately many consumers as well as developers are too stupid to see the complete overview.
Why gaming magazines do not write how the industry really works? Or make a report about what extent customers are dealt with? There is of course no interest and they are also a part of the business. Hawks will not pick out hawks’ eyes~ They're just parasites.
And it has nothing to do with "poor" or "rich". Especially when "poor" countries are also prohibited from international shopping.
But for that we have to read about the cry of a small developer who is incapable of criticism and can only look up to the edge of his plate. Again... it's not the first "developer"...
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Welp, getting rid of game keys is kind of an issue to me as a German since many games are still only being released censored in this country. And I don't feel like giving in to pathetic censorship.
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Noone forces developers/publishers to generate keys. If they are generating keys and selling them to site X or Y, they must think it's worth it to them. No need for "someone" to decide to just declare keys Verboten. And if they do so, it will be following their own interest rather than the interest of publishers or consumers. Like they already did when they made key generation a lot harder. And with the cards. And with the achievements.
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A couple of quotes that show the bullshit of this entire controversy:
there's room for abuse wherever keys are being resold: someone can buy keys with a stolen credit card and sell them, or grab cheap keys from a region like Brazil and then resell them in the US, or beg for free keys from developers by claiming to be an influencer (which is more annoying than effective). There's no way to know exactly how much these things are happening, but a couple of high-profile incidents landed the entire reselling business on a lot of shitlists.
Despite Steam's rules, publishers don't really have to discount their games by 80 percent on Steam to match their bundle pricing, at least not for longer than a couple weeks. This is another way key resellers complicate an already strange business. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Definitive Experience costs as little as $9 on G2A right now, which is about how I'd price a key purchased in that bundle, with a little markup. At the time of writing, The Definitive Experience is back to $30 on Steam. A bunch of $9 keys floating around makes that look like a very bad deal, but those keys were probably purchased legitimately.
with the rise of streaming services like Stadia, as well as subscription offers such as Xbox Game Pass and Origin Access, there's the potential for all of gaming to become a service. In Oshry's words, it's a world where "developers will get paid $.10 per hour their games are streamed" and "have to tour and sell merch to survive."
It's not an unfounded fear—it happened to music
And also a reminder:
The same people now claiming "Pirate our games instead of buying them on G2A", just a few years ago were saying "Pirating a game is like stealing a car".
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A couple of quotes that show the bullshit of this entire controversy
The reality is that the benefits of devs to sell games to third party stores (Humble, Fanatical, etc) via Steam keys outweighs the risks of chargebacks and such. Otherwise, they would choose to sell games differently.
I believe the same exact problem will keep happening with secondary sales of keys & gifts on sties like G2A unless at least one of these things changes:
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How devs/pubs track keys - TinyBuild, other devs/pubs, and presumably many 3rd party stores won't go through the effort to trace keys to transactions so they can revoke keys associated with chargebacks. So they complain to G2A and the press, but won't/can't trace keys to transactions for anyone to take action.
I think it's important to remember that scams/chargebacks/etc. only affect developers/publishers if they are running the store. When they sell via Steam or any key-selling store, all these issues are handled by the store and not by them.
So if they sell through other stores - they don't really care about any scams (associated with G2A or not. Nothing indicates that if they were scammed, it's somehow related to G2A).
And if they sell through their own store - they have a choice to either sell keylessly, or maintain a fraud department to handle fraud attemtps.
Which marketplaces devs/pubs use - For devs/pubs to avoid secondary sales, they can opt not to sell their games on third party stores via keys or they can instead use a primary distribution platform that supports keyless purchases/licensing (e.g. SSO with platform).
I think people are forgetting that "reselling" a game key is no different than reselling a phone you got on sale, reselling a car you won in a raffle, or re-selling any appliance people resell all the time.
G2A is basically eBay for games.
So much so, that the same game you can buy for $9 on G2A, you can buy for $9 on eBay.
So if G2A closes tomorrow, the same key resellers can easily sell their keys on eBay. And no developer or publisher can claim eBay to be a scamming site...
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I think it's important to remember that scams/chargebacks/etc. only affect developers/publishers if they are running the store.
Wait - Its not like a 3rd party store eats the chargeback fees (fixed $ per chargeback) - Do they? Wouldn't the store pass that on to the dev/pub on top of not giving the dev/pub the revenue for the sale that ended up charged back?
And if they sell through their own store - they have a choice to either sell keylessly, or maintain a fraud department to handle fraud attempts.
Agreed.
I think people are forgetting that "reselling" a game key is no different than reselling a phone you got on sale, reselling a car you won in a raffle, or re-selling any appliance people resell all the time.
That is true for the most part with respect to devs & some people's views on this: A fraudulent first sale of digital goods is no different than a physical good because chargeback hits the manufacturer/dev pocketbook.
There are at least two key unique differences with these particular digital goods though versus physical marketplaces:
Dev may revoke a key after a fraudulent first sale (associated with a chargeback)
Unlike physical goods, validity of a key cannot be visually verified or verified with its marketplace of origin (e.g. Steam). The best someone could do is take screenshot or video of the source such as browsing to a confirmation page/email of a store/marketplace that partially reveal the key that will ultimately be put on the secondary marketplace.
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Wait - Its not like a 3rd party store eats the chargeback fees (fixed $ per chargeback) - Do they? Wouldn't the store pass that on to the dev/pub on top of not giving the dev/pub the revenue for the sale that ended up charged back?
That's the whole point - the store gives a cut to the dev/pub. If there is no sale - there is not cut.
The dev/pub doesn't need to pay any chargeback fees or give back any money - he simply does not receive any profit, and can easily revoke the key.
If Apple sells a phone to a scammer with a fake credit card - Apple loses the cost of manufacturing 1 phone.
If a dev/pub sells (through a store) to a scammer with a fake credit card - the dev/pub simply revokes the key. Key generation is free. Losing 1 key costs the dev/pub: $0.00
Unlike physical goods, validity of a key cannot be visually verified or verified with its marketplace of origin (e.g. Steam). The best someone could do is take screenshot or video of the source such as browsing to a confirmation page/email of a store/marketplace that partially reveal the key that will ultimately be put on the secondary marketplace.
I must say I completely understand the reasons Steam does not provide that service. Both technical and security.
I'm not sure why you suggest stores need to monitor sales of their sold items on secondary marketplaces?
Does Apply monitor it's sold phones to verify they're not being sold on Craigslist?
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You forgot 1 crucial item of info:
Bank charges the company THAT SOLD THE PRODUCT, not the company that DEVELOPED THE PRODUCT.
The marketplace (Steam, HumbleBundle, Fanatical, etc.) pays the chargeback charges, not the developer who developed the product and allows the marketplace to sell his game.
This is exactly why the marketplace takes a percentage from each sale: they handle the credit card charges, they handle the money transfer, they handle the product transfer, AND they handle any chargesback fees.
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Until G2A existed most indies had a store. After all valve takes 0% cut from steam key revenue.
The devs that are complaining are not from keys sold from marketplaces but from their own stores. like paradox and rebellion whom have their own stores...
Why are you being obtuse here?
[edit] nevermind, I saw you are the other guy. No wonder of your answer.
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and no developer or publisher can claim eBay to be a scamming site...
Ebay addresses fraud and steps up against it. G2A denies that there is any problem but at the same time tell the public that they problem will stay. There is a reason why it's always G2A that is problematic, when we have most than half a dozen gray market sites.
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eBay does nothing against fraud. There are millions of fraudulent sales on eBay at any given time.
And the same amount of scammy buyers, using fake or stolen credit cards and PayPal addresses. Or simply reversing charges after the item is shipped.
eBay denies having a problem as well.
G2A denies having a problem, so they never said the problem will stay (they denied having it).
We always hear about G2A because they're the largest. By far. Maybe even larger than all other grey market sites combined. And the richest: There was a time they sponsored international eGames competitions, like world championships. G2A is just the biggest target. They at least have some mechanism to deal with scams. There are some sites that have none.
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The dev/pub doesn't need to pay any chargeback fees or give back any money
If Apple sells a phone to a scammer with a fake credit card - Apple loses the cost of manufacturing 1 phone.
Let me clearer: IIRC TinyBuild and Factorio devs have claimed that a chargeback results in $X fee from the credit card processor or card issuer. I assume the same would happen with Apple in your example. So if a dev has a 3rd party store sell their key (or a retailer in the case of Apple), does the store not ask the dev to pay $X fee when a chargeback happens?
I must say I completely understand the reasons Steam does not provide that service.
I didn't say that they should or that its their responsibility to. I was just pointing out some realities about differences in handling physical goods versus a digital key, because it is not entirely as simple as your statement that "reselling a game key is no different than reselling a phone you got on sale".
I'm not sure why you suggest stores need to monitor sales of their sold items on secondary marketplaces?
I'm not suggesting that they monitor secondary marketplaces. In my list of three possible changes that various sides could make, my first point merely suggests that they tie keys to credit card transactions on the store side to facilitate key revocation if they do not want the fraudulent purchase to result in the game being used/playable. That way when a chargeback occurs with a credit card transaction, the store pulls up the key, store provides it to dev, and then dev revokes the key in Steam. At no point do they need to check G2A's site or contact G2A unless they want to take up G2A on their supposed offer to pay 10x chargeback fees if a 3rd party audit finds that the game was acquired fraudulently.
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TinyBuild and Factorio devs have claimed that a chargeback results in $X fee from the credit card processor or card issuer.
But ONLY on games sold directly on their own site. Same way Steam is responsible for any chargeback charges for any game sold on the Steam site.
I assume the same would happen with Apple in your example. So if a dev has a 3rd party store sell their key (or a retailer in the case of Apple), does the store not ask the dev to pay $X fee when a chargeback happens?
Of course not!
Does Best Buy asks Apple for their money back is someone steals an iPhone from a Best Buy store? Of course not!
That's the whole idea of a "storefront" selling your product for you - they handle the credit card charhges, they handle the money transfer, they handle the product transfer, and they handle any chargesback fees.
I didn't say that they should or that its their responsibility to. I was just pointing out some realities about differences in handling physical goods versus a digital key, because it is not entirely as simple as your statement that "reselling a game key is no different than reselling a phone you got on sale".
I understand, I'm just saying that I also understand Steam's reasons for not providing an ability to check validity of Steam keys.
I'm sure Apple would be as reluctant, if verifying the validity of a phone had a chance of stealing another phone.
The physical action of reselling a game is simpler/easier than reselling a phone. But your ability to do so (sell an item you own) should be equal to all items that are in your possession.
I believe that selling a digital game key, should not be different (legally) than selling a game box you own.
I'm not suggesting that they monitor secondary marketplaces. In my list of three possible changes that various sides could make, my first point merely suggests that they tie keys to credit card transactions on the store side to facilitate key revocation if they do not want the fraudulent purchase to result in the game being used/playable. That way when a chargeback occurs with a credit card transaction, the store pulls up the key, store provides it to dev, and then dev revokes the key in Steam. At no point do they need to check G2A's site or contact G2A unless they want to take up G2A on their supposed offer to pay 10x chargeback fees if a 3rd party audit finds that the game was acquired fraudulently.
I'm sorry I misunderstood you earlier.
But I'm not sure I understand why you think they don't already have the ability to know exactly which CC transaction is tied to which game key... Sounds pretty trivial (technologically)...
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I'm not sure I understand why you think they don't already have the ability to know exactly which CC transaction is tied to which game key... Sounds pretty trivial (technologically)...
Agreed, but some at least devs disagree, most notably TinyBuild. At first they say:
There's no real way to know which keys leaked or not, and deactivating full batches of game keys would make a ton of fans angry, be it keys bought from official sellers or not.
Then in a later update concedes:
The problem with this is a bit more complex than you might think. You have some keys which are legit from bundles, others from a bunch of fraudulent credit cards, and random keys scavenged from giveaways. These would be from at least 3 different batches. How do we track which one to disable? Now imagine when we have hundreds of these batches. Large corporations tackle this by having a ton of people working on tracking smaller batches, but we want to stay small & nimble. This means automating as much as possible. And even if we were to spend a ton of time on micromanaging this, it wouldn't solve the overall problem.
Later when directly addressing why they won't share the questionable keys with G2A:
I'm not comfortable sharing lists of keys from multiple batches [with G2A] that may or may not be stolen. The way our business works is we work with a ton of partners, and tracking down individual key batches is an insane amount of work.
So if a publisher/dev with a couple dozen employees & a few million dollars in annual revenue like TinyBuild won't do it, then I cant imagine many smaller devs be willing to deal with it.
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Jim: Someone stole my phone! Must be that asshole Mitch!
Police: How do you know it's Mitch?
Jim: Because he's an asshole AND I hate him AND he's always mean to me!
Police: But do you have any proof it's him?
Jim: He's using a phone all the time, he definitely stole mine!
Police: Let's arrest Mitch then...
tinyBuild: Someone scammed us! Must be that asshole G2A!
Everybody: How do you know it's G2A?
tinyBuild: Because they sell our games AND they don't pay us tribute for selling our games AND they don't report us every game they sell!
Everybody: But do you have any proof they scammed you?
tinyBuild: They sell our keys all the time, they definitely scammed us!
Everybody: Let's all hate G2A then...
As you can see, tinyBuild's story is complete bullshit, and I don't believe a word of it. Neither should you.
It's like the Bank claiming there is fake money circulating, and they know the note numbers, but they can't release that info to the public.
Instead they want you to give them all your money, and they will let you know if any of it is counterfeit.
Does that sound right to you?
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Right, from this perspective it comes back to the publisher being unwilling to do basic key housekeeping.
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Thing is, eBay is registered in the US, UK, Netherlands, and so on. They have been taken to court and lost cases because of fraud committed on their storefront.
Do that with G2A, a company hiding behind a front in Hong Kong that hides behind a front in Singapore that hides the actual Polish company that has zero liability, even if we know who the guys behind it are. If you want to have a legal case with G2A, their response is "sure, go to HK and do it there; oh, by the way, you must travel there personally to start the court case, kaythanksbye!"
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1: False, Talgaby already addressed it
2: See #1
3: they are talking about the problem of causing harm to the indies yet they say that not selling indies would make sellers go to other platforms and cause harm there
4: So now G2A has a mechanics to deal with scams that they - according to your logic at #3 - deny happening? Also as I stated previously, none of the other sites are taking that cheeky, self-absorbed approach as G2A, like recently sending out a "rogue" email that asked influencers and reviewers to make undisclosed promotion.
Maybe they are the biggest, but I still don't know why are you so vehement about protecting them that you literally make up random info. One of your replies (#4) is kinda offtopic and stands on weak legs, while the other 3 are factually wrong, and you tried to win an argument with them. At least look up whatever you claim to be true before throwing it around. You don't exactly paint a good picture of yourself by doing this.
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I'm not protecting them. If you think I do - again, please clean your glasses.
I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the publishers selling hundreds of thousands of copies in bundles, sales or free promotions, and then being "shocked" that someone else takes their free gifts, and decides to make a quick buck. And the idiots who support them.
I'm not saying that people taking a "free gift" game and selling it for profit are good people, they're not. They're assholes who abuse other people's generosity.
But that doesn't make the fake "shock" of some developers that people may abuse their promotions, any less ridiculous.
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Why don't they just give a limited time to activate your keys or you can only activate/link games to your account? It seems there many ways dev/publisher can do to solve the problem, but they choose not to do because they want to make/steer the gaming industry to what they think is best for the consumers. Am I missing the point in the article?
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Consumers just need to stop using grey market sites. It's not like you really save anything using them. If a person pays attention to legitimate sites and platforms, they will always find the best deals. If there are better deals on the grey market, you have to question what shady shit they did to be able to provide that better deal.
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Do you realize that for example keys from humble monthly are sold on sites as g2a, kinguin, etc? So someone is trying to sell keys for games that they already own or they are not interested in. These keys were legally bought. For example Wh40k Mechanicus costs around 3€, so try to buy it for this price somewhere else...
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It's a point I've seen on this opinion article.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-does-the-games-industry-get-rid-of-g2a-eliminate-game-keys-altogether/
I don't know a thing about game market. I don't know if game keys make things easier or harder for developers, easier or harder for consumers. Though it is definitely making things a lot easier for some stores.
Would a keyless world be better? If so, for who? Still, a doubt remains: how could non-region-restricted giveaways be done without the key market?
Please discuss politely, but try not to do excessive corporate bootlicking. We are mostly consumers, after all.
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