Yeah, too many pitch-fork-wielding dumbasses in there, angry about the charge-backs and stolen keys, without understanding that that is on the banks (chargeback fees) and the developer's sites (easily bypassable checks). They oppose G2A as if whatever that replace them wouldn't enable the same abuse (Kinguin for example, is worse), rather than the pro-consumer ability to re-sell keys which is the core of it.
Honestly...
How the hell is G2A supposed to detect if a key was or not stolen without the devs telling them?
How the hell are they responsible for developers having stolen cards used on their own sites?
How the hell is anyone supposed to check if a Steam key is valid without an appropriate API from Steam?
I agree on the front end verification, shield, etc. bullshit, but seeing the often baseless hate in there taking over the thread is annoying...
Almost every question is twisted and needlessly aggressive, and that's not how you get someone to explain or discuss something.
Yeah, like 100 times better than Steam's
(Haven't used G2A in at least a year)
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That would be a fun read for sure ...
I assume those guys are masochists or something if they open the gates of hell and ask the public for their opinion bout their garbage site ...
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Their site is not garbage at all. Controversial maybe, but not garbage. Tech wise, I've yet to see a bug on their site as opposed to the official distributors' sites out there. Business wise, theirs is a great success. Content wise, it's one of the most comprehensive market places out there. The biggest problems are some of their shady business practices and the sheer amount of scammers lurking out there.
But garbage? Not at all.
Edit: You can blacklist me as much as you want, you or anyone else. I'm just being objective.
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If being objective means talking out of your arse then yes, you are.
G2A's website is garbage from a technical point of view too, the only reason nothing goes wrong is that it is hard for anything to go wrong when you offer such a basic service.
G2A's website is a page with pictures on for fucks sake... lol
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If being objective means talking out of your arse then yes, you are.
You're being rude just because you can. Not a great way to show you're right.
G2A's website is garbage from a technical point of view too, the only reason nothing goes wrong is that it is hard for anything to go wrong when you offer such a basic service.
Yeah right, having their own payment gateway with over 150 payment methods is extremely basic indeed.
Having an Alexa Global Rank of 876 and US Rank of 874 shows how garbage they are. Bear in mind their platform is used by over 12 million users. Very basic indeed.
G2A's website is a page with pictures on for fucks sake... lol
This proves your expertise in the field. No need to say more.
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G2Pay has nothing to do with G2A, it's actually owned and operated by another much larger Chinese company and just uses the G2A branding.
Please tell me how telling you that you're talking shit is any more offensive than your swipe at my apparent lack of experise in the field of web design?
Also, please feel free to post images of your masters degree.
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Also, please feel free to post images of your masters degree.
:D that's just pathetic.
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G2Pay has nothing to do with G2A
Clearly, their system is called G2A Pay.
Please tell me how telling you that you're talking shit
Your attitude is rude and aggressive.
my apparent lack of exper[t]ise in the field of web design?
On the contrary, calling a platform "a page with pictures" shows great expertise.
Also, please feel free to post images of your masters degree.
LOL, I genuinely laughed at this one.
Let's just stop here.
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G2Pay has nothing to do with G2A, it's actually owned and operated by another much larger Chinese company and just uses the G2A branding.
That's very interesting.
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From a technical standpoint, no. The search engine is horrible and the page is cluttered worse than an early 2000s web page. Heck, there are at least two "G2A Clean" user styles/javascripts out there that try to remove the astonishing amount of useless flashy junk on the main page. Their web site is the only thing that actually could convince me that it really is a Chinese company.
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The search engine is horrible
It works quite well considering their traffic and the dynamics of their marketplace. Think about the implementation before criticizing it.
the page is cluttered worse than an early 2000s web page.
I agree, but you know what? This actually sells. It might sound strange but I can tell you from experience that this actually sells more than a clean design and I bet they know that too.
Their platform works remarkably well. They might be shady as fuck but I can't hold that against their platform.
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Kinguin has about the same choice options, but I always managed to find anything faster and more accurately there. They also used to have a useless search field where you couldn't even open new tabs from: you clicked on one of the hits and it changed the current page, that was it. Took them over a year to realise how to implement what any other search function on the internet allows, so at least it was made a little bit less useless. =)
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+1
When it comes to layout, Kinguin is the better of the two (even though prices tend to be higher over there D:). G2A's search is annoying as fuck, since it will display results for games that are currently sold out, but you won't know that till you click and visit the page -.-.
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since it will display results for games that are currently sold out
That's a side effect of caching as a solution to save on resources. They tried to hide the caching behind the so called "Notify me" feature, but I personally find that "feature" pointless.
even though prices tend to be higher over there
That's the reason I never bought from them. Funny thing, at some point I was looking for a game, and I identified the same seller in both places. They had a 25% markup on Kinguin over G2A. Why are the prices higher on there? The same shady sellers are using both platforms so why the discrepancy?
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Kinguin tries to pretend more that it cares about key legitimacy, so it is more of a hassle to post there. It also has a much higher upfront fee/share ratio from keys. In exchange they maintain a more acceptable public face, partly thanks to avoiding all of the major shitstorms that hit the key selling sites (and mostly G2A). It is a similar (or, some think, the exact same) Hong Kong based European company though. Still, if you really want to buy something from the grey market and don't care about the obvious and blatant risks, then Kinguin is the place where you'll be least likely get fucked over by some dick.
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I have no experience with Kinguin, mainly because for all products I bought in the past their prices were significantly higher so I bought nothing from them.
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I don't see a reason to blacklist you cause you have different opinion.
I hardly care about the tech side of the site.
What I care about is that people are getting scammed on a daily basis , stolen stuff is also being resold there with no consequence almost all the time .
So yeah it may work like a swedish clock, but it's still a garbage site profiting on a gray market hole that will eventually get patched up ...
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Like I said, they're shady as fuck and there are lots of scammers lurking out there. I simply wanted to make a clear distinction between them or their practices and the tools they use. And that's because I hate to see I have so much trouble to buy from providers like IndieGala, BundleStars, GMG, GAME and others while everything goes smooth on G2A.
That being said, I don't recommend buying from G2A unless one is prepared to lose one's money and/or the bought game. On these types of platforms a cheap price almost always comes with a catch. It's very much a gamble. In the past, I mainly bought from them things I couldn't find anywhere else and I was always prepared to encounter issues. Fortunately, I didn't encounter any, but that doesn't mean it's not possible or even probable.
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See , a reasonable comment with perfectly explained opinion and a conclusion .
I cannot write that even if i spend a day thinking it over >.<
I agree that IndieGala can be .. kinda messy at times ... dont really use the other site all that much ...
Think i bough twice from BundleStars and once from GMG ( and it took a while D: )
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Drama, drama, drama. sigh
To be fair, props to the G2A guys for answering all the questions, because most AMAs have the person in question dodge all the controversial questions and only answer the simple ones. They're actively trying to answer to all the reddit users calling them out on their bullshit, and trying to affirm that they're not what anyone claims them to be. It doesn't convince me one bit but dang, I'm impressed.
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...most AMAs have the person in question dodge all the controversial questions and only answer the simple ones.
Truth.
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This one is a gold mine: user exposes a lie and they just lock his G2A account, denying his money:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5rg9mo/we_work_for_g2acom_global_digital_marketplace/dd6yi9s/
And the greatest part is that it was documented live in front of the entire audience, and not even the two rabid G2A fanboys of the thread dared to pitch into that conversation line, since it was so obvious.
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Jeezus fucking christ ... on a bike ...
That was a fun read :D
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I read the thread, G2A is definitely too vague on their key-vetting process (it would seem they go by more of a random or suspicious activity check than 100% verification of all keys).
However, to be fair, the person in question put up fake keys for sale to the public 'just to prove it could be done' and openly admitted it. Of course they'd lock his account.
If someone robbed a store when the security guard wasn't looking 'just to prove he wasn't doing his job', don't you think he'd get banned from that store at the very least?
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Thing is, they said he'll be under more considerate review; and as it was found out, it meant G2A locked his account without notice and stopped replying on that conversation line altogether. And they did so only because he openly posted evidence of a fake key going past their system this easily; if he wouldn't have said anything, he could have posted a dozen of them without issues. And if he did it, how many others did it as well?
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Well, bad people (ie scammers) pop up everywhere - however after a scammer sold a few fake games and all those buyers complained, theoretically he'd have been caught and banned anyway (and hopefully any buyers would have eventually gotten a refund). That's why you try to stick to people with incredibly high rep on any open marketplace. A person who decides to scam individuals can happen anywhere, even on this very site (or sister site i suppose) - and at least they're offering a chance of a refund after the fact.
Scammers exist in every trading system ever - be it Steam, Steamtrades, G2A, or that sketchy guy on the corner selling an iFone 9.0. As long as support takes care of scammers once they reveal themselves (by blocking the account and hopefully refunding victims) - why blame the system for the people who abuse it?
There are plenty of contentious issues that people can disapprove of G2A for (the abysmal 'shield' system, the devaluation of games through grey market resales, the potential impact on developers who choose to feature their games in multiple bundles, etc), however this particular issue just seems a bit overblown to me.
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Theoretically.
On the flip side, check the "American" and the "British" group (who accidentally deal in a lot of Russian keys but no other region-restricted ones beyond those) with the 5 and 6 digit sales and the thousands of fake key reports. Somehow they are still there, after hundreds upon hundreds, up to thousands of fake key reports and possible chargebacks. No bans. This guy way banned after ONE. Those are there after a lot, lot more.
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But how is a key supposedly getting checked at all? That's not really possible.
Only thing is a comparison to their internal blacklist, made up keys can't be discovered.
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They state that you are actually supposed to provide proof of purchase, but they only ask it for the first game you post, not past that. Drop in a 5-cent key from DIG, then post a freshly acquired GTA V Steam gift offer without even linking your Steam inventory. Create a group of enough people who post a 5-cent key then a bait game for 20 dollars instead of 60, and you have a nice little operation going.
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I can't really condone him putting up a fake key just to prove his point - but the worrying thing is that they don't appear to have prevented his account from putting up games for sale (fake or otherwise) - they just locked his money.
A better analogy would maybe be if somebody went into a store and robbed one of the customers and the security guard said 'hey, I'm not going to ban you from the store or stop you robbing the customers - but I am going to keep all the money you make.'
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That's the much more appropriate analogy right there.
This whole episode so accurately illustrates the mindset of the people who run G2A: profits first, all else second. They don't give a flying fuck about anyone's security, rights or money unless it's their own. An actually reputable marketplace that respected your custom would have let you access any funds you were due, regardless of what other measures were taken against your account. But this petty minded act of personal revenge against a user who publicly humiliated them does nothing to protect against actual fraud/scamming, it doesn't even acknowledge the issues that were highlighted with the whole thing. He's still allowed to list stuff for sale there, though, wouldn't want to stop the flow of them fat profitz now (theirs, not his or yours) - minor inconveniences like fake keys and unassuming poor fools getting robbed be damned.
I was kind of expecting this AMA to take a sour turn, and now those little shits just shot themselves in the foot. (This story's already the top upvoted post on /r/pcgaming and PCMR).
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After some consideration (and given that G2A didn't bother to inform the user that they were seizing his funds, he had to find that out by himself) I think the analogy I should have gone with would have been;
Somebody went into a store and looked like they might rob one of the customers - the security guard saw this but didn't ban the person from the store or do anything to protect customers, he just tasered the person and then emptied their wallet and also took their watch because it looked nice.
Now I don't want to appear to be a G2A hater - clearly the majority of people who buy there do so without issue and overall it's statistically probably a good place to get cheap games. But the ethics of the whole operation and it's impact on the gaming industry aside, when they decide to screw people over they do it good and proper.
For a long time I couldn't mention G2A in real life for fear of furniture being kicked after they decided to skank my then housemate over two purchases he made that were retroactively locked. The company clearly follows no rules except its own and can be downright petty and vindictive when they feel like it.
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Somebody went into a store and looked like they might rob one of the customers - the security guard saw this but didn't ban the person from the store or do anything to protect customers, he just tasered the person and then emptied their wallet and also took their watch because it looked nice.
I'd just change something that I think is pretty important here: Instead of tasering, the guard encouraged the person to carry on with their business, while nonchalantly pickpocketing them.
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I was thinking about going with the pickpocketing, but they did actually tell the user he was going to be subject to stricter procedures - he just didn't know what had happened until later, which is why I decided to go with the tasering. I can't say if it was the correct way to go - but there was logic behind it.
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Yeah, I get what you were getting at. The fact that we are discussing if it's appropriate to say whether they tasered a customer before taking their stuff or just pickpocketed them already speaks volumes, I think.
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A gold mine of exposing things. A gold mine of G2A reps abandoning a conversation and just closing an account instead of facing the evidence of how open their system is for scammers.
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sigh
G2A could have ignored the question instead of acting like a dumbass -.-.
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It's just bullshit, they have the same communication that politics use.
"we protect everyone." meanwhile G2A shield says that by not activating it you take all the responsibility, so no protection. Then they explain it as miscommunication, they ofc protect you but shielded ones have priorities. Where is this in the rules? Lying about not having protection makes people to sign up for money, and not having written info about having protection without shield is a potential way for the site to make claims that they don't have to help. Not having simple and clear written rules on a site shouldn't be allowed.
( + one of the forst posts were about having 6+ steps and 20+ minutes to unsubscribe from their shield that's apparently used to milk people. It's cringy how they try to save face and explain why half of their service is shit and anti-consumer.)
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It says that but you can see in every thread here about G2A that people who didn't use it also got help and refunds, me included.
That said, Shield shouldn't exist.
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I get it, it's just absurd that a feature poses as the ultimate shield, and someone have to look up other forums and read about user experience to realize that an advertised feature is not even required. :\
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"If you wanna see our answers, please change the comment sorting from "best" to "Q&A" because we are getting downvoted to hell." I've read so many AMAs and seen this for the first time.
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Have you ever guessed why STEAM games are being sold outside of STEAM, when you're bound to activate in the STEAM application itself, which features a dedicated STEAM STORE? Yeah me neither, because its obvious. STEAM KEY related fraud could easily be prevented (with oauth and alike), but its not the interest of the people selling you infinite cake at retail value along with "pricing fuckery".
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Resellers, and many retail games also activate on Steam. Should everyone burn each boxed copy just because there is a Steam store? Should we forbid developers selling their game on their site, or them making deals with sites like chrono.gg ?
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Then why sell it as STEAM DRM; instead of a DRM FREE copy - ah yeah right ... STEAMS popular and DRM FREE despite
being good isn't exactly popular (for pc) nor a good file format to handle, without additional precautions, but that wasn't my point.
I was going at how the "Steam Key problem" (grey markets) could be fixed,
but that is not in the interest of those who originally distribute the digital product.
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I think they disabled oauth because of some vulnerabilities to begin with :\ it's a pity, I liked it
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Yes, let's make Steam even more of a monopoly, that'd be great for us consumers...
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I didn't i write "why u no only sell on steam" ... i wrote "why u no fix steam keys lol, although its not a quston" - simple enough right?
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Not really how you wrote it, but that's the thing about formless blobs of text...
If you mean Steam should improve its shitty API to allow for checking the validity of keys without redeeming them, like you can do with Xbox and PSN, then I agree (like I stated above).
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Looks like nothing more than an anti-G2A circle-jerk of douche nozzles.
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G2A (and others gray markets) are the reason developers had to stop selling games for themselves, since they were going bankrupt with chargebacks from stolen credit cards.
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You could always find some kind of alternative websites like craiglist or else to resell fraudulent keys. If you want to incriminate each non-officially/specially authorized marketplaces, then there are plenty of candidates.
Among other things dev might want to avoid direct selling, other than fraudulent credit cards usage (that actually cost only key production + key revokation, refund and eventually bank fees (no idea of those actually)) are :
- dealing with each local taxes, that are a nightmare for indies, complex taxes changing over time, and some countries may require local representative...
- dealing themselves with all region locks if they want optimize their income from different tier countries.
- hitting large audiences from huge marketplaces like... Steam themselves (!), Amazon...
- maintainance and technical issues and costs
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Never understood the hate for g2a when peeps are fine with buying shit off ebay or going to the local flee market. Yes, some of the shit you buy there are stolen too, but not everything is -.-.
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eBay gives you fantastic buyer protection, unlike G2A. They're not comparable.
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Yeah i never had a problem with them either and thought myself savvy by not using shield.
However imagine my surprise when having not visited the site for 6 months, i find 4 multiple charges from G2A for $3.36 on my bank statement. Tried to log into G2A to find out however i couldn't even log in so used their chat support to log in with support stating it was because in the 6 months i was away they changed their system so i needed to update my password. Funny thing was when that problem was solved and i went on to the real problem (those phantom charges) they had the audacity to say they were "shield charges" for the 4 months i had it active for and since i logged in to "cancel" shield i was charged for those months when i needed their bloody help just 5mins before to get in! They couldn't explain that and continued to say i must've forgot about it or something when they had the data not 5 mins before about my last log in date!
Needless to say i called my bank to tell them those charges were un-authorized and that G2A were scammers and to ban any such purchases going to through them on my account.
Now tell me, have you ever heard to ebay doing that?
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The seller’s account mentioned on this thread was not “rage blocked” – he is not banned from the marketplace. Imagine you were a company, and someone was bragging that they put up an invalid product on your website – you expect the company not to react at all? We want to check out this particular seller’s account – because right now he does not sound like the type of seller that we want on our marketplace. We can’t just ignore his attempt to put up an invalid product. As for the verifications – we have the seller’s address, ID, and we know exactly who he is. So, the fact that he keeps saying we have no verifications is unfortunately just a lie. The only way we could prove that to you guys would be to show you his documents – which of course we have no intention of ever doing. It works like this – this was a seller who checked out on our marketplace for a long time. He was not one of the sellers that triggered our radar - he sold valid products, customers did not complain, everything worked. So, our security systems let him put that key up, but the key did not stay up for long. He did not cheat our system. Let’s say somehow that code stayed up - even if someone then bought it, that buyer would complain as the code would have been fake, and that is why we block sellers’ payouts for a specific amount of time after purchase– to ensure our customers are not getting screwed over. We are speaking to this seller right now to figure everything out – but we can’t be expected not to react in a case like this.
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The seller’s account mentioned on this thread was not “rage blocked” – he is not banned from the marketplace. Imagine you were a company, and someone was bragging that they put up an invalid product on your website – you expect the company not to react at all? We want to check out this particular seller’s account – because right now he does not sound like the type of seller that we want on our marketplace. We can’t just ignore his attempt to put up an invalid product. As for the verifications – we have the seller’s address, ID, and we know exactly who he is. So, the fact that he keeps saying we have no verifications is unfortunately just a lie. The only way we could prove that to you guys would be to show you his documents – which of course we have no intention of ever doing. It works like this – this was a seller who checked out on our marketplace for a long time. He was not one of the sellers that triggered our radar - he sold valid products, customers did not complain, everything worked. So, our security systems let him put that key up, but the key did not stay up for long. He did not cheat our system. Let’s say somehow that code stayed up - even if someone then bought it, that buyer would complain as the code would have been fake, and that is why we block sellers’ payouts for a specific amount of time after purchase– to ensure our customers are not getting screwed over. We are speaking to this seller right now to figure everything out – but we can’t be expected not to react in a case like this.
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I'm assuming it's a joke, as G2A were copy-and-paste spamming that text on reddit earlier;
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i support developers and buy their games!
*goes to g2a to buy everything cheaper*
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People that uses this logic should, seriously, consider donate directly to developers.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5rg9mo/we_work_for_g2acom_global_digital_marketplace/?sort=qa
Fascinating to read.
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