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Forums - Gaming Discussion - How Gearbox and Totalbiscuit ripped G2A a new one

 

Do you buy/sell keys on G2A?

What's G2A? 17 42.50%
 
Never have 15 37.50%
 
Not anymore 5 12.50%
 
Still plan to do so in the future 3 7.50%
 
Total:40

Yay for the power of consumers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cac0ACHux-Q

Summary:

Gearbox and G2A made a sales deal for a special edition of Bullet Storm Full Clip Edition

Backlash on Twitter because G2A are bad

Gearbox reaches out to the most prominent critic Totalbiscuit to provide evidence for the claims against G2A

Totalbiscuit complies with a mountain of evidence

Gearbox acknowledges it and releases an ultimatum to G2A with a list of demands that if they fail to comply with their contract will be terminated:

  • Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A Shield (aka, customer fraud protection) is made free instead of a separate paid subscription service within terms offered by other major marketplaces. All customers who spend money deserve fraud protection from a storefront. To that end, all existing G2A Shield customers are notified by April 14th that fraud protection services are now free and they will no longer be charged for this.
  • Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 90 days, G2A will open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent. This access will be free of charge and will not require payment by the content holders.
  • Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 60 days implement throttling for non-certified developers and publishers at the title, userid, and account payable levels for a fraud flagging process. This is to protect content providers from having large quantities of stolen goods flipped on G2A before they can be flagged.
  • Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges. Join the ranks of other major marketplaces.

Of course G2A like the scumbags that they are did not comply. No deal and finally some prominent backlash against G2A. The majority ofgamers and people who buy codes on G2A are not aware of their shitty practices while G2A puts all its unearned cash into big sponsoring deals in e-sports to appear like a legitemate business and gain market leadership as key reseller.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-07-gearbox-cuts-ties-with-g2a-after-game-key-reseller-fails-to-meet-demands

 

We did it reddit!



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I'd give more credit to TB since he has been very vocal about G2A more so than anyone else afaik.

Regardless, good thing we are finally getting something done about this nonsense.



                  

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Captain_Yuri said:
I'd give more credit to TB since he has been very vocal about G2A more so than anyone else afaik.

Regardless, good thing we are finally getting something done about this nonsense.

TB has enough credit, have you seen his rig? :P

He only did the responsible thing anyone with the size of his audience could've done. But yeah I hope this brings more light to the issue that is G2A. So many people just don't know about their shady practices.

2 of my favorite streamers are sponsored by them for quite some time now :(



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

I don't get how G2A are the bad guys.
They are a marketplace. They don't sell anything themselves. Every used item you buy on Amazon could've been stolen as well and Amazon can't check it. So why the hate for G2A?



Barozi said:
I don't get how G2A are the bad guys.
They are a marketplace. They don't sell anything themselves. Every used item you buy on Amazon could've been stolen as well and Amazon can't check it. So why the hate for G2A?

Because they have done nothing to deter people from doing this and it only serves to damage developers when they can implement some simple tools. 

 

Me stealing a louis vitton bag and selling it on Amazon isn't the same as me going to a Louis vitton factory, stealing 100s of bags and selling them through another retailer. That is the more apt comparison.

 

Also they have a ridiculous 'insurance' that you have to get in case you buy an invalid key. If i buy a key from G2A and the key has already expired i cant get a refund unless i subscribe to their program. They're a terrible company. 



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Barozi said:
I don't get how G2A are the bad guys.
They are a marketplace. They don't sell anything themselves. Every used item you buy on Amazon could've been stolen as well and Amazon can't check it. So why the hate for G2A?

There is a difference between buying stolen goods and selling them. The fact that they have this "insurance" against stolen goods only shows that they know what is happening and instead of checking the goods they buy they actively try to profit of the stolen goods. It is really not hard to check if keys are legitimate.

Look at the points Gearbox listed in the ultimatum and ask yourself why G2A isn't already doing all of that.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

I never heard of G2A before this topic.



I don't know.

1) I don't see how you can't get a refund unless you have Shield. Obviously it's in the interest of the seller to sell you a valid code or else his score decreases, which means less sales. Basically same principle as ebay. If you happen to receive a non-valid key from them, I'm sure they will send you another one. Basically, don't buy from someone who doesn't have a near perfect score.
When I look at what Shield offers, I don't see a guaranteed refund anywhere. You're getting priority in such cases, live chat an other stuff, but overall it's just a waste of money.
Regardless, these are keys we're talking about. Once activated, they are worthless. Thus there WILL be some customers who are going to activate them and then claim that these were invalid from the start. How can these guys be differentiated from the regular customers?
I guess they try to compensate the losses a little with the money they get from Shield.

2) I have no idea how a marketplace could check if keys from a 3rd party seller are legitimate. How would anyone other than the developer or publisher know? By showing a receipt of every single key they put onto the marketplace? Impossible, especially when you consider that many could've been aquired through private means where receipts aren't needed and therefore don't exist.
If I were G2A or a gamer (which I am), I wouldn't agree to the Gearbox's terms either. "open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent". Yeah sure because devs and publishers love people who commercially sell their keys. They will just flag and ask for removal of every single key. That systems sounds as bad as the one used on Youtube to copyright claim legitimate videos.

3) "Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges"
I've never sold a key there but I certainly know how to buy one there and it's pretty simple already. Also I used two different methods of payment and there were no hidden charges and not even a fee. Really don't get that part.



Well fuck G2A. They deserve this.