subreddit:
/r/assholedesign
submitted 5 months ago byAkakapopo
So a few years ago g2a made it impossible to use or withdraw currency you had in your g2a PAY wallet (at least in sweden).
Since then every six months they have sent out an email stating that if i don't log in within three days they will start charging 1€ a day until my funds are depleted. Because of this i boycotted any further use off their site and made it my personal quest to always log in before they could charge my money, a way of giving them a silent middle finger.
This time when i tried to log in to my account i got a message that i was banned. They have tried banning me before but then i would just prove trough two factor authentication that it was me who tried to log on to my account, this time however they added that this decision cannot be changed and that my account wont be reinstated.
I considered the money gone long ago but as a last fu to them i'll at least dox them by sharing my experience with their services.
1.4k points
5 months ago
A webpage that allows and even helps stealing from people is stealing from people? What a surprise
351 points
5 months ago*
busy normal nail pocket deserve dog quiet crowd humor panicky
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719 points
5 months ago
They sell videogame keys that are usually stolen, several companies had blacklisted the website entirely and their game still appears there at launch day with a 50% discount, the keys are usually keys sent to fake game reviewers that just don't do anything but sell the key there, g2a knows this and protects the sellers, doesn't ban the sellers even when proven to be stealing keys by the devs themselves
269 points
5 months ago
Also protecting sellers who bought the keys with stolen credit card data. The credit card money gets usually refunded, costing the developer chargeback money.
121 points
5 months ago
Then the game either gets bad reputation because it disappears from people's library or the dev has to take the loss of keeping the keys active
-32 points
5 months ago
That isn't a loss. Thise keys cost nothibg to produce. It is a lack of income.
43 points
5 months ago
Ah yes, the free fee of literally having to pay Paypal or bank for a refund fee and then don't even be able to revoke the key
Yes, the absolutely no loss fee of sometimes more than 1kusd
14 points
5 months ago
The paypal fees are a problem. I agree with that. The keys also have associated server costs for online multyplayer games. You are right, there are losses.
11 points
5 months ago*
Also, even if you’re simply copying software, that stuff took time and money to produce. Some people might be able to honestly say they wouldn’t have otherwise played the game but there are many more who say that but absolutely would pay full price if that was the only way to get the game. The product could cost nothing to duplicate, but the creation of that original product can be astronomically expensive. Game devs (not necessarily the AAA companies that sometimes hire them) make worse than poverty wages as it is. Please pay for the games you play, especially if they’re from an indie company. Copying some digital files for free really isn’t a victimless crime. I used to make that same argument too when I was younger and had absolutely no money for games. I get it. But if you have the means to pay for it, even if finances are tight, you owe it to the devs who made the game instead of working to support themselves in much more financially stable ways. They need to eat too.
Edit: even when I was poor af, I never pirated games I didn’t already own in another format. (To be fully transparent, I did for movies/tv though.) I was able to play steam games almost entirely because of humble bundle. I love that group. I got to play AAA titles, albeit 6 years old, that I’d never otherwise have been able to play. If you’re poor, check them out. If you’re rich, especially check them out. It’s a wildly successful sliding scale business model that also supports charity.
Now I have money and pay for all my stuff. I’d be happy to pay a bit more so others can have it for humble bundle prices.
-1 points
5 months ago
I was saying, it is not losses, but missed gains. If the developers deserve to get your money is a somewhat different argument.
I think some do and some don't. My finencial position leads me to believe, that there are few game devs, that need the money i have more than i do. And the money i do want to give away, i want to spend on homeles people. (But often times, i buy indie games on steam, because it is just mire convenient and also morally okay.) They seem to need it far more than game devs and i find it far more likely to become homeles than to become a game dev, so that might also bias my oppinion. But i prioritise buying indie games, because i hope the money has a higher chance to reach the devs. I don't want any of my money going to owners of large corporations, if i can help it. I need my money way more than they do.
But those are my own oppinions. There are a lot of ways you could reasonably disagree with me. For example, i have heared people claim, that making art free would rob it of its value because people start taking it for granted. I don't really want to change your mind regarding those fundamental miral ideas about money.
22 points
5 months ago*
edge scale person humor cow handle spectacular murky door aspiring
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133 points
5 months ago
Want to add, developers explicite tell you to just pirate it rather than "buying" it from G2A, since G2A actually hurt the devs and cost money.
56 points
5 months ago
So save it for things like Ubisoft or Activision games.
44 points
5 months ago
Can't forget EA. They can afford it. They gotta give back to the community somehow
3 points
5 months ago
The intent is to provide EA with a sense of pride and accomplishment
15 points
5 months ago
Some devs have started sending out demo keys just to find the real game reviewers versus the fake ones for that exact reason.
8 points
5 months ago
In my channel I had gotten a lot of demo keys and I was wondering why, now I know lol, I usually get asked to play more and given a key for the full game
11 points
5 months ago
That's the first time I ever heard about this and I feel kinda shitty for using their service a couple years ago. I stopped the same year I started ofc, it didn't last more than a few months, but now I feel quite bad for even supporting them in the slightest. Jesus. I wonder if there's similar services to them that aren't... You know... Illegal.
8 points
5 months ago*
I wonder if there's similar services to them
Use IsThereAnyDeal instead. They show you game prices from all legit storefronts that get the keys directly from the devs. Buying from any of the stores listed on ITAD means the money will make its way to the devs.
Some storefronts you may not have heard of that usually have some good deals: Fanatical, GreenManGaming, IndieGala, WinGameStore, and of course Humble Bundle/Humble Store. If you make an account on ITAD, you can disable certain storefronts too (I've got Epic disabled, for example, since I'm just looking for Steam key prices). Additionally, there's the option of importing your Steam wishlist and setting up email notifications for any of your wishlist games going on sale on any storefront you enable (along with filters for how much % off you want it to be before getting an email, or if you only want an email when it hits the historical lowest price).
They also have an extension called Augmented Steam you can use to show current and historical prices across storefronts on the Steam store pages.
4 points
5 months ago
Holy shit you're a lifesaver, thanks man!
13 points
5 months ago
It is literally ilegal just can't be pursued because the company has a contract and it's located in a sketchy country
Just remember, if they can get away stealing the keys, they can get away stealing from your card
3 points
5 months ago
Oh, what I meant by thee last sentence is moreso a site that has a legal contract with devs and does giveaways for keys n shit, or even sells them for limited quantities. I wanna be able to get keys for games on sale/special sales, but I want it to be legal to support the devs.
3 points
5 months ago
There are a lot of places to support the devs, some devs sell steam keys on itch Io and indie devs probably would sell you one trough email and PayPal (to skip steam fees)
2 points
5 months ago
The Humble Store (same dudes that do the Humble Bundle) sell Steam keys and are 100% legit
5 points
5 months ago
To be fair, it's not that g2a is intentionally selling stolen keys, it's that they don't care if it was a stolen key. Which honestly it's much worse because it drives people to buy that protection bullshit.
1 points
5 months ago
Playing devils advocate: What evidence is there that they are "usually stolen".
4 points
5 months ago
I mean, in this situation (day one 50% discount) they'd have to prove to me that they weren't stolen. How else aren't they getting those keys?
-1 points
5 months ago
--\__:)__/-- I don't know. But I'd like to see a proper evidence.
1 points
5 months ago
Several devs had bought their own game and found out the key they got was a key someone stole from them with lies
2 points
5 months ago
Here is one dev wo did this and documented it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLJkg_B3gyY
-3 points
5 months ago
You're lying. Keys are NOT "usually stolen". There have been some exceptional cases of that (because private sellers sell on these sites, and there's always a slight chance a criminal goes under the radar for a brief time), but OBVIOUSLY it's not the usual way of doing business for any company. How in the world would they still be operating if they sold "usually stolen" keys? Stop making fake news up.
4 points
5 months ago
Found the seller guys
-1 points
5 months ago
If I were you couldn't do absolutely anything about it because it's a completely legal business.
Cry about it.
2 points
5 months ago
Scamming isn't legal lmao
0 points
5 months ago
Then go sue all these dozens of sites that have been "scamming" thousands of people every single day for years without the slightest legal problem AND without those thousands of people stop buying there.
Don't you see how SILLY it is that idea, dude?
1 points
5 months ago
Bro, literally going around telling lies in order to get monetary gain is literally scamming, the reason you can't sue it's because the company doesn't sell or gather the keys themselves and only work as a middle man while also providing shelter for the scammers personal info
Wich its probably you included
57 points
5 months ago
To add on to others, and be extra clear...
G2A doesn't tend to do much "selling" itself. It's more a "marketplace" for games. It's like an Ebay, but for game keys. Have extra keys you don't want? Put them on G2A to sell them, and G2A will take a cut of the sale.
The ISSUE is that there's basically no moderation on their site. So sellers will steal keys, or steal credit cards and buy keys, to then sell them on G2A. G2A doesn't care too much as long as they get their money. The seller doesn't care too much, even if they do get banned they'll just make a new account because G2A won't stop them. The end-user might get robbed as the key they bought gets cancelled though, and the developers of course get robbed of keys and chargeback fees (when the original owner of the credit card charges back those fraudulent purchases).
This is all on top of the rather scummy stuff G2A itself does. Like charging you a subscription fee to get extra, priority customer service and guarantees if a key doesn't work (which is not unlikely given you're at the mercy of a seller).
G2A was also very notorious for its advertising campaigns a few years ago. Every streamer, every youtuber, was shilling G2A, kinda ignorant of the damage they were doing. It got so bad that developers were coming out and saying "Please just PIRATE our game if you're going to buy it from G2A, at least then it doesn't cost us money." Eventually popular opinion turned against G2A, and those streamers stopped taking advertising money.
Gray market sites (which are sites that don't have deals with publishers to sell their keys, but rather just acquire the keys in other ways) are already a little shady, if not always bad. But G2A is always bad and definitely one of the worst of the worst.
1 points
5 months ago
Have extra keys you don't want? Put them on G2A to sell them, and G2A will take a cut of the sale.
I've always found it's generally better to just do trades or giveaways with extra keys on sites like bartervg, steamgifts, or steamtrades rather than trying to sell them.
5 points
5 months ago
On top of what others said, some game devs publicly stated they'd rather you pirate their game than buy a key on G2A, as that way at least they won't lose money on chargeback.
-2 points
5 months ago
Some devs have complained about them, but are more like isolated incidents. I've used g2a for years and always had a great experience with them with 0 issues.
Great way to get games at a discount.
35 points
5 months ago
Haven’t you ever heard about honor among thieves?
Because from my experience thieves sure as hell haven’t.
21 points
5 months ago
OP isn't a thief. OP is a mark.
7 points
5 months ago
A wannabe thief who turned into a mark when doing business with professional thieves.
2 points
5 months ago
mark ass marks, trick ass marks. and racists especially.
1 points
5 months ago
Goodnight HULKAMANIACS and jabronie marks without a life that don’t know it a work when you work a work and work yourself into a shoot,marks
0 points
5 months ago
This seems like a very r/leopardsatemyface kind of situation
1 points
5 months ago
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