Eddie: You know, in the spirit of Thanksgiving [unintelligible] Male bonding, you know? heh OK, well...
Ray: Well there it is.
Eddie: Yeah. We love you. Take care. Take care of yourself.
Ray: All right. Happy Thanksgiving.
Eddie: Alright. We'll see you Ray. Be good OK?
Ray: You too.
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No one gives a fuck about scruples, here. People just want to play dumb in order to get cheap games.
“Hey man, it worked for me one time. So, they’re totally 100% legit!”
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Stop giving out keys and the problem is solved.
Since this hasnt happened yet, it cant be that bad
If a system doesnt work, make a new one and dont try to improve the old one
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The keys are the problem and not who gets them or not, the whole key activating things is outdated and makes the gray market possible at all, not only in this special case that the review keys are sold instead of being used for the actual purpose.
Activation directly on the respective accounts, expiring links or at least keys
And as it is now, if you do not want to put work in it and also not track or check where the things go then you're just to blame yourself
On steam, a developer could just send a gift to the reviewer, the people would then even directly in connection without any work
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How will they make any sales though?
No marketing, an overflooded market and no way of getting any press. It's a bit naive in my opinion.
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but Kinguin is rarely mentioned. At least comparatively in this context.
It's the same thing, just with a probably far lower userbase, thus fewer sales and less "relevance"? They also operate a lot of identical websites with different domains.
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Yup, this is what I thought as well.
In the end, the conversation has mostly been about gray markets and G2A just happens to be the most known example for it. G2A isn't really G2A anymore in this topic. Saying "G2A is full of scammers and criminals" is basically saying "key reselling sites are full of scammers and criminals"
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The core of the story is rarely, if ever, about what happened to you. It is usually about where your purchased keys come from.
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^ what talgaby said. Also, that’s some blatant survivorship bias.
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The problem is not if the key works or not. The problem is that those games you bought were almost all of them, if not all of them, stolen or scammed from the developers that made them. Developers that never any of the money of that transaction.
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I agree to you. Personally you have no reason to stop because you haven't been scammed yet.
But the fact is that if there are so many stories about this, then maybe there's an issue that you just haven't discovered yet. Personally, I'd check out the "Shield" programs that they have. The service where you pay them to make sure you don't get scammed. You're getting scammed by the site to begin with. Ebay is a similar site and they won't charge you for trying to not be scammed. When you try and leave their service, especially in G2A, they will use underhanded and sometimes borderline illegal tactics to keep you on as a subscriber. Emotional manipulation, purposeful delays on their side for your timed confirmations, convoluted options and so on.
In that situation it's you who's getting screwed over, no one else. As long as you're fine with a company scamming you while also having up and coming developers get scammed, then go ahead and do it.
It's just that you're playing yourself for a fool most of the time.
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Yo have to read the terms carefully and uncheck boxes just like you do with Psn, Spotify, Netflix or any other subscribtion system or get f*cked over it (yeah because auto-renewal of Netflix even outside of your primary account is not an scam in itself)…
Okay, easy answer here. First of all, they have nothing deceptive. Also, you have to check no boxes with Spotify other than your reason for leaving. Same with Netflix. Not sure about PSN though. Unlike with G2A Shield, where you go through 7 pages, yes, 7 pages that are throttled to be slower on purpose with 2 extra pages saying "I thought we were friends :(" with a sad animal and then the 15 minute confirmation email which is rigged to send you the email around 10-12 minutes into the 15 minute window (yes, it has been tested with multiple accounts). Nothing like this happens with any legitimate services.
Second of all, when you forget to cancel your subscription and get charged, all you have to do is file for a refund and they'll give it to you no questions asked because they aren't sharks preying on you for every cent, hoping you give up before actually leaving.
Plus, you mentioned how auto-renewals are scams. Literally every service does it, including your electric company, water company, music service, streaming service, car services, and any other one. I don't know of any services where they'd be stupid enough to inconvenience people with forcing them to reregister themselves. But not even that, your own sites use that. G2A uses that same
payment model.
there is an ongoing voting system in the pages to know what sellers are scammers no?
Yes there are. They used to even flaunt their Trustpilot rating around. Now they've plummeted to all hell. 75% for Kinguin, 80% for G2A. That's a terrible rating, considering that the bare minimum for a trustworthy company is at worst 85% and more believably 90%. Even MLMs and other scams tend to have higher scores, with scores of 80% or so. Go to G2A's Trustpilot site and you'll see that they've censored 2 reviews on the front page already.
So that argument really just works against you.
Im not gonna argue with any of you nor gonna make a buying guide from the grey market
You are arguing, that's why you wrote both comments. But also, I used to use those sites a lot. But getting screwed over so many times by those two sites (G2A and Kinguin) so many times made me realize that they're a mess and that they are shady as fuck. It's easy to excuse mistakes when they come one at a time, but look at other stores and try and pretend that any of them have done that to you.
when you buy from china/russia you should know the risks
I buy from China constantly. Most of my minor electronic items are from China. The country isn't an issue. The site is. The site is the one promoting them. Don't try and deflect the points to the fact that it's a certain country. Those stolen keys are also sold by US users.
and for the morality question i dont believe the horror stories many of the keys are from previous bundles, reward sites or from another regions so who cares?
Because these are the keys that haven't been in bundles, haven't been on reward sites and if they're from other regions, then they've most likely been region locked. Those keys have to come from somewhere and you've only listed 2 impossible ones and 1 inconsistent one.
Is better to pay 79 dollars for an assassins creed key in the oficial steam store (real price rignt now) over the 30 or so of a compatible ru/cis one that activates just right?
First of all, that's Steam. You're comparing a UPlay key to Steam. Different platforms, different prices, different values. Second of all, you're wrong because the RU/CIS version can only be activated in those regions. Ubisoft has already revoked a lot of gray market keys in the past and they've added strict region locks since. You won't be able to activate those keys in the wrong region.
But yes, you should pay what the price is. This isn't a second hand item. These are one time use items that can be revoked and can cause massive issues for the developer in the blink of an eye.
Seriously, thats not what liberalism,globalization and capitalism had taught me, sorry.
The following image is my response to that:
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I work for a company that sells actual physical products and we get several requests every single day from people claiming to be "social media influencers" or bloggers or youtubers etc. wanting free products. We just delete them all without a response. We're not even a big company.
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One of my old school friends co-owns a small hotel these days. He recently had a guest stay for a long weekend and when it came to check out time they said they shouldn't have to pay because they were a social media influencer and they had posted positively about the hotel on instagram. That was a really entertaining argument...
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She didn't even mention it before it came to check out time, which is where he threatened to call the police. And apparently she was all 'but it's my job' and he was all technically it isn't actually a job unless you get paid and I'm not paying you. And she was all like 'some bloggers get paid to go on tropical holidays' and he was all like 'I think they get asked to do that rather than just turning up and then wanting everything for free'. And then apparently the highlight was when she threatened to go to her followers on social media and tell them what a dick he was and it turned out he had ten times as many followers on social media. He got the money for the hotel from working in the music industry...
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Sometimes I'm not sure whether these people are simple grifters or if they really are so full of themselves that they think anyone cares what they have to say.
The whole "I'm going to tell all of my friends/family/followers to never shop with you!" is common with our customers trying to get something for free, too. Our response is usually something like "You can do whatever you want but you're not getting a refund without sending back the item you purchased."
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In my current job customers aren't allowed to speak to me directly because it would be embarrassing to the company to publicly acknowledge that the problems I fix are so widespread as to require my department. It's beautiful...
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Yeah it's this virtual popularity game that social media has started that makes people which was nobody think that they are somebody now, only that they forget that in real-life things doesn't work that way and they end up in these hilarious (for us) situations.
In fact, if there's a good thing happening from all of this, is that these people will only make their life worse with their behaviors, but I hate that they will probably never realize it's their fault since they tend to think it's "everybody's fault but mine".
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I remember reading a story on The Atlantic (IIRC) about hotels having to deal with amateur 'influencers'.
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Much like game devs I think he gets a lot of people trying it on and offering to do 'reviews' and I assume that is normal these days. But that was a story that really stuck out for me.
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Wow amazing article, thank you for sharing. Learned a lot. Shocked at this practice. Heavy sigh.
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That's the clearest picture of why those gray sites are bad news. Thanks!
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Not to defend the lax handling or the big grey area some parts of businesses like G2A and Kinguin operate in (there have been a lot of threads and even articles about that, and even the tweet talgaby linked to presents the massive holes their 'security measures' have), but sending a bunch of keys to an e-mail address that's literally nothing more than a bunch of random letters, with no credentials delivered or further interaction, sounds like a very smart idea. Hey, and if they get burned because of that, they really should be protected from such slick and witty scammers - I recommend maybe teaching them to use their brain or, if that doesn't work, completely cutting them off from the internet - could solve the problem or at least a big part of it. Might be a start. I mean, it's not like it's the same with eBay or Craig's list offers, people scamming people out of their money isn't heard of on those platforms, am I right :3? Am I right!?
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I really endorse this guy shedding some light on the issue of shady key reselling, but some developers steadily shifting the blame on only these platforms and their customers is as ridiculous as stating that every key sold on G2A or Kinguin is 100% legit and there's no problem at all with their business practices. It's the same with some scumbags including their game in a bundle, knowing full well they most likely will loose some money by doing so, but then revoking the keys because they're unable to properly do business and/or have some serious reading difficulties. Devs themselves shouldn't underplay the fact they also contribute to the problem by handing out 'promo keys' like there's no tomorrow.
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That was some interesting read. And ofc you are right, common sense is well needed in every part of life. But you also use it to shift the blame on the developers... okok, still kinda fair, I guess.
But I have a question; in your most unbiased, most objective opinion, even ignoring all the negatives, what good ga2, kinguin etc did for the gaming industry (devs, players, etc)? Genuine question tho.
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Nah, it wasn't my intention to solely blame devs for what's happening on the grey market, but I always found the excuse for not correctly marketing a game you produced to your target audience and then either blaming consumers or said marketplaces for your failure a cheap cop out for facing the fact that you have bad to no business skills (Granted, there are some cases where whole companies were ruined by stuff like piracy, but there aren't many - most of the time the 'upper' management just wasn't able to handle the respective company). In some points, it just remembers me so much of how big publishers and developers were crying about used games being resold through retail stores (which in return also mostly ripped off their customers, but that's another story) and how that allegedly was or is destroying their finances, resulting in them step by step limiting the customer's ability to resell anything they rightfully bought, though with nothing but greed on their mind, ignoring the customer's rights once again. Same with them exploiting weaker markets with lower prices and then realizing that people out of wealthier countries bought their games from there instead of paying the full 60 bucks and in the end stomping on it, rightfully so tbh - but they cleverly marketed that in the beginning as a generous offer, though objectively it was nothing more than milking the cow a little bit more. And to top it all of, they introduced microtransactions and paywalls into full price titles, because why not?
I mean, with small indie devs jumping on the same bandwagon, not realizing that, in the process, they harm themselves even more and only play into the hands of big publishers and thus undermining their own position, I worry it all just results in them being out of a job and us players missing out on some great games. Sad thing is, the only way for indie dev's I see is to not follow the lead and to not discount their games or put them in bundles early, at least as long as they aren't in the black. And to not stop giving out promo codes like they're candy and it's Halloween ;P.
There's pros and cons to online marketplaces, including a lot of variables, from the product itself, competition, fees and restrictions and so on. With reselling stuff, there's benefits like the ability to buy items that aren't any longer available through 'official' means and the opportunity to make some bucks off of stuff you don't feel a need to own for any longer. Plus, you enable people that do not have that much spare cash to also enjoy the games others were able to play last year at a more affordable price. Downside might be, and this is also the biggest gripe I personally have with platforms like G2A or Kinguin, that people exploit this so to say online flea market by plunging on sales like vultures and denying normal customers the benefit from the respective discount, or even try to push stolen or extorted goods, meaning it transforms from a semi-private garden sale to a full-blown bazaar. And this is where these marketplaces fail. Hard. With little to no security measures implemented, they fail to uphold their end of the bargain to fully validate the identity and thus legitimacy of resellers and their products on their sites, plus promoting some shady 'customer protection' for a hefty price and a very dirty subscription service in case of G2A. And with that, they turned a concept, that, on paper, sounds like an good idea, to a very blackish looking grey market while again failing to expressively show any intent of correcting any of their negligence.
So, I don't think I can really answer your question unbiased and objective, since, for me, the pros and cons outweigh themselves and I'm very split on that whole grey market thing, sry :s.
There's still a lot one could write about the importance of secondary markets and how the rising of platforms like eBay, Amazon and whatnot changed the existing status-quo in the retail world, which might all be interesting to look at regarding how these marketplaces like G2A and Kinguin have and could influence the gaming industry, but I fear my ramblings will only get more convoluted and confusing with time, since I had some hard days at work this week and I'm typing this with only one eye open, but I hope I kinda got my point across. I just feel that the part where pubs/devs have to take their part of the responsibility/blame for enabling this whole ordeal to even exist often falls flat under the table in that whole reseller discussion, doesn't mean they're the only ones responsible though.
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Damn, a sophisticated wall of text; next time just rest mah man, these key resellers not worth that much :p but thanks for teh nice reply. :D
I noticed how others in this thread including you compare g2a/kinguin to ebay and I feel thats a very dangerous thing to do. People start associating them but they are not the same. While g2a/kinguin is like a flea market where you just assume some of the goods are shady or even stolen and you just shrug; ebay is more liek an auction "hut" run by your drunk uncle who still pays taxes and somehow manages to make it look legit. So, it seems those positives might come from that flea market aspect; cheap, old stuff; but everyone knows this. Im just trying to imagine an alternative universe where g2a/kinguin doesnt exist; so when you want to buy Bob's indie game the Ant Farm Manager, you dont go to bobsindie.com but rather to steam or amazon or any other official reseller so poor bob can get some change. I find it really hard to see any value in these grey market sites. But like that other guy here said, 30 bucks for assassins creed is tempting for everyone.
G2a uses the same excuse as torrent sites do, that they are only the platform and the users do the shady stuff. Well, its probably true now but people tend to forget how g2a started, by getting cheap bulk keys from russia/china/brazil etc and selling those themselves. Illegal? nope. Should you care? ehh, probably not. Im pretty sure at this point noone really cares. G2a isnt a charity, tehy are a business with the sole purpose of making profit. And thats just how things are.
This is such a tough subject tho, cause we are debating this from our moral high ground, trying to "save" OUR PRECIUS pc gaming. But from what? This huge influx of keys and cross region selling before that changed the industry forever. And honestly Steam is a big culprit in it with its shitty greenlight and nonstop shovelware. Probably bundles, and especially these preorder mystery bundles did some harm too, but this isnt the topic. This is all in the past tho, its more like the evolution of gaming.
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Great so now you should maybe play the games you've won and review them.
Games with Playtime...≥5 hours: 5.13% (6/117), ≥10 hours: 0.00% (0/117)
Games with ≥1 Achievement 0.00% (0/69)
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They have no obligation to do it and frankly, being a dick about it won't help.
Sure, it'd be better if they played their stuff, but you're the one going out of their way to try and mock someone for a pretty petty and weak reason.
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To be frank though, you do have a few pretty good games there, especially in the casual and strategy scene.
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but honestly I just join ones that I have a higher chance of winning after I see small entries and what not, I did join a lot of giveaways of games I'd play but never seemed to win any of those cuz there's always a large crowd of people joining, so I just join ones that have a lower enteries just for that +1 game and card drops
Wow. The disconnect here is astounding.
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The thing is like any other "user market" like ebay/kinguin/amazon you can never/most of the time not be sure that the seller got the item legit, But on kinguin they have great support and no hidden fees like G2A has and they are far less scummy since they actually like to help their customers.
Sure some people sells keys just like the guy you posted about but then you should go after the bad seeds and not blame the entire site for it. If so you might aswell crusade agains any sites that lets user sell stuff and that would not be good for anyone.
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Honestly Kinguin's response to the situation was pretty good, in removing all the developer's keys from their store. Apart from the "just sell your game here yourself" response, but you could always set your own price at least. And as Skibby said, a lot of the responsibility falls on the developer for sending keys to these sketchy "youtuber" emails. If they ignored them, and sent review keys to streamers they chose themselves, the whole thing could have been avoided.
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They are developers, sometimes a one person team, versus some experienced scammers. Police don't tell a victim, "You got scammed. Too bad. Your fault". They try to arrest the guilty party.
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police tell women that all the time when they complain about harrassment
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I fugired something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
I figured G2A has been getting enough negative publicity for people to start migrating elsewhere (key scammers included).
And well, Kinguin already has some reknown, so it figures people will latch onto there more easily.
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These sites are just Ebay for games. People scam and sell stolen or counterfeit stuff on Ebay all the time. Doesn't mean Ebay is disreputable or condoning fraud. That's just the risk of selling secondhand goods. I hear critics say that most or all of the keys sold on these sites are obtained fraudently. But how do they know this? They don't. It's just easier to condemn these sites if you believe most of what they sell is illegitimate.
I've never used these grey markets but I don't have a problem with the service itself. Yea it would be nice if they could somehow verify all the keys as being clean but the only way to do that would be to directly work with the dev/publisher and check the keys through a database that the dev/publisher would have to provide and most of them don't have the resources to do that. Many of them also have no desire to do that because that would mean working with a direct competitor who sells games at far lower prices than they do.
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Except this is discounting the fact that these grey market sites also employ "sellers" which are in fact direct employees of the site itself.
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having just seen the glitch on greenmangaming for castlevania and metal gear solid, I was wondering about the ethics of glitches compared to the ethics of grey market sites.
I think most people are more than happy to take advantage of glitches. So what about if someone bought a lot of keys from a glitch, and sells them on a grey market site?
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probably not a glitch since they have restocked that castlevania bundle one or two times
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Whats the difference between kinguin and steamtrades? People sell stolen keys/curators keys on steamtrades? yes
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Steamtrades does not have a 11% commission fee on top of a flat 0.35€ trade list posting fee and another 0.35€ trade offer acceptance fee.
I would hazard a guess that this is a rather damn big difference.
I'd say the fact that Kinguin profits from the sales and Steamtrades for a while did not even accept donations to cover server costs was a rather large divising factor, but considering Kinguin is likely to go bankrupt soon anyway makes it moot, I guess.
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I did not even know you can sell on Steamtrades guess that's why SG users are branded as traders on Humble. I've been thinking why gifting on SG has made the users branded as traders. Hmm~
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Another day, another one of these stories. A 22-tweet long tale, to be exact:
https://twitter.com/StrangerGwenn/status/1052596840149991426?s=19
It is interesting that we usually talk about G2A when it comes to grey markets, especially the controversial aspects of them, but Kinguin is rarely mentioned. At least comparatively in this context.
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