Impact of reseller sites on developers

Does the used games market kills off consoles?No.But steam effectively killed off PC used games market.Does not used legit game key hurt the dev or publisher wallet?,ofcourse not.You need to understand what kind of people run this industry,its not gamers its not developers,its suits who run this thing.A special incredibly greedy and corrupt,not to say evil,type of suits.They will bluntly and shamelessly cut the content out of the game and ressel it to you as a DLC or even expansion,in the same time they will cry about G2A or Kinguin,F@#$ em,I wish I could hurt them.

If they need bundles to prevail then there is no choice for anyway
and most buyers do not trade or resell their bundle games.

Those who do, sell to people who had no access to them in
the first place, due to lack of knowledge or other circumstances.

Meaning even if bundle games are being re-sold or traded they
contribute to that games popularity which is key for revenue.

Resellers aren't selling keys at a loss. I'm well aware there are plenty of shady resellers selling keys that are given out for review, etc. But if developers really have an issue with cheap key resellers then they shouldn't give out cheap/free ROW keys for them distribute...

G2A and unauthorized key resales based on large scale purchasing of highly discounted, bundled, or freely given keys with the sole intent of resale for profit absolutely do hurt developers and the industry on the whole. Depending on the scale and the company, sometimes it could be enough to bankrupt the company or make it not worth the effort to continue making games anymore. If G2A continues to grow in size and market share, one of two things will happen: 1) bundle sites and cheap PC game deals will disappear, because developers/publishers will decide to put an end to their loss of margins since they will not be able to stem the mass, commercial-scale violations of their terms of sales. G2A will then stop being able to offer such low prices and will become your average, expensive, corporate site and people in cheap regions will either have some sort of full region lock in place or will just have to pay the same price as more expensive regions or 2) G2A will be subject to a fairly large lawsuit and will be bankrupted. Given that I rather like bundles and cheap prices on PC games, I would much prefer option 2.

The difference between a huge competing gray market like g2a and small individual trades/resales is a matter of scale.

Companies big or small are not particularly affected by maybe 5-10% of margins slipping due to small scale, individual resales. However, for a small developer if their margins fall by 30% or more then that constitutes a fairly big problem that can bankrupt them and cease their ability or desire to continue creating games.

The problem with G2A is how aggressively they are approaching the PC game industry. When a legitimate company that is a shining beacon creating added value and benefit to the present games industry like GOG.com has a global Alexa rank that is half of a scummy operation like G2A's that hurts the industry (3170 for gog, 1505 for g2a), you know there is a severe problem with the current health of the marketplace.

For those of you that defend and use G2A, I hope you do realize that G2A's huge growth is one of the biggest reasons why all the things you complain about like increased region locking, full bundle tiers redeeming in single keys, cheap sales prices being a thing of the past, and bundle quality going down are happening. Feel free to keep defending and promoting G2A, whilst you ruin all the things you love for your short-sighted gains.

I think.. no.
My reasoning here is because whenever I have used a site like G2A or kinguin etc etc, I did it because I could not or would not pay the retail price. So they didn't lose money.. I would have never paid that price. So I would have either downloaded it for free, or purchased a legitimate copy for considerably cheaper via a reseller site.
They did however gain a user on their servers/forums/possibly gained a review for their game.
Which is better than nothing, so a cheap key from third party is better than a pirated game. Imo

Just a thought - is reselling on G2A not similar to giving the game away in Steamgifts? In both cases, there is one purchase and one end user. In both cases, there is something tangible to be gained. On reseller sites, you get money, on Steamgifts you get contributor value.

There is a problem with bundles being abused to stock up on large amounts, I mean hundreds or thousands, of keys to be resold later.

It's not only hurting developers but also bundlers and customers, as developers are becoming increasingly wary of having their games featured, for fear to be robbed of the price leverage, i.e. being able to control at which price their games are being sold at and when, and thus kicked where it hurts the most: their livelihood, their ability to pay bills and put a meal on the table, to care for their loved ones ...and to make more games! - as many of the victims are indie developers that are already facing greater risks and struggles than big businesses.

As customers, it's in our interest to stick with whatever legit deals are available, avoiding to buy bundle keys on eBay or the G2A marketplace, to ensure the system stays as healthy as possible and continues to produce games that are both great AND affordable.

View attached image.

There is an impact, but it's rather small.

In a world where there is no fluctuation in price, it would actually be beneficial for the developer, because they get paid sooner. But, when someone stocks up on keys during a sale, it may impact the seller. Let's take an example:

game retails for $60 new.
Game goes on sale for 75% off, or $15, for a week (christmas sale, promo for new game, or whatever)
Game drops in price to $20
There are players who would not have bought the game for $60, but were willing to buy it for $20. Now those same players buy it on the grey market, because they can. Let's say it's done at cost, for $15. That's a 25% savings over the current price, and $5 less for the developer.

Historically, developers only cared about short-term sales. How much do they make in the first X months. Any sales thereafter were a bonus. Practically speaking, this is still true. Whatever is sold in the first X months impacts how much the developer can put into the next game s/he makes. It's also a good way to gauge whether or not it makes sense to pump out another game in the franchise.

Thanks to Steam and GoG, there are much more trailing earnings for games. A developer can receive a paycheck a decade or more after the game's release. Those sales may convince a developer to do a remake or a sequel, and if those do well, if it's worth doing so for another game. But the developer wouldn't suffer if that were not the case.

So, yeah, resellers are taking money out of the developer's pockets, but that's not something the developer needs to live off, nor is it likely to have a significant impact on what projects the developer may work on.

HOWEVER. where we're talking about traders buying in a low-cost region and reselling in a high-cost region, that's a different matter altogether. That is taking a bite out of current earnings, which is the money that the developers need to eat off of (or pay their staff, or their bills). Short-term sales are the lifeblood of the industry, and the decider as to whether a sequel gets made, or how much to put into the next game. More importantly, it's a way to let the developer know they're on the right track. If their innovative game doesn't make enough, maybe they'll try a more conventional approach next time. If they're not having success in a particular genre, maybe they'll switch to a different type of game. So that does have a major impact.
note that I haven't brought up Humble Bundle; nor am I going to

i think the only negative impact g2a or any other reseller have over developers and publishers is when keys are bought with stolen credit cards, and the cc company does a chargeback. it hurts both the seller and the customer.

There is a negative impact on the developer.

But that is, imo, outweighed by the positive impact on the consumer.

Developers also have to realise their own complicity in the Grey Market - bundle sites, giveaways, steam keys for greenlight votes, etc - ALL fuel the grey market.

But really, the question is as simple as why should digital goods be considered any different from physical goods?

Nobody would ever question the resale of physical items, such as cars, etc which have just as big an impact on car manufacturers.

It seems some developers seem to think they're entitled to circumvent consumer rights and be entitled to specialist protection.

Buying bundles end sales end glitches could help much, supporting games with crowd funding insead they getting keys.
Oke sometimes they have stolen keys or refunding gifts or stuff like that.

But does not mean devs losing money they still making everyday money, when there is sale people buying gifts on mega scale end reslling it sometimes on cheaper way but that why they pay for it.

end no it does not have inpact becouse many sites like humblebundle, indiegala, ochter bundle sites get pay for there bundle only buyers from big bundle selling it later for cheaper price but still devs getting pay by bundle sellers.

Orwell steam should change to payment per month then you could play every game for one price but that will never happend becouse then companys will lose money.

Aswell devs could deactive unused key if they are not used they could even revoked games if it's stoled.

1. steam could change to payment per month.
2. steam could lose money for that becouse they need to pay devs more becouse payment per month would be much pain in there asses .
3. if steam would go payment per month then devs will pay more to release game on steam you could beleave me becouse then would be harder to release they game.
4. steam should not be alllow any keys anymore to dev side, so bundles site could not sell keys anymore only buying from steam but they do not do that becouse them or devs will lose money

My personal opinion is expressed in the article by Lewie Procter, so I'll copy & paste:

“No one forced developers to flood the market with cheap serials for their games, that was an action they voluntarily engaged in. Perhaps they might not have fully thought through the consequences of doing this; whilst I have sympathy for any developer who feels unhappy about this situation, they should be examining how their actions have led to it before pointing fingers at anyone else.”

In other words, if you don't want to see the grey market full of cheap keys of your game, don't let your games appear in bundles, period. Most indie titles would not have any impact if they were not published in bundles, so they must choose between selling 100 copies on Steam at full price or 10,000 at bundle prices on Indiegala, HB, etc.

Some if not most developers are nerds focused on coding and don't know anything about how the world works. There's something called "free market" and is not difficult to understand what it means...

Dear developer, you don't lose any money when a key is sold on the grey market because those who buy on these sites are generally people who can't afford to pay full price for your game and, before this market ever existed, they used to download games illegally. Now they buy them for cheap, what do you prefer? No, there will never be a world where everyone can afford games at full price, so don't dream about that.

Well, if a key wasn't obtained in an illegal way (stolen cc, chargebacks or whatever), it means that the developer got his money. If that key is then sold to a third party, the developer didn't actually lose money in the process (he still keeps the money from the first transaction).

It's the same for pretty much any product. If I'm a company who makes phones, and I sell a phone to someone at a price I set, I can't later complain if he later sold his used phone to someone else (even if 2 or more people used the phone I actually sold once, and even if someone managed to squeeze extra money because I offered too big a discount).