G2A Give an Official Statement Regarding their Recent Controversy

The last week or so have been very controversial for G2A. So they have released An official statement regarding it. If you have been living under a rock And have missed The trouble that G2A have recently been in then I recommend you check out this article and come back when you have finished as this article will make more sense if you know all the details. View our previous article here.

“It all began with a few negative reactions from some YouTubers, and in particular from John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, to an announcement that G2A.COM is working together with Gearbox Publishing. Our partner, Gearbox Publishing, unfortunately decided to publicly publish a letter with a list of ultimatums, without consulting us about the truth of the allegations made by John Bain. This is an excellent example that rash actions, without full knowledge of the facts, can be harmful to both the developer and the marketplace. Especially since all of the requests made of G2A.COM in the ultimatum have in fact long been part of our marketplace.” - G2A official statement.

The worst thing about this statement is that G2A are acting like they are the most legitimate business to have ever existed on earth, when in fact all of the things that TotalBiscuit said in his video were based on facts and sources. Another thing is that the statement reads like the list of demands that Gearbox made was completely unreasonable when really it is what every business should be doing, such as basic consumer fraud protection And other standard stuff that other online retailers have been doing for years.

A major point of the controversy is that G2A does not have any way of detecting whether or not a code that is being sold on their website is legitimate or not. They mentioned this in their statement and you can read it below.

“It is of the utmost importance to us that only legally acquired keys appear on G2A.COM. Our marketplace only loses due to fraud, as G2A.COM refunds buyer’s out of our own pocket for keys that stop working, even though we have no legal obligation to do so. We even issue refunds for keys that stop working a year and a half later, regardless if the buyer had a G2A Shield subscription or not. Let us be clear here: we care about the satisfaction of every single customer

Some developers, and a few influential YouTubers (with John Bain at the forefront) would like to spread an image of G2A.COM as a place which exists from being an intermediary in selling illegally acquired keys. This depiction is far removed from reality. The reality is that the keys on G2A.COM come from legitimate sources. Our marketplace is a leader in security and boasts one of the lowest fraud rates in the industry. G2A.COM employs over 100 people whose job is to ensure the legality of keys, transaction security, and compliance with the most stringent anti-fraud regulations.”

G2A then went on to blame the developers and stated that they just don't want their games to be resold because it will lose the developers money and that G2A believe that everyone should be able to resell their games. That part of the statement can be seen below.

“The problem is that some developers do not want to accept that people resell their games. The developers would like to control the market and all the sales channels within it, imposing higher prices and prohibiting the resale of unused games. G2A.COM does not agree with this – we respect the buyers’ rights, buyers who often unfortunately believe that the rules set forth by developers follow the law.”

Summary

The way that G2A has gone about this whole controversy has been totally unprofessional, they have pushed the blame onto TotalBiscuit when in fact the reason they lost the deal with Gearbox is because they didn't want to lose money. They also blamed developers saying that they just don't want games to be resold online. This whole statement is ridiculous and I would recommend anyone that is thinking about buying anything from G2A should stay away as you have a high chance of your game being revoked 3-6 months later should it turn out to be an illegitimate copy.