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G2A

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G2A.COM
File:G2ALogo2016.jpeg
Type of site
Video game distribution marketplace
Available inEnglish, Dutch, Spanish, French, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Arabic, Romanian, Turkish, German
URLg2a.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationYes
UsersOver 6 million

G2A.COM (commonly referred to as G2A) is an online video game distribution marketplace co-founded by CEO Bartosz Skwarczek and Dawid Rożek.[2][3] The platform allows users to sell video games to customers. The site currently has over 6 million customers and serves 250,000 new customers each month.[4] G2A itself does not sell the keys and software on the site, the users do. G2A acts as an intermediary, connecting the buyer to the seller. This has caused controversy in the gaming community.[5] G2A offers a protection against fraudulent sales called "G2A Shield", a paid service. G2A sponsors multiple gaming teams, including Cloud9 and Natus Vincere.

Charity

On 1 December 2015, G2A, along with multiple Twitch.tv streamers, YouTubers, websites and gamers participated in a program dubbed #GamingTuesday. It was to raise funds for the charity Save The Children.[6] In 2014 to 2015, G2A raised over $500,000 for Save The Children.[4]

G2A, partnered with Bachir Boumaaza, the creator of Gaming for Good, created the Humanitarian Emergency All-Out Response Team (HEART). Both projects were designed to help and support children, charities and help with disaster relief. G2A had partnered with Boumaaza before in projects like Gamers got Heart.[4]

Controversy

As the keys sold were not always bought directly from the developer, sometimes the companies would not receive additional money from the sales.[7]

Riot Games sponsorship ban

Riot Games, developer of League of Legends, banned G2A from sponsoring teams during the 2015 League of Legends World Championship. The reason behind the ban was Riot believed the keys sold on G2A were illegally obtained. Riot also claimed G2A was selling fully leveled accounts, which was also against Riot's terms of service.[8] The statement was released publicly on a League of Legends subreddit on 6 October 2015. The statement read: "We’ve already formally banned them as a sponsor as of September 18th, and have no plans to reconsider the decision at this time, this was NOT a decision we made lightly, and came after many weeks of back and forth conversations with G2A to find a resolution, which we were not able to reach an agreement on".[9]

G2A called the ban "an aggressive attack" and the company had tried many "friendly ways" to sort out the issues with Riot Games. G2A banned accounts selling elo boosted League of Legends accounts, which was a main factor of the ban. G2A claimed that Riot did not cooperate with G2A in their attempts to fix the issue and instead responded with other demands such as banning the sale of game guides on their marketplace.[10]

TinyBuild Games

In June 2016, TinyBuild Games's CEO Alex Nichiporchik accused G2A of allowing key resellers to resell fraudulently-obtained keys, costing the company $450,000. Nichiporchik stated that G2A had approached TinyBuild in March 2016 to discuss issues of key reselling after TinyBuild had expressed concern around piracy of their recently released game, Punch Club. At that time G2A was selling keys for TinyBuild games and offered TinyBuild sales data related to their titles. Nichiporchik reviewed the data and stated that he believed most of the keys G2A were selling were those resold from other authorized marketplaces like Steam, Humble Bundle, IndieGameStand and TinyBuild's own store, with the resellers using fraudulent credit card information as to get access to keys but having the charges reversed as to avoid any cost and making all profit from the G2A sale of these keys; Nichiporchik found one key purchased from G2A that he was able to track back to TinyBuild's store that demonstrated this tactic. Nichiporchik demanded that G2A take more steps to stop such fraudulent purchases. G2A responded to TinyBuild's claims, stated they wanted to offer help to identify which keys were fraudulently purchased as to determine which resellers were at fault and remove them from G2A. G2A also questioned the $450,000 figure arrived at by TinyBuild, noting that their games have been discounted several times on other sites and felt the figure was inflated. TinyBuild added that in communication with G2A, the company felt they were being pressured to participate in G2A's payment platform, which would take some of the sales revenue back to G2A, in exchange for discovering the fraudulent key resellers.[11]

Following this debate, G2A announced a new policy that allows for any developer or publisher to apply to obtain royalties of up to 10% on all of their products that are sold through G2A. G2A stated that this was to foster better relationships with developers and publishers.[12] G2A has announced that it will require sellers to verify their accounts and contact information to be able to use G2A to sell more than 10 products on their site and will add additional verification over time.[13]

References

  1. ^ "g2a.com Site Overview". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  2. ^ "The Early History of G2A". PR Newswire. 21 December 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  3. ^ G2A.com. "G2A Winter Wonderland Party - Celebrating the Birthday of the G2A.com Marketplace". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2016-01-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b c "G2A.COM and Gaming for Good Announce: 'Humanitarian Emergency All-Out Response Team' (HEART)". PR Newswire. 3 January 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  5. ^ Martin, Jim (4 January 2016). "Is G2A safe? G2A.com sells PC game keys for Steam, Uplay and more. We explain why it's not a scam". Tech Advisor. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  6. ^ "Gamers, Streamers and Vloggers Gear Up for Giving Tuesday to Give Back to Save the Children". Save The Children. 11 November 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  7. ^ Parlock, Joe (7 October 2015). "Riot bans key reseller G2A from sponsoring League teams". Destructoid. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  8. ^ Walker, Alex (7 October 2015). "Riot Bans Key Reseller G2A, G2A Could Abandon League Of Legends Sponsorships". Kotaku. Gawker. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  9. ^ Pulliam-Moore, Charles (8 October 2015). "Riot Games has banned G2A from sponsoring teams in the 2015 League of Legends World Championships". Archived from the original on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  10. ^ Chalk, Andy (9 October 2015). "G2A calls League of Legends sponsorship ban "an aggressive attack"". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  11. ^ Hall, Charlie (22 June 2016). "As war of words between indie dev and reseller intensifies, IGDA distances itself". Polygon. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  12. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (28 June 2016). "G2A to give developers royalties on third-party auctions". Eurogamer. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  13. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (8 July 2016). "Game key reseller G2A moves to legitimise its business". Eurogamer. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
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