Indie Game Developers Would Rather You Pirate their Games Than Buy From Key Resellers

[Anomnomnomaly]

Just been reading this article

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48908726

 

"They are harming our industry and the value of our games," Mike Rose, from the Manchester-based publisher No More Robots, told BBC News

 

"I'm seeing my sales happening - and then at the end of the month 30% of them are disappearing," Mr Rose said.

 

 

 

Very interesting take... I was only aware of a couple of these 'reseller' type sites and had never actually heard of G2A before. I'd never use them anyway as the whole idea of an 'ebay' for game keys seems ripe for abuse... ebay itself is bad enough for people trying to rip of others and Amazon can be very dodgy if you aren't careful and stick with Prime sellers rather than the 3rd party knock off pedallers.

 

[SansVarnic]

@Anomnomnomaly your topic does not meet posting guidelines, please refer to the following and update your post.

 

Quote

When creating a thread in the News subforum, please make sure your post meets the following criteria:

• Your thread must include some original input to tell the reader why it is relevant to them, and what your personal opinion on the topic is. This needs to be MORE than just a quick, single comment to meet the posting guidelines.
• Your thread must include a link to at least one reputable source. Most of the time, this should be a respected news site.
• Your thread should also include quotes from the cited source(s). While you shouldn't just copy the entire article, your quote should give the reader a summary of the article in a way that gives the key details, but also leaves room for them to read the full article on the linked website. Please use quote tags to show that you have copied this content from another site.
• The title of your thread must be relevant to the topic and should give a reader a good idea of the contents of the thread. Copying the title of the source is permitted but absolutely not required. It should be to the point and not be done in such a way as to mislead a reader, such as clickbait, etc.
• If your article is about a product or some form of media, images are always appreciated, although they are not required.

Failure to comply may result in your thread being locked or removed without warning.

 

[elfensky]

I think that's been the stance of most if not all indies for a long while. They rather you pirate instead of getting charge-backs and having to pay out of pocket for settlements or having wrong numbers and thus expectations.

 

3 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

and had never actually heard of G2A before

under what rock were you living?

[Anomnomnomaly]

15 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

I think that's been the stance of most if not all indies for a long while. They rather you pirate instead of getting charge-backs and having to pay out of pocket for settlements or having wrong numbers and thus expectations.

 

under what rock were you living?

Take a left at steam, go for a few miles down towards Uplay but before you reach it detour around the bypass to avoid that nasty area known Epic Origin... then take a left, a right and 3 more lefts and it's the 3 rock on the right next to GOG

 

 

But joking aside.. I've heard of plenty of other places that resell keys for games and other software... I've used them to buy windows licenses before. I'd just never heard of an 'ebay' style game key reseller.  But given the millions of sites out there, hardly surprising.

 

Now.. I could tell you about some of the really dark places out there... But I'd have to invoke rule 34.

[Jito463]

16 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

"They are harming our industry and the value of our games," Mike Rose, from the Manchester-based publisher No More Robots, told BBC News

Specifically G2A, especially after they tried to sleazily pay off gaming sites to secretly publish their "unbiased" article which totally justifies key resellers, without ever mentioning that it was a paid article or the connection to G2A.

 

 

[79wjd]

13 hours ago, ElfenSky said:

I think that's been the stance of most if not all indies for a long while. They rather you pirate instead of getting charge-backs and having to pay out of pocket for settlements or having wrong numbers and thus expectations.

 

under what rock were you living?

It has been a thing for a while. Total Biscuit has touched on it many times.

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

Yeah, G2A are scum. Worse than Ubisoft. Worse than EA. Worse than Apple or Microsoft. They're literal scum.

 

The worst part is that they charge you an extra fee for G2A shield, which is the only way to guarantee your key works. That would be like if eBay charged you extra for buyers protection.

 

Sure plenty of the keys on G2A are legit. But the owners have done nothing to curb illegal and stolen keys and have a sleazy business model and practices.

[D13H4RD]

Notice that they specifically mention G2A.

 

G2A has been scum for a long ass while already, and it still puzzles me as to why people keep buying from them. Yeah, they're cheaper, but their business tactics are just scummy.

 

This is bought using a stolen credit card? Nah, let's not do shit about it.

[suicidalfranco]

The only reason why I buy AAA titles from them

[Doobeedoo]

I like how some devs put some funny shit in game if it detects pirated copy though. 

[SupremeGOAT]

dont pirtae indie games! EA games... DO NOY BUY!

[Loote]

It's funny how they talk about lost income in case of piracy, but the pirate doesn't spend money on it, so nothing's really lost. I mean, compared to this shop where you can pay for forfeit key and not have money that you'd otherwise spend on legit copy. The fact that the buyer might get illegal key while thinking his money goes to the creators is just bad

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, Loote said:

It's funny how they talk about lost income in case of piracy, but the pirate doesn't spend money on it, so nothing's really lost. I mean, compared to this shop where you can pay for forfeit key and not have money that you'd otherwise spend on legit copy. The fact that the buyer might get illegal key while thinking his money goes to the creators is just bad

 

I think the meaning of lost sales is largely lost on many as they tend to think in absolutes.  when developers talk about lost sales they are talking about the sales that would have occurred if piracy or G2A wasn't an option.  They are not claiming all pirated copies are lost sales, but a certain percentage of pirated copies are by people who would have spent the money had piracy not been an option.

 

 

I think the bigger picture that people trend to forget about is that developers need a certain amount of copies to sell legitimately in order for the game to be a viable investment/proposition.  For indie developers that could be quite a bit depending how big their operation is.   If what they claim is true that they experience a month of good sales then all of a sudden sales tank because people have played the game and are selling it on, then they may not be making enough to pay for the development. If that trend continues you can kiss indie games goodbye and say hello to every game being an online service.

 

 

[Tamesh16]

On 7/9/2019 at 3:27 PM, Anomnomnomaly said:

had never actually heard of G2A before

yeah, the main idea is there is evidence that suggests G2A has some shady business practices

[TechyBen]

46 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

I think the meaning of lost sales is largely lost on many as they tend to think in absolutes.  when developers talk about lost sales they are talking about the sales that would have occurred if piracy or G2A wasn't an option.  They are not claiming all pirated copies are lost sales, but a certain percentage of pirated copies are by people who would have spent the money had piracy not been an option.

 

 

I think the bigger picture that people trend to forget about is that developers need a certain amount of copies to sell legitimately in order for the game to be a viable investment/proposition.  For indie developers that could be quite a bit depending how big their operation is.   If what they claim is true that they experience a month of good sales then all of a sudden sales tank because people have played the game and are selling it on, then they may not be making enough to pay for the development. If that trend continues you can kiss indie games goodbye and say hello to every game being an online service.

 

 

Yes but they demonise "piracy". As in, yes it "loses sales". But so does the fact other people can make their own games. "We lose so many sales to people painting their own pictures/writing their own fanfiction/modding games!". Anything and everything can lose a sale.

 

Steam even offer refunds now. Indy devs offer unlimited demos (Factorio is one example, IIRC timed demo only, uninstal, start a new save/time demo). And those who do, usually get "value" (Factorio has kept it's price up, where as other devs have done sales).

 

So there is an ability to work with the community that want to share. Charge them for the work done, the service provided, etc. And those who want to pay will. Those who don't? Well, would you like me forcing you to do things for your own safety, or just because we want you to do them? Much better to win you over with "wow, I actually want to pay for this, piracting/copying/playing for free is great, but if I pay I get/support/am part of this too".

 

As in, I can yell at the rain all day long... Indy/AAA devs doing that, well, how would you respond to me yelling at the rain?

[mr moose]

50 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Yes but they demonise "piracy". As in, yes it "loses sales". But so does the fact other people can make their own games. "We lose so many sales to people painting their own pictures/writing their own fanfiction/modding games!". Anything and everything can lose a sale.

 

That doesn't even make sense. there is no connection between your examples and someones work being used without payment.

 

 

Quote

Steam even offer refunds now. Indy devs offer unlimited demos (Factorio is one example, IIRC timed demo only, uninstal, start a new save/time demo). And those who do, usually get "value" (Factorio has kept it's price up, where as other devs have done sales).

 

Not sure what that has to do with what I said, but good for them I guess

Quote

So there is an ability to work with the community that want to share. Charge them for the work done, the service provided, etc. And those who want to pay will. Those who don't? Well, would you like me forcing you to do things for your own safety, or just because we want you to do them? Much better to win you over with "wow, I actually want to pay for this, piracting/copying/playing for free is great, but if I pay I get/support/am part of this too".

I think you might have misunderstood the issue at hand.

Quote

As in, I can yell at the rain all day long... Indy/AAA devs doing that, well, how would you respond to me yelling at the rain?

what are you trying to say?

[Guest]

Thats great because I'd rather pirate than buy from key resellers too

[Kenpachi1985]

I personally bought one game key from g2a and i remember that i used shield, it was very disturbing to let a total stranger (although it is an "employee") see what i type on  my computer.

I also remember many twitch streamers using G2A affiliate links some few years ago, but not anymore since knowledge of their bad behaviour has spread quite far now. I like saving some bucks when  buying games, but i will stick to steam offers as often as i can and not use G2A ever again. Not saying that other key sellers are all white knights, but from what i have heard until now G2A is a real "black sheep" within the herd.

[TechyBen]

53 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

That doesn't even make sense. there is no connection in your examples between someones work being used without payment.

 

 

 

Not sure what that has to do with what I said, but good for them I guess

I think you might have misunderstood the issue at hand.

what are you trying to say?

Everyone on this forum uses someone's work without payment. difference is, we don't demand payment for the work of helping others with their computers/tech. So socially, how do we agree when it's right to pay someone and when it is right to use a service/product/ability/media for free?

 

I have used hammers that belong to friends, then gave them back. I did not had to pay the original creator of said hammer. So how should it work with payment? What parts of the "work/payment" system are not a social structure? If someone does not value that social input (repeated payment per hammering of a nail), they don't value it. (I am not talking about theft here, no one stole the hammer in my example, it was paid for... but once.) Did anyone steal Minecraft Java when they gave the download to a friend on USB? Did Mojang/Notch or now Microsoft have something stolen or payment refused to them?

 

If someone agrees to cut my grass, and I pay them, is it wrong for a neighbour to then enjoy my cut grass, or should they also pay? If I have a book, can I share it with friends, or should I pay per time I read/they read? How should we remunerate the author? Should the author be able to insist I never tell anyone else about the story? Or ever share it? I agree they may. But in a crowd, in the entire industry, I am not sure our trust will go without someone in the chain breaking it. Should I setup my business on trust I know will never work. Should I hope no one ever copies my book? Should I hope it never rains? That water is not wet?

 

Copying exists. Just as math, photography and rain does. We can socially agree to license it (for example, IIRC the Golden Gate Bridge has a royalty rights for any movies it appears in, thus some film facing the opposite way to the city or similar to get around it). Or some may not agree to. We can try to ban it. We could ban photography, but have no ability to stop math or rain...

 

Physical protection has some ability to be applied, and has a massive actual result in safeguarding people (we can protect against misuse of hammers, but how do we protect against misuse of copying?). Mental/social protection only works within the group who are agreeing to it, not the groups outside of it. "Media piracy" is a thought problem, a thought crime, not a physical one. It's akin to trying to ban maths, or science, or truth... it's a losing game. It's a tool, and the only way to get people to use it correctly instead of incorrectly (in the case of media) is to provide a better service. But that's not what is banned. Unlicenced publishing is. Unlicensed distribution is. Etc. Usually copying is allowed.

 

As for math and other tools, well, I don't know how to stop people being dangerous with those. (knife bans etc here to try and help are in force, hope they have some results) 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Kenpachi1985 said:

I personally bought one game key from g2a and i remember that i used shield, it was very disturbing to let a total stranger (although it is an "employee") see what i type on  my computer.

I also remember many twitch streamers using G2A affiliate links some few years ago, but not anymore since knowledge of their bad behaviour has spread quite far now. I like saving some bucks when  buying games, but i will stick to steam offers as often as i can and not use G2A ever again. Not saying that other key sellers are all white knights, but from what i have heard until now G2A is a real "black sheep" within the herd.

Yeah. I think key swapping/buying/selling seemed well intentioned at the start. At least some in the industry. But once the money was seen, and the cons available, well, the incentive to fix it starts to diminish. See most monopolies/easy money pits... Facebook/Steam/etc. With lots and lots of money, it's hard to motivate them to fix things that are not the most important to their bottom line. Would G2A change unless forced to? Only if their motivation changes.

[Anomnomnomaly]

2 hours ago, Loote said:

It's funny how they talk about lost income in case of piracy, but the pirate doesn't spend money on it, so nothing's really lost. I mean, compared to this shop where you can pay for forfeit key and not have money that you'd otherwise spend on legit copy. The fact that the buyer might get illegal key while thinking his money goes to the creators is just bad

 

Actually, studies have found that piracy on the whole, increases the average individuals purchasing of goods.  Whilst every entertainment industry would like you to believe that every single download amounts to a lost sale... It actually allows people to try out new things and discover new music and so forth.

 

In the old days you could download a demo of a game... you can't any more except in very, very rare circumstances. So you have to go in blind on an expensive purchase and hope you don't get ripped off. The ability to check something out before buying is a rather important one... and downloading anything is not a criminal act, but a civil one (that may vary from country to country but it's worth noting that downloading is a civil offence, but uploading is a criminal one in most cases).. Now I'm not advocating every one download everything... I'm simply pointing out that discovering something new that you enjoy can and does lead to multiple purchases.  Find a game series you enjoy... you go out and buy the rest. Find a new band, you go out and buy some more of their albums.

 

There will always be a minority of people who pirate everything and have no intention of buying stuff at all... again they've found that this actually has zero impact on sales because that's not and never would have been a lost sale. Some companies are waking up to the fact that a little 'copyright infringement (it's real name) is not harmful to the industry at all... and could actually be beneficial.

 

But what some of the industry does is bury their heads in the sand denounce it as the devil incarnate and attempts to come up with ever more draconian methods to stop it... Methods that actually make it hard for legitimate buyers to play the game than those downloading it without purchase... and then complain when people react negatively to it and decide 'purchasing' the product make things harder to use than downloading them.

 

They create their own problems and then whinge about it... It's no wonder people have zero sympathy for companies like that.

 

Support indies... they're normally the ones who put out demo's and they're the ones who deserve your money.

[mr moose]

46 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Everyone on this forum uses someone's work without payment. difference is, we don't demand payment for the work of helping others with their computers/tech. So socially, how do we agree when it's right to pay someone and when it is right to use a service/product/ability/media for free?

 

You are trying to compare voluntarily offered help to work done in expectation of payment.  Those two are not comparable.  One is not an excuse to use a product freely when you know you are expected to pay for it.

Quote

I have used hammers that belong to friends, then gave them back. I did not had to pay the original creator of said hammer. So how should it work with payment? What parts of the "work/payment" system are not a social structure? If someone does not value that social input (repeated payment per hammering of a nail), they don't value it. (I am not talking about theft here, no one stole the hammer in my example, it was paid for... but once.) Did anyone steal Minecraft Java when they gave the download to a friend on USB? Did Mojang/Notch or now Microsoft have something stolen or payment refused to them?

You have missed a major part, game developers (for the most part) do not lend you their games to play, they expect you to pay for them.

 

Quote

If someone agrees to cut my grass, and I pay them, is it wrong for a neighbour to then enjoy my cut grass, or should they also pay? If I have a book, can I share it with friends, or should I pay per time I read/they read? How should we remunerate the author? Should the author be able to insist I never tell anyone else about the story? Or ever share it? I agree they may. But in a crowd, in the entire industry, I am not sure our trust will go without someone in the chain breaking it. Should I setup my business on trust I know will never work. Should I hope no one ever copies my book? Should I hope it never rains? That water is not wet?

 

Copying exists. Just as math, photography and rain does. We can socially agree to license it (for example, IIRC the Golden Gate Bridge has a royalty rights for any movies it appears in, thus some film facing the opposite way to the city or similar to get around it). Or some may not agree to. We can try to ban it. We could ban photography, but have no ability to stop math or rain...

 

Physical protection has some ability to be applied, and has a massive actual result in safeguarding people (we can protect against misuse of hammers, but how do we protect against misuse of copying?). Mental/social protection only works within the group who are agreeing to it, not the groups outside of it. "Media piracy" is a thought problem, a thought crime, not a physical one. It's akin to trying to ban maths, or science, or truth... it's a losing game. It's a tool, and the only way to get people to use it correctly instead of incorrectly (in the case of media) is to provide a better service. But that's not what is banned. Unlicenced publishing is. Unlicensed distribution is. Etc. Usually copying is allowed.

 

As for math and other tools, well, I don't know how to stop people being dangerous with those. (knife bans etc here to try and help are in force, hope they have some results) 

 

 

Yeah. I think key swapping/buying/selling seemed well intentioned at the start. At least some in the industry. But once the money was seen, and the cons available, well, the incentive to fix it starts to diminish. See most monopolies/easy money pits... Facebook/Steam/etc. With lots and lots of money, it's hard to motivate them to fix things that are not the most important to their bottom line. Would G2A change unless forced to? Only if their motivation changes.

 I'm sorry, but nearly everything you have there rests on completely irrelevant or unrelated conditions.    I don't even know why anyone would associate half of what you have there.

 

If I write a program, and I expect payment from anyone who uses it, then you have no right to use it without paying me for it.  If you buy that program from someone else second hand, then you have a legal copy of that program to use (assuming the seller no longer has any access to it) and that is my loss.

 

There is no way around that fact, arguing about someone cutting your grass or lending tools is not even remotely relevant.

 

EDIT: I am really struggling to understand what you mean,  even if you could legally lend your neighbor a copy of a game you purchased, then the same logic still applies, the developer has only been paid for it once, but 3 people have used it, so if they aren't earning enough money from that one sale to cover the cost of developing the game then the price will either go up or the game will be locked to an online service you have to pay for.    Or the last option is no one will develop games because they are not a viable business proposition.

 

[Loote]

I'm sorry for starting piracy topic, I just wanted to mention that little similarity.

[kokakolia]

I just don’t trust G2A at all. I remember buying a Witcher 3 bundle. It worked for several months, then it disappeared from my GOG library without a trace. And it’s not like the price on G2A was much better than a legit source like GOG or Steam. In some cases, you pay more on GOG. And on top of this mysterious disappearance, I was paying $2 every month to G2A on my credit card for months without even knowing. 

 

 

[Sir.gg]

11 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

I just don’t trust G2A at all. I remember buying a Witcher 3 bundle. It worked for several months, then it disappeared from my GOG library without a trace. And it’s not like the price on G2A was much better than a legit source like GOG or Steam. In some cases, you pay more on GOG. And on top of this mysterious disappearance, I was paying $2 every month to G2A on my credit card for months without even knowing. 

 

 

You're not the only one. I bought one game on G2A and was getting those charges. One. And it was one of those games from a long long time ago that would drop to like-nothing on Steam during most sales. Just so happened people really wanted to play it right there together so instead of waiting for a Steam sale, I thought I would pick it up from G2A since a friend recommended it. Started getting those crappy little charges. They refused to refund them because the service was already happening. This was on my PayPal card and they wouldn't chargeback because it was pre-authorized or some nonsense. It took me 3 months to get them to cancel because they simply wouldn't. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass.

G2A is simply not worth the pain for most people. Some like it. Some preach it. I'd rather pay current full price than deal with that nonsense. But I can also afford to.

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, TechyBen said:

I have used hammers that belong to friends, then gave them back. I did not had to pay the original creator of said hammer. So how should it work with payment?

Completely pointless analogy.  Unless you can make a duplicate of the hammer that you keep for yourself - while your friend kept their copy as well - then your comparison is worthless.  You can't buy one copy of a physical product and duplicate it unlimited times, like you can with a digital product.