Why G2A Is Killing The Gaming Industry

G2A iskilling the gaming industry. As a symptom of that some developers have come out and publicly stated they would rather people pirate their game illegally than buy it through g2a, with one developer actually uploading his own game himself onto Pirate bay , because he was that desperate to discourage people from buying it legally through g2a.

This all begs the question Why?

It all comes down to the fact that g2a and other key reselling sites provide an invaluable service to the criminal underworld. And that service is money laundering. So in layman`s terms money laundering is when a criminal lets call him Steve who has a bunch of illegally stolen obtained easily traceable money gives that money to Jeff the money launderer and a few weeks later Jeff gives slightly less money back to Steve expect now money is ``clean`` nearly impossible for someone to realize that money was in fact illegally sourced.

G2A Are indirectlycausing:

1. Easily letting criminals get a lot of money
2. Screw over the avarege joe by emptying their bank account
3. Cause a massive loss of profit to many game developers, and destroying the gaming industry

And while g2a is not a money laundering operation it fills the exact same function as one.

So how exactly is this killing the gaming industry?

Now to explain this to you i am gonna walk you through the process of a criminal. Lets call him scumbag Steve who was about to use a batch of stolen credit cards to turn out a nice and tidy profit. So scumbag Steve has bought 50 stolen credit cards from the dark web with a 10000$ usd in all of the accounts collectively. Now, he wants the money for himself but he can`t just directly transfer the money to one of his bank accounts that would be dead easy for the banks and any law enforcement to track him down.

So, what he does is he buys 10000$ worth of games from a legitamate site that is not a reseller. And then puts them up on g2a for a much lower price. And the reason why he puts the prices so low is because scumbag Steve really wants to shift keys quickly because the longer he waits the more likely is that the devs will cancel his them then he will lose some of that money. This is the reason why prices on key reselling sites are so low.

Now lets say he sells the keys for 50% retail price. So now, he has 5000$, however that is now clean money which is very hard to trace which means he can now freely spend it on whatever he likes or buy more stolen credit cards. So lets say after a month a bank traces his purchase back to the dev and demands they want the money back. Of course the devs give the money back because they are legally obliged to. However they have to pay about $2 for the transfer fee.

This means that for every game that gets bought like that by g2a, devs don`t just not make money, but they also lose money on the whole transaction. This is one of the reason why this fraud fueled economy makes such a large lose of profit to game companies.

Which means, good people lose money.

So who is the real victim of this legally not really but kinda money laundering scheme. Well it is the average Joe who is having their credit card stolen and bank account emptied. Also, i would like to say that not all the keys on g2a are illegal however most of them are.

Every time you buy a stolen key for half the price some innocent old lady or buisnessman or developer or bank is charged the cover price.

And after learning that the site is not only putting money directly into the pockets of criminals but also putting some old lady through a huge amount of stress but also criplling the industry we all know and love and after all of that youyou use g2a or another key reselling siteyou are honestly a bad person.

Insipred by:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaQEBFu9Whs

People would do everything for money, but going that far is another level.

I never knew that people would use G2A and other key re-selling pages for blackhat activities.

I prefer purchasing Games on the Developers website, on that way the Developers won't get just a percentage of the price.

The problem is that not everyone will go to pirating. It's illegal. Whereas buying from G2A, it's legal for the consumer.
If people had the choice of buying games for cheaper legally vs getting them for free illegally, they will most likely choose the former. Even if people knew it was formoney-laundering, they would still buy from G2A knowing they can get it cheaper legally.

27-05-2018, 10:04 AM

Altoids Wrote: The problem is that not everyone will go to pirating. It's illegal. Whereas buying from G2A, it's legal for the consumer.
If people had the choice of buying games for cheaper legally vs getting them for free illegally, they will most likely choose the former. Even if people knew it was formoney-laundering, they would still buy from G2A knowing they can get it cheaper legally.

Yeah, it is true, however those people are monsters, dishonest people ruining lives of innocent people or game developers and ruining the game industry.

So, i see a lot of people discussing g2a lately, so i thought it might be fair to give it a good old bump. I really want people to see this discussion.

How do video game keys permit money laundering? Any developers complaining that much about G2A are ridiculous. Considering the fact that those keys where purchased from the developer to begin with.

29-05-2018, 11:25 PM

Kraith Wrote: How do video game keys permit money laundering? Any developers complaining that much about G2A are ridiculous. Considering the fact that those keys where purchased from the developer to begin with.

I am sorry for saying this. But wtf are you saying?

You did not even read the post. Lemme explain agian in a simpler way.

A criminal uses his stolen 10k to buy steam keys. Then he sells them for 50% of market place on a reselling site like g2a.

BOOM! Criminal made his 10k of stolen money into 5k of clean money.

BUT IT DOES NOT END THERE.

THE BANK ISSUES A REFUND BECAUSE THEY REALISE IT IS STOLEN MONEY. AND THEN DEVELOPERS HAVE TO REFUND. AND THEY DO NOT GET ANY MONEY

BUT IT DOES NOT END THERE EITHER.

THEY HAVE TO PAY AN EXTRA FEE AGIAN BECAUSE THEY ARE REFUNDING. (1-2$)

CONSIDERING THAT PERSON BOUGHT 1000 Keys Or So

1000x2=2000$ of fees

For a indie developer for example, it happens 10 times 20000$ AND IT happens MUCH MUCH more often!

UNDERSTAND NOW?

Although I see your points and do believe that this can happen, my question is what idiot would do this. Since they should be easily traceable as their IP address, and either PayPal or bank account info is linked to the account. So they could easily be traced.

Also g2a isn't going to be going away due to this possibility, as it doesn't hurt the consumer at all

30-05-2018, 07:50 PM

_Zenith Wrote: Although I see your points and do believe that this can happen, my question is what idiot would do this. Since they should be easily traceable as their IP address, and either PayPal or bank account info is linked to the account. So they could easily be traced.

Also g2a isn't going to be going away due to this possibility, as it doesn't hurt the consumer at all

It is suprisingly easy to get away with this.

And also quoting myself here

Quote:Every time you buy a stolen key for half the price some innocent old lady or buisnessman or developer or bank is charged the cover price.

And after learning that the site is not only putting money directly into the pockets of criminals but also putting some old lady through a huge amount of stress but also criplling the industry we all know and love and after all of that youyou use g2a or another key reselling siteyou are honestly a bad person.

I just can not live with myself knowing what i am doing by buying keys from g2a. It does not hurt the customer, but the developers, random people and the gaming industry itself

you can also report that to moderators, i have never problems with g2a.