Running With Scissors:

Key reselling websites hurt indie developers like us. There are many ways to obtain our games and we STILL prefer piracy over people buying from those websites.
Illegaly obtained keys are a source of money for scammers and it could even affect you as the customer in some cases.

NiX:

I love you guys and postal series, but I’m not made of money, if I can get a game for cheaper I’d rather pay less than more.

Running With Scissors:

Which is why we’re telling you to pirate our games instead of paying a scammer who will cost us money and probably even get your key revoked
Our games are cheap right now through official sites. Is saving a few cents worth lowering the chances for releasing another POSTAL game?

NiX:

Isn’t pirating illegal? You want your fans get fines and shit? Now they are on sale so I might pick up some but normally i still rather get the game of g2a for cheaper

Running With Scissors:

You can’t get fines if the owners of the IP give you permission to download.
Just know that by getting on G2A, we not only get no money, we also have to pay for the chargeback, that’s the core of the problem and it means no new games in the future and no more RWS

  • freundTech@feddit.deEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Many of the keys sold on key reselling sites are bought with stolen credit cards. It usually works like this:

    1. Someone obtains stolen credit card data (can be easily bought on the dark web)
    2. The stolen credit card data is used to buy keys from official key sellers (or directly from the developer of they offer them)
    3. Those keys are then sold on key reselling sites
    4. The credit card owner notices that his credit card data was stolen, contacts his credit card company and does a charge back. 5.The official key seller has to pay back the money + a charge back fee.
    • alehel@beehaw.orgEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Oh. Now I feel bad. I’ve bought keys a few times from such sites assuming they just bought them in bulk for resale ☹️

      • Crotaro@beehaw.orgEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        You and me both. Maybe it has changed since then, but when I found out about this, I was told that there are a handful stores that operate legally. Apparently the ones that are listed on isthereanydeal.com are legally operating businesses?

        Other than that, Humble Bundle is also working legally.

      • ByteSorcerer@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        There are several those keys can be obtained, and most of them don’t involve fraud:

        • Purchasing keys in a region where they’re cheaper, and reselling them in regions where the game is more expensive

        • Purchasing keys during a sale, and reselling them after the sale

        • Claiming keys from giveaways and selling those when the giveaway is over

        • Buying a bundle (such as Humble Bundle) and selling the keys you aren’t interested in or you already have

        • Buying games with stolen credit card and reselling those keys

        Only the last one is illegal and costs the developers money. Digital storefronts have made it harder to obtain raw, transferrable keys and have introduced region locks to try to combat those top 3 methods, but they all were very common in the past.

        Key resellers like G2A are pretty much just an eBay for keys. It’s not an illegal organisation, they just provide platforms on which people can sell their game keys, but they don’t know (and probably don’t care) how those keys are actually obtained. The majority of keys on those platforms are actually legit (iirc by far the biggest category is games purchased out of region).

        HOWEVER,

        The legally obtained keys sold on the platform are all obtained in such a way that the developers get little to no money from it, so chargeback fees from a few fraudulent purchases easily outweighs the small amount of money they get from the legit keys there. So even though the majority of keys sold on such platforms are not illegal, the few illegal keys that do exist are enough to make the developers still lose money on average with keys sold there.