G2A has been a controversial marketplace for the past several years. Some gamers love it because it offers games at affordable prices. Indie devs hate it because fraudulent keys and chargebacks force them to pay out of pocket to resolve some situations. Well, G2A is returning to the resell game key business but with a brand new plan. No more anonymity.
According to Polygon, A G2A rep explained that the service will allow the 200,000 registered resellers to sell keys through the online shopping portal again, but there's a big twist: resellers can no longer sell keys anonymously starting July 1st, 2017.
This puts a huge damper on the reseller business for those who may have acquired some of their keys through illegitimate means because now there's a name to the handle. Resellers will be accountable for whatever it is they sell through G2A, and not only that but there will also be a new geolocation feature implemented into the service to ensure that customers will know who they're buying a key from and where that key is coming from.
The geolocation feature isn't just to spy or pry into the privacy of resellers, it's to avoid resellers getting around the value added tax (VAT) in Europe. This particular European sales tax has been circumvented in recent years by resellers selling goods through G2A due to being able to sell keys anonymously.
The anonymity factor is now being removed and the geolocation feature is being implemented, meaning that there's a lot more room for customers to gauge who they're buying keys from and whether or not they will incur VAT for doing so.
This move comes after a year of G2A curbing the reseller aspect of the G2A storefront and attempting to focus more on bundled key deals done in collaboration with developers and publishers.
G2A would work with various studios to sell keys to gamers and avoid the reseller process. According to some developers, it was claimed that G2A was allowing resellers to sell stolen game keys to gamers. So what's the issue with selling stolen digital game keys if no actual physical products were stolen? Well, some of those keys were fraudulent and when that occurs, some customers would file complaints or get chargebacks. In one particular case, Ubisoft had to void some keys for games like Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed: Unity, as reported by Eurogamer.
After various complaints and public outbursts from developers about the reseller issue, G2A opted to scale back on that aspect of the business. However, now it appears the reseller option will return but with some major changes to better accommodate users and grant transparency to development studios so that it's known who the keys are coming from and where.
This was likely spurred on by a recent challenge by Gearbox Software for G2A to be more transparent in its policies, which ultimately resulted in the Gearbox and G2A's Bulletstorm partnership falling through.
However, now that G2A has made these changes and is pursuing transparency and accountability for resellers, you have to wonder if the relationship with developers will improve?
