G2A made an offer years ago to any video game devs that they would compensate any devs if they and an external investigation could prove that the keys were illegitimate.
Wube the company behind Factorio was the only one that took them up on the offer and they were right, the keys were illegitimate.
I’d still be very interested in knowing whether or not this was a net negative income for Factorio, as the question wasn’t “does fraud exist on G2A”, it was “is pirating better for devs than resellers”. For pirating to be better than resellers, resellers have to provide net negative income, and to know that we need to know the total revenue from resellers. I didn’t see that in the links provided (just seeing that 198/321 chargebacks were fraudulent), but let me know if I just missed it.
Thanks for the links though! This was a super interesting read, and honestly big props to Wube and G2A for being so transparent about the process. Honestly not sure why more game devs wouldn’t take G2A up on this offer, 10x the cost of chargebacks with zero risk??
198 chargebacks mentioned cost Wube $20 per chargeback, on top of losing the sale. They mention this in the linked blog post.
So instead of earning $20 (minus various cuts), they lose $20. So they urge people to avoid using key resellers, and instead just pirate their game if you can’t afford to buy it properly.
What he’s trying to say is that if there were 198 fraudulent copies sold on G2A, but G2A also was responsible for 500 non-fraudulent sales, then Wube might have still netted a profit off G2A from people who would not have bought Factorio full price. Since nobody has ever shown that anywhere near a majority of keys are fraudulent, it is entirely possible for most games that they still make more money even after chargebacks than if G2A didn’t exist. There are, however, definitely going to be games where that’s not the case.
The better argument, honestly, is that G2A being unwilling to police fraudulent sales is helping the scam industry, and is responsible for us getting more Microsoft Support, Amazon Refund, etc scams in our inboxes. I do not hold the negative view most do on key resellers because most of the reason big media hates on them has nothing to do with the fraud… but honestly companies like G2A should be doing more (something) to own and police their shit. I personally think a majority of G2A’s keys are legit because there are a lot of ways to legally gets keys much cheaper than MSRP. I frankly support that behavior because I’ll never be a fan of the IP price controls and treating game purchases as “licenses” instead of purchases.
For pirating to be better than resellers, resellers have to provide net negative income, and to know that we need to know the total revenue from resellers.
G2A made an offer years ago to any video game devs that they would compensate any devs if they and an external investigation could prove that the keys were illegitimate.
Wube the company behind Factorio was the only one that took them up on the offer and they were right, the keys were illegitimate.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/g2a-and-wube-software-settle-usd40-000-chargeback-dispute
https://www.pcgamer.com/g2a-has-paid-factorio-studio-nearly-dollar40000-over-sale-of-illegitimate-keys/
Official announcement from G2A: https://www.g2a.co/g2a-strikes-anti-fraud-agreement-with-indie-developer-wube-software/
About the issue from Wube: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303
Follow up [last section]: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-348
I’d still be very interested in knowing whether or not this was a net negative income for Factorio, as the question wasn’t “does fraud exist on G2A”, it was “is pirating better for devs than resellers”. For pirating to be better than resellers, resellers have to provide net negative income, and to know that we need to know the total revenue from resellers. I didn’t see that in the links provided (just seeing that 198/321 chargebacks were fraudulent), but let me know if I just missed it.
Thanks for the links though! This was a super interesting read, and honestly big props to Wube and G2A for being so transparent about the process. Honestly not sure why more game devs wouldn’t take G2A up on this offer, 10x the cost of chargebacks with zero risk??
198 chargebacks mentioned cost Wube $20 per chargeback, on top of losing the sale. They mention this in the linked blog post.
So instead of earning $20 (minus various cuts), they lose $20. So they urge people to avoid using key resellers, and instead just pirate their game if you can’t afford to buy it properly.
What he’s trying to say is that if there were 198 fraudulent copies sold on G2A, but G2A also was responsible for 500 non-fraudulent sales, then Wube might have still netted a profit off G2A from people who would not have bought Factorio full price. Since nobody has ever shown that anywhere near a majority of keys are fraudulent, it is entirely possible for most games that they still make more money even after chargebacks than if G2A didn’t exist. There are, however, definitely going to be games where that’s not the case.
The better argument, honestly, is that G2A being unwilling to police fraudulent sales is helping the scam industry, and is responsible for us getting more Microsoft Support, Amazon Refund, etc scams in our inboxes. I do not hold the negative view most do on key resellers because most of the reason big media hates on them has nothing to do with the fraud… but honestly companies like G2A should be doing more (something) to own and police their shit. I personally think a majority of G2A’s keys are legit because there are a lot of ways to legally gets keys much cheaper than MSRP. I frankly support that behavior because I’ll never be a fan of the IP price controls and treating game purchases as “licenses” instead of purchases.