G2A.com Outlines New Policies to Combat Game Theft and Improve Developer Relations

Last week, indie dev TinyBuild revealed they had lost $450,000 to fraudulent game sales facilitated by G2A.com, a site that allows secondhand sale of game codes. After a public back-and-forth where TinyBuild and G2A made different demands of each other, G2A has acquiesced to creating new guidelines for any sales made through their site, except one key area. A G2A representative detailed these new guidelines to Polygon as follows:

Royalties on Third-party Auctions: Developers may apply a royalty of up to 10 percent for any of their products sold on the G2A marketplace, which provides a way for developers to monetize third-party transactions.

Priority Placement: Developer-managed auctions will be listed first, above third-party sellers, to provide more visibility and transparency. Developers will also be able to create their own custom storefront featuring all of their products and promotions.

Chargeback Protection: G2A offers G2A Pay with free integration to developers as a protection on their own websites to mitigate their risk factors (especially beneficial for small developers, beginners and those who feel that their security systems are not sufficient).

Dedicated Database Access: Developers will have access to our database information to verify sales, volume and timing to track the lifecycle of every key and identify illegal practices.

Dedicated Account Managers: We’re expanding our dedicated account manager model to support developers and to resolve any question or issue, especially those related to security concerns.

Developer Funding Option: Many gamers wish to support their favorite developers. For the first time, they will be able to contribute funds directly through an additional button on the developer’s product page.

Expansive Global Access: Multi-language translation program expands exposure for developers to our 10 million global customers who are eager for new games from Indie developers.

The biggest development here is the ability for developers and publishers to now be able to make up to 10 percent off of the sale of their games on G2A. However, G2A chose not to implement TinyBuild’s demand that developers be allowed to set minimum price points for the sale of their games by anyone on G2A. The purpose of a minimum price point is to further discourage sale of stolen game codes. People who steal game codes en masse and sell them on G2A are able to make huge profits because they can undercut legitimate retailers like Steam by a wide margin. It’s understandable why G2A wouldn’t want to allow devs to set a minimum price point, as their business model is based off cheaper prices than competitors. Their new guidelines are still certainly a step in the right direction, and we sincerely hope it curbs game theft at least somewhat and allow developers to make more of their money back.