Developers tell people to pirate their games instead of using G2A

(Image credit: No More Robots)

G2A, the grey market purveyor of game keys, has once again drawn the ire of game developers less than keen for their games to feature on G2A's digital shelves. It's previously clashed with TinyBuild and Gearbox, and a recent ad push has seen it condemned by more developers, with some even saying they'd rather players torrent than buy from G2A.

Publisher Mike Rose noted that a search for his games placed G2A ads for them above the publisher's own link. "We make zero money on our games if people buy them through ads," he said. He recommended people considering buying a game through G2A just pirate it instead.

Please, if you’re going to buy a game from G2A, just pirate it instead! Genuinely!Devs don’t see a penny either way, so we’d much rather G2A didn’t see money eitherJune 30, 2019

Others quickly followed, including Action Henk developer Squid Games and Vlambeer's Rami Ismail. It's not just that developers don't get the money you give G2A, they then have to provide extra customer support for people who ended up with fake or deactivated keys.

Please torrent our games instead of buying them on G2A https://t.co/gktACBP1KZJune 29, 2019

If you can't afford or don't want to buy our games full-price, please pirate them rather than buying them from a key reseller. These sites cost us so much potential dev time in customer service, investigating fake key requests, figuring out credit card chargebacks, and more. https://t.co/25NWxrj8f8June 30, 2019

Other developers, including Mode 7's Paul Kilduff-Taylor and Stray Bombay's Chet Faliszek, added to criticism of the key reseller. During the last big wave of criticism, G2A made a public commitment to improving, but it's not convinced developers. "Nothing has changed," said Taylor.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.