Yesterday we reported that TinyBuild had made claims that popular reselling site G2A had made $450,000 off their games and yet didn’t receive anything from those sales. This led to G2A attempting to reach out to tinyBuild games, but to no avail. This came after it was reported that tinyBuild’s game Punch Club was being pirate at a rate of 5 to 1 when compared to legal purchases.
G2A has since released a public statement noting they will comply with tinyBuild, but only if they provide a list of suspected game keys within 3 days in order to determine the origin. Stating..
“Only then can G2A compare these keys against the confidential G2A marketplace database and report those findings back to tinyBuild. Unfortunately tinyBuild never came back with the answers to resolve the issue.”
G2A also acknowledge that prior to reaching out to tinyBuild, the site “identified more than 200 tinyBuild product auctions on the G2A marketplace and suspended all of them.”
TinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik responded by saying he does not feel comfortable with providing a list of keys from multiple batches that may or may not have been stolen. Nichiporchik also said the entire situation could be resolved if the site allowed publishers to set a minimum price for the games and a “minimum cut” of sales from 3rd-party sales of keys while also verifying merchants before they are allowed to sell anything. Saying..
“I just made an account and within an hour was able to sell a ton of keys, no verification whatsoever. If Ebay allowed you to sell merchandise without verifying sellers’ credentials (they ask you for IDs, statements confirming addresses, tie it to your bank account, etc), they’d probably under similar fire right now as they’d facilitate stolen goods trade.”
“No developer is going to put their games onto G2A when any other merchant on their site can undercut them. Are you going to undercut Steam by selling games yourself? Of course not. G2A isn’t facilitating an easy way to have a working relationship. If there was an admin I could login to and set a minimum price for our games, that’d already be a very good start. But G2A understand this would hurt their business.”
You can read G2A’s statement here.
