Thread by @RaveofRavendale

G2A have written a lengthy post responded to my tweets g2a.com/news/latest/g2…

So here's my response:

- They're lying. I did get in contact, and talked to them at length. I have all the emails, so I guess I'll have to post those soon
- I never mentioned chargebacks at any point

- They say I have a "pretty good at handling the keys they don’t want available on the free market". Yes I do! And that's because G2A exists. I've had to stop giving out keys so freely to potential press + influencers because G2A doesn't care about policing their site

- Because of this "pretty good handling", it means that we're far less inclined to get involved with things like, for example, a Humble Bundle, as we know all the keys will appear on G2A afterwards, and tank our Steam sales from that point onwards. *This* is the issue with G2A

- They say "Just join G2A Direct!", but this is nonsense, as they then sell your game alongside all the illegitimate keys. Why on earth would any developer want their game sold officially alongside a grey market? Do they think we're idiots?

I have so many more thoughts on their bullshit, but the tl;dr is:

G2A do not care about the people who make games, no matter what spin they keep frothing out. Do not fall for it. Plenty of devs have tried to reason with them, but they are not to be reasoned with.

And hey, when you read this G2A: You have my phone number, I gave it to you when we were emailing back and forth. Ask your dev relations person Mateusz. I'm waiting on your call!

One more thing to add:

G2A say barely any copies of Descenders have sold on G2A, but *this isn't the fucking point*.

The problem is the *perception of value*. If someone sees our game at a low price on G2A, they'll automatically be less inclined to buy full price.

As an industry, we are constantly fighting for players to perceive our games as valuable. If you see that Descenders is available for cheap somewhere dodgy, your brain will say "hmm, maybe I shouldn't buy it full price?"

G2A facilitate this shift every single day and don't care

So let's delve into these lovely stats G2A have provided for us!

Descenders has sold 226 copies on G2A... but one single person sold 45% of those. In fact, 85% of keys were sold by 3 people!

So where the heck did they get so many cheap/free keys? How is that even possible?

You can see that one guy selling 102 Steam keys on February 14, 2018. At that point the game was only available on Steam, and was 10% in the launch sale. I remember seeing these keys on G2A for around $13 at the time

So how did this one person get 100 keys he could sell for $13?

Clearly these 100 keys are a red flag. All the other 1s, 2s appearing -- fine, that'll always happen.

100 keys appearing from a single person? 3 people selling 85% of keys for a game on G2A?

Come on now, haha. These are clearly flaggable, yet G2A did nothing.

Here's how much Descenders cost throughout its lifetime. The cheapest price at the time of these keys going up was $22.49.

How were they appearing on G2A for nearly half the price? Is that genuinely not cause for concern to the people running the sales platform?

I love this line too. It shows that G2A have zero understanding of how games sell.

*Of course AAA games sell way more than indie titles, you morons*.

AAA games are:
- Triple the price of indie titles
- Have widespread marketing campaigns
- Are pushed hard by sales platforms

But obviously indie titles only account for 8% of G2A's sales, so

fuck 'em, right?

Who gives a shit about the smaller devs, they barely make us any money anyway

Anyway, this whole post is a beautiful trainwreck, and I'm gonna print it out and put it on my wall to remind me daily that G2A are laughably bad for our industry, and clearly have no idea why, despite people telling them over and over again

For anyone following this thread, a petition has been started to ask G2A to remove indie titles from their store.

If we're only 8% of sales, then surely it's better to help the industry out for such a measly amount?

Please sign and share!

change.org/p/game-develop…