Greenman Gaming will not have Battlefront keys at launch

Jag

Jag

Member
Just got this email about my pre-order:
Hi Jag,

There’s been a disturbance in the force.

We know that Star Wars Battlefront is one of the most anticipated titles to be released this month, and we have seen an unprecedented demand from you; so much so that we have already exhausted our current stock of keys. This is an oversight on our part, and for that we are sincerely sorry.

What does this mean?

More keys are on their way to us, but the disappointing news is that some of your orders will only be fulfilled after release date. We are working with more distributors than ever to ensure that every single person who ordered Star Wars Battlefront will get their order within 48 hours of release. Many thousands of you will not be affected, but for those of you who might be, we apologise in advance.

Our guarantee:

We guarantee that every single person who has bought a copy of Star Wars Battlefront from us and receives this email will have their orders fulfilled and keys delivered before the end of THURSDAY 19TH NOVEMBER. Some of you will receive your key immediately, some a little later, but ALL orders will be fulfilled as promised.

We apologise for the inconvenience to you, so by our way of saying thanks for your patience and support, we would like to offer you a 30% off site-wide voucher, which will be delivered after we have fulfilled your order.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.
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Ordered 2 copies for me and my son back in October and nothing was said about not having keys on release day. It's only 2 days, but we were really looking forward to playing on release. They also don't have any easy to to cancel pre-orders. I'm assuming I have to email them somehow.

I was a big fan of theirs, but I'm done after this. They are also now banned on /r/GameDeals.

I just wish they disclosed this, which is why I'm making the post as a warning to people pre-ordering from GMG in the future. You may save a few more bucks, but don't expect it on release day.

Edit: Link for refunds

Pixel Warrior said:
Got a refund from them yesterday:

https://greenmangaming.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
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Uuuhhh fuck that why arent they refunding you?

The only reason to preorder is making sure you have it the minute its out.
 
Not the end of the world as long as they also offer full refunds, and make getting a refund as easy as possible.

I wonder what this suggests about where the keys are coming from? Surely not directly from EA, but rather from some intermediary? Perhaps an authorised EA distributor, or perhaps an unauthorised distributor. If they were straight from EA, there would be no real reason for running out of keys.

I personally don't have a problem with any retailer selling games without explicit permission from the publisher, but it's best to be entirely upfront about this stuff.
 
Did anybody not get an email? Because they've sent me nothing.
 
LewieP said:
Not so much when they routinely issues 20-25% discount codes. They have discounts like these available more often than they don't have them available.
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This! They almost always have a discount, it's like 5 percent extra. Who knows how long that coupon will last as well, I don't need any other games right now. Gmg just dropped a crap ton on my list of sellers.
 
This is the risk that I knowingly take buying from sites like this. I can understand being a little mad but if you are outraged, this has to be your first go-round.
 
It sounds like they just screwed up. Asking them to disclose that they were going to screw up their order ahead of time seems like a really irrational thing to say. If they had known in October they weren't going to have enough, they probably would have ordered more.

It's really terrible that you might not have the game at launch, but ask them for a refund and grab it from somewhere else. Their customer service team gave me a refund for Batman Arkham Knight before they even announced the refund program (and way before WB was trying to make it right). They were prepared to eat that out of pocket, and getting a refund couldn't be easier if you just reach out and ask. Between that and their prices, they'll have my business for a while.
 
Last time I pre-ordered FIFA 16 with them they couldn't get keys ready on launch day either. I doubt they directly get keys from EA.
 
UrbanRats said:
It's only two days in the worst case scenario, and you get a 30% off coupon, not too shabby.
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It is a shitty offer. You can easily find 20-25 off codes at any time for their site. Ridiculous that any digital product can be oversold in the first place.
 
GMG again showing they are not working with publishers?

We are working with more distributors than ever to ensure that every single person who ordered Star Wars Battlefront will get their order within 48 hours of release. Many thousands of you will not be affected, but for those of you who might be, we apologise in advance.
Click to expand...

Seriously

edit: Ban hammered again on gamedeals
 
Jeremy said:
This is the risk that I knowingly take buying from sites like this. I can understand being a little mad but if you are outraged, this has to be your first go-round.
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GMG have presented themselves as exclusively selling keys which they had permission to sell from the publisher.

At least the majority of unauthorised retailers don't pretend to be something they are not, they are basically upfront about the nature of their business (if not the entirety of their supply chain).
 
LewieP said:
Not the end of the world as long as they also offer full refunds, and make getting a refund as easy as possible.

I wonder what this suggests about where the keys are coming from? Surely not directly from EA, but rather from some intermediary? Perhaps an authorised EA distributor, or perhaps an unauthorised distributor. If they were straight from EA, there would be no real reason for running out of keys.

I personally don't have a problem with any retailer selling games without explicit permission from the publisher, but it's best to be entirely upfront about this stuff.
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They're an authorized EA product reseller. If they ran out of keys they didn't procure enough of them from EA to satisfy demand or the contract they signed only guaranteed a limited stock for sale.
 
They're not an official partner of WB yet they have it at the bottom of the page.

4f298990c4.jpg
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Activision isn't listed on this page but Ubisoft is.
 
Just want to reiterate a point that came up last time there was a big GMG discussion:

The keys are not "unauthorized." The publishers just don't know where GMG is getting them. That doesn't necessarily mean they are stolen, illegal, shady, etc., it literally just means that the publishers don't know.
 
jrh2 said:
Just want to reiterate a point that came up last time there was a big GMG discussion:

The keys are not "unauthorized." The publishers just don't know where GMG is getting them. That doesn't necessarily mean they are stolen, illegal, shady, etc., it literally just means that the publishers don't know.
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This is exactly what unauthorized means in this context. The respective publishers have not authorised GMG to sell these games.

This is equally true for other unauthorised retailers. There are unanswered questions about the supply chain.
 
jrh2 said:
Just want to reiterate a point that came up last time there was a big GMG discussion:

The keys are not "unauthorized." The publishers just don't know where GMG is getting them. That doesn't necessarily mean they are stolen, illegal, shady, etc., it literally just means that the publishers don't know.
Click to expand...

Nobody is talking about the keys. "unauthorized" is said in relation to GMG themselves. They are unauthorized resellers for many publishers. This is a fact. They are not authorized to sell those games.
That keys are fine or not doesn't matter.
 
BernardoOne said:
Nobody is talking about the keys. "unauthorized" is said in relation to GMG themselves. They are unauthorized resellers for many publishers. This is a fact. They are not authorized to sell those games.
That keys are fine or not doesn't matter.
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That is all that should matter, what shouldn't matter is if publishers have authorized them to sell keys or not.
 
Mithos said:
That is all that should matter, what shouldn't matter is if publishers have authorized them to sell keys or not.
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You're saying that authorization by publishers to sell doesn't matter when we are talking about the exact term "unauthorized reseller"?


How the fuck does that even make sense?
 
This is a Witcher 3 all over again. If places like Kotaku pick up on this, then it's been a bad year for GMG.

Definitly muddies the water in the GMG vs CD Keys debate.
 
The GMG rep on Reddit said the holding of keys was "unexpected". I wonder if EA is deliberately screwing with those sites to drive sales to Origin and other contracted companies that pay full price. I would makes sense.

yatesl said:
If places like Kotaku pick up on this, then it's been a bad year for GMG.
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They should. I wasn't aware of the W3 issue otherwise I may have known better than to trust GMG for release day stuff.
 
Jag said:
The GMG rep on Reddit said the holding of keys was "unexpected". I wonder if EA is deliberately screwing with those sites to drive sales to Origin and other contracted companies that pay full price. I would makes sense.
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It would! Id bet that a lot of people cancelled their Origin preorder once places like GMG started offering deep discounts.
 
Jag said:
The GMG rep on Reddit said the holding of keys was "unexpected". I wonder if EA is deliberately screwing with those sites to drive sales to Origin and other contracted companies that pay full price. I would makes sense.



They should. I wasn't aware of the W3 issue otherwise I may have known better than to trust GMG for release day stuff.
Click to expand...

Given GMG's issues with keys lately it's probably more likely a GMG issue. They've had a terrible time this year.
 
Guess I'm only ever going to use them again when the game is already out. I requested a refund and bought it from Origin. I'm not waiting to play this game. I also don't care about the 30% off. I'll get to save maybe $3 more then the normal sales they have. Makes it worth waiting up to 2 days.

Edit: Got my refund approved. 3-5 days for it to process. It took about an hour after I requested it for them to approve it.
 
I could tell W3 stuff was going on with Black Ops 3 copies and Nuketown. I got it but my brother did not so clearly they were buying keys from different sources.

I think they were 100% legit but have turned to the grey market as publishers have ended relationships with them. I wonder if it was a result of their discounts on new titles.
 
Jag said:
The GMG rep on Reddit said the holding of keys was "unexpected". I wonder if EA is deliberately screwing with those sites to drive sales to Origin and other contracted companies that pay full price. I would makes sense.
Click to expand...

EA: Lets under ship to Eastern Europe to mess up CD Key sites

GMG:
ulC9h4X.jpg
 
I just sent in a refund request. I'm going to buy it again when Origins sends me a 50% of deluxe edition coupon next year just like they did with both Battlefield 3 and 4.
 
LewieP said:
GMG have presented themselves as exclusively selling keys which they had permission to sell from the publisher.

At least the majority of unauthorised retailers don't pretend to be something they are not, they are basically upfront about the nature of their business (if not the entirety of their supply chain).
Click to expand...

Interesting... Didn't realize they were doing this. I've always considered them grey market but I'm just now seeing where they advertised the keys were legitimately obtained through publishers. That's fraud, right?
 
FWIW, someone on reddit got the email who pre-ordered in August. So this backlog goes back pretty far. The keys will be sent out in batches as they get them in.
 
jmartoine said:
GMG selling unauthorized keys for WB is quite puzzling, especially with all the Arkham Knight refunds. Surely if they were unauthorized they wouldn't have the power to have the keys removed from Steam after refunding?
Click to expand...

I believe most of the time, refunds from GMG left the license in-tact? (or am I thinking of another website?)
 
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