Being banned while a mod's taking a dump, smh.
GreenManGaming selling unauthorized Ubi/Acti/WB keys
- Thread starter nynt9
- Start date
Being banned while a mod's taking a dump, smh.
grosvenor_92
Member
considering the deals they've had on certain games lately this makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, they need to be upfront on what they are selling, and if you're not comfortable with the risks associated with buying a key not sourced directly from the pub, don't buy from them. Totally reasonable to expect clarity in that regard.
However, in no way should refusing to provide their business contracts to a Reddit moderator in any way reflect on them positively or negatively. It's pretty much the literal case of it being none of anyone's business. It doesn't matter if others were comfortable doing so. That's sensitive business information you cannot reasonably expect them to be forced to reveal. Obviously they felt the risks to their business in doing so outweighed the advantage on being covered by that forum. Nothing wrong with that call. That shouldn't be getting mixed in with the transparency issue the OP is supposedly addressing, but it seems to be pointed out here as some sort of gotcha or indicator or wrongdoing.
double0cinco
Banned
I couldn't have said it better. I think this very well sums up what's going on here. There's two different issues here: the transparency issue of buying from other authorized sellers, and being mixed in with other "grey market" sellers just for not providing their contracts to the reddit mods.
It's the great fat fib of being "official, approved" sellers I find astonishing. The defence of "If it works, it's authentic" also shows they think the customer is stupid. Authentic /= official.
It will be interesting to see where they go from here. Their prices suddenly look quite expensive now that they have been exposed as another CD key reseller.
It will be interesting to see where they go from here. Their prices suddenly look quite expensive now that they have been exposed as another CD key reseller.
GMG have literally said they don't get some of their games from the publisher, and the Battlefront and Black Ops III debacle pretty much confirm it. That GMG are unauthorised for quite a few games is a fact now, the proof is more than enough.
Crimsonclaw111
Member
If you don't die a hero you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
GMG, we hardly knew ye.
GMG, we hardly knew ye.
I really don't care where they source the keys from as long as I know they will work when I buy them. I guess there is a possibility that they could come from stolen credit card, but it doesn't really bother me. Like how I know my Wii U, PS4, and most of my computer components were made in a place like Foxconn where they have to put nets on the roof to deter worker suicide. I don't like it, but it's not gonna change my habits.
Except it's not, I am sorry that you want to pretend it is but It's not enough proof.
This is honestly insane.
You do realise that every publisher had wholesale distributors, right? And that'S it's perfectly legal to bulk buy them to resell them? Like every store in the universe does?
I can understand this for physical goods but do publisher really have this for keys that are just generated whenever they need more?
CybernatonEvolution
Member
That sucks. I recently made my first GMG purchase due to steam's new store region that allowed some greedy ******* publishers. to inflate prices on their own.
At this point, I think that GMG should split their site into legit keys and third party ones. I doubt that it is possible (it will ruin its relationship with some publishers) but it is better than being labeled as another G2A.
At this point, I think that GMG should split their site into legit keys and third party ones. I doubt that it is possible (it will ruin its relationship with some publishers) but it is better than being labeled as another G2A.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
The keys they buy from other regions I'll guarantee you they are for shell companies GMG have setup I those regions to buy the keys. I really can't understand why you're all getting so worked up about this. Do you really think that "should" keys GMG have sold you get deactivated they won't refund you? This is the most bizarre backlash I've ever seen in gaming.
Pyros_Eien
Member
G2A and GMG are way different though. G2A is just a place where people can sell keys, a marketplace. GMG is a shop, they buy keys and resell them in bulk, using tricks like buying in cheaper places to drop their prices.
It's not like you can't use a VPN and buy the games on other sites like say, Nuvem which is often linked, including on /r/GamesDeals. If that's ok, why isn't GMG reselling those keys too fine? I mean I get that some people don't like that they hide the source of those keys and that's a valid concern, but acting like the keys are stolen or something just because they're bought in other regions is pretty dumb. Unless you're advocating region locking keys and stuff, and tying them to accounts with adress verification or some really intrusive and annoying process, to make sure you never buy a key from a region that has cheaper pricing.
Ditto. CDK hasn't failed me yet.
I really don't care where they source them from as long as they're not doing any cross-region buying/selling and are not being dishonest. I only bought from them based on them being discounted, but not by that method. (Which they need to make clear if that's not what's happening now). As long as I know I'm getting a working code from my region, and I feel confident they'll support my purchase should any issues arise I couldn't care less if they buy them directly from the publisher or buy them from another vendor and resell them. The authorized label is meaningless. It's more about a trustworthy seller, same as if I buy from an eBay seller or someone in the BST thread. They just need to be transparent.
I find the whole attachment to meeting whatever arbitrary condition the pub decides makes you an "authorized" seller a little bit misguided. It's a completely arbitrary publisher label for the purposes of controlling the market on their terms and completely unrelated to the legitimacy. If consumers can resell used disc games without automatically being considered shady, the key resellers should be able to as well. To me, it's a very similar scenario. I think it's so silly that there may be people so adamant about their right to resell, but can be so put off by a business exercising the same rights essentially. There's nothing more shady about one than the other that being a "key reseller" is worthy of scorn. Heck, I sold the Witcher 3 nvidia code from my card, which probably makes me an "unauthorized key reseller" even though I pride myself on my selling behavior when I do.
If the publisher won't directly support the purchase of a key not deemed to meet whatever their criteria for being authorized is, that's fine. It's the risk you take. It shouldn't imply any sort of illegitimacy, which can get frustrating when trying to discuss such situations.
I find the whole attachment to meeting whatever arbitrary condition the pub decides makes you an "authorized" seller a little bit misguided. It's a completely arbitrary publisher label for the purposes of controlling the market on their terms and completely unrelated to the legitimacy. If consumers can resell used disc games without automatically being considered shady, the key resellers should be able to as well. To me, it's a very similar scenario. I think it's so silly that there may be people so adamant about their right to resell, but can be so put off by a business exercising the same rights essentially. There's nothing more shady about one than the other that being a "key reseller" is worthy of scorn. Heck, I sold the Witcher 3 nvidia code from my card, which probably makes me an "unauthorized key reseller" even though I pride myself on my selling behavior when I do.
If the publisher won't directly support the purchase of a key not deemed to meet whatever their criteria for being authorized is, that's fine. It's the risk you take. It shouldn't imply any sort of illegitimacy, which can get frustrating when trying to discuss such situations.
Angel Abaddon
Member
They few times this happened (and people like to quote the one time Ubisoft did it), keys were reactivated. It's really a meaningless issue. GMG buys keys either from the publishers themselves or from distributors selling boxed copies (or sometimes, distributors selling digital keys). this makes no difference for the end consumer and their key is legit. It's just that GMG will take a lower cut to sell you the game than say, Steam or your local GAME shop.
This is the definition of a tempet in a glass of water, it's pointless, borderline crazy
runnin_blue
Banned
If they revoked them in this case (however unlikely because there are NO laws being broken here), I am sure GMG would offer those customers a refund.
nephilimdj
Member
Kinda weird for a passionate games forum, you assume its pointless to care about the industry, some of us do care if the publisher gets 70% of the sale of a 50 dollar game rather then 20bucks from a Ukrainian copy.
GMG mislead us into think they did do this, nothing crazy about it.
Its fine if you like gray-keys, I hope you wouldn't mind Chinese coke with your mcdonalds meal too.
Angel Abaddon
Member
I'm not saying they will, or that people have no recourse should it happen, just pointing out why I think people are wary of buying from places like cdkeys or GMG if this is true, compared to buying from SimplyGames or The Games Collection as an example (2 sites that have been known to sell UAE copies of physical games in the past to the UK market as it was cheaper)
Some people want to buy only from from authorized so they are guaranteed that what you described will never happen.
If you think it doesn't matter - that's your choice, and that's the whole point. It should be the consumer's choice, not GMG's.
If GMG promised to provide official, publisher/dev authorized, keys - that's exactly what they have to do.
But in this case they were caught lying to their customers who did not get the product they were paying for. Some people (like me) are willing to pay a little extra to get an official key from an official source. What GMG were doing is charging the extra (compared to other cd-key sites) as if their keys were official, but did not in fact provide official keys as promised.
So again, it all comes down to: it should be the consumer's choice, and a store shouldn't lie to their customers.
So I guess now either GMG is banned from neogaf as well, or if GMG links are still allowed - all other cd-key re-sellers are un-baned as well.
Edit: GMG is now actually worse than some cd-key resellers, since the others never pretended to be an official source, while GMG did.
runnin_blue
Banned
We're talking bans now? I really hope some of you never have to run a business.
Can confirm I've had issues with my keys being de-activated by Steam. Was for the Arkham Knight and the Season pass. They then removed the order from my GMG order page - very dodgy.
Still had proof of purchase so I was able to force a refund. My advice, don't use GMG anymore. Even if you have to pay a premium elsewhere.
Still had proof of purchase so I was able to force a refund. My advice, don't use GMG anymore. Even if you have to pay a premium elsewhere.
You either ban all cd-key resellers or none of them.
Unless neogaf is sponsored by GMG, it would be unfair to ban other sites while allowing GMG.
So I would prefer if it were consistent regarding key resellers. Either they are allowed or not. A whitelist of resellers is fine by me as well as long as the criteria for being in it are clear - which is more complicated.
YianGaruga
Banned
If you look at the reasons for the banning of key resellers, it's quite hard to justifiy banning GMG
A list of approved retailers would be an ideal solution, but a nightmare to maintain, in my opinion.
Outside of the context of this forum, I think that the industry itself should be taking greater responsibility for this. They should get their houses in order. Most publishers/developers don't maintain lists of which retailers they deal with directly. How is anyone supposed to know which retailers a publisher has authorised to sell their games when they have seemingly opted to keep this information private?
The notion of revoking keys sold through unauthorised retailers, despite voluntarily keeping your customers in the dark over which retailers are authorised, is obscene in my opinion.
This is equally true for many unauthorised retailers who are banned. It's tarring everyone with the same brush because it is the most convenient/practical solution, rather than because it is the ideal solution. The spirit of the rule is clearly to protect users, but a solution with more nuance would be ideal. I can't think of a simple way to implement a more nuanced solution that still offers users decent protection.
Oh I missed this earlier! Thanks for posting that link (that is my website). I am happy to include both authorised and unauthorised retailers on SavyGamer, the criteria I judge eligibility on is whether a given retailer has an acceptable track record for customer service. If I have any doubts, I include a disclaimed explaining them in the post.
I posted in another thread -- if you had preordered from GMG, they are giving refunds fairly quickly. I made my request around 2:10 AM CST, got it refunded by 2:50 AM.
https://greenmangaming.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
https://greenmangaming.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
We do not need people telling us what should or should not be "banned" on NeoGAF. And no, it isn't an all or nothing situation. We don't care who are authorized retailers or not. It's mostly a free market and people can make up their own minds about who they want to buy from. What we do not want is people who might not be aware of consequences buying into something which would require extended effort to get working or result in a cause of unnecessary grief.
If a retailer is known to have awful customer service and regularly has issues with their product, we can blacklist them for the community at our digression. If a retailer or marketplace is known to sell keys which require more effort than might be worthwhile, like VPN activation and other region specific restrictions, then people do need to be warned about it. None of this applies to this situation.
People are free to buy or not buy from GMG depending on how they feel about how GMG. Until GMG actually creates serious problems for their customers or have been proven to be engaging in illegal activities though, it's not really an issue I think we should care about on a moderation level. Discussion is good though.
If a retailer is known to have awful customer service and regularly has issues with their product, we can blacklist them for the community at our digression. If a retailer or marketplace is known to sell keys which require more effort than might be worthwhile, like VPN activation and other region specific restrictions, then people do need to be warned about it. None of this applies to this situation.
People are free to buy or not buy from GMG depending on how they feel about how GMG. Until GMG actually creates serious problems for their customers or have been proven to be engaging in illegal activities though, it's not really an issue I think we should care about on a moderation level. Discussion is good though.
So if I understand correctly the bolded is nogaf's criteria/policy on cd key sites. I just ssumed, based on other threads, that all resellers were banned. Good to know it's not the case for future refrence.
Lord Phol
Member
Thanks for explaining, 100% agree with this stance.
The 'proof' that you speak of is hardly valid.
WeylandxYutani
Member
A good proportion of key reselling comes from legit codes removed from boxes. Some publishers are finally waking up to the fact that countries like Slovenia and Hungary don't really need 25,000 copies for some obscure PC title. Once box gets killed off completely, this'll become a whole lot tougher.
They even admit it themselves. They don't even list Activision as a partner. They even admit to using sources other than the publisher.
It doesn't fucking matter if its legal or not. They are unauthorised.
It's pretty darn valid.
Jesus fucking christ guys, you do know what unauthorised means right? GMG are 100% factually unauthorised for a number of titles they sell.
Well it's not a catch all rule but that's the guideline that's been given all along. We don't see the point of encouraging people to post deals which would just be more hassle for unsuspecting buyers. Ultimately this is less about policy and more about helping the community.
As others have pointed out, the B/S/T thread is also filled with cdkey resellers and that's hardly something we want to blanket ban. If there are individual members who have proven to be a negative aspect of the B/S/T community, we certainly do our part to put a stop to it. In the end I think this sort of community guided approach is the best. We're not trying to police what can be sold online at all, we just want to protect the community here as best we can.
YianGaruga
Banned
Why are you getting so angry about it? Aren't you an unauthorised reseller yourself?
He's a private individual selling keys he has access to. There's no conceit of him being an authorized seller to begin with. GMG's policy states that they only sell keys directly sourced from the publisher, but they have been caught selling keys they buy from authorized (according to their claims) third parties, which some people don't like. We're asking for GMG to be more transparent about which keys they sell first hand and which they buy from other sources. Is that too much to ask? It's literally just a check mark they can put on the store page. We don't even necessarily have to know where they get their keys (though that would be nice for people who don't want to support regional price abuse), just whether it's directly from a pub or not. This is super basic information that a consumer should be entitled to, given GMG's policy statement (which they do not abide by).
I personally don't care if something they are reselling keys or not. Doesn't really bother me.
But I'm not everyone and apparently it does matter to some people for ethical and practical reasons. So if they're saying they don't resell keys and they actually are, which it appears they may well be doing in a few cases, I don't really find that ok.
Give the consumer accurate and honest information and let them decide.
But I'm not everyone and apparently it does matter to some people for ethical and practical reasons. So if they're saying they don't resell keys and they actually are, which it appears they may well be doing in a few cases, I don't really find that ok.
Give the consumer accurate and honest information and let them decide.
Angel Abaddon
Member
While there's nothing wrong with unauthorised reselling its a case of the customer knowing what they're getting themselves into. Take Arkham Knight for instance. With an authorised reseller they have to stick to WB mandate of refunding the game, whereas an unauthorised reseller is under no such policy. Cdkeys were dirt cheap for the game and season pass, but the trade off was they wouldn't refund the game, which since its common knowledge they're unauthorised it was a case of taking your chances. Should something like this happen with GMG, people buy based on the fact they advertise themselves as authorised and yes they likely would refund regardless, but if they didn't the publisher can shug their shoulders and say its not their problem. It simply comes down to buyer security and knowing what you're getting.
Vincent Grayson
Member
Now comes the part where you explain why them being unauthorized matters at all (outside the obvious expectation that they should be upfront about it, which I agree with).
I didn't realize I had a huge banner on my posts claiming i'm a authorised seller that deals directly with the publishers.
People are trying really hard to say that they aren't unauthorised. Which they factually are. Whether it matters or not is irrelevant.(well, except for the fact that they outright lie about it) The people I replied to are factually wrong. People are trying to argue that 2+2 ain't 4 and that water isn't wet.
Also, here's why being unauthorised or not matters:
Many people who bought Black Ops 3 preorder there didn't get the preorder bonus, despite that being included in all authorised preorders everywhere else.
The Witcher 3 resulted in many, many invalid keys and people weren't able to play the game on launch
Many Battlefront keys are not going to be distributed on launch.
runnin_blue
Banned
Man, this has turned into another "who can scream louder" thread. So NeoGAF 2015.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
They claim to be
Whether or not the keys you purchase for a Bethesda game from them actually came from Bethesda themselves is anyone's guess at this point.
Their partner list says they are, but it says the same for Ubisoft and Ubisoft's partner list doesn't include them - and the statement from their CEO basically says that they will get keys from wherever they can, be it directly from the publisher or from a supposedly-authorized third party. You'll most likely be fine buying from them as they might give you a directly-from-beth key, but if you want a 100% certain experience (instead of like 98%) you're probably better off buying from an obviously authorized store. Generally, if their prices appear too good to be true, I think there's a chance that they're buying from third party retailers, most likely approved retailers in eastern europe and such, but this is my conjecture at this point and I should make this clear otherwise people will jump on me.
See, these questions could be easily clarified if they told you whether you're getting a direct-from-pub key or a through-third-party one when you're buying it. Regardless, there have been only a few cases where their third party sourced keys have had issues (black ops 3 preorder DLC), but their customer support might help you with that.
----------------------------------------------------
One issue I have with this whole situation is that they tried to pull the wool over people and didn't admit that they buy from "authorized" third parties until they were pressured by reddit to make a statement. I just am not inclined to take their word at this point as they've shown a tendency to be dishonest and violate their own mission statement, so personally I'm also doubting the "officialness" of the third party sources they buy keys from, but that's just my personal view and it's also reasonable to take them at their word if you choose to do so. There are steps they can take to regain my trust by increasing their transparency, but at this point they seem unwilling to do so as they've had months to address this issue and they've only done so when a major subreddit suspended their promotions - and even then they've kind of dodged the questions.
They are authorized by EA.