Morrowind on G2A for < $5; was Application: FedeWar

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Morrowind on G2A for < $5; was Application: FedeWar

Post by psi29a »

User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by AnyOldName3 »

If you're going to use G2A, you might as well pirate it (and obviously we don't recommend doing that). Sometimes you get a key that works, sometimes you get one that doesn't, and sometimes you get one that works for a while and is then revoked a week later. The real reason to avoid it, though, is that it's frequently worse for the developer than outright pirating the game (which is definitely immoral and illegal) would be. A large proportion of keys sold via G2A are bought either in bulk for an absolute pittance from a humble bundle (so the dev's goodwill of 'donating' to charity is exploited), or, more commonly, from a legitimate source, but using a stolen credit card (so when the card's owner disputes the charges, the dev or store gets hit with chargeback fees), or from a legitimate source in another pricing region (discouraging companies from selling games at an affordable price in poorer countries). Some key distribution mechanisms allow keys to be deactivated when a chargeback occurs (hence why keys can sometimes be revoked after working for a while), so they only lose the chargeback fees on each purchase, but either way, people are paying to have their stuff stolen.

It's maybe slight hyperbole, but by buying stuff from G2A, you're funding organised crime (and potentially draining money from legitimate key sources), whereas if you pirate something outright, while sales may be lost, you're not giving money to bad people, and bad people aren't forcing chargeback fees on anyone. That's still a bad thing to do, as it's stealing, and being less bad than G2A isn't an excuse.
Last edited by AnyOldName3 on 15 Feb 2017, 23:40, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by psi29a »

To be absolutely clear, we (OpenMW) do not condone piracy and encouraging it over the use of G2A is, to put it bluntly, the worst possible thing you can do to hurt this community and Bethesda.

You may think in terms of the developer and distributor, but you haven't considered consumers like myself who get steam keys from family and friends and yet have neither the time nor the desire to play said games or applications. It is by far more interesting to recoup the money by reselling them on G2A and other "grey-area" sites.

IMO, the keys are there, the product was already sold but not claimed nor used. I've never had a bad-key or a bad transaction on G2A.

G2A is like a crowbar, it can be used for both good and bad.
User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by AnyOldName3 »

It's closer to a prison with poison gas dispensers in the showers - it's possible to use it for benign purposes (e.g. holding criminals while you attempt to rehabilitate them so they can be productive members of society) if you don't use the gas dispensers, but it was clearly designed for evil.

I'm sure if we emailed Bethesda and asked if we could recommend G2A, they would not want us to. GamesPlanet, however, is sometimes almost as cheap (I got Morrowind for €3.50 in a sale) and they buy their keys from Bethesda directly.

I'm still going to tweak the original comment, as it could be construed as recommending piracy, which I don't.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by psi29a »

AnyOldName3 wrote:I'm still going to tweak the original comment, as it could be construed as recommending piracy, which I don't.
Thank you! :)
AnyOldName3 wrote:It's closer to a prison with poison gas dispensers in the showers - it's possible to use it for benign purposes (e.g. holding criminals while you attempt to rehabilitate them so they can be productive members of society) if you don't use the gas dispensers, but it was clearly designed for evil.
Let's follow a thought experiment, I make a steam key exchange. This platform is neutral in that I made the platform available and to recoup the cost of running the platform, I skim 2% from the transaction of the back of the re-seller.

Would you consider this to be clearly designed for evil? Am I evil for running the hypothetical exchange?

To bring the analogy home, is ebay evil for cheap knock-offs or the steam-keys that are sold on the platform? Organized crime use ebay (and others) as a way to fence their goods as well.

Bit-torrent is another tool of 'evil', yet there are plenty of legitimate uses such as in the Blizzard downloaders and updators.

My point is that you should target the organized crime and be careful who you do business with than target a platform or medium. Incidentally, I happen to have become steam friends with those who have sold me keys.

By framing g2a as 'evil' and using gas-shower imagery to persuade and make your point is coming very close to invoking Godwin's law. Your original post was much better in explaining why you want to avoid the platform.
AnyOldName3 wrote:GamesPlanet, however, is sometimes almost as cheap (I got Morrowind for €3.50 in a sale) and they buy their keys from Bethesda directly.
Great! Alternatives are always welcome. :)
User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: Morrowind on G2A for < $5; was Application: FedeWar

Post by AnyOldName3 »

This set of screenshots of a reddit discussion should at the least highlight G2A lying about what they do to protect consumers: http://imgur.com/gQhoEmH

Without G2A shield, they always side with the seller when a dispute happens, regardless of how 'obvious' it is where the issue lies.

With G2A shield, there's still no guarantee that they'll investigate disputes properly, and then you're stuck paying a monthly fee which can be difficult to unsubscribe from: http://imgur.com/gallery/PUwPC

On the occasions they do take down keys which a publisher tells them have been stolen, they tend to not refund buyers, but not pay out to the sellers either, so they end up keeping all the money while gaining an example they can use for good PR.

A critical difference to ebay is (potentially because physical goods are easier to track and inspect) most stuff on ebay is legitimate, while most keys sold through G2A are sold by users with a large number of keys to sell, which is almost invariably because they've taken actions to get a lot of keys rather than because they've got a lot of spares, and groups authorised to sell a lot of keys tend to either have a physical storefront or their own webpage.
Chris
Posts: 1625
Joined: 04 Sep 2011, 08:33

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by Chris »

psi29a wrote:Let's follow a thought experiment, I make a steam key exchange. This platform is neutral in that I made the platform available and to recoup the cost of running the platform, I skim 2% from the transaction of the back of the re-seller.

Would you consider this to be clearly designed for evil? Am I evil for running the hypothetical exchange?
The problem is, G2A does little to ensure the keys are legitimate. And on top of not checking that the goods they're being given are legitimate by default, they set up a service that you have to pay extra for to get some protection that they're giving you legitimate goods.
To bring the analogy home, is ebay evil for cheap knock-offs or the steam-keys that are sold on the platform? Organized crime use ebay (and others) as a way to fence their goods as well.
eBay is far more vigilant about both protecting users who buy fraudulent products, and getting thieves off the service, than G2A. eBay doesn't even deal with digital goods because of how problematic it is to legitimately resell them. Also, eBay doesn't charge anything extra to protect you from buying fraudulent products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBakPg6x63Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3cBgXI_pE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Bi6PCQ39o&t=8310

Ironically, when stolen keys get revoked, buyers tend to get upset at the publisher or developer who had their things stolen, rather than the reseller who failed to check the keys were legit.
Bit-torrent is another tool of 'evil', yet there are plenty of legitimate uses such as in the Blizzard downloaders and updators.
Bittorrent is a protocol, not a company that benefits from people using it.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by psi29a »

Chris wrote:
Bit-torrent is another tool of 'evil', yet there are plenty of legitimate uses such as in the Blizzard downloaders and updators.
Bittorrent is a protocol, not a company that benefits from people using it.
You're wrong here, the company exists to promote bittorrent the protocol and they are profit oriented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(company)


The rest of the posts are spot on. After reading the reddit thread, that is really piss-poor PR. I hope "Gabi" was fired for it. They earned their poor sells.

Giving g2a the benefit of the doubt though, validating keys seems to be a non-trivial problem. However they would gather better good will from their customers if they held the money in escrow for a period of time to handle fraudulent keys, thus eliminating the need for 'G2A Guard' which seems like extortion to me when other services do this as part of their operating process.

I would think it would be in their best interest to listen to the complains.

They have done good things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G2A#Charity

Now... what/where would you guys recommend to sell or trade my keys? Are there any 'less shady' exchanges?
Chris
Posts: 1625
Joined: 04 Sep 2011, 08:33

Re: Application: FedeWar

Post by Chris »

psi29a wrote:
Chris wrote:
Bit-torrent is another tool of 'evil', yet there are plenty of legitimate uses such as in the Blizzard downloaders and updators.
Bittorrent is a protocol, not a company that benefits from people using it.
You're wrong here, the company exists to promote bittorrent the protocol and they are profit oriented.
Technicalities aside, you did call bittorrent a "tool", not a company. Using KTorrent, for example, doesn't directly benefit the BitTorrent company.
Giving g2a the benefit of the doubt though, validating keys seems to be a non-trivial problem. However they would gather better good will from their customers if they held the money in escrow for a period of time to handle fraudulent keys, thus eliminating the need for 'G2A Guard' which seems like extortion to me when other services do this as part of their operating process.
Yeah, it's a difficult problem. That's why places like eBay don't touch them, because of the difficulty in dealing with it. I don't expect G2A to do much here though, because it would cut into their profits (and they like throwing their money around for sponsorships and stuff). If they had good will, they wouldn't have introduced G2A Guard as an extra paid service.
Now... what/where would you guys recommend to sell or trade my keys? Are there any 'less shady' exchanges?
This seems to discuss how you can trade games. Steam doesn't officially support reselling keys*, so any method to do it is automatically gray market. I can't say I know what places are more reputable than others.

* I don't remember if there's been any court rulings in non-US areas about reselling your Steam games. If there have been for your area, you'd have to ask Valve about how to exercise your rights, or look wherever such information would be.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Re: Morrowind on G2A for < $5; was Application: FedeWar

Post by psi29a »

I did call bittorrent a tool and by that I mean a medium, it can't be said to be designed and used for 'evil'. It can be used in both good and bad ways.
Post Reply