I used to pirate games and software. Then came the ransomware, and the crypto stealers.

So I'm afraid of pirating certain things, but not because of the IP issues.

Also, when the devs blacklist the key, the customer gets angry at the devs instead of the scammer, turning away future customers.

Ain't as simple as "just disable them". G2A acquires keys through buy-one-get-two deals, using stolen credit cards, money laundering, stolen keys (mass mailing the devs for "preview" keys, which they then flip on G2A) etc.

So there's no way to know the origin of keys in G2A. By the time you know it's stolen keys, they've been sold out, and G2A has a notorious history of not giving a fuck about the situation.

You could just arbitrarily disable all keys, but you'd affect >90% legitimate customers.

They don't know the keys on G2A and the like unless they buy them themselves. And these unauthorized key sellers aren't in the business to cooperate with them, since the money laundering is their bread and butter.

Yeah... I hadn't heard of G2A before now, but after reading up a bit, it seems like a bit of a convenient scapegoat for developers.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/g2a-and-wube-software-settle-usd40-000-chargeback-dispute

Some quotes

The debate over the site was triggered by No More Robots founder Mike Rose, who claimed it was better for gamers to pirate titles than buy from G2A since "devs don't see a penny either way."

Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail agreed, adding: "These sites cost us so much potential dev time in customer service, investigating fake key requests, figuring out credit card chargebacks, and more."

As the discourse escalated into a petition to stop G2A from allowing the sale of indie games, the marketplace responded with its 10x chargeback offer in an attempt to address these concerns.

Lack of response has frequently been an issue for G2A. To date, Factorio remains the only studio to challenge the firm's offer of 10x chargebacks, and when G2A suggested a potential keyblocker tool for developers, only 19 companies registered interest.

Klonan acknowledges Wube's role in how G2A sellers were able to obtain codes for Factorio. These codes were purchased through the game's official website, which was previously less secure than the likes of Steam or Itch.io, although did give Wube detailed records of purchases and chargebacks it could compare with G2A's audit.

The company also offers a free Steam key with website purchases, many of which are "probably flipped on G2A", although as these are obtained legally it becomes harder to challenge these transactions.

Klonan notes that after Wube switched to using Humble's widget on its site and refraining from "giving out tons of keys for giveaways to dodgy, often fake, influencers," the fraudulent purchases "stopped completely."

"In the end, contacting G2A is treating a symptom of people stealing keys," he says. "The best way to combat that is to cut it at the source.

If it were that easy then G2A wouldn’t exist. Use some common sense.

No that’s not the issue. That’s not why they’re saying pirate the game. The issue is they’re also getting hit by chargeback fees from those fraudulent sales.

See this comment

The problem is rather the opposite. The keys are secure and their sale is decentralized, which gives limited control over them. People generate the keys with stolen credit cards, and then resell them. The Postal devs are basically admitting they are giving up trying to actually go after the thieves, but it is genuinely hard to figure out which keys are legit and which are stolen, especially when it's someone else selling them. All you're proposing is to make it impossible to revoke a key even if you know it's illegal.

The actual way to prevent this theft would be to forbid merchants from generating keys at all, and go to a fully centralized model like Steam and Epic generally use.

What's the point of a decentralized system for trading software licenses if you have to go through a centralized service to get the software anyway? It seems like adding extra overhead for no reason. It could just be implemented as a centralized service and it would work the exact same.

What G2A is selling is usually Steam keys. They’re not always stolen through credit card fraud but also through pretending to be game media for review copies.

Any site that allows customers to resell is a culprit of supporting the grey market. Even if they vet their resellers, you'll get the occassional hacked accounts, and legitimate resellers "turning" rogue after reaching their target reputation.

Use https://isthereanydeal.com to find actual discounts. Or buy on Steam. Or pirate it. Never support grey market.

Many of the keys sold on key reselling sites are bought with stolen credit cards. It usually works like this:

1. Someone obtains stolen credit card data (can be easily bought on the dark web)
2. The stolen credit card data is used to buy keys from official key sellers (or directly from the developer of they offer them)
3. Those keys are then sold on key reselling sites
4. The credit card owner notices that his credit card data was stolen, contacts his credit card company and does a charge back. 5.The official key seller has to pay back the money + a charge back fee.

If I steal your credit card and buy a key to the new FNAF that costs $60, I can sell that key on G2A. Let's say I make $50. That $50 is mine, the third person has the key and thus the game, the developers have your $60.

But your CC was stolen. You shouldn't pay for that. So you contact your financial institution and are like "hey wtf I don't wanna pay for this." They respond "yes sir/ma'am, sorry sir/ma'am" and return the funds to your credit card.

Now your financial institution isn't just gonna take the hit. So they're like "well, this money is with the weird dude who made FNAF, so let's take that money back." They issue what's called a chargeback, reclaiming the $60. But that's not enough, right? Because "We don't want them putting their products in sketchy places that might make us do this more, so we're gonna add a punitive fee." These punitive fees range from $30 to $100 depending on your institution.

So now, I have the G2A user's $50, you have your $60 back, the third person has the key, and the FNAF developers? They had $60, but after the chargeback that turned to $0, and then there was a punitive fee. They now have -$30.

Epilogue:

After losing the money, and in fact paying for someone else to have the game consider their options. They'd be right to revoke the key as the person who used it didn't actually pay them for it. But if they did, they'd get bad reviews, the G2A customer might be mad at the FNAF devs, and you may just go and buy another key from G2A. So in all likelihood they just cut their losses and let you keep the game as it causes less problems that way.

They buy keys with stolen credit card credentials. Owner of the card blocks the payment, devs have no money and in addition have to pay for the chargeback.

Edgy