Impressions found on the effectiveness of the G2A campaign for washing its image
A while ago we were talking about the G2A campaign to wash its image and shake off the image of being a service that sold illegally obtained codes, something that had spread throughout the video game industry. The idea was to invite any developer who could do it to demonstrate that the store had sold fraudulent codes, with the incentive that it would pay the studio 10 times the value of those codes.
Controversy with G2A
Now it seems that there is a studio that sat down with the store to accept their offer. Wube software, the Czech study responsible for Factorio, provided documentation on 321 illegal codes they had detected. After an internal audit, G2A ruled that 191 of those codes, 61%, had actually been sold through the page, so they agreed to keep their word and pay $ 40,000. The process, as detailed by Gameindustry, was complex, given the difficulties of finding an external audit that accepted the conditions, so that in the end the process was developed internally.
Factor
G2A has ensured that from now on it will return the money to any studio that works with them to demonstrate the illegality of the codes they sell. But as they admit in Wube, they are satisfied with the process: "if the offer had not been for 10 times the price, it would not have compensated us for all the time we have invested in the process." Some developers have not hesitated to point out that more than a facelift, all this action has only served to verify that, indeed, G2A is a reference site to get money for stolen codes, although they also recognize that the most effective way to end This practice is to watch it from the root – all the stolen Factorio codes come from its own website, where security was not as robust as in Humble Bundle, Steam or any established service. In addition, they also invite studios to be selective about who gives them codes, since there are many false influencers and people who try to get codes whatever to get a slice of this market.
The problem of stolen codes can be especially painful for small teams. Because once detected they can be deactivated, but this generates a horde of furious clients who bought the game lawfully (or so they thought at least) and who, when asking for explanations, go to the studio, with the wear and tear that this implies if they do not have staff administrative -which is usually the norm in small groups-.
