Gearbox severs ties with G2A over fraud backlash

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-04-07-gearbox-gets-tough-on-g2a-over-fraud-backlash

[UPDATE]: Just one day after issuing its ultimatum to G2A, Gearbox has begun the process of dissolving its relationship with the key reseller, according to Waypoint.

"As there has been no public movement from G2A by the time Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition launched now on PC, Gearbox Publishing will be doing their part to not directly support a marketplace that did not make the new public commitment to protecting customers and developers requested by Gearbox Publishing," Gearbox head of publishing Steve Gibson told the site, adding, "We do not control G2A's marketplace or where they may obtain keys from parties outside of Gearbox Publishing, but we can confirm that today we have begun executing on our extraction process."

The original story follows below:

Gearbox has demanded that the online key reseller G2A take a firmer stance against fraud, following a public backlash against a partnership for the physical release of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.

In June last year, the prominent indie publisher Tinybuild accused G2A of facilitating "a black market economy," where game keys purchased with stolen credit cards could be resold, leaving the developer to cover losses incurred from the eventual chargebacks.

G2A disputed Tinybuild's claims, but it still introduced certain measures - developer royalties, improved verification procedures, etc. - to make fraudulent transactions more difficult and give developers a larger cut of revenue. Nevertheless, the damage to G2A's reputation was done, as evidenced by several YouTubers walking away from sponsorship deals with the company, even after those changes had been introduced.

"G2A is providing a 'solution' to a problem that they created and continue to facilitate and profit from both the solution and the fraud"

John "Total Biscuit" Bain

That was just one aspect of G2A's apparent attempts at rehabilitation. In July 2016, a month after its dispute with Tinybuild, the company introduced G2A Direct, a storefront where developers could sell products to consumers. At the start of March 2017, it issued a statement confirming that it had 100 official partners for G2A Direct, which was "created to place developers front and center in G2A's marketplace."

The partnership with Gearbox, which was promoted at the start of this week, falls under the same basic strategy. G2A Direct would have been the home of "54 exclusive collector's editions" of Bulletstorm: Full Clip, that bewildering number largely due to a series of figurines of the game's principal characters.

However, despite the large number of developers already using the new storefront, a backlash started to gather pace on various social media platforms, eventually coming to a head when the popular YouTuber John "Total Biscuit" Bain vowed to cease coverage of Bulletstorm and all future Gearbox titles. "No support for crooks," Bain said on Twitter.