<story><title>Pirate our games, don&apos;t buy them from key resellers, say indies</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48908726</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smsm42</author><text>But unlike stealing the TV, if somebody stole a bunch of codes, isn&amp;#x27;t it the same as pirating the game? However the devs claim it&amp;#x27;s actually worse than pirating - it actually costs them more when codes are resold. Why? Where the additional cost is coming from?</text></item><item><author>tialaramex</author><text>The claim is that G2A acts as the equivalent of a fence.&lt;p&gt;Let me explain. Many crooks want money. A lot of illegal activities generate what looks like value but it&amp;#x27;s hard to turn into money and unless you do it&amp;#x27;s useless. A stolen television is valuable but why would I pay 60% of retail price to some geezer in a lock-up at 2am for what is obviously a stolen TV? The Fence buys stolen things from crooks for a fraction of their value, then operates a seemingly legitimate business which sells those things to ordinary punters to collect the difference.&lt;p&gt;Being a Fence is a crime. &amp;quot;Receiving stolen goods&amp;quot; we call it in most places. You&amp;#x27;re guilty if you know or should reasonably have known that the goods you got were stolen.&lt;p&gt;The argument against G2A is that logically the stuff they&amp;#x27;re buying for cheap can only exist if it&amp;#x27;s being obtained by crooks. A week after a game is released for $25 the _only_ reason somebody wants to sell 100 codes for $5 each is that they used stolen credentials to get those codes and are cashing out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cas8</author><text>If I use a stolen credit card to buy a code for your game, eventually there is likely to be a chargeback&amp;#x2F;refund processed when the credit card owner&amp;#x2F;company realizes that it was fraudulent. Chargebacks&amp;#x2F;refunds can sometimes be things that have real penalties associated with them and that can require time investment from you the developer to deal with.&lt;p&gt;Another, less concrete cost is that of incentivizing bad behavior. If I cannot sufficiently move a certain type of stolen goods, I&amp;#x27;m less likely to attempt to steal that type of good again in the future. However, if people choose to pirate a game instead, the bad actor is not rewarded and might realize that he can no longer move that type of product.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pirate our games, don&apos;t buy them from key resellers, say indies</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48908726</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smsm42</author><text>But unlike stealing the TV, if somebody stole a bunch of codes, isn&amp;#x27;t it the same as pirating the game? However the devs claim it&amp;#x27;s actually worse than pirating - it actually costs them more when codes are resold. Why? Where the additional cost is coming from?</text></item><item><author>tialaramex</author><text>The claim is that G2A acts as the equivalent of a fence.&lt;p&gt;Let me explain. Many crooks want money. A lot of illegal activities generate what looks like value but it&amp;#x27;s hard to turn into money and unless you do it&amp;#x27;s useless. A stolen television is valuable but why would I pay 60% of retail price to some geezer in a lock-up at 2am for what is obviously a stolen TV? The Fence buys stolen things from crooks for a fraction of their value, then operates a seemingly legitimate business which sells those things to ordinary punters to collect the difference.&lt;p&gt;Being a Fence is a crime. &amp;quot;Receiving stolen goods&amp;quot; we call it in most places. You&amp;#x27;re guilty if you know or should reasonably have known that the goods you got were stolen.&lt;p&gt;The argument against G2A is that logically the stuff they&amp;#x27;re buying for cheap can only exist if it&amp;#x27;s being obtained by crooks. A week after a game is released for $25 the _only_ reason somebody wants to sell 100 codes for $5 each is that they used stolen credentials to get those codes and are cashing out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>squeaky-clean</author><text>Aside from the cost of credit card charge backs, consider that these are (mostly) customers who think they are buying the game legitimately and just getting a good deal. That money is going straight to g2a instead of the devs&amp;#x2F;publishers.&lt;p&gt;Maybe a customer wouldn&amp;#x27;t buy the game at the full price, but since they&amp;#x27;re not pirating from the get-go, that shows they are a customer willing to spend money. Maybe they wouldn&amp;#x27;t buy the same game or as many games, but it&amp;#x27;s possible they&amp;#x27;d still be spending some money on games through legal (but more expensive) means if they knew g2a was just piracy with more steps.</text></comment>