G2A pays $39,600 for illegally obtained game keys

In July last year, G2A opened up the transaction history for its controversial marketplace to be analyzed by an independent auditor. The purpose of the audit was to attempt to identify any illegally obtained game keys that had been sold through the marketplace. As a result, the company has had to pay out $39,600 to one developer.

The G2A marketplace is open for anyone to sell game keys through. G2A compares it to Amazon and Ebay in some regards, while game developers see it as a place where stolen keys for their games are easily sold with no consequence.

After one outburst from a developer who pleaded with consumers to simply pirate their games instead of using the G2A marketplace, the company made a bold statement. They explained that they would pay 10 times the value of any illegally obtained game keys sold through their marketplace. The only caveat was that an independent auditor had to be the one to find the keys and transactions.

While G2A did originally plan to use an independent auditor, either PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KMPG, or Deloitte according to Polygon, they have now said that they couldn’t come to the right terms with any of these firms. As a result, G2A did the audit themselves.

The only developer to take G2A up on their offer were Factorio developers Wube, so G2A set to work. The developer reported a total of 321 game keys that they believed had been illegally sold online through the marketplace.

After the pair agreed that G2A were the best company to perform the internal audit, it was found that 198 of these keys were in fact illegally obtained, and sold through the G2A marketplace. The keys were sold between March 2016 and June 2016.

True to their word, G2A has paid the developer $39,600.

A spokesperson for G2A commented on the situation to Polygon, explaining that in the early years, they were guilty of being too lax, allowing illegally obtained keys to slip through the net. However, they say that they have woken up, and now employ some of the most sophisticated anti-fraud AI technology available.