Some developers say pirating better than buying from G2A

Some developers are actively encouraging consumers of G2A to pirate their game instead of purchasing it from the controversial marketplace.

The situation started when Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots, posted on Twitter that he had discovered G2A were paying for Google Ads to appear in the search results for some of the studio’s games. Any searches made in Google for titles such as Decenders, which No More Robots published, will see links for G2A before anything else.

Rose explained on Twitter that the studio stands to make no profit if consumers purchase Decenders using the paid for G2A link. Rose’s outburst then continued as he asked anyone who would purchase the game from G2A to simply pirate the game instead, describing how, as a studio, his company would rather see the game not make G2A any money either.

After Rose’s Tweet saw more interactions and became increasingly well-known, several streamers spoke out against the facts presented in it, telling their fans how G2A aren’t an evil company. Rose later claimed that G2A had paid these streamers, who are often sponsored by the company, to say this.

Reinforcing Rose’s post was the developer of Decenders, Rage Squid. Just like Rose the developer encouraged fans to pirate their game instead of buying it from G2A. Rami Ismail of Vlambeer also chimed in to declare his support for the requests.

Ismail posted on his own Twitter account, asking for anyone who wants to play a game but can’t afford to buy it full price not buy a key from a key reseller. Ismail further told consumers that potential development time is sucked up by key resellers due to unnecessary customer service time, taken up by fake key requests, navigating refunds, and so much more.

G2A’s reputation has fallen over the years. The retailer allows users to purchase game keys in bulk from cheaper territories, and sell them for full price in more expensive ones, reaping all of the profit that developers should be seeing themselves.