Piracy > resellers

Indie solo video game dev here.

I am okay with gamers "requisitioning" games if they truly can't afford it. While it is my livelihood, it's also my attempt at art and I want people to enjoy it. I even plan on releasing a safe cracked copy for the next game.

If you pirate a game, there are ways to help support us starving devs if you like the game.

1. Spread the word far and wide that you like the game. A little effort on your part can save us marketing budget and trigger new sales.

2. In the future if you have the financial ability, buy a legit key on sale. Even at 75%+ discount it helps.

But please don't cost us additional money. It costs time and money to process chargebacks triggered by the key resellers selling keys procurred with stolen credit cards.

NiX:

I love you guys and postal series, but I’m not made of money, if I can get a game for cheaper I’d rather pay less than more.

Running With Scissors:

Which is why we’re telling you to pirate our games instead of paying a scammer who will cost us money and probably even get your key revoked Our games are cheap right now through official sites. Is saving a few cents worth lowering the chances for releasing another POSTAL game?

NiX:

Isn’t pirating illegal? You want your fans get fines and shit? Now they are on sale so I might pick up some but normally i still rather get the game of g2a for cheaper

Running With Scissors:

You can’t get fines if the owners of the IP give you permission to download. Just know that by getting on G2A, we not only get no money, we also have to pay for the chargeback, that’s the core of the problem and it means no new games in the future and no more RWS

Edit: fixed formatting.

Ive never seen a company have this take. Interesting

The latter option does leave you with the game in your Steam account though, which is infinitely more convenient than downloading a repack made by some Russian somewhere in 15 parts from 5 different filesharing websites

...I mean, I assume. It's not like I've ever bought a game... or several games... from resellers

I only buy resold keys for games from large studios

I wonder where sites like GreenManGaming, Fanatical, Humble and IndieGala fit into the mix as I understand it are legit keysellers?

The old school pirate philosophy. Pirate the game. If you like the game, buy it. If you loved it, pay full price. The best games are being released by indie devs that could use the money.

I'd only buy grey market keys for AAA games, like the slop Ubisoft serves up every year.

ELI5, Why are resellers bad? Do they acquire the keys in a shady way?

I do not understand why publishers don’t cancel the keys. Why do they allow that parasitic industry to exist? Surely they know which key corresponds to a chargeback?

Based RWS

What shits me off is the number of people who defend these key reselling sites.

I've been utterly lambasted for likening kinguin with G2A in the past. Like really? Their arguments literally fall apart with a small amount of scrutiny, but thet chalk it up to "they say they aren't like other resellers so they aren't" FFS you literally cannot prove that and that's my point. And that's why you DO NOT TRUST THESE SITES.

It's really fucking common in YouTube comments specifically. Especially with youtubers who have been sponsored by these sites in the past.

I have literally unsubbed from youtubers that have advertised these stinkers, the problem is when the likes of MrBeast starts advertising it, people start to think that it's ok.

what is the first one?

Well, that makes me feel marginally better for never having bought keys in gray market sites like my friend who doesn't pirate because he's afraid of viruses, but then does that to get "amazing discounts".

Choice of "someone gets the game for free" or "someone gets rewarded for defrauding your customers", that's an easy one, yeah

Wondering if store credit for like PlayStation from eneba is of dodgy sourcing too.. how can they have so many..

What's the last one from the top row? The Pirate Bay? :)

Eneba is selling pirated keys?

How does g2a even work? I've bought a few keys there before and they worked. I assume these keys were given to someone from like a promo or something then they just resell it?

What about Instant Gaming ? Is it also a website that only resales keys or do they have some kind of partnership with game devs?

They could also stop with the nonsense and make a price a price.

If a $30 game is pretty much always $12 35 weeks of the year across various platforms, make it $12, because you've said that's your true price. Otherwise when I want to buy it and it's still $30 I will go to a reseller instead

I'll do my best to stop using them.

G2a has given me more and more fake keys recently so I stopped using them all together, now I just buy the game or pirate it if I'm really unsure if I'll ever play it but want to try like EU4.

Yes, I have seen Coherance and it's really different, it is more philosophy and history focus. As history major, I loved it.

Had to switch :(