- Within 30 days, G2A Shield (aka, customer fraud protection) is made free instead of a separate paid subscription service within terms offered by other major marketplaces. All customers who spend money deserve fraud protection from a storefront. To that end, all existing G2A Shield customers are notified by April 14th that fraud protection services are now free and they will no longer be charged for this.
- Within 90 days, G2A will open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent. This access will be free of charge and will not require payment by the content holders.
- G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 60 days implement throttling for non-certified developers and publishers at the title, userid, and account payable levels for a fraud flagging process. This is to protect content providers from having large quantities of stolen goods flipped on G2A before they can be flagged.
- G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges. Join the ranks of other major marketplaces.
It's noteworthy Gearbox is giving G2A a public ultimatum, and if the company ends up making meaningful reforms, the entire gaming community will benefit from it. But G2A's problems have been well documented for years now, and the smallest attempt at researching G2A would have raised red flags that might have given Gearbox some pause. It's on them for getting themselves into this mess in the first place, which means any praise for Gearbox should come with an equally suspicious eyebrow raise. Hopefully, though, something good comes of all this.Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email here.Reis doesn't make money off a chargeback. He makes money by selling the Steam keys. The chargebacks aren't triggered immediately, so he's getting the keys before the payment processor has time to investigate (or be alerted to) stolen credit cards. Chargebacks can occur days, weeks, or months later, which means Reis has plenty of time to sell the Steam key sent to his email address.
"This is easy and very basic," he said. "In minutes you can hide your tracks. […] You do not need a gun to steal, just your fingers and patience."
This is what complicates the situation for companies like MangaGamer; if the Steam key has been sold on G2A or another marketplace, it may be in the hands of a person who thinks they've legitimately paid for a key. There's no way for that person to know the key they bought is tainted, and it's often too late for MangaGamer to try to deactivate the key.