G2A is right and you are wrong

I've seen and had a lot of back and forths over the last few days about G2A and key reselling and almost everyone I've seen talk about it seem to have some serious misconceptions, so I thought I'd have a go at enlightening people. Before I go any further though, I want to say If you have any insights on the subject matter which AREN'T addressed here, feel free to tweet me or email me or comment etc. however if the sum of you're input is "but people can steal keys" or "but people can scam keys" then I'd appreciate it if you think about it and maybe consider that someone (almost everyone) has already made that point and not bother.

(Also, I know it's been a long time since I've posted about Alaska, it is still in development, I've had a lot going on but it's still currently scheduled for release sometime in 2017)

OK. So what exactly am I talking about? Mainly G2A are correct. The right to resell is a fundamental right. If I buy something from someone, I am protected by law in selling it on. This right, in the EU at least, has been upheld with regards to digital goods, there is no legal reason why G2A or any other reseller can't do what they are doing. Game developers who contest this are at the very least, deeply misguided and at worst deliberately trying to mislead customers into foregoing their rights. If that were the long and the short of it however no one would be running around cutting heads off on social media. So what are the counter arguments I've received?

But people can steal keys!

People can steal keys, this is true. People can also steal every other thing on earth and it doesn't affect your right to resell. Not one bit. Arguing that the ability to steal keys is an argument that has been made against physical goods resellers in the past by illicit corporations to attempt to secure a monopoly on the sale of their products. The truth is it's less of an inconvenience for digital goods than physical. Lets look at the typical case people usually refer to: credit card fraud. So with physical goods, when credit card fraud is used to steal, the credit card is charged back, the victim gets their money back, the retailer loses the money and the thief keeps the goods. With digital goods, the card is charged back, the retailer loses the money and revokes the key and whoever ended up with the stolen key loses access. Those people are legally protected, they can go to their retailer, say G2A and, legally, can get a full refund. A.K.A. there is no problem here. If you use amazon to buy physical goods you are more complicit if credit card fraud than G2A, it functions exactly the same way, except the original retailer doesn't get their products back.

But people can scam keys!

This conversation is a lot simpler. If someone asks you for a key and you give them it, it is theirs, end of story. You may not like what they do with it afterwards but the fact is, it is no longer yours. If someone has committed fraud against you then feel free to litigate. I have to ask however, who is giving out enough keys to meaningfully impact their sales that this type of fraud is a concern? If you are giving large volumes of your game away, then you only have yourself to blame, don't do that! If you expect something in return for the keys you give away, get it in writing, get a contract, and then pursue the terms of that contract in court! If that idea doesn't sit right with you, it should tell you that your expectations of what you get from giving that key away aren't entirely something you are comfortable with.

The Game Dev gets nothing from these sales.

This is a very familiar argument. Physical retailers were also attacked by game publishers with this argument. It is as illegitimate now as it ever was. The game dev made their money on the initial sale, If that was zero, then that's because their asking price was zero. a resold key is not an extra copy, it's a transfer of ownership of that copy they received from the developer.

It circumvents Regional Pricing.

This argument, in my opinion is the only one that holds any water. Selling internationally is a hard problem to solve, so many people celebrate the removal of region locking, it's clear they don't really understand the full nuances of what region locking/regional pricing is designed to do. Regional pricing is a critical component of homogenising international economies, it's a mechanism for the transferral of wealth from affluent economies to poorer ones. Saying that, it is already a solved problem, beyond correct labelling it isn't a problem for the retailer (and again if it's mislabelled the customer is legally entitled to a refund/replace). In short, if you enact regional pricing, you have to use region locking or accept that people will purchase internationally.

I have yet to see any arguments against key reselling or G2A specifically that amounts to anything. To my eye it is a trial by social media. The thing that upsets me about the situation is, you see prominent talking heads, making assertions and accusations, implying and inferring. It seems to me they never once emphasis that they support the general practice of key reselling or that it is a perfectly legal, moral and fundamental right. I do not think they should be making these kinds of accusations in public, they should make them in court, where our legal checks and balances can preserve our rights (both developers and consumers). With regards to G2A specifically, they seem crass, they seems abrasive but they also seem to be in the right. If they are committing fraud or copyright infringement or other illegal acts, I will be the first to call them out but I'm not going to do that until it's been proven in court.