themarketplacestruth
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- May 10, 2017
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Recently i see lots of articles and youtubers and other medias, social medias, etc. bashing about marketplaces like some sort of evil comparable with necropedophilia or concentration camps. After watching another video from one of biggest youtubers filled mostly with lies and exaggeration i've decided to write truth about selling on marketplaces.
About myself: I am techpowerup's user registered since very long time under other nickname, this account i started only to write this single post. I'm a person which have always been interested in IT, games, software, hardware, etc. I was selling games at G2A, after they banned me without providing a reason of ban i switched to Kinguin and as for honest and honorable seller Kinguin seems to be a lot better service (so far). It doesn't mean any of them is better or worse for you, with most things they are almost equal and many sellers are registered at both. I'm regular seller making few hundreds monthly (very low income in comparison to other sellers), selling various steam, origin, uplay, gog, xbox, psn (etc.) keys and rarely some steam gifts. I'm not in any way related to g2a or kinguin and their employees, i'm regular "John Smith" earning a bit of extra money aside by selling games.
To start this post properly i think the best will be to tell how i started doing this. Few years ago i purchased a game key at g2a and in time i purchased there few more game keys, all were fine, activated nicely and games have never been removed from my accounts and accounts were not banned or blocked in any way. One day i was viewing promotion at one of local stores for digital versions of games and i spotted i could sell some with interesting profit. So i decided to give it a burl, purchased small amount of keys for few games, put on sale at g2a, gave the same price as lowest offered by other seller and that's all. Next day when i checked it turned out all keys which i did put on sale sold out and i earned nice positive comments on them.
That's how i started it and in short that's how i do since that day to now: find nice promotion at legitimate and trusted store, buy key or two, or few more (i'm not buying huge numbers) and put on sale for higher price. No russian stores or fishy keystores.
Internet is filled with articles about keys sold on marketplaces being purchased by sellers with funds gathered in illegal way (stolen credit cards, stolen credit cards purchased at some black markets) or keys being stolen directly from developers (which personally i find it hard to believe, how dumb dev would you be to let something like this to happen?) or keys gathered by fraud (mailing dev/publisher to ask for youtube review key). Obviously some of these things are true and valid but usually this kind of articles/videos exaggerate by saying things like "Marketplaces are bad because they are filled with keys and gifts stolen or purchased with stolen funds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which reader/viewer may interpret as marketplaces being keys and steam gifts nothing but stolen goods which is incredible exaggeration and a total lie. Obviously, there are sellers selling such things and on the other hand are sellers like me who sell things purchased with money earned by myself and i purchase them at legitimate stores. Same thing applies to all kinds of marketplaces, not only these focused on games and software, but also to marketplaces like ebay, amazon, aliexpress, etc. Everywhere will be people who want to scam you by selling you a mirror instead of some lame latest ipad (that was some guy passing by on gas station) and people who want to earn money by selling goods from valid sources like people run groceries stores for example.
On that matter i can't deny and can't fully confirm words told by media, i can only say: yes, this may happen but image of it created by media is exaggerated to size of holocaust.
To make yourself more sure about validity of a product you have to check number of sells done by seller, its opinions and read these opinions because some of them may be written by some retards, especially applies to g2a where opinions given to sellers by customers are not filtered and validated in any way, user can write anything, even the most stupid thing ever and get away with it, seller can't do anything to remove unjustified negative rating at g2a. Kinguin deals with it differently and buyer can't give negative feedback to seller for no reason and if customer want to give negative feedback it is been checked by kinguin's staff. To make you more aware how stupid customers can be in rating sellers and purchases i will give you few examples of stupid comments.
Purchased key(s) or steam gift links in comment to rating is a very common thing. What is even more funny comments are publicly visible. Once i've done an experiment and read comments of some sellers and when i found steam gift link or key i tried to find out if it still not activated and... yes, i was able to activate a game on my steam account. People are that stupid: they buy things, they have no idea how to use them and sometimes they do not use them at all even if they get clear instructions on how to use them.
This reminds me another ridiculous type of ratings: negative rating for selling a steam gift. When you purchase steam gift at g2a before adding it to basket you get huge, gigantic message with warning that you are about to purchase steam gift which will be provided as a link and... guess what? Comments like: "wtf is this poo?! i purchased the game, i want a key, instead i got some weird-ass link, i demand a refund!!!!!!!!!!", this kind of comments with negative rating are incredibly common.
Similar kind of comments are comments to keys other than steam keys. This also is a plague at g2a. Description of a product clearly states, for example, this is retail key and you need to somehow get installer on your own. Or for example customer purchased uplay key and is wondering why can't activate it on steam.
This list could go longer but i've already written more text here than most modern people can handle without getting bored of reading.
Being a marketplace seller myself, reading these articles and watching videos from huge youtubers and being casual customer of marketplaces myself makes me think: wtf is this all storm about? Are marketplaces and their sellers really that evil or maybe there is something else?
It is not a secret marketplaces are earning a lot of money on helping: sellers to sell their goods, and to buyers buy their games. Both sides pay some extra money for various extra things related to these deals to make them as safe and trustworthy as possible and just to get some more earnings to marketplaces. As a seller i can tell you some sellers can make thousands daily, every sell is few cents up to few euros/dollars of gain to marketplace where the deal is happening. Marketplaces earn a lot of money off deals done within their services and that is what irritates specific departments and companies. I mean someone, something else than marketplaces themselves, i do not mean sellers or buyers because sellers like to earn money by selling games, buyers like to buy cheap games (or just games) to save some money.
Every seller of a marketplace somehow has to obtain said key or steam gift (etc.). They do this by purchasing such product from legitimate source, including taxes and other things like that. Game developers and publishers earn off every product purchased by marketplace seller but no, developers and, more likely, publishers are greedy and they would want to earn a bit off every single purchase not only from official distribution but also from marketplaces. This whole hatred from big youtubers and other medias against marketplaces makes me think it is planned and deliberate action led by biggest and greediest developers and publishers.
From observation i can see Kinguin's policy on that matter is very good, friendly to developers and publishers because if you, as dev/publisher do not want your games to be available in there you can just contact them and talk to them about removing your games from kinguin. I'm only assuming it, i do not know how exactly it works but i suppose it is this way as i saw there few products labeled like this "game removed from our offer on request from developer/publisher".
Marketplaces are "grey market" and they are grey in many ways. You can find there decent and honest sellers which will offer you games they obtained from legitimate sources but also you can find douchebags who obtain their products in illegal ways. Marketplaces have lots of info about sellers as they ask them for many documents like IDs, bills, bank account numbers and also sources of products which said seller is about to be selling (not all keys are being checked, only rare random cases or when buyer starts complaint about purchased product). Personally i purchased at marketplaces few games for myself, friends, family and never had an issues with them but on the other hand there are people who had less luck than me. I do not tell you to not buy at marketplaces and also in many cases i do not encourage you to do that as many games you can get cheaper on various promotions at various online shops. If you are going to buy anything at marketplace (ffs) read what you are about to purchase, check in product description if game is supposed to able to activate in your country, if it is for your preferred platform (not all games are for steam, you steam addicts) and if it contains languages you expect.
Before writing this text i was thinking about where to post it and i chose techpowerup.com because i think this site is big enough to provide enough attention to it. I also wanted to show that marketplaces are not as bad as corrupted personalities and media are trying to show them. Currently people making deals there are shown as thieves, but what will it be tomorrow? Argument which usually government agencies rise when they can't find evidence to mock their enemies? In future articles will we read marketplace sellers are in fact child molesters, all of them? I hope this my post will change your way of thinking about marketplaces as they are not as evil as media are trying to make them.
About myself: I am techpowerup's user registered since very long time under other nickname, this account i started only to write this single post. I'm a person which have always been interested in IT, games, software, hardware, etc. I was selling games at G2A, after they banned me without providing a reason of ban i switched to Kinguin and as for honest and honorable seller Kinguin seems to be a lot better service (so far). It doesn't mean any of them is better or worse for you, with most things they are almost equal and many sellers are registered at both. I'm regular seller making few hundreds monthly (very low income in comparison to other sellers), selling various steam, origin, uplay, gog, xbox, psn (etc.) keys and rarely some steam gifts. I'm not in any way related to g2a or kinguin and their employees, i'm regular "John Smith" earning a bit of extra money aside by selling games.
To start this post properly i think the best will be to tell how i started doing this. Few years ago i purchased a game key at g2a and in time i purchased there few more game keys, all were fine, activated nicely and games have never been removed from my accounts and accounts were not banned or blocked in any way. One day i was viewing promotion at one of local stores for digital versions of games and i spotted i could sell some with interesting profit. So i decided to give it a burl, purchased small amount of keys for few games, put on sale at g2a, gave the same price as lowest offered by other seller and that's all. Next day when i checked it turned out all keys which i did put on sale sold out and i earned nice positive comments on them.
That's how i started it and in short that's how i do since that day to now: find nice promotion at legitimate and trusted store, buy key or two, or few more (i'm not buying huge numbers) and put on sale for higher price. No russian stores or fishy keystores.
Internet is filled with articles about keys sold on marketplaces being purchased by sellers with funds gathered in illegal way (stolen credit cards, stolen credit cards purchased at some black markets) or keys being stolen directly from developers (which personally i find it hard to believe, how dumb dev would you be to let something like this to happen?) or keys gathered by fraud (mailing dev/publisher to ask for youtube review key). Obviously some of these things are true and valid but usually this kind of articles/videos exaggerate by saying things like "Marketplaces are bad because they are filled with keys and gifts stolen or purchased with stolen funds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which reader/viewer may interpret as marketplaces being keys and steam gifts nothing but stolen goods which is incredible exaggeration and a total lie. Obviously, there are sellers selling such things and on the other hand are sellers like me who sell things purchased with money earned by myself and i purchase them at legitimate stores. Same thing applies to all kinds of marketplaces, not only these focused on games and software, but also to marketplaces like ebay, amazon, aliexpress, etc. Everywhere will be people who want to scam you by selling you a mirror instead of some lame latest ipad (that was some guy passing by on gas station) and people who want to earn money by selling goods from valid sources like people run groceries stores for example.
On that matter i can't deny and can't fully confirm words told by media, i can only say: yes, this may happen but image of it created by media is exaggerated to size of holocaust.
To make yourself more sure about validity of a product you have to check number of sells done by seller, its opinions and read these opinions because some of them may be written by some retards, especially applies to g2a where opinions given to sellers by customers are not filtered and validated in any way, user can write anything, even the most stupid thing ever and get away with it, seller can't do anything to remove unjustified negative rating at g2a. Kinguin deals with it differently and buyer can't give negative feedback to seller for no reason and if customer want to give negative feedback it is been checked by kinguin's staff. To make you more aware how stupid customers can be in rating sellers and purchases i will give you few examples of stupid comments.
Purchased key(s) or steam gift links in comment to rating is a very common thing. What is even more funny comments are publicly visible. Once i've done an experiment and read comments of some sellers and when i found steam gift link or key i tried to find out if it still not activated and... yes, i was able to activate a game on my steam account. People are that stupid: they buy things, they have no idea how to use them and sometimes they do not use them at all even if they get clear instructions on how to use them.
This reminds me another ridiculous type of ratings: negative rating for selling a steam gift. When you purchase steam gift at g2a before adding it to basket you get huge, gigantic message with warning that you are about to purchase steam gift which will be provided as a link and... guess what? Comments like: "wtf is this poo?! i purchased the game, i want a key, instead i got some weird-ass link, i demand a refund!!!!!!!!!!", this kind of comments with negative rating are incredibly common.
Similar kind of comments are comments to keys other than steam keys. This also is a plague at g2a. Description of a product clearly states, for example, this is retail key and you need to somehow get installer on your own. Or for example customer purchased uplay key and is wondering why can't activate it on steam.
This list could go longer but i've already written more text here than most modern people can handle without getting bored of reading.
Being a marketplace seller myself, reading these articles and watching videos from huge youtubers and being casual customer of marketplaces myself makes me think: wtf is this all storm about? Are marketplaces and their sellers really that evil or maybe there is something else?
It is not a secret marketplaces are earning a lot of money on helping: sellers to sell their goods, and to buyers buy their games. Both sides pay some extra money for various extra things related to these deals to make them as safe and trustworthy as possible and just to get some more earnings to marketplaces. As a seller i can tell you some sellers can make thousands daily, every sell is few cents up to few euros/dollars of gain to marketplace where the deal is happening. Marketplaces earn a lot of money off deals done within their services and that is what irritates specific departments and companies. I mean someone, something else than marketplaces themselves, i do not mean sellers or buyers because sellers like to earn money by selling games, buyers like to buy cheap games (or just games) to save some money.
Every seller of a marketplace somehow has to obtain said key or steam gift (etc.). They do this by purchasing such product from legitimate source, including taxes and other things like that. Game developers and publishers earn off every product purchased by marketplace seller but no, developers and, more likely, publishers are greedy and they would want to earn a bit off every single purchase not only from official distribution but also from marketplaces. This whole hatred from big youtubers and other medias against marketplaces makes me think it is planned and deliberate action led by biggest and greediest developers and publishers.
From observation i can see Kinguin's policy on that matter is very good, friendly to developers and publishers because if you, as dev/publisher do not want your games to be available in there you can just contact them and talk to them about removing your games from kinguin. I'm only assuming it, i do not know how exactly it works but i suppose it is this way as i saw there few products labeled like this "game removed from our offer on request from developer/publisher".
Marketplaces are "grey market" and they are grey in many ways. You can find there decent and honest sellers which will offer you games they obtained from legitimate sources but also you can find douchebags who obtain their products in illegal ways. Marketplaces have lots of info about sellers as they ask them for many documents like IDs, bills, bank account numbers and also sources of products which said seller is about to be selling (not all keys are being checked, only rare random cases or when buyer starts complaint about purchased product). Personally i purchased at marketplaces few games for myself, friends, family and never had an issues with them but on the other hand there are people who had less luck than me. I do not tell you to not buy at marketplaces and also in many cases i do not encourage you to do that as many games you can get cheaper on various promotions at various online shops. If you are going to buy anything at marketplace (ffs) read what you are about to purchase, check in product description if game is supposed to able to activate in your country, if it is for your preferred platform (not all games are for steam, you steam addicts) and if it contains languages you expect.
Before writing this text i was thinking about where to post it and i chose techpowerup.com because i think this site is big enough to provide enough attention to it. I also wanted to show that marketplaces are not as bad as corrupted personalities and media are trying to show them. Currently people making deals there are shown as thieves, but what will it be tomorrow? Argument which usually government agencies rise when they can't find evidence to mock their enemies? In future articles will we read marketplace sellers are in fact child molesters, all of them? I hope this my post will change your way of thinking about marketplaces as they are not as evil as media are trying to make them.
OP, I am going to ban this account, please feel free to re-post in correct sub forum using your original account, you may also get taken with greater credibility in doing so.