Some time ago, we wrote an article where we answered the question Is Kinguin Legit? Now we figured we wanted to take a closer look at one of Kinguin's main competitors, G2A, and answer the same question: is G2A legit?
Just like Kinguin, G2A is an online marketplace where you can buy, sell and/or trade your video games with other users. This is done through their platform where you can browse over 75.000 different games from 400.000 sellers. Needless to say, it is quite the popular service and is used by a lot of people to sell games they don't play anymore and people who are looking to grab a cheap copy of a game they want to play.
So what is there not to like? This seems like a great way for people to get rid of items they don't use themselves anymore, while others can acquire these items at a reduced price.
Sadly, it's not that simple, as we will explain in this blog post.
When you are buying a game through G2A, you are not actually buying a physical copy of it, but rather a CD-key that allows you to download the game and unlock it to play it.
The problem? G2A does not check whether the key works or not.
This makes the G2A marketplace a place ripe for scams and fakes to be put up for people to steal money. The most common ways they do it are the following:
All of these methods might leave the buyer without their money, as well as without their game.
If we also consider the fact that G2A is very seller friendly, meaning they most often side with the seller in dispute cases, makes it very risky to use them for buying games. You should definitely consider whether it is worth saving a few bucks with the risk of losing out on your money and your game.
We are not the only ones that are under the impression that G2A is in a shady business. Check out the following articles and threads found with a google search:
And there are many more articles and forum threads where that came from. The research does not look promising for G2A and reseller markets for games in general.
I would definitely say no to that. The combination of the fact that you run the possibility of getting scammed out of your money, support petty criminals and cause harm to game developers, I would say you are better off buying your games somewhere else.
Now I want to note that I don't believe G2A to be actively encouraging this, but they are certainly aware of the issues that arises with a marketplace like this, and they are trying their best to improve the experience for their users.
Also, most people are likely very happy with the experience there as most of the transactions work just fine and people get on with their lives, but given the chances of scams there, we simply cannot recommend using their services. If you do, you do so at your own risk.
If you are looking for places to buy your games, check out one of these sites:
Usually people are using services like G2A because they are looking for a cheaper version of the latest game, but in those cases I would just either wait it out or buy it from a legit place rather than take the chance on saving a few bucks up early.
