G2A vs Gearbox! - Episode 2

Content Complete

In this week's episode we take on old japanese men and shady back alley video game dealers. Don't miss it! Watch the podcast live Sundays at 3pm Pacific here: https://www.twitch.tv/neanderthalgami... TotalBiscuit's Twitlonger: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1spp1mm G2A and Tinybuild: http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/1/14784... Atlus Statement on Streaming Persona 5: http://atlus.com/note-persona-5-strea... The content Complete Podcasts Consists of Lets Playing, gaming news, and commentary about the current events of everything gaming related. G2A.COM Limited (commonly referred to as G2A) is a global digital marketplace which specializes in gaming products. It is headquartered in Hong Kong, but has offices in various countries including Poland, The Netherlands and China. The site claims to have over 12 million customers, 260,000 sellers, 50,000 digital products and 700 employees throughout all locations. The main product offering on G2A.COM is game key codes to such platforms as Steam, Origin and Xbox. Other products found on the marketplace include software and prepaid activation codes. G2A.COM does not purchase or sell any digital products itself, it delivers the platform for others to do so, acting as an intermediary by connecting the buyer to the seller. For frequent customers, G2A runs a subscription program called G2A Shield. Besides the marketplace, G2A has a lineup of other products and services, including G2A Direct, a partnership program for video game developers, and G2A Pay, an online checkout gateway. G2A is also involved in eSports, and sponsors professional gaming teams such as Cloud9, Natus Vincere, and Virtus Pro. Just prior to the April 2017 release of a remastered edition of Bulletstorm, Gearbox, who helped to remaster the game, announced a partnership with G2A for special retail versions of the game to be offered through G2A. YouTube game critic John Bain aka TotalBiscuit was extremely critical of the move, citing G2A's past questionable practices and threatened to not cover Bulletstorm or any other Gearbox game unless they cancelled the deal. A few days after the announcement, Gearbox said that based on Bain's feedback and comments from others, they had asked G2A to pledge to implement certain measures to ensure that their key reselling program is legitimate and prevent fraud, or else they would back out of the deal. Gearbox followed up on the following day, on the release of the remastered edition, officially discontinuing their partnership with G2A when G2A failed to discuss the matter with Gearbox by that point. G2A responded to the assertions, "All of the requests made of G2A.com in the ultimatum have in fact long been part of our marketplace", and ascribed some of the problems to the unfamiliarities that Bain and Gearbox have in regards to how G2A operates its marketplace.