There has been a lot of controversy surrounding grey market key sellers over the last couple of years and slowly, publishers have been trying to clamp down on the practise. One of the more reputable key sellers, Green Man Gaming, was accused of grey market practises this week, so in response, the store will now list exactly where its keys came from for each of its games.
Green Man Gaming's troubles began earlier this year, when CD Projekt Red let it be known that GMG did not get its Witcher 3 keys from the studio, which helped explain why they were selling for so cheap at the time. Things escalated this week when the Subreddit ‘GamerDeals' banned GMG listings after coming across evidence that suggests the store's Activision and Ubisoft codes don't come directly from the publisher.
In response to this, Green Man Gaming confirmed that it would now be more transparent with where it gets its codes from in a Facebook post: “You spoke, we listened. We know you want great games at great prices. In response to your feedback, rolling out from today on the Green Man Gaming store you’ll see our pages now have two new pieces of information: 1/ When you can expect the delivery of a key, 2/ The source of that key.”
“We are committed to continually improving our site, so you can expect the very best service and experience from us. Bear with us as we have over 5000 titles to update, but remember that your feedback is always really important to us, and we want to keep helping you make informed decisions when shopping with us. Thanks for your support!”
Some listings, like the one for Fallout 4, will have the publisher listed as the source of the code. However, other ones, like the listing for The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, will simply list an ‘Authorised Distributor' as the source, which is quite vague and doesn't shed that much light.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: I generally find Green Man Gaming to be trustworthy but it is probably hard to compete against less reputable sites like G2A and Kinguin, due to their prices.
Did you mean ‘/r/gamedeals’ or ‘/r/gamerdeals’ as these are two different sub-reddits.
I’ve used GMG for years and never had a single problem.. so I see now reason to not trust them from my experience.
So GMG, does every game you sell have it’s duty paid for the country that it is destined for…
If not, you’re still very much in the grey market, and breaking the law. Not that this means there will be anything wrong with the game, but don’t try and hoodwink people that don’t fully understand trading laws.
bare* ?
no, it’s bear
GMG have been known to sell wholeslae keys to / from CJS CD Keys. they are dealing with eachother along with other cd key stores, buying from the same suppliers as G2a / Kinguin so to say that Kinguin / G2a / CJS CD Keys are not legit is just as unfair as the lie that GMG have put up so far.
GMG are a key seller just like the rest, except they try to pretend they’re legit.. but cat is out of the bag now..