this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a key on G2A but you're asking to get ripped if you buy some mystery pack. Just buy the specific game you're looking for if it's the cheapest deal. I buy a lot of my games on there because many times it's the best price but I've never purchased those mystery bundles.
Even in a situation where you're relatively assured to get the game, it can still be damaging to foreign markets. Further use of sites like G2A can encourage publishers to pull out of markets where they'd set regional prices, denying lower-income countries access to those games, and ensuring no future low G2A prices.
They've also habitually been used as a way to launder money. If a pickpocket steals someone's credit card, they typically use it to quickly buy a large number of game keys to sell to sites like G2A before the card gets canceled, resulting in a situation that's difficult for the publisher to reverse without negative attention from a buyer that believes themselves legitimate. It's possible that those sites stopped allowing anonymous key purchases now, but it's still a bad mark on them historically.
This is the same parroting I saw on Reddit and it's not really based in reality. G2A is based in the Netherlands and therefore bound by EU law. If fraud was that rampant then there would be investigations out the ass. The reality is that there is fraud on G2A just like there is fraud on every single open marketplace on the internet and it's not nearly as prevalent you're making it out to be.