Green Man Gaming Responds To Grey Market Key Allegations

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There is a post on the Green Man Gaming Facebook page that explains the company's new plans to alleviate concerns over gray market game keys.

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:
  • When you can expect the delivery of a key
  • 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!
 
Fallout 4 $59.99
Source: Bethesda Softworks®

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate pre-order $39.99
Source: Authorised Distributor

Moving on down the top 10 list, the source was either the Publisher (as in Fallout 4's case) or "Authorised Distributor" (in the case of all the significantly cheaper games).

Authorised Distributor must be quite a large company, but I've never heard of them.
 
I also thought they were going to be more specific with 'source of the key' and not just a vague 'authorized distriubutor' line
 
evilsofa said:
Fallout 4 $59.99
Source: Bethesda Softworks®

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate pre-order $39.99
Source: Authorised Distributor

Moving on down the top 10 list, the source was either the Publisher (as in Fallout 4's case) or "Authorised Distributor" (in the case of all the significantly cheaper games).

Authorised Distributor must be quite a large company, but I've never heard of them.
Click to expand...

That's good to know, I bought Fallout 4 from them.
 
I've bought from them for years and never had a problem.

Has anyone actually had a problem buying from them?
 
evilsofa said:
Fallout 4 $59.99
Source: Bethesda Softworks®

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate pre-order $39.99
Source: Authorised Distributor

Moving on down the top 10 list, the source was either the Publisher (as in Fallout 4's case) or "Authorised Distributor" (in the case of all the significantly cheaper games).

Authorised Distributor must be quite a large company, but I've never heard of them.
Click to expand...
And how many graphics card and what not have been giving away AC: Syndicate for purchasing? Not surprising to see it reduced in price from an "Authorised<sic> Distributor"
 
Accursed said:
I've bought from them for years and never had a problem.

Has anyone actually had a problem buying from them?
Click to expand...

Well... i bought fallout 4 from them and i might say one thing about the transaction. I wanted to pay with paypal , and since im canadian , buying in USD isnt cheap with the current exchange rate.

I was on paypal , with the total amount in USD , wanted to see the final price in CAD. I was on almost the last step of puirchasing , the next options stated i could review the transaction BEFORE the order. Clicked on it , got directed back to GMG and the buy was done.

must be a paypal issue i guess.
 
Accursed said:
I've bought from them for years and never had a problem.

Has anyone actually had a problem buying from them?
Click to expand...

I preordered Star Wars Battlefront but did not receive a key upon the games release. Got an E-Mail instead saying they ran out of keys and that I would have to wait 2 more days to get the key of which I still have not received so I canceled the order.
 
Been buying games from them for atleast a couple years now.

Don't care where they get the keys from as long as they are legit. Never had a problem. Not sure what the stink is.
 
Nothing really, some power tripping mods on /r/gamedeals tried making a stink over something they didn't understand that basically went back to CDProject focusing on GOG as the main platform release for the Witcher 3.
 
Well, if GMG claims they are authorized seller, and those publishers claim they are not, then someone is miscommunication info to the community.
 
It sounds like they may not be completely grey market like cdkeys, but they dipped their toes in the grey market waters, and got burned.
 
I have no problem with GMG's verbage.

What they are effectively saying is that they are reselling legit keys from legit sources, but the sources aren't the publisher but likely somewhere else down the line.

Small businesses do this all the time... and when you've found a corner of the market where you can niche sell from, you sure as @#$#@ don't tell ANYONE who or where, because that's your livelyhood.

I've ordered from them quite a few times and have had not only no trouble, but it's been a good experience. And the prices are in line with what I think preorders should be.

And if they do end up short a few keys, and I need to wait a couple extra days because they screwed up and didn't have enough? If I'm saving $20... fine! And if I'm not fine with it, I can get a refund.

What's the problem?
 
I've been buying from them for a few years or so, too. The only problem I've ever had with the site was logging in one day. I used their CS links and straightened that out in a few hours. No complaints.
 
evilsofa said:
Fallout 4 $59.99
Source: Bethesda Softworks®

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate pre-order $39.99
Source: Authorised Distributor

Moving on down the top 10 list, the source was either the Publisher (as in Fallout 4's case) or "Authorised Distributor" (in the case of all the significantly cheaper games).

Authorised Distributor must be quite a large company, but I've never heard of them.
Click to expand...

Well, they probably were authorised distributors. From another country.
 
Is it really that hard to wait a month or two for it to go on sale on Steam/Origin/etc. and know you're getting a good key? It's not like the game is going anywhere. And in that time the game has usually gotten a couple of patches that actually make it playable.
 
I've run into problems with GMG on numerous occasions. They like sending me keys that don't work then take several days to get back to me on support tickets. They recently sold pre-orders of Assassin's Creed Syndicate for about $40 then a week later sold it for $33. When I asked for a refund on my original order it took them 5 days to get back to me and they tried to give me the run around. I'm done with them. I'll stick with Steam.
 
Part of buying from a "re-seller" is the fact that sometimes there is a contract involved where you cannot say who they are...

I work for a hosting company but we have people that resell our products and further down people that resell them again. Contractually we can't say who is reselling our products but the end user is still getting a legit product.
 
I buy out of region games all the time from sites like cdkeys, cddiski, and even official portals like Origin's Mexico store. I don't see why I should pay a "Western country tax" and subsidize games for the rest of the world.
 
Publisher's sell keys in bulk to wholesale distributors who sell them to retailers like GMG. If Ubisoft wants to be out there beating the "they aren't authorized to sell our shit" drum maybe they need to stop passing the keys to the wholesalers and force people to buy just from them through UPlay from now on (of course they won't as that would drastically cut into their profits). Even EA got caught up in this kind of BS with Ubisoft not that long ago when they sold some Ubi titles on Origin.

I've bought from GMG in the past and so far have never been burned. As such, I will continue to buy from them in the future.
 
Budzman said:
Been buying games from them for atleast a couple years now.

Don't care where they get the keys from as long as they are legit. Never had a problem. Not sure what the stink is.
Click to expand...


Some nerds on Reddit are mad, and this is important for some reason.
 
Why would GMG want to give up its source? ..... IMO this is extremely valuable to them and telling everyone who their source is will only hurt GMG.
 
I can explain why they've listed "authorized distributor."

This is due to a contractual obligation with these types of companies.

It rather simple really. If company A ( wholesaler ) enters into a business arrangement with a client ( Greenman Gaming ) then to protect that company from its other clients, both present and future, for example, unhappiness, future and repeat business, even law-suits, then the contract is made confidential. It's basically a legal "I won't / can't talk about our deal, ever"

Dealerships, Car, RV, Motorcycle, etc enter in these same types of deals with Ford. GM, etc.

Larger companies, companies that have had an extended relationship over the years, high degree of repeat business, fewer issues, even a companies ability to pay it's invoices on time all factor into what that company pays per unit. This is really sensitive information. In Greenman Gaming's case we are talking dollar and cents but it's still highly sensitive.

I actually fault the people that were asking more so than Greenman Gaming. They are digging a little too deep. This practice has been going on since the dawn of the industrial age back in Edwardian times.

Ask anyone here who is a PC re-seller, the best prices, those companies, all of their pricing is confidential for many of the same reasons Greenman Gaming is standing behind. That $10 dollar case fan you buy only cost, for example 0.89 ~ $1.19 per unit. Same difference
 
I pre-ordered Battlefront and AC: Syndicate from them about a week and a half ago. I then got a key for AC: Syndicate here on the forums for about half what I was paying GMG and asked GMG to cancel the AC: Syndicate part of the order. I was a day out of the refund period and they responded to my email politely and refunded me the AC: Syndicate part of the transaction with no problem.

I will do business with them until I have a reason not to.
 
Bought dozens of keys from them over the last few years, not one issue ever. I had a question once and their support got back to me in under 4 hours.
 
Tried to buy a game from them during an x-mas sale two years ago I think. None of my credit cards would authorize the transaction. Guessing it was a security thing since they're in the UK and reports stolen accounts being used at the time. Hard to trust them much after that and I had no desire to have to manually authorize each purchase with them through my credit card company. They still send me email deals though despite telling them I want off their list.
 
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