A “rogue” G2A employee attempted to get websites to publish favourable content on them

I think it’s safe to say at this point that video game marketplace G2A has a reputation that’s on par with that of 1990s German air transport. Especially when that air stewardess marched to the top of the scum class seating and demanded that she “HEAR ONLY VON CLICK!” when it was time for lift-off and we had to put our safety belts on.

Anyway, the site has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, with some developers preferring that you instead pirate their video game rather than buy a key through G2A which has probably come about from fraudulent credit card activity. Although holy balls people, go buy the game through any number of legitimate digital distribution sites before you even think of pirating said game. Give the developers some financial love, don’t take the sentiment seriously and use it as an excuse to steal.

With a bunch of bad flak from consumers and the press, G2A last week detailed how they would refund studios up to ten times their cash lost from chargebacks on credit cards that were stolen by scum, provided said developers did all the legwork in providing irrefutable proof that could be verified by an independent body afterwards. Which is totes better than G2A putting in the effort to not buy obviously stolen batches of game code keys from the market of thieves who operate today. Hashtag sarcasm.

Clearly not enough, G2A has now been busted for attempting to sway public opinion on the site with an article that would attempt to paint them in a more positive light. Indie games journo and translator (cheers, PCGamesN) brought the news to light yesterday, tweeting out key bits of the article that G2A emailed out to websites as they sought to to improve their “brand awareness and public image”.

Which admittedly doesn’t sound bad, until you factor in that G2A wanted to have this article published as original work from the websites that they sent it to, without any mention that it was written up by them. Holy shady ethics Batman:

Ahahaha.

No. pic.twitter.com/7hqtxDY3X1

— Thomas Faust (@SomeIndieGames) July 8, 2019

Speaking to PCGamesN, G2A head of communications Maciej Kuc said that “this is something that had no right to take place, must’ve been done without authorisation, and in no way was within the scope of our actions.”

These e-mails were sent by our employee without authorization, for which we apologize to @SomeIndieGames and the 9 (!) other media outlets he sent this proposal to. He will face strict consequences, as this is absolutely unacceptable.

— G2A.COM (@G2A_com) July 8, 2019

I am the only authorised person to talk to the media in the company’s name. The mentioned suggestion is absolutely unacceptable, and if proven to be real, strict consequences will be drawn.

G2A says that the employee went rogue and that there would be consequence’s for the employee’s action. Until then, press X to doubt when an unethical website attempts to create an ethical reputation by asking other websites to publish content in an unethical manner for them.

Last Updated: July 9, 2019