Gearbox pulls out of the G2A deal on Bulletstorm launch date

As you may have recently heard, Gearbox got into trouble with G2A, a popular online key seller. They tried to strike a deal with them, however, under pressure from the gaming community, they went back to G2A with a list of demands on making their service more transparent. It would appear that the online service did not do much about the list, as the deal seems to be off as of today.

The backlash came from numerous places. Developers were vocal about G2A selling keys obtained through stolen credit cards, with tinyBuild even stating that G2A sold $450k worth of their game, SpeedRunners. All this caused Gearbox to rethink their involvement with G2A and, working alongside John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, came up with a list of reasonable demands. They included, but were not limited to, G2A releasing their fraud protection shield for free for all users, removing hidden charges from payment, as well as opening their service to developers and publishers so that they can look for fraudulent keys.

It would appear that the demands have not been met, as Gearbox head of publishing, Steve Gibson, had the following to say: “As there has been no public movement from G2A by the time Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition launched now on PC, Gearbox Publishing will be doing their part to not directly support a marketplace that did not make the new public commitment to protecting customers and developers requested by Gearbox Publishing. We do not control G2A’s marketplace or where they may obtain keys from parties outside of Gearbox Publishing, but we can confirm that today we have begun executing on our extraction process.”

It remains to be seen if this will hurt Bulletstorm’s chances on the market, as it is out today, but more importantly, whether G2A will do anything to improve their service.