Oh yea? I'm rather curious about this because GMG is in the grey for me as far as key resellers go. I honestly have no idea how legit they are compared with other resellers like G2A. And as far as I can see, the Witcher 3 looks as expensive as fuck as a triple A game in development and I don't blame CDPR being extremely protective of that.
I don't really use them but my take is that GMG is pretty much the most reputable reseller (obviously not including GOG, Origin, and Steam). This is the first time anyone has accused them of grey market sales.
The reason I think CDPR is being really shitty in this instance is that they're making a potentially very damaging public accusation without really knowing whats going on. That is, of course, assuming that they don't know what's going on - I have a feeling that they do.
As mentioned, GMG is a very prolific reseller, known for great deals and offering games cheaper in presale than anywhere else. They often sell these games without a markup to bring people to their stores and it works for them. CDPR has worked with them in the past and I guess it all worked out. For whatever reason, it didn't work out in this instance and GMG was unable to be a sponsored re-seller or buy any keys for resale from the publisher directly.
All of a sudden GMG has a bunch of keys that they're selling for lower than anyone else and CDPR announces that they a.) don't know where they're coming from, and b.) they're not receiving a cut.
Is there a magical key making machine somewhere out there and GMG broke the code? Obviously not. Is GMG selling fake keys? Of course not. Are they foreign region keys? Very well could be. I don't know if GMG releases their keys right away upon sale or holds them until a few days before release, but that's the only possible way that CDPR could not know the origin of the keys.
-GMG is buying keys in bulk from another retailer and selling them at a loss or a break even point. Nothing wrong with this from GMG's side of it. CDPR MAY have an agreement with resellers preventing this but that beef should be between them and the reseller who sold the key
-GMG is doing the above, buying from foreign markets and selling them internationally. This is indeed a bit of a grey area, but CDPR and GOG make a big deal about not region locking. THIS IS WHY COMPANIES REGION LOCK. They make less money but they've also been promoting the fact that they're less restrictive, guess what? The risk of this happening is part of being less restrictive when you're selling keys.
-GMG is selling keys Nvidia sold them illegally. This didn't happen. Just ignore this option.
Here's how I think it played out - CDPR owns GOG, doesn't want to sell to GMG unless GMG promises not to sell for a lower price than GOG for XX days. It's in CDPR's interest to do this for two reasons 1.) Preserves the perceived value of the brand, and 2.) Ensures that they retain more sales at their store, increasing their cut. Deal doesn't go through. Maybe it goes sour and GOG no longer wants to sell to GMG even if they agree to the terms.
GMG says "fuck it" buys a ton of keys, either from foreign resellers (again, not region locked) or in bulk from an international seller. Sells those keys at a break even point or loss. CDPR asks where they got the keys, GMG tells them to go fuck themselves. CDPR makes a public statement accusing of GMG of essentially profiting off of piracy and telling people to not buy from them.
So, why do I think it's shitty of CDPR? They're basically using public opinion to posture through what could potentially be misinformation. They should have waited until they found out what was going on before going all in and claiming that GMG was essentially stealing their game and selling it. In pretty much every single scenario GMG hasn't really acted unethically at all, they've just found a loophole. CDPR has advised people to not buy the keys - Steam does this occasionally, but when a grey market re-seller is selling cheap keys that they've sourced from a foreign market. Steam does it because they have a policy of region locking games and they will revoke keys bought out of region. The assumption that CDPR wants you to make is that these keys are illigit and there's a high probability that they'll be revoked....except CDPR has a policy of NOT region locking games, so why would they revoke?
I firmly believe that it's posturing and it's an attempt by CDPR/GOG to enforce price control for their product and come out looking like the good guys. If UBI or EA did it it would be viewed very differently. Except UBI and EA don't have to do it ....because they fucking region lock their games. That's the thing, CDPR wants to be the guys who don't region lock because "fuck you DRM and the status quo!" buuuuuut they also really want the benefits of the kind of price protection region locking provides so this is how they go about doing it.
I mean, I could be completely wrong and MAYBE GMG did crack the algorithm and are making their own keys or maybe they really DID make a shady deal with Nvidia. Time will tell I guess.
