Fraudulent Farcry 4 Keys from Origin have been revoked

Ubisoft have recently revoked a number of FarCry 4 keys that had been illegally obtained through various grey market stores such as G2A and Kinguin. EA has also confirmed that Ubisoft has recently revoked keys for FarCry 4 that were fraudulently obtained from Origin. Other keys, for the other games, that were also illegally obtained were games such as he newly released Assassin's Creed Unity, Watch Dogs and The Crew. Kinguin has estimated that 148,377 Euros will be refunded, they also claimed that an unidentified Russian purchased the keys.

In response to a sudden disappearance of games from user library's; over 4600 tickets have been submitted in a mere 72 hours by the people who have mysteriously lost their games.

Similarly, this has happened to developer Rebellion games in relation to their Sniper Elite game franchise. In the year 2013 of July, Rebellion had claimed that there were fraudulent keys and had taken similar action to Ubisoft and EA.

G2A and Kinguin are not authorized Steam resellers, they acquire their keys from various places. Such as from cheaper regions, of which they resell in more expensive markets for a profit. The reason why the games are cheaper is because the average income is a lot lower than say in the UK, as a result of gamers not being able to afford games, the piracy rate is a lot higher than anywhere else because people will not simply stop playing games because they cannot afford them; they will instead pirate them. Which is why as a response from developers to combat piracy in these regions, is to lower the prices so that buyers can afford them and therefore reducing the piracy of their game.

Unfortunately, as a direct result we have richer people who are buying keys in bulk that are intended for poorer countries and then selling them on again in the expensive markets for a huge profit in comparison to what they paid.

To combat this they could region lock but no one would want that, as it means for example, if one were to emigrate from the UK to the US, you may loose all of your games. Some people have thousands of pounds/dollars worth of games on their Steam accounts. Region locking is unfortunately a good solution to countering these people who are buying keys to make a profit.

This is not the consumers fault, as how are they meant to know where their game key came from? What is a legitimate re-seller and what is a grey market seller? How can you tell the difference? There are no lists, and it can be hard to determine what is legit and what is not. Furthermore, these keys are working as intended and buyers never give it a second thought after they have their game.

Further more, popular streamers have deals with these websites. For example, PewDiePie has a deal with G2A and gets a cut each time a game is bought using his links. Consumers are being told by popular individuals that "it's okay to buy from here.".

This is why when a new game comes out, Steam sells the game for full price (£40 or your regional equivalent) whereas on other sites the game being sold is 25% cheaper. This is not sorcery or that they are better at marketing the product. It is simply because the game key they are selling was simply never intended for the region it is being sold in, and sometimes they are illegally obtained.