![The Witcher 3 studio alleges Green Man Gaming pre-order keys are unauthorized [Update]](https://d1lss44hh2trtw.cloudfront.net/resize?type=webp&url=https%3A%2F%2Fshacknews-www.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fassets%2Farticle%2F2015%2F05%2F06%2FTheWitcher3_2_1200x500.jpg&width=1032&sign=3kNEp4shFmwRb0MlagkKvrSYq6TNE1GBTkxri_-9my0 "The Witcher 3 studio alleges Green Man Gaming pre-order keys are unauthorized [Update]")
The Witcher 3 studio alleges Green Man Gaming pre-order keys are unauthorized [Update]
If Green Man Gaming's latest deal for The Witcher 3 sounds too good to be true, it just might be.
Update: Green Man Gaming issued the following statement to Shacknews:
Green Man Gaming (GMG) has an official contract with, and has been an approved retailer of CD Projekt S.A. (CDPR) products since 11th August 2011. Following a 6 month dialogue with CDPR about the launch of The Witcher 3, we were disappointed that despite the offer of significant cash advances, and other opportunities to officially work together, (we even offered to fly to Poland to discuss in detail how we could and wanted to support this launch), CDPR chose not to engage with a number of significant, reputable, and successful retailers, including ourselves, as they instead focused on supporting their own platform GOG.
We at GMG sincerely believe in getting games to gamers, and offering them a range of buying options to suit their preferences is critically important to this industry; we often go above corporate profits and commercial gain to make this happen. We, like millions of customers, are huge fans of The Witcher series, and have been eager for the launch of this amazing title. We believe that CDPR’s desire to support their own platform by working with retail outlets that would not conflict with their own is greater than that of meeting the demands of their audience, therefore we made the decision to indirectly secure the product and deliver it to our customers. To do this, we reached out to third parties and retailers that were approved by CDPR, to legitimately pass these keys onto our customers. This means that at some point, revenue has been passed directly onto CDPR, and any additional discount on the title is absorbed by us, as we want as many people enjoying The Witcher 3 as possible.
We would heartily welcome a renewed dialogue with CDPR, and are keen to continue to not only support the launch of The Witcher 3, but to keep celebrating and bringing the whole catalogue of CDPR titles to a worldwide audience, as we have done since 2011.
What the statement boils down to is that GMG is purchasing their Witcher 3 keys indirectly from other retailers that were authorized by CD Projekt RED. This means GMG is selling these keys at either zero profit or (in the case of the pre-order discount) at a loss.
Shacknews has contacted all parties involved. Representatives from CD Projekt RED and GOG.com have both indicated earlier in the day that their own statement is forthcoming.
Original story: If a deal sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is. Yesterday, one of our Chatty posters found an amazing deal from Green Man Gaming that's offering The Witcher 3 for a staggering $38.99. For a pre-order deal, that falls under the "too good to be true" category.
The problem is, CD Projekt RED doesn't know where these codes are coming from.
Earlier today, a CD Projekt RED representative indicated to GameSpot that any keys Green Man Gaming is offering are coming from an "unknown source." What this means is that since these keys are essentially unauthorized, none of the revenue from these sales will go towards the developer.
CD Projekt RED has previously been in collaboration with the folks at GOG.com since 2011, with both parties collaborating on marketing efforts that included a joint press conference. The Witcher 3 will also be one of the first mainstream releases to release on the new GOG Galaxy client, currently in beta.
Shacknews has reached out to representatives for CD Projekt RED, GOG.com, and Green Man Gaming for full statements. This story will be updated as those statements come in.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, The Witcher 3 studio alleges Green Man Gaming pre-order keys are unauthorized
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Working on finding out.
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Mother fucker
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You should reach out to Namco Bandai as well, seeing as they are the distributing publisher for TW3 when it comes to GMG.
This sounds like more of a lack of communication between Namco and CDPR than anything shady on GMG's side. There are several publishing companies that openly and happily work with GMG, and it's taken them several years to build a reputation online. There should have been more followup with the important players in this situation before posting potentially harmful stories like this one. Irresponsible. -
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Weird, hope this gets sorted out. I was planning on the steam purchase anyway to have the trilogy collection in a single library, even though GOG is great and so are these sale prices.
I've bought some Origin and Steam stuff from Green Man in the past, makes me wonder how many of those were legit. -
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They had GTAV for $47 down from $60 and I think there may have been an earlier deal than that one that was $42 but I could be misremembering.
Cities Skylines for $22 (vs. $30)
I seem to remember buying the last 2 BF games for roughly the same discount from them.
It is decidedly not unheard of.
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Oh I do Josh, I do...
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Yeah GTA 5 was $42 on GMG if you pre-ordered early enough, with Rockstar keys. I remember getting L4D2 and Portal 2 each for $37.50 pre-order from Valve themselves (though I think MSRP was $50 in those cases).
Either way, I dislike that kind of logic. If Walmart had a boxed copy of the game for $30 and the employees insisted it wasn't a price mistake, would you say it's "too good to be true"? At what discount can a customer buy a product without someone else making them feel guilty for it? If software companies want to rein in shady elements of their distributors, they aren't going to have much success appealing to customers when it's the company that controls their distribution. Not to mention the fact that often companies have been on the wrong side of various distribution problems. (granting exclusive content only through certain retailers, price fixing in some territories like Australia, lack of support for returns/refunds when the product is defective or doesn't match advertising, attempts to control/curtail the secondary market, etc.) Steam smoothed out some of these issues in the past but lately game companies have been trying to skirt around Steam wherever they can and I'm not surprised to see the situation worsen. Not that Steam is perfect either but it has represented a reasonable middle ground.
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To be fair it's the developer who said they may not be legit. Nothing wrong with Shack reporting on it.
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Except that they, and Gamespot, and whoever else, are reporting without enough information, making it little better than clickbait bullshit without enough information.
Call me crazy, but I'd like to expect better of this site, and gaming journalists in general.-
A developer raising questions about the validity of their product in the marketplace is a story in itself even if it turns out to have been a misunderstanding (which I think it will). If nothing else we may come out of it with more of an understanding of how these deals work.
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This. Developers don't go off on tangents like this, they must be pretty upset and sure of themselves to broach it in this fashion, which is *really* part of the story...
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Yeah I was not meaning to criticize the story (which is good reporting), just the logic of "too good to be true" or feeling guilty about how you buy a game when the market has been inherently scummy in a number of ways for a long time often to the cost of the customer. And it looks like that's actually the case this time too if GMG can be believed. GOG is trying to shut GMG out to bolster their own service, which is a form of price manipulation from CDPR. It may be within their rights (I'm not making a legal argument here) but it's hardly the kind of thing most customers want to see and it's even shadier to throw accusations of unauthorized keys when they are clearly valid keys for which CDPR will get their already-negotiated cut.
It's nice to see a little more exposure to the kinds of dirty business that goes on in game sales!
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I remember some concerns very early in GMG's existence but over time they seemed to be proven legit and at this point most gamers seem to trust them and you haven't heard of them being singled out as a problem (in the way G2A has been, for example). They've been around for long enough that I'd expect some big developers or distributors to have said something before now if their keys are not legit.
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I know you're joking but for those that don't remember it was due to a mistake on Newegg's site not game keys purchased from ISIS
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Writing in the CD Projekt Red forums, business development manager Rafał Jaki said fans of the company should not buy The Witcher 3 from Green Man Gaming.
"I would kindly ask our fans no to buy via GMG at this time. We had not sold them Keys and don't know the origin of them," he said.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/35436-Witcher-3-35-off?p=1634844&viewfull=1#post1634844
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I think currency values are where they can sometimes scrape some more margin as well.
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Region in space? Or region in time...
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Man, this (and similar articles on other sites) is jumping to conclusions pretty damn hard.
GMG has never been a suspect retailer before, and I seriously doubt anything untoward is happening here.
It amazes me that anyone is running stories on this without getting actual information first, and on top of that, they're not "selling keys" right now, because no keys have been issued. They often don't send the keys for games until a few days before release in my experience.
My guess is this is 100% misunderstanding and everyone who put this story out there is going to have egg on their faces and further damage the reputation of games journalism being any kind of actual journalism.-
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So look at it like this:
You have a car. You plan to sell this card and advertise it for sale. Suddenly your neighbor is trying to sell your car as well, only he actually hasn't purchased it from you yet. To top it off, he will *never* purchase it because you've already told him you wont be selling *him* the car under any circumstances.
What's the neighbor up to?
And that's the thing, they specifically chose NOT to sell keys to GMG...so there literally isn't a legitimate source of keys anywhere in the world they can get them from. If you think like the developers do.-
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They've gone rogue!
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Why is everyone so quick to defend a retailer? Their job is to make money and it shouldn't surprise anyone that this 'could be a possibility'
I know I've inadvertently bought a key from a reseller and received a screenshot of the key in my email.
Yeah, they've never been called out before but does that mean they've never done it or have other publishers decided that it's not worth it?-
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Apparently not this time
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=33439959#item_33439959-
They still bought them from an "authorized" shop, not from some random guy on the internet, so they know 100% the keys are legit. So my point still holds.
And as it seems its been a matter of the developer beeing picky about who sold their keys, and it wouldn't be a far fetch to think that it was a move to push their new and shiny GoG galaxy platform.
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Yeah, this is news..and it's not the shack making it up or jumping to conclusions. I'm not sure what the rage is about.
Also, good deal. No reason to not buy it ;)
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People seem to want to jump on Shack staff lately. If this was some rumor, I'd be right there alongside them, but these are statements directly from the developer, and worth reposting.
I don't know how GMG gets their great prices without losing money, so I'm almost certain there's some shady shit going on with that site. Buying out-of-region or something; I don't know.-
Exactly. And it's being discussed on other websites, reddit, etc. It's a big story with possible ramifications for some people who are concerned about such things.
Personally, I think the Witcher devs pretty much know for sure that gog is selling keys from another source. On the other hand, as a consumer I am 100% fine with this. It's business. Some people are concerned about who gets their cash, i.e. the Developers. So yeah, they *should* know about this.
I'd buy the game from a crack whore on the street corner if it was cheaper and easy enough. I'm a consumer.
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That's taking it a bit far, IMO. As "a consumer", you've got whatever right to buy from whomever you please, no matter where that code comes from, even if it fucks over the people who made the product in the first place? Seems greasy how quickly gamers will bite the hand that feeds, particularly a "good" publisher like GOG/CDPR.
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I think you mean gmg and not gog.
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UPDATE: The GMG statement to Shacknews:
Green Man Gaming (GMG) has an official contract with, and has been an approved retailer of CD Projekt S.A. (CDPR) products since 11th August 2011. Following a 6 month dialogue with CDPR about the launch of The Witcher 3, we were disappointed that despite the offer of significant cash advances, and other opportunities to officially work together, (we even offered to fly to Poland to discuss in detail how we could and wanted to support this launch), CDPR chose not to engage with a number of significant, reputable, and successful retailers, including ourselves, as they instead focused on supporting their own platform GOG.
We at GMG sincerely believe in getting games to gamers, and offering them a range of buying options to suit their preferences is critically important to this industry; we often go above corporate profits and commercial gain to make this happen. We, like millions of customers, are huge fans of The Witcher series, and have been eager for the launch of this amazing title. We believe that CDPR’s desire to support their own platform by working with retail outlets that would not conflict with their own is greater than that of meeting the demands of their audience, therefore we made the decision to indirectly secure the product and deliver it to our customers. To do this, we reached out to third parties and retailers that were approved by CDPR, to legitimately pass these keys onto our customers. This means that at some point, revenue has been passed directly onto CDPR, and any additional discount on the title is absorbed by us, as we want as many people enjoying The Witcher 3 as possible.
We would heartily welcome a renewed dialogue with CDPR, and are keen to continue to not only support the launch of The Witcher 3, but to keep celebrating and bringing the whole catalogue of CDPR titles to a worldwide audience, as we have done since 2011.-
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Of course they're not going to reveal their middleman, because CDPR would stop working with them.
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My assumption is that GMG is not giving the keys until right before the game launches. That'd be one way to hide their source for now
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Let me see if I got this straight: GOG says "Fuck GMG, no keys for you", so GMG finds keys to sell (at a loss). GOG finds out and says "Fuck GMG, how'd they get keys". GMG says they're good and we're selling them at a loss. And somehow GMG has to be in the wrong?
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Well if they are buying the keys knowingly from a middleman that is breaking contract by selling them, that would be shitty of GMG. But whether or not they're doing that is pretty wild conjecture.
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By the way, it's not confined to GMG. No major digital distributor is carrying The Witcher 3.
It's a questionable move by CDPR, but they've accrued enough goodwill to be able to throw their weight behind a decision like this.
GMG has weight too, I wouldn't be surprised if they bought a truckload of legal copies from a local UK distributor and some poor intern's next weeks will consist of redistributing Witcher 3 keys.-
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You know what, these places might as well not exist for me.
But it's interesting. It looks like CDPR doesn't want any keys circulating. All these platforms (GOG, Steam, Origin, UPlay) directly bind the game to an account. No resale, price gouging and sale hoarding possible.
If this is their official stance, I feel they should've communicated that somehow. This looks shadier than it needs to be. Also really makes me wonder where GMG is getting legit keys from.-
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It's not really any different than when EA chose to sell stuff through Origin exclusively. Valve has no expectation of right to sell that stuff even if their users want it and if Valve were to buy up keys from somewhere else and resell them, they would very much be in the wrong.
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If this is indeed what CDPR did, then they've instantly burned any good will I have for them. Granted, I'm a gamer first, so I'm not going to skip a great game over it, but this kind of behavior in the games industry is shitty and should be called out.
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Oh, I landed on the "knows source and limits of 3rd party agreement" square!
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third parties and retailers that were approved by CDPR, to legitimately pass these keys onto our customers
This means that at some point, revenue has been passed directly onto CDPR
Depends what you mean by grey market I guess. But if CDPR got paid and retailers were going to sell them to customers anyway, I think CDPR calling them unauthorized is disingenuous. They are using anti-competitive tactics against a competitor, not being screwed out of revenue by shady thieves.
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Agreed, and that's part of why I said "depends on the definition of grey market". Even the normal definition of grey market is pretty, well, grey. The most standard definition I can think of is when a company is selling e.g. a Canon camera but they aren't an authorized reseller so Canon says they won't honor the warranty. There are always questions regarding how the company got the camera in the first place and if it might have been illegally sourced, but I think in most cases it's by importing them from regions where the camera is sold cheaper.
When it comes to a 30-digit number, I think most people would agree that country of origin is meaningless except for price-fixing and the concept of a warranty is a joke.
As an aside, I think there's a growing parallel here to the Canon situation. I've not tried it, but I've heard that sometimes you can get cheap keys from Origin if you proxy through Mexico or something. The irony here is that it is often seen as totally fair to help Australians get keys for games that are sold at ridiculous prices in Australia or are not allowed to be sold there by their stupid government, but getting a good deal for yourself by acquiring a key from a country where they are sold cheaper is seen as encouraging shady business. At some point the global market is going to have to act more like it is global, and digital goods will probably lead the way by forcing the issue sooner than physical goods could.
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Isn't it obvious that a retailer only makes money if you buy through them?
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That's the problem, CDProjekt the developer seem unable to separate themselves from GOG.com the retailer. (in case you didn't know, GOG is owned by CDProjekt)
IMO, GOG/CDP realized that GMG would do what they always seem to do, undersell the big online retailers, and they didn't want GMG taking a chunk out of their online sales.
+1 for GMG, minus several million for GOG/CDP, IMO.-
Yes but watcher was translating a statement from GMG, not GOG
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Thanks man. My Witcher is safe.
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Yeah, I've been soured on them ever since. Fucking morons.
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You quoted "harmed" as if someone else said it but you were the only person to use that word
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Oh gotcha. They harmed their reputation, they harmed the trust customers had in them
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They were emotionally harmed. They were told that all of the games they purchased would likely no longer be available anymore. It was an amazingly stupid stunt
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Yeah, seems like an overreaction.
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Pffft, way to hold a grudge, keep fighting the good fight.
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i think im missing some of the details in this whole issue with GMG, GOG and CDPR (becuz acronyms take out details, lol).
If CDPR didnt want to sell through GMG, they dont give them keys.
They give other retailers keys, like GOG.
GMG says fine we'll get keys from the other retailers behind your back. (i think?)
CDPR says we didnt authorize you sell keys for our game.
If CDPR wants to only sell through certain retailers / platforms, i think they're free to do that. the question is really whether or not CDPR has the legal right to stop them and whoever was the "middleman"
Also, i wonder what middleman, exactly, these keys came from for GMG to sell. If they won't tell i cant help but assume that it would at least hurt their reputation with CDPR and possibly the gaming community, and at most be illegal.-
The piece that you're missing is that GOG IS CDPR
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That doesn't really change anything though. CDPR has the right to sell through whoever they want and they have the right to exclude whoever they want.
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It could also be that they got them from another large distributer to sell, but don't want them to get in trouble.
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If that's the case then presumably that distributor has restrictions on who they're expected to sell to and other distributors aren't on the list. GMG going that route would then be attempting to violate the terms under which CDPR is publishing the game.
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Like, generally I'm pretty sure these things are sold "not for resale". The "for resale" sales would be from CDPR to a distributor, whoever buys them from that distributor isn't licensed to resell them.
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Unless they're buying physical copies, like say, from corporate GameStop.
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I did make sure to contact their UK office, but I have not received a reply.
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"Earlier today, a CD Projekt RED representative indicated to GameSpot that any keys Green Man Gaming is offering are coming from an "unknown source." What this means is that since these keys are essentially unauthorized, none of the revenue from these sales will go towards the developer."
Completely FALSE, if the key can be activated in steam, or in their shop, it means the developer has received revenue. If what im saying wasn't true, it would mean that they aren't using a simple key check the first time a game is activated, with the list of keys that they have produced and that is on the servers (as every game has from a long long time ago) and a simple old school keygen could be used to crack it.-
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CDPR sells the game at hugely discounted prices in some regions (where people can't afford $60 games). GMG could be buying the retail copies in bulk from these regions and selling the keys on their site. That's extremely shady and even with this "discount" of theirs, they'd be making a profit.
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Keys from one region can't be activated on another region. And even then you are imagining what could be happening.
Also GmG already said they bought them from aproved retailers, and that they are going to absorb the loss from the disscount they make, so the people that already preordered with them can get their keys.
Basically the one beeing greedy trying to move people to their new gog galaxy distribution platform is CDPR / GoG (they are the same thing), and the one paying for that greedyness is GmG so consumers get untouched.
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Sounds ugly but it isn't an issue that bothers me. But then again, I buy games off Origin and Uplay
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