Green Man Gaming won't have Star Wars Battlefront PC keys at launch
We felt a great disturbance in the force.
Green Man Gaming has announced it has already exhausted its current stock of Star Wars Battlefront PC keys, meaning a number of its customers will only be receiving their keys some time after the game’s release.
The company announced this lapse in service in an email sent out to its customers, which was acquired by Shacknews. Green Man Gaming assures its customers it is working with more distributors to ensure all who ordered Star Wars Battlefront receive their keys within 48 hours of its release. It states many of its users will not be affected by this issue, although if you don’t receive your key tomorrow, it promises users will receive their key before the end of the day on Thursday, November 19th.
Green Man Gaming is offering a 30% off site-wide voucher in order to apologize for the inconvenience, which users should expect to receive some time after their order has been fulfilled.
This isn’t the first time Green Man Gaming has had issues fulfilling orders as it didn’t supply many of its customers with keys for The Witcher 3 earlier this year. Customers have also had issues with their keys for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and it’s been discovered it isn’t an authorized retailer for Activision, Ubisoft, and WB Games products. We hope those of you who ordered Battlefront from Green Man Gaming get what you actually paid for, although given the retailer's history, we wouldn't be surprised if this is yet another black eye for its already damaged reputation.
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Shacknews
replyDaniel Perez posted a new article, Green Man Gaming won't have Star Wars Battlefront PC keys at launch
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Just got my email. SO, I won't get the preorder Jaku bonus, but it did cost me ~25% less than origin would have and they are giving me a 30% off coupon for my next order too, so, net win I guess.
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I didn't get any email from gmg
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And now there's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/3t0p9m/rgamedeals_and_greenmangaming/
I really hope it's not true, because the prices there have been so good for so long that I'd have a hard time going back to paying $60 for PC games.-
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As a consumer, I mostly care what I'm paying for a product. All things being equal, I'll opt for the most "legit" avenue, but when we're talking 25-33% savings at launch, I will always take the best deal.
I don't know how it is you think keys could exist without money going to the publisher at some point.-
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There's no real evidence here that money from GMG sales doesn't get to the devs. They buy the keys somewhere and that somewhere most likely paid the publisher.
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The main danger with gray market sites is that they can obtain keys from "distributors" who buy keys with money laundering or identity theft. Basically selling stolen goods. Is GMG getting keys from these sources? Who knows, but there's a reason why they don't say who their sources are beyond protecting them from publisher backlash.
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Yeah, I'm not interested in "they might be doing this". On the surface, GMG seems legit, and until/unless there's proof otherwise (and not just reddit conjecture), I see no reason to assume they're doing anything illegal.
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Yeah they updated the info on WB Games which I was questioning initially because I requested a refund for Arkham Knight Season Pass two weeks ago almost and it was processed and removed from Steam. Thus WA something WB was doing from their end so they had to have had a relationship for that system to work.
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Because for the most part they appear to be legit and actually have decent customer service. They refunded my Batman Arkham Knight Season Pass and I saw the Steam key for my account was removed a few days ago. So they legitimately have a process for that. But as a business they run on razor thin margins so the only way to grow is through volume. This will increase the chances of them to get it from sources that aren't legit. Criminal enterprises that will set up legitimate businesses to do launder money, that's a key component. GMG probably can't vet all their sources and when they need more supply they're potentially going to turn to shady places and not realize it. So currently there's no evidence of GMG doing it. Other sites definitely and even those sites were sources of for credit card and wire fraud. Until then, they're innocent before guilty. But things haven't been looking very good as of late.
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A seller simply running out of keys is not a reason to suspect foul play. You're reaching here.
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They have to get more supply and supply has to come from somewhere. Criminal Enterprises will pretend to be legitimate business in order to tap in.
Counterfeit goods in any other market becomes more prevalent when there's more demand for it. This doesn't mean it won't apply to them. And I'm only talking about the odds based on increase demand, reduced supply, and the ability to vet sources. There first has to be actual evidence and we got that for a few so far. They have legitimate partners like WB, others we don't know because they won't share, and in a case we do know regarding Witcher 3. I'm pretty sure they know this can potentially happen hence why they don't share who their sources are and they honestly don't have to. They're not selling regulated or sanctioned stuff like electronics, medicine, or military equipment.-
That's all true and still all conjecture that has nothing (that we know of) to do with this. I'm confident that if you contacted any other vendor they would likely refuse to disclose their vendors as well. There's simply no reason to.
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I had my credit card used to buy like $400 worth of WoW subscription cards 5 years ago. Caught that one myself. Was able to reverse the charge and get a new card. However I'm sure they subscription cards would have still worked and got resold for money.
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also in this specific case, even in that conjecture reddit thread EA/Origin was one of the few places they said GMG directly worked with
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That's not really gray anymore.
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That's just reddit drama as far as I'm concerned.
http://i.imgur.com/I3CLoJ5.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/3t0p9m/rgamedeals_and_greenmangaming/cx22lop -
yeah I had no idea. This is probably the last time I do business with them.
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Just like Shack mods
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Something I think a lot of people forget is that GMG's original gimmick wasn't Steam keys, it was their Capsule client that allowed you to resell digital games. One of the complaints people have against digital games is there's no way to resell them, unlike console disc games or pre-Steamworks PC games.
Capsule was a way to handle that. Basically it was sort of like Steam but if you didn't want a game any more you could "sell" it back to GMG for credit. I don't know if they would then resell that "copy" of the game or if they sold it as "used" for cheap or what but it was basically designed to be like selling your used games to GameStop - you get some money/credit and you don't care what happens next.
I'm guessing the problem they discovered is that there's not enough people who give a shit about this to make this a viable business, or at least not enough people willing to forego Steam to do so. Sure, the few people who give a shit about used games are very vocal and adamant about it but GMG very quickly had to resort to selling Steam keys - the antithesis of their original premise - to survive. I'm not sure if Capsule is even a thing anymore.
And I always figured that the early games they sold for cheap - like DNF and Max Payne 3 - were deals where they were taking a loss to generate buzz and they'd stop being so cheap later. But here we are.
I figure as long as the keys com from an authorized path we're good but if the keys come from an illegitimate source they'll be pulled quickly.-
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The used digital games thing? Well, the games I always saw on there were from piddlyshit nobodies so yeah, the big publishers weren't on board.
That said, remember how the original Xbone vision was basically something along these lines - games when bought would be tied to your account, selling the disc didn't sell the game, and reselling were only going to be allowed through blessed venues (like GameStop) for predetermined prices and Microsoft and the publishers got a cut. People screamed bloody murder and they said never mind.
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The key I got from them showed up as invalid when I entered it into Steam. I requested and received a refund, but there was a thread in their support forum with people who hadn't received a working key after 5 or 6 days of waiting for GMG customer service to respond.
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So, does anyone know how to go about cancelling a pre-order with these guys?
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https://greenmangaming.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
I sent my request in.-
Thanks. It seems as if there on-paper policy is that you can't cancel a preorder within 48 hours of the release date (which in this case happens to be less than 48 hours from when their e-mail was sent) -- but it seems as if they are still honoring cancellations for this one due to it's special circumstance.
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This wouldn't be an issue if Babbages was still around.
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I have never had a problem with GMG before.
Once, I bought a game that they said would be a Steam key, and it did not end up being a Steam key. They gave me a full refund.-
They had problems processing payment from me once but an email to customer service cleared it up pretty quick. They're an ok site.
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Prey????
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Including Fallout 3, GTA IV, Prey, Final Fantasy XI, and likely others (I got tired of looking for examples):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126572-Fallout-3-Steam-Keys-Run-Out-Keeps-On-Selling-Anyway-UPDATED
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/19910-steam-temporarily-sells-out-of-grand-theft-auto-4-during-sale/
http://kotaku.com/5436298/steam-sold-out-of-prey-please-try-again-later
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/28s9hu/steam_flash_sale_ffxi_ultimate_collection_seekers/cie4vus
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Should update info that they are indeed an authorized reseller for WB Games.
http://chattypics.com/files/shackbrowseUpload_78sqbrtvsh.jpg
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Title of the article is very misleading. Only some customers won't get a key by launch.
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Title is a bit misleading since many of their customers are going to get their keys on or before launch just not all.
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Ugh!! Well I guess I can play fallout in the meantime. When are they sending out the vouchers?
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It's in the article, they're stating that everyone will have their keys before the end of the day on Thursday, November 19th.
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I didn't get an email from GMG like some did, so hopefully I get mine tomorrow or tonight.
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I got that email this morning and put in for a refund right away. Pretty shitty to announce that kind of thing on the eve of launch. Went with the good old Mexican Origin store instead of waiting to see when my GMG key would show up. At least GMG's support was good -- I got my refund literally five minutes after sending the request.
I didn't know there was a thing with the BLOPS3 keys though. Didn't have any issues with mine.-
I don't understand why buying what amount to grey market goods is kosher around here.
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lol who was the one telling me they were totally more legit than cdkeys.com?
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almost bought this but went with the best buy deal
http://slickdeals.net/f/8252829-star-wars-battlefront-pre-order-various-platforms-star-wars-bobble-head-60-free-shipping?src=SiteSearch
with GCU (so worth it, $30 for 2yrs 20% off all games) its $47.99 plus another $10 credited to your account for preordering, so $37.99 before taxes and you get a funco pop.
Downside is I have to go to the store to pickup my games so no preloading/getting it at midnight tonight. Worth it to save the money to me though. -
Just got my syndicate code from them a day early (they said no pre-loads) so I'm happy i guess.
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