Gearbox tries to fix G2A saga with list of demands

Developer Gearbox has found itself at the centre of a storm over a decision to partner with online key seller G2A.

It emerged yesterday that Gearbox has teamed up with G2A to sell special editions of upcoming shooter Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. However, the studio seemed to be taken completely unaware when the announcement was greeted with outrage.

For those not in the know (like Gearbox), G2A has had a pretty rocky year thanks to accusations of key fraud and scepticism about its apparent attempts to clean up its retail portal.

Amazingly, having already struck this deal with G2A, Gearbox has now announced that it is willing to terminate the partnership unless the site can abide by a list of demands:

They are as follows, in full:

• Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A Shield (aka, customer fraud protection) is made free instead of a separate paid subscription service within terms offered by other major marketplaces. All customers who spend money deserve fraud protection from a storefront. To that end, all existing G2A Shield customers are notified by April 14th that fraud protection services are now free and they will no longer be charged for this.
• Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 90 days, G2A will open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent. This access will be free of charge and will not require payment by the content holders.
• Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 60 days implement throttling for non-certified developers and publishers at the title, userid, and account payable levels for a fraud flagging process. This is to protect content providers from having large quantities of stolen goods flipped on G2A before they can be flagged.
• Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges. Join the ranks of other major marketplaces.

To make these demands after having entered into a public partnership seems an odd way to go about things, but it will be interesting to see if G2A capitulates.