The saga continues. Just as last week's controversy surrounding G2A was escaping the headlines, with Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition developer Gearbox Studios axing the partnership they had with the controversial key reseller, the upcoming Reboot Develop conference has brought it back.
Reboot Develop is a four-year-old conference "focused strictly on games industry professionals such as game developers, artists, audio artists (both seniors and indie), managers, PR, marketing experts or sales and publishing representatives. Many prominent game industry people are slated to attend, with representatives from Obsidian Entertainment (Pillars of Enternity), 343 (Halo 4 and beyond), and from popular websites such as Kickstarter and Humble Bundle, in addition to several others.
Also in attendance as a speaker, Mario Mirek, senior account manager of G2A.com. As if that wasn't enough to stoke the fires of controversy, Mirek also devoted a significant portion of his personal bio submitted to Reboot Develop to taking a personal shot at tinyBuild, the developer that accused G2A.com of selling $450,000 worth of fraudulently purchased keys and essentially started the public outcry against the controversial video game marketplace.
"Besides being known as the G2A staff member whom (sic) accosted Tiny Build (sic) at GDC and called them out on their torrent of accusations …" Mirek's bio begins.
Mirek is referring to a moment at GDC earlier this year when Mr. Mirek took to the microphone of a panel which tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik and turned it into a brief war of words about tinyBuild's public statements. More than anything else, publicly calling out an indie game developer is not likely to help G2A's increasingly turbulent relationship with them, with several such developers asking people to pirate their games rather than buy on G2A.
Of course, this brazen biography caught the attention of tinyBuild, who published a long blog post today deriding Reboot Develop's decision to invite Mr. Mirek and treat him, and by extension G2A.com, as a legitimate business, a position with which Mr. Nichiporchik vehemently disagrees.
"Game conferences are the face of our industry, and I believe it's important for them to take responsibility for who represents it – potentially preventing situations as described with Gearbox," Nichiporchik wrote. He believes that other game industry professionals who may not know about G2A's shady practices will think G2A will lead to more business deals with G2A.
G2A did respond to the accusations, calling them false and defamatory, but only after Gearbox canceled the deal, leading many to question the timing of G2A's response. If they were, in fact, legitimate, the question asks, why wouldn't they have spoken to Gearbox sooner? When asked by GameRevolution about the timing of their response, G2A said we should instead "ask Gearbox."
At any rate, it seems the controversy surround G2A isn't going anywhere any time soon, and G2A has, for all intents and purposes, taken the gloves off.
