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Comment by Ajedi32 | Hacker News Reader

Why is that something the devs have to deal with? Shouldn't that be Steam's job, or G2As?

Devs are the ones selling the keys that Steam issues to them when they ask. So they are the actual seller who needs to deal with the problem, not Steam. G2A doesn't care because they're not the ones hit with the fraud report.

You mean like if the keys were being bought off the developer's own website? G2A claims they're offering a 10x refund to the developer in such cases:

> The site said it would also start offering developers refunds worth 10 times the sum lost if they could prove keys had been sold on G2A after being bought with stolen credit card details.

The developer interviewed in the original article claims that doesn't matter because the stolen keys are being bought on Steam, not on the developer's own sites:

> Mr Rose responded saying most developers relied on sales via Steam and other third-party stores rather than their own sites, so G2A's refund offer was a "red herring".

But again, shouldn't Steam be the one dealing with the problem in that case? Why do the developers care?

What do the developers lose if their keys are purchased with stolen credit cards? If it’s about chargebacks, can’t they just disable the keys involved?

Money? Chargebacks aren’t free.

Chargebacks are a costly process. The processor will charge a fee ($15-$25 is a fair guess) and you lose the money from the transaction.

One thing I don't understand is why the CC does charge a fee to the defrauded party. I mean, I'm not doubting this is what happens, but I don't understand why.

The merchant is in the best position to prevent fraud, so it makes sense that they bear the cost of fraud. You can't charge person who committed the fraud, because you don't know who they are (unless the merchant has video footage or something). Charging the cardholder is illegal. If the merchant bank bears the cost then they would just be redistributing the costs back to some other party and we would be back to square one.

That makes sense. But in the case of online transactions (where you can't ask for id), how can the seller prevent the fraud? It's there any due diligence expected? Or how can they send themselves? Is this just an example of "the cost of doing business"?

I think that the credit card issuer is in the best position to prevent fraud, but they have the negotiation power to foist this expense on merchants.

Yes? But they don’t. So until they do, tiny 2-person studios plead with their fans.

They don't? I was under the impression Steam would simply revoke keys when they receive a CC charge-back for them.

What is it, specifically, that devs are having to do when a fraudulent key gets used? The article doesn't make that very clear.

Steam keys for a game can be generated at no cost to the developer. If you sell your game outside of Steam on another store or your own store, you can then attach a Steam key to that sale so that players can activate the game on Steam (because everyone likes having their games on Steam). Valve has no control over chargebacks for sales that happened outside their store since it's not their store. Once a chargeback is received the developer can then go and deactivate the key attached to it, which will disable the game on the user's Steam library.

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