News G2A hits back at Gearbox over 'list of ultimatums'

[..]'hidden fees' by saying that said fees, region-dependent VAT and payment method surcharges, are independent of G2A and outside its direct control.

Games have always been subject to VAT in the EU. Check for tax on your Steam invoices, it's listed. Either G2A didn't pay their due taxes in Poland or they are trying to make a quick buck that ammounts to about a fifth to a quarter of the sale price. Digital goods have to be taxed in the country of the buyer, not the seller (if sold commercially). However they are not taxed twice: The tax rate of the buyer, not the seller is applied.

 

Sorry, I should have made myself clearer:

On Steam the price advertised is the price you will pay, including VAT. Say Bulletstorm is advertised at £50 on Steam - you'll pay £50: £41,66 for the game and an additional £8,34 of taxes.

G2A used to be the same: The price you see is the price you pay. Now they hit the advertised price with an additional tax, in your case 20%. So for our previous example you'd end up paying not £50 but £60.

The way they suddenly add the tax on the advertised price is shady. If the game sold is subject to VAT now it has been subject to VAT before this new ruling - only Polish tax rates and not UK ones. Which are higher at 23% btw.

 

Interesting. And if you are B2B - which G2A claim their market is - you are not subject to VAT anyway. Only the G2A service charge might be subject to VAT, the same way the ebay service charge is.

 

The Robin Hood defense of saying 'developers overcharge and people wont pay it' and 'were providing a useful service' doesn't really wash when you're taking a cut and not stamping down on something that's obviously stolen...

If something costs £100 in a shop, but is going for £60 still 'brand new' down at the car boot sale, you can safely assume something dodgy has gone on somewhere...

 

Not always for example I paid £50 for a tank for my Ecig from a shop, now if I had, had the money I could have paid £220 and bought 10 of them from a place that I know, and they are legit.

So I could have had 9 to sell at a car boot and could have sold them at £35 each and made myself £315 in total minus the initial purchase cost of £198 for the 9 which would have gave me £117 profit if they all sold which they would have.

Whilst I probably wouldn't get in to the CD Key selling business I am looking at other things as my brother runs his own business online and I am looking, to join him selling certain items cheap and not because they are dodgy but because I know I can sell certain items cheap enough to make a small amount of profit and build up a customer base for repeat custom but it will take quite an investment upfront which currently I cannot do.

Just because something is cheap does not mean something dodgy has happened to acquire the item(s).

 

To be fair to Gearbox, if I had a ten foot guy in a luchador mask telling me not to do something I'd probably do as he said too.