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To nobody's real surprise, Gearbox announced today that they have pulled out of their deal with notoriously shady key reseller G2A. The initial deal had G2A selling a number of exclusive versions of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition to consumers. This move comes just a couple of days after the partnership was announced and just a day after Gearbox gave G2A a list of demands that they wanted fulfilled or else they would pull out of the deal.The demands stipulated that G2A had just under a day to make sweeping changes to their policies. Gearbox's head of publishing, Steve Gibson, issued a statement today on the newly dissolved partnership.
"As there has been no public movement from G2A by the time Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition launched now on PC. Gearbox Publishing will be doing their part to not directly support a marketplace that did not make the new public commitment to protecting customers and developers requested by Gearbox Publishing.
"We do not control G2A's marketplace or where they may obtain keys from parties outside of Gearbox Publishing, but we can confirm that today we have begun executing on our extraction process."
"We do not control G2A's marketplace or where they may obtain keys from parties outside of Gearbox Publishing, but we can confirm that today we have begun executing on our extraction process."
On Twitter, Gearbox's Randy Pitchford placed the blame on the blame on Bulletstorm developer, People Can Fly.
"My understanding is that the dev, PCF, wanted to try something with those guys. Did not start as Gearbox Publishing initiative."
Pitchford claims that he only learned of the partnership a day ago now. To a lot of people, this entire sequence of events looks like a lot of grandstanding on the part of Gearbox. It does seem quite unreasonable to believe that a company that has been in the industry as long as Gearbox had no idea about G2A's reputation. Nothing about G2A or their practices has changed for years, and certainly nothing has changed between when this deal was made and today when the deal was dissolved. It also seems very bizarre to think that People Can Fly would have been able to make this deal without Gearbox knowing, especially without Pitchford's knowledge.
But hey, people are certainly talking about Bulletstorm, which is super convenient.
(via Waypoint)
