Riot bans key reseller G2A from sponsoring League teams

No more G2A branding at LoL events

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G2A is fairly infamous among game developers. The site is a third-party key reselling site, which sells game keys users have acquired (through various means), often without the permission of the developer. This means that often no money from the sales goes to the people who made the game.

While most keys on there might be legitimate, there have been many reports of the keys being sold that circumvent regional pricing, or even the keys being acquired through shady means. They’re also well known for sponsoring and having affiliate schemes with a lot of eSports teams and streamers.

It looks like G2A may have poked League of Legends developer Riot a bit too hard, though, as according to DailyDot, they have banned the site from sponsoring any League teams. Their logos are not allowed to appear on any branding for the teams.

G2is fairly infamous among game developers. The site is a third-party key reselling site, which sells game keys users have acquired (through various means), often without the permission of the developer. This means that often no money from the sales go to the people who made the game.

While most keys on there might be legitimate, there have been many reports of the keys being sold that circumvent regional pricing, or even the keys being acquired through shady means. They’re also well known for sponsoring and having affiliate schemes with a lot of eSports teams and streamers.

It looks like G2A may have poked League of Legends developer Riot a bit too hard, though, as according to DailyDot, they have banned the site from sponsoring any League teams. Their logos are not allowed to appear on any branding for the teams.

The banning appears to be due to G2A selling accounts and boosting services, which lets players skip the ranking system to get straight into the higher leagues. That’s been a big enough problem to cause a major stink in pro-level League before, so it makes sense for the ban.

In a post on /r/leagueoflegends, the Developer Relations/3rd Party Ecosystem Manager at Riot J. Eckert, confirmed the ban and claimed it has been in place since the middle of September:

“…we’ve already formally banned them as a sponsor as of September 18th, and have no plans to reconsider the decision at this time.

This was NOT a decision we made lightly, and came after many weeks of back and fourth conversations with G2A to find a resolution, which we were not able to reach an agreement on. We do not at all enjoy affecting the income of the teams, but the LCS rules include guidelines specifically against this sort of thing. We did however keep teams in the loop during the process in an attempt to avoid any surprises.”

So you’ll no longer be seeing G2A’s logo whizzing about the screen or nestled in a pro-LoL streamer’s videos. I’m sure it will be deeply, deeply missed.

The banning appears to be due to G2A selling accounts and boosting services, which lets players skip the ranking system to get straight into the higher leagues. That’s been a big enough problem to cause a major stink in pro-level League before, so it makes sense we would see a ban.

In a post on /r/leagueoflegends, the Developer Relations/3rd Party Ecosystem Manager at Riot J. Eckert confirmed the ban and claimed it has been in place since the middle of September:

…we’ve already formally banned them as a sponsor as of September 18th, and have no plans to reconsider the decision at this time.

This was NOT a decision we made lightly, and came after many weeks of back and fourth conversations with G2A to find a resolution, which we were not able to reach an agreement on. We do not at all enjoy affecting the income of the teams, but the LCS rules include guidelines specifically against this sort of thing. We did however keep teams in the loop during the process in an attempt to avoid any surprises.

So you’ll no longer be seeing G2A’s logo whizzing about the screen or nestled in a pro-LoL streamer’s videos. I’m sure it will be deeply, deeply missed.

Riot asks teams to remove G2A logos as it mulls sponsorship ban [DailyDot]


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