While I get a lot of my games from Steam, if I was to tabulate where I get my games, Green Man Gaming would probably be number two on the list. That doesn’t mean that Green Man Gaming has a good reputation in the gaming world. Ever since CD Projekt said that they hadn’t sold any The Witcher 3 game keys to GMG, the site has come under fire for the alleged sale of grey market keys.

Following a second flare up of this grey market controversy, GMG is getting reactive about the information it’s including on its website. In a statement, Green Man Gaming announced that they will now tell you when you’re getting a game key and where that key’s coming from.

A post on /r/GameDealsMeta, a subreddit associated with /r/GameDeals, showed emails from Ubisoft and Activision that said that Green Man Gaming wasn’t an authorized retailer of their games. While GMG does have copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate for sale on their front page, they aren’t getting the keys distributed to customers directly from the publishers. As such, the post on /r/GameDealsMeta has noted that customers are getting different types of keys including Rest of World keys and Rest of World with pre-order DLC. Some keys were invalid altogether.

Green Man Gaming has a bit of a questionable reputation due to the deep discounts offered on new games and reports of invalid keys being offered at The Witcher 3 launch. When The Witcher 3 launched, CD Projekt noted that GMG didn’t get the keys from the publisher themselves. GMG said they purchased them through authorized retailers and were reselling them on their site. The assumption based on that info was that GMG was using The Witcher 3 as a loss leader to get people to their site to buy more games and profit that way.

In response to concerns about the legality and validity of GMG’s keys, they are making changes to their website. Store pages will now include information about “when you can expect the delivery of a key ” and “the source of that key.” A quick look at the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 page mentions that the source of the key is “Authorized Retailer.” Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s pre-order page says “Authorized Retailer” and mentions that keys will be distributed on or within 24 hours of the release date and time. Just Cause 3 actually lists Square Enix as the source and says keys will be distributed on or before release date and time.

I like that GMG is being more open even though I haven’t had any problems in my personal experience with the site. That being said, I’m not a fan of seeing just “authorized retailer” as a key source. I suppose that’s more comfort than nothing there at all. I can understand why GMG isn’t going into more detail. If they say that their source is We-B-Games, why wouldn’t customers just go straight to GMG’s source.

The post on Reddit did note that GMG is an authorized retailer of games published by Electronic Arts, Bethesda, Warner Bros, ArenaNET and Devolver Digital.

Sources: Facebook.com/GreenManGaming, /r/GameDealsMeta, PC Gamer