Earlier this week, Unknown Worlds told key reseller G2A it owed the developer $300,000. This was after G2A said it would pay developers ten times what they've lost through chargebacks for keys purchased with pinched credit cards. It's an issue several developers and publishers have raised, though G2A denies that it happens.  

A statement posted by G2A refutes the Subnautica developer's claims, making a bit of a show out of it in the process. The gist of G2A's post is that Unknown Worlds' losses through chargebacks came from sales of Natural Selection 2 in 2013, a year before G2A existed. 

"Launched in 2014, G2A Marketplace was celebrating its 5th birthday this year," the post reads. "The said keys were allegedly stolen and sold before March 8, 2013—6 years ago. Charlie wrote: 'We paid $30,000 to deal with credit card chargebacks because of G2A.' That’s just slander, and we expect him to at least edit his posts, if not straight up apologize."

Technically, G2A did exist in 2013, however, but under a different name and with a different business model. Go2Arena was a retailer rather than a marketplace, and G2A now claims Natural Selection 2 wasn't sold there. 

Factorio's developer, Wube, also took G2A up on its offer to pay ten times its losses in chargebacks, but apparently a third party auditing company is still investigating the evidence. It claims the fees for chargebacks amounts to around $6,600, so G2A may end up having to shell out $66,000. 

The tone's unusual for a statement from a videogame marketplace to a developer, right down to the title of the post and its accompanying header image. It's unlikely to inspire Unknown Worlds or others to work with G2A to combat fraud. G2A's proposed key-blocking tool will only be created if 100 developers sign up, but it's attracted fewer than 20. The deadline has now been extended, but only until the end of August. 

Update: G2A's insistence that it did not exist prior to 2014 has been rather dramatically undercut by, among other sources, G2A itself. As noticed by GamesIndustry, the Wayback Machine indicates that G2A was functioning as a key reseller in June 2013. G2A denied that the listing was legitimate, however, telling the site that the archive is "rather like a fun tool, not a credible source." It explained that the domain had been purchased months before it actually went live in January 2014, which is why it appeared in 2013.

But G2A's own support hub tells a different story. "The number of buyers and sellers has been rapidly growing ever since the launch of the webpage in 2013," it says. "That year there were 20 sellers and 100.000 buyers."

The page doesn't specify precisely when in 2013 the G2A Marketplace went live, but it does directly contradict the company's statement that it launched in 2014. G2A itself was founded, as Go2Arena, in 2010.

In mid-July, key reseller G2A proposed the creation of a "key-blocking tool" that developers could use to provide the site with lists of keys that they don't want being sold through its platform. Keys distributed for reviews, for instance, could be entered into the tool so that if anyone ever tried to sell one, it would be blocked. But this being G2A, there was a catch: It would only make the tool if at least 100 developers signed up for it prior to August 15.

The response has been tepid, to say the least. In an update posted today, G2A said that only 19 developers have signed up so far.

• Beer Money Games
• Bossa Studios
• CCP Games
• Crimson Leaf LLC
• Deep Silver
• Dirty Beast Games
• Dynart
• Electrocosmos
• Farom Studio
• Fox Byte Games
• Hound Picked Games
• MetalBear
• Modoka Studios Entertainment
• Moonlight Mouse
• NYAARGH
• SimaGames
• Squidpunch Studios
• Tate Mutimedia
• Troglobytes Games

Because of that, and to give curious developers the opportunity to learn more about the offer at Gamescom, G2A has decided to extend the deadline to the end of August. We'll have to wait a couple more weeks to see how that pans out, although I would probably not bet the farm on another 81 studios signing up between now and then. But a GamesIndsutry report on the extension prompted Unknown Worlds Entertainment founder Charlie Cleveland to wade into the fray.

"It's a load of crap that this tool would be 'expensive' to develop. It's also suspect how they are pushing the names of developers who don't want their games to be sold on their service—it's almost like they want blowback from players who don't understand the shadiness of their service and be encouraged to review bomb those developers," Cleveland wrote. "It's also terrible to put the impetus on developers to have to take action with G2A to get this proposal moving in the first place, while G2A profits off gray-market sales and credit card fraud."

And then, in reference to G2A's recent offer to pay developers ten times what they lose in chargebacks caused by fraud, he laid it out: "We paid $30,000 to deal with credit card chargebacks because of G2A … So, G2A, if you really want to put your money where your mouth is, you will now pay us (Unknown Worlds) $300,000."

That $30,000 in fees was lost on Unknown Worlds' pre-Subnautica FPS/RTS hybrid Natural Selection 2. The studio reported in 2013 that it had deactivated more than 1300 game keys that were purchased with stolen credit cards and then resold through third-party sites. As we noted at the time, it was a mess all around: Unknown Worlds ate a big penalty, and people who bought the game in good faith (but from sketchy resellers) ended up empty-handed. The only ones who came out ahead were the scammers.

Unknown Worlds isn't the first studio to stake a claim on G2A's offer. Shortly after it was announced, Factorio developer Wube Software said that it had suffered roughly $6600 in chargebacks caused by the site, and that it wanted to take advantage of the refund offer. As of August 7—a full month later—an auditing company was apparently still checking the list of keys Wube had provided to verify its claim.

I've reached out to Unknown Worlds and G2A for more information, and also to Wube to see if any progress has been made on its claim. I'll update if I receive any replies.

Correction: The post originally indicated that G2A was verifying the list of fraudulent Factorio keys provided by Wube Software. G2A clarified that the audit is being handled by an external company and said that the process of determining whether the approximately 300 keys "doesn't happen within a week or two."

Natural Selection 2 has been patched with a new map, alien skin and a host of fixes. 'Caged' is a deep-space construction vessel gone dark after sending out a distress call no prizes for guessing what happened. Now that the boring old crew has been digested, we're left with a four-techpoint, 10-resource-point map.

The accompanying tweaks include bots that evolve (into Lerks, Fade and Oni), improved Alien Vision and overhauled Spores. As a bonus, anyone playing at least two hours on Caged before June 10 will receive a free Abyss skin for the Skulk. The full patch notes are extensive, so it's worth reading up if you're a veteran.

In all honesty, I'd forgotten Natural Selection 2 was still going. Unknown Worlds returned to NS development in November last year, taking over from the community team that had been keeping the lights on. Since then, it's received a patch almost weekly.

Released in 2012, Natural Selection 2 pits a squad of heavily-armed human marines against a horde of alien invaders. It's first and foremost a shooter, but it incorporates RTS elements that, as we said in our very positive review, are what "ties it all together." A couple of years after it came out, developer Unknown Worlds turned control of the game's future development over to a small team made up of members of the NS2 community, so it could focus exclusively on Subnautica. Earlier today, however, the studio took the reins back, saying that it's time to "try something new."

"Unknown Worlds is getting back in to Natural Selection development. We have hired a small group of community members to reform an in-house development team," Hugh Jeremy of Unknown Worlds (who, by the way, has a very nice rig) wrote on the Natural Selection 2 site. "We are going to try some crazy stuff. We want NS2 to be huge."

An announcement that had been prepared yesterday turned out to be "pretty shit," as Jeremy put it, but then ended up slipping out anyway, leading to excitement, confusion, and anger. To address those concerns and answer as many questions as possible, he provided links to four separate posts including a Q&A about the studio's return to the game and a more detailed explanation of how the new team will work.

Eight members of the Community Development Team that took over NS2 in 2014 have been hired on as the new, official development team, although all but one are working part time. The CDT itself "will no longer operate in the same structure that it formerly did," but members of the community will still be encouraged to create and share new content for the game. "This time around, with renewed funding from Unknown Worlds, we hope to be able to fiscally compensate people proportionally to the work contributed," Amanda "Rantology" Diaz explained. "This means that anyone will be able to contribute something to the game and, if accepted, be rewarded for it."

Naturally, not everyone is entirely happy with the situation. One well-known CDT member, Mendasp, posted a long message on the Unknown Worlds forums explaining that he will no longer be working on Natural Selection 2 or the NS2+ mod, not because he was left off the team but for what he sees as poor treatment of himself and others in the community.

"I, and the other people that weren t contacted, deserved to know these kind of plans so we could make our choices based on it, especially considering other people that aren t part of this team knew," he wrote. "If this was done fully knowing the impact I don t know, but I can tell you, from my side, that this feels like I was taken advantage of, and it s quite awful to be in such a situation."

But Jeremy said the studio has "no secrets," and suggested that the problem right now is not a lack of clarity, but a lack of certainty. "There's nothing Unknown Worlds knows that we don't want the NS2 community to know," he wrote. "The decision to return to NS2 is a big, complex, nuanced one. It is hard to describe it all in a single email, blog post, or phone call. It s even harder to convey the idea that Unknown Worlds doesn t have all the answers, and that not having an answer is ok."

Thanks, Blues.

Hugh Jeremy works at Unknown Worlds—best known for Natural Selection 2, Future Perfect, and Subnautica—and he's got a rig cholk-full of water cooling. As Hugh explains below, the components of this powerful PC were originally in a case he custom built, which is unfortunately not very portable. Hugh was kind enough to show us his impressive setup and tell us about some of his favorite parts of PC gaming. 

What's in your PC?

• Intel i7-5820k @ 4Ghz
• 32GB of DDR4 RAM
• GTX 980
• 6Tb spinning disk storage
• 1Tb solid state storage
• EK CPU block
• Swiftech 320mm radiator
• EK 5.25in bay reservoir
• Laing D5 w/ EK top
• Laing DDC w/ EK top
• X99 board
• AX1200i PSU
• 4-bank fan controller
• About 1.5 litres of water

All of that feeds an Asus 2560 x 1440 screen at the magical 144hz.

There's also a Razer Blade & Macbook Pro 13 sitting here. I'm in the process of transferring from the former to the latter. Blasphemy, I know. From a parts perspective the i7 5557U in the Macbook is a really interesting little package. It's also pulling 1.1Gb/s read/write off the SSD, so credit to Apple where it's due.

What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup?

This machine is a bit weird, because it's derived from parts transferred from a custom water-cooling focused case I built out of aluminium and tears. At Unknown Worlds, we have a lot of freedom to work wherever we want on the planet. I was using my custom case in the San Francisco office, but at the moment I am working in Australia. I couldn't transfer the rig across the Pacific, disassembling it takes days, reassembling it takes days. So for now many of the parts live on in this Corsair case until I've got the guts to break out the power tools again and give them a proper home. The itch is growing.

What's always within arm's reach on your desk?

At the moment Statistical Analysis by Ya-lun Chou. It's not as boring as it sounds. Crunching data can help make better development decisions, and better games. For example, at Unknown Worlds we collect vast amounts of anonymous data about Subnautica's performance in the wild. From that data, we can work out what we're doing badly. For example, we were able to precisely measure out-of-memory crash prevalence, see that it was affecting large number of players, and devote the resources necessary to remedy it. 

Recently we worked out that 20%+ of Subnautica customers were trying to play with GPUs below min-spec, so now we're doing a better job of communicating min-spec, and assisting customers who don't meet it by providing information about GPU upgrades and so on. Chou makes sure I don't spout statistical lies.

What are you playing right now?

My Steam favourites list currently features Future Perfect, DayZ, Kerbal Space Program, Maia, Natural Selection 2, and Subnautica. A lot of these games aren't finished, or were available initially in a very unfinished state. I think this is one of the most exciting parts of PC gaming. We can be part of and influence the creative process.

What's your favorite game and why?

Right now, my favourite game is  Future Perfect. It's another Unknown Worlds game. I'm not trying to plug it though, I'm being genuine. I don't get time to play it much, and it's at a very early stage. But there is just so much potential. It neatly captures the strengths of PC gaming—access to unfinished games, iteration on those games, modding, openness.

Earlier this week on Twitter we asked members of the modding community to send us their opinions on Valve's controversial decision to roll out a program for paid mods within the Steam Workshop. Below are two responses we received.

Andrew Paterson is a contributor to the Crusader Kings 2 "A Game of Thrones" mod.

Last Thursday in one fell swoop the decision of Bethesda and Valve divided the entire PC Gaming community by allowing modders to charge money for their content. When I saw this, one thought crossed my mind: the feces was truly about to hit the fan.

Developed by a team of enthusiast Natural Selection 2 players, Combat is a standalone spinoff of Unknown Worlds multiplayer FPS/RTS hybrid priced at $15/ 10. Combat is inspired by the similarly-named mode of the original Natural Selection for Half-Life, so this is a continuation of the same concept.

That's just the elevator pitch, but the most admirable aspect is Combat's close modding ties. I loved seeing Faultline's efforts reflecting one of PC gaming's greatest pillars: creating custom content borne from passionate players. I've stabbed, sniped, and jetpacked my way through Combat like any other space shooter, but it's nice to recognize its player-driven origins.

Less appreciable is the decision to cart Combat for moneydollars. Few mods—even ones grown up as standalone games—want my wallet pulled out, so my expectations weighed not just on experiential value but also on determining if it's worth the cost. That shift in mindset adds weight on the importance of Combat proving its worth.

Spacetime grind

In basic terms, Combat is NS2 stripped of its strategy—the top-down commander role from NS2 is cut. Teams of up to 10 players on the Marine or Kharaa (alien) side load up into a map, meet at objective locations and chokepoints, and shoot/bite/flame/fart toxins at each other until either home base is overrun or enough capture points are taken. The five maps included in the launch keep true to NS2 s dark and dense sci-fi, but I didn t see much beyond Facility in Space, Overgrown Facility, or Facility Underground. By my fifth return trip to Infested Facility, I was yearning for more variety.

What I did like seeing was the way that Combat has preserved Natural Selection s asymmetry between man and monster. Combat s progression system utilizes NS2 s basic framework of tech versus organic adaptability with increasingly stronger weapons, armor, and Kharaa lifeforms unlocking during a match. Fragging fills an XP bar, and leveling up (with a max level of 15) awards a single point spent on upgrades such as swapping an assault rifle for a flamethrower or morphing into a deadly flying Lerk. It s a very MOBA-ish approach to shaping the flow of a game but in slimmer format—no minions, jungle creatures, or lanes here.

It s a neat way of learning the basics before jumping into NS2 proper. Beginners familiarize themselves with the Kharaa s emphasis on stealthy flank attacks and the Marines strength in numbers. Experienced players head to Combat for a break from relying on a good commander to have fun. It s a theory I m desperately wanting to throw my support at, but the drawbacks are too steep to ignore.

An abandoned war

The reality of it is I just can t recommend sinking time into Combat. It isn t because of difficulty, imbalancing, or bugs. It s just empty. At the time of writing, only one server was active out of the entire list, and it was full most of the time. Populating a deserted server sometimes took hours, and I would only manage to pull in three or four idling players for small skirmishes. Seeing all those zeroes in the player count column was a disheartening sign from the start.

On the active server, I d often run against juggernaut teams of veterans who would quickly bulldoze their way to my team s base and simply off us as we spawned before blowing up our power core. That s certainly not an issue inherent to Combat, but it weakened any sort of hook that kept me going for extra rounds. Outside of lopsided battles, I scrabbled for something reflective of NS2 s identity, but nothing appeared. It was just humans and aliens slaughtering each other for half an hour.

Loading into a round also took abnormally long at times. On my i7 PC with 8GB RAM and a GTX 670, I d enter a match after sometimes waiting up to 10 minutes. I d occasionally get stuck on a loading screen and would have to close the game manually try again even after switching to a lower resolution or after a complete reinstall. I didn t encounter these problems every time, but they showed up often enough to preclude them as sporadic hitches.

What s most disappointing is seeing Combat s potential dancing just out of reach every time I flame a Skulk or hack away at faces as a Fade. The framework is in place for a truly worthy NS2 alternative, and I feel that if Faultine had made the extra effort to branch out with new modes or a different approach to NS2 s systems—I d love a Spies vs. Mercs setting of perma-cloaked Kharaa up against infrared-goggled Marines—the price wouldn t factor into anyone s decision to grab it. At the moment, save your money and stick with NS2.