One of the benefits that comes with a region-free console is the ability to access the eShop of any region on your home console. That’s especially helpful for Japanese fans, who may want to play games that aren’t getting a Western release, or who want to play a game with the original Japanese language settings. Now that the Nintendo Switch is region-free, that’s totally possible.
I’ve seen a few people on Twitter and Reddit mention that they’ve bought US/EU eShop codes from the website G2A.com in order to buy games that aren’t available in their home region. The act of doing this is fine, but what you shouldn’t do is use the site G2A.com. They’re a grey market site that often deals in stolen CD keys and codes and can cause more headache than they’re worth.
Don’t think G2A is too bad? Why do they sell something called G2A Shield to “protect” you if you get an invalid key? There are several disputes about this “service” and whether or not it qualifies as a protection racket from the service running as intended. So what makes G2A so bad? Here’s a short explanation of how you can get conned on the site:
How G2A sells you stolen keys
- Legitimate game company sells keys for their game/service online
- G2A scammer buys these keys with stolen credit card information.
- The stolen keys are listed for sale on G2A, which you unwittingly buy.
- The owner of the stolen credit card reports these charges to the police and the credit card company then issues a charge back for all the illegitimate charges.
- These chargebacks come with a fee, which the original merchant must pay. If the original merchant is a small studio or indie developer, this can bankrupt them.
- The game company can disable the keys purchased with stolen information, which then impacts you since you bought a key secondhand.
- You lose the key you paid a smaller amount of money for and the scammer loses nothing.
This has become a widespread problem in the broader PC gaming community and with Nintendo eShop codes available on the site in both the US and EU regions, we need to be vigilant about making sure we’re not supporting sites that take advantage of every party they do business with. If you need to buy eShop codes from another region, use a legitimate site like Play Asia.
Nintendo eShop Card – $50
