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> G2A told Polygon at the time that it intended to use either PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KMPG or Deloitte to perform the audit. Unfortunately, accor

> G2A told Polygon at the time that it intended to use either PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KMPG or Deloitte to perform the audit. Unfortunately, according to a blog post issued on Wednesday, G2A couldn’t come to terms with those large firms and just did the audit themselves. I wonder what the story is there, and I doubt those are the only companies capable of auditing.

londons_explore 6y ago
Audits normally cost a lot more than $40k. If the auditor is going to take legal liability for the audit being wrong, they will also typically want rock solid evidence, which it's likely hasn't been kept. I'd bet that the sticking point in the negotiations was the cost of the audit.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  A single fresh-grad analyst for a week costs more than the total value of the keys stolen at those firms... I've seen single, generic ppts sold for more than 40 grand. Yes, definitely cost on that one.
a_humean 6y ago
Welcome to the world of audit. There are only 4 firms left after decades of consolidation and an Enron scandal. They are the only people they actually check the books of firms, and they all have profitable consultancy services that totally don't create conflicts of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms
- dmurray 6y ago
  Well, no. There are thousands of small accountancy firms that will audit your small business' accounts. For large companies, you may as well go with one of the big 4 partly because of economies of scale - you want your auditor to have experience with similar companies, and almost by definition a smaller audit firm won't have lots of large clients.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    Nothing that they said is wrong. The Big Four are a huge problem, and it's particularly interesting that the US hasn't done anything about it. Maybe not under its current (extremely corrupt) administration, but some of the previous ones seemed like they were at least sometimes shooting straight. This would for example, definitely be the kind of thing I'd expect an alternate universe President Warren to "have a plan" for. London has an obvious excuse, three of the four are legally based there (the Big Four are all organised as groups of franchised firms, to reduce overall legal exposure, but they each have a group HQ and three of those HQs are in London). Even if you are quite sure they're committing billions of dollars of fraud (which I can't prove but you'd think a government might have the resources) some of those billions go into the UK economy via these HQs, so driving them away seems like a bad idea. The US doesn't even have that incentive, any replacement audit system would also spend a lot of money in New York and Washington as the current one does, but it could hardly be any more corrupt, so why not intervene?
dmurray 6y ago
The total value of keys stolen was $4k and the settlement was $40k. The big 4 audit firms won't do a custom audit operation for that kind of price. It only really takes someone with a bit of technical expertise who both parties can trust. In this case you could probably find some enthusiast to do an excellent job for free. If Wube and G2A were able to agree the process was fair, that also seems good enough here - they don't need to satisfy a regulator or a tax authority, which are the main purposes of audits.
- conistonwater 6y ago
  $4k per the one game they looked at, not $4k total, right?
  - dmurray 6y ago
    Only one developer, who only develops one game, applied for the audit/refund process.
numpad0 6y ago
That sounds like they basically walked in alone to Rolls Royce, McLaren, Ferrari, and Maserati dealership in fleece parka with an open can of Red Bull in hand, and it turned out it just don’t work like that
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  If you have enough money, they are absolutely going to sell you a car.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    It's interesting, they actually might not. I've always assumed that since I have money I can just walk into a hotel and pay "room rate" on the spot unless they're actually full, because why wouldn't they take the money? The advertised room rates are high, but in a pinch it's much better than sleeping under a bridge. And then one night (after midnight) I arrive at my pre-booked hotel for the night and as I'm checking in an obviously drunk person in a tuxedo staggers in with a half-full bottle. He wants a room, he has cash, and I stopped for a moment to see if that works how I'd expect. It does not, the night staff tell the man their hotel is "full" (it's a quiet weekday night, fat chance) and so it's impossible to give the drunk man a room. The man tries arguing, displaying the cash, it makes no difference and he is escorted out of the hotel. Interesting.
    - jowsie 6y ago
      Big difference between a clearly very drunk person who's likely to cause issues and someone who simply isn't wearing a suit trying to buy a car.

londons_explore 6y ago

Audits normally cost a lot more than $40k. If the auditor is going to take legal liability for the audit being wrong, they will also typically want rock solid evidence, which it's likely hasn't been kept. I'd bet that the sticking point in the negotiations was the cost of the audit.

curiousllama 6y ago
A single fresh-grad analyst for a week costs more than the total value of the keys stolen at those firms... I've seen single, generic ppts sold for more than 40 grand. Yes, definitely cost on that one.

a_humean 6y ago

Welcome to the world of audit. There are only 4 firms left after decades of consolidation and an Enron scandal. They are the only people they actually check the books of firms, and they all have profitable consultancy services that totally don't create conflicts of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms

dmurray 6y ago
Well, no. There are thousands of small accountancy firms that will audit your small business' accounts. For large companies, you may as well go with one of the big 4 partly because of economies of scale - you want your auditor to have experience with similar companies, and almost by definition a smaller audit firm won't have lots of large clients.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  Nothing that they said is wrong. The Big Four are a huge problem, and it's particularly interesting that the US hasn't done anything about it. Maybe not under its current (extremely corrupt) administration, but some of the previous ones seemed like they were at least sometimes shooting straight. This would for example, definitely be the kind of thing I'd expect an alternate universe President Warren to "have a plan" for. London has an obvious excuse, three of the four are legally based there (the Big Four are all organised as groups of franchised firms, to reduce overall legal exposure, but they each have a group HQ and three of those HQs are in London). Even if you are quite sure they're committing billions of dollars of fraud (which I can't prove but you'd think a government might have the resources) some of those billions go into the UK economy via these HQs, so driving them away seems like a bad idea. The US doesn't even have that incentive, any replacement audit system would also spend a lot of money in New York and Washington as the current one does, but it could hardly be any more corrupt, so why not intervene?

dmurray 6y ago

The total value of keys stolen was $4k and the settlement was $40k. The big 4 audit firms won't do a custom audit operation for that kind of price. It only really takes someone with a bit of technical expertise who both parties can trust. In this case you could probably find some enthusiast to do an excellent job for free. If Wube and G2A were able to agree the process was fair, that also seems good enough here - they don't need to satisfy a regulator or a tax authority, which are the main purposes of audits.

conistonwater 6y ago
$4k per the one game they looked at, not $4k total, right?
- dmurray 6y ago
  Only one developer, who only develops one game, applied for the audit/refund process.

numpad0 6y ago

That sounds like they basically walked in alone to Rolls Royce, McLaren, Ferrari, and Maserati dealership in fleece parka with an open can of Red Bull in hand, and it turned out it just don’t work like that

throwaway2048 6y ago
If you have enough money, they are absolutely going to sell you a car.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  It's interesting, they actually might not. I've always assumed that since I have money I can just walk into a hotel and pay "room rate" on the spot unless they're actually full, because why wouldn't they take the money? The advertised room rates are high, but in a pinch it's much better than sleeping under a bridge. And then one night (after midnight) I arrive at my pre-booked hotel for the night and as I'm checking in an obviously drunk person in a tuxedo staggers in with a half-full bottle. He wants a room, he has cash, and I stopped for a moment to see if that works how I'd expect. It does not, the night staff tell the man their hotel is "full" (it's a quiet weekday night, fat chance) and so it's impossible to give the drunk man a room. The man tries arguing, displaying the cash, it makes no difference and he is escorted out of the hotel. Interesting.
  - jowsie 6y ago
    Big difference between a clearly very drunk person who's likely to cause issues and someone who simply isn't wearing a suit trying to buy a car.