Green Man Gaming is an online store owned by Green Man, a British company that sells, distributes, and publishes video games. Since it was launched in 2010, the platform has attracted 4.7 million users.
Business model
Green Man Gaming partners with companies such as Steam, Uplay, Origin, and the Epic Games Store to sell in-game keys at regular and discounted prices. These keys can be used by customers on the platforms they are associated with.
History
Paul Sulyok and Lee Packham started Green Man Gaming in 2009. Before this, Sulyok was the CEO of Prize Fight, an online gaming platform, and Packham worked on creating the technology for that platform. Green Man Gaming officially began its business operations on May 10, 2010.
Lee Packham was in charge of launching the company's retail platform and created a new way for users to trade digital games. Customers who downloaded games using the "Capsule" gaming client with SecuROM DRM could exchange some of their games for credits. These credits could be used to buy items on the Green Man Gaming website. The process involved removing the code needed to play a game, which was then sold as a "pre-owned" game. The Capsule platform was no longer used after 2016.
At the end of 2011, Callum Jay joined Green Man Gaming as the Chief Financial Officer. He had experience in financial management. Tim Sawyer became the Executive Vice President of Operations in 2011. He previously worked as the head of e-commerce at MeMega Retail Ltd. After taking a one-year break to work at Twitter on the iOS version of TweetDeck, Lee Packham returned to Green Man Gaming in his role as co-founder and Executive Vice President of Engineering.
On July 9, 2012, Green Man Gaming announced a merger with Playfire. At the time, Playfire had more than 1.2 million users and tracked over 50,000 video games. It allowed users to automatically record their gameplay and achievements from Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live. By the end of July 2012, Green Man Gaming expanded its product range to include boxed games and games for PC-DVD, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4, as well as consoles and accessories.
In March 2014, Paul Sulyok, the CEO, was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the British video game industry by the publication MCV.
On September 30, 2014, Green Man Gaming launched its own publishing division, Green Man Loaded, now known as Green Man Gaming Publishing. Gary Rowe, a former Senior Vice President of Publishing and Content at SEGA, joined the division as Executive Vice President.
In October 2016, the company made an agreement with Sony Interactive Entertainment to sell PlayStation 4 digital games using redemption keys. However, by March 2019, Sony decided to stop selling redemption keys in all markets, including Green Man Gaming.
In March 2017, Green Man Gaming opened its first website in German. After this, the company expanded to offer websites in 10 languages, including Chinese and Korean.
In April 2017, Green Man Gaming added Paul Eibeler, a former CEO of Take-Two, to its Board of Directors as an advisor.
In 2019, Green Man Gaming became one of the founding members of the UN-backed Playing for the Planet Alliance. The company committed to reducing 324,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
In January 2020, Green Man Gaming expanded its publishing program through the Digital Partners Program. This program allows game developers to use the company's publishing support and access data collected from its online store. GTFO was one of the first games published through this program.
In February 2021, Green Man Gaming partnered with Payload Studios to support game studio founders from underrepresented backgrounds through the Tentacle Zone Incubator.
Controversy
In 2015, Green Man Gaming answered claims that the Store sold keys without permission. Most keys come directly from publishers, but sometimes they have to use keys from other companies when publishers can't provide them because of business rules.
In November 2015, the company added information on each game's store page to show where the redemption keys came from. This was either directly from the publisher or from an authorized third-party reseller to be clear and honest.