G2A.COM Protected Users and Enhanced the Online Experience

Since its founding in 2010, G2A.COM has become the world’s largest marketplace for digital entertainment, with more than 35 million users globally and more than 135 million items sold so far. Known for connecting buyers with sellers worldwide who offer everything from game keys and activation codes to software and gift cards, G2A.COM is a go-to platform for gamers and users who are seeking great-priced and high-quality digital entertainment. As the business rapidly expanded, G2A.COM partnered with Akamai to enhance the speed and security of its marketplace, and provide a seamless experience for users worldwide.

Under its “Gate 2 Adventure” communication platform, G2A.COM is on a mission to continue providing the world’s most trusted and comprehensive digital entertainment marketplace. Since its founding, the company has continually transformed to further its reach and connect thousands of verified sellers with millions of users in more than 180 countries. As G2A.COM grew, it encountered new circumstances, particularly when it came to delivering fast, reliable content to users around the globe.

"During our rapid expansion, we were entering new markets, with the United States being one of the most important for us. Since our data centers are decentralized, we needed a way to ensure even faster access for users everywhere, without compromising reliability and performance," said Konrad Rudy, Head of Technology at G2A.COM.

To address this need and optimize its infrastructure, the company called upon Akamai’s global network of edge servers. These servers allowed G2A.COM to quickly deliver its content to users worldwide, no matter where they are located.

Enhancing the security of transactions, protecting both buyers and sellers, and safeguarding users have always been (and remain) a top priority at G2A.COM. “As with any global online business, the more successful and bigger you become, the more you attract the attention of cybercriminals. We couldn’t afford to have our site impacted by botnet-driven DDoS attacks,” said Rudy.

To mitigate these threats, G2A.COM adopted Akamai App & API Protector. “Providing bot mitigation and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection on multiple fronts, App & API Protector has worked well and delivered the value we expected,” Rudy continued.

To further strengthen defenses against these threats, G2A.COM implemented Akamai Bot Manager, a solution specifically designed to prevent botnet DDoS attacks and protect sensitive transaction paths. Bot Manager enabled G2A.COM to enhance the security of its marketplace by targeting the bots that attempt to attack the shopping cart and payment gateway, thereby helping to eliminate fraudulent activity.

“Bot Manager was hugely successful. By giving us greater visibility into bot traffic, it enabled us to even better secure our systems,” explained Rudy.

With the knowledge that images play a crucial role in the digital entertainment experience, G2A.COM had developed a solution for managing images and their delivery. However, the company realized their solution couldn’t provide the same results as purpose-built, out-of-the-box solutions. Because the company wanted to deliver high-quality impacts without degrading performance for users, it chose to implement Akamai Image & Video Manager.

According to Rudy, “The Akamai solution quickly delivers the best, highest-quality image to each device. End users benefit from a better experience since we improved our infrastructure performance by offloading image delivery to Akamai.”

Once the company improved the security of its marketplace and image delivery, G2A.COM turned its attention to platform performance. It had been using a variety of tools to gather feedback from its users, verify SLAs, and monitor performance, but it lacked a way to understand the real-time performance of its marketplace from the user's perspective across geographies.

After evaluating a range of tools, the company decided to implement Akamai mPulse, Akamai’s real-user monitoring tool. With mPulse in place, G2A.COM gained real-time feedback on the performance of new marketplace features. As a result, the company was able to provide optimized user experiences as it delivered its marketplace around the world.

“Previously, we only saw performance from the perspective of our internal systems — databases, applications, and so on. mPulse brought the user’s perspective into focus, helping us understand the impact of new features and updates,” explained Rudy.

With mPulse, G2A.COM could measure critical metrics like conversion rates, loading times, and Core Web Vitals from the users' side of the experience. This real-time insight will allow the company to continuously improve, drive better performance, and ultimately increase business profits.

As a global leader trusted by more than 35 million users, G2A.COM sought a partner with equal reliability, global reach, and experience. The partnership with Akamai met this need, allowing the company to focus on scaling the business, expanding its marketplace, and growing globally. “Our long-standing collaboration provides us with the trust, benefits, and unparalleled reliability necessary to protect our community and strengthen our position in the market. Akamai’s solutions are integral to helping us maintain the highest levels of service and security. We’re addressing fraud risks, protecting our users, and providing them the best possible online experience,” concluded Rudy.

G2A.COM is the world's largest and most trusted marketplace for digital entertainment, where more than 35 million people from 180 countries have purchased over 135 million items. Users can choose from more than 90,000 digital offerings — including games, DLCs, and in-game items, as well as nongaming items such as gift cards, subscriptions, software, or e-learning — sold by sellers from all over the world. G2A.COM leads in online security, awarded with the prestigious American CNP Award for the Best Merchant Team of the Year in Anti-fraud and Cybersecurity, alongside companies such as Microsoft, Barclays Bank, and First Data.