Partly to do with the site it comes from. Best person to answer is CG, he decides what counts as one on this site.
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Whether it's an indie game or not is a key factor. Amazon deals aren't included as that'd be the same as say a publisher pack on Steam, it's a group of games that is bundled together, but not the "bundle" they're looking for.
I think their train of thought with the weekly sale is that it's essentially the same as the Indie Gala Store bundles were are not included either.
Another thing that confuses me about the bundle list is that they only included the seperate keys from the THQ Bundle as well and left the rest off the list since they were combined into a single key. It's kinda weird since HIB 1-3 and more were a single key and were added.
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Seems like it's mostly from sites that are selling the 5-10+ games below retail prices for charity purposes or at a extremely low price for them for just $1 - $5 / pay what you want deals.
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Basically all bundles not on the largest game download sites like Steam, Amazon, GMG, and GOG if it somehow uses steam are not included.
Think all bundles that have a $10 minimum are also excluded like the loaded bundle, which is more like a pick 2-3 super sale.
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So is the thought here that people should actually spend a considerable amount of money on the games they give away?
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Not true, you could get both games for free during a ~2 hour window back in January on Amazon
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You miss my point. Yes they could be gotten for cheap/free, and people took advantage of it, but the periods of time involved (hours or minutes) were comparably negligible to your standard bundle sale. After the original rush there's now very little chance that the keys for Two Worlds 2 or Hotline Miami came from that pricing error. It was an isolated incident.
Compare that to right now. The Humble Store is offering a deal that can get people 40x the contributor score on their investment. For a whole week. There's a reason the site is flooded at the moment. And we may be flooded for weeks or months yet.
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Amazon offered a bundle for three days that gave people 56x the contributor score on their investment. $2.50 for $140 CV
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So at what point should things go on the bundle list? 90% off? 95% off?
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Apply common sense. Liberally.
Also, not my problem. And I don't know why you're pressing me on it since I was just answering Rainy's question about why some bundles qualified but the Bioshock bundle didn't.
And if you really must know my opinion, I still prefer the days when bundle keys were expressly forbidden unless the whole bundle was gifted. If anything else was found to be stupid cheap, it'd be fair game. No complicated math surrounding contributor values either. The bundle list system just makes things way more complicated than it needs to be. Then again, SG doesn't have unlimited manpower to sort through (potentially) bad giveaways.
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I agree entirely with you. I'd prefer to go back to the old system. Unfortunately, the big issue will always be policing.
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And the only way to get reliable large-scale, full-time policing would likely require some sort of payroll to be properly effective (since I shudder to think how mob rule can ruin things). But that would require larger revenue to support the expense. And then SGifts becomes a commercial enterprise with the associated legal hornet nests.
There are no easy answers. We just gotta live with what we got now, warts and all. At least it keeps the points flowing.
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Humble Weekly sale, not Humble Bundle Weekly sale.
That being said, Usually the games sold in websites pwyw bundle sales.
For some reason the THQ sale was left out as well as a couple others, but in general any pwyw bundle games qualify, the occasional ridiculously low price game bundle sold at the like of Amazon usually do not qualify being a normal retail channel doing a promotion.
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I just fail to see what the difference is between a bundle that is available for a few days on a dedicated bundle site, and a bundle that is available for a few days on Amazon.
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But then you get only the basic stuff. Like with the Indiegala Dwarves bundle, you had to pay a minimum of about $5 to get all the games. Same for most of the Humble bundles.
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But the difference with the Humble Bundles is that you can't unbundle the games - it's one key that adds all the games to your Steam account. Unlike Gala, where you get separate keys for each game.
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The Humble THQ bundle didn't serve separate keys for the below average stuff, only for the bonuses.
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I bought the Desert to Sea bundle on Amazon for $10. It included Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and Spec Ops The Line. If that's not a fraction of the individual prices, I don't know what is.
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Amazon bundles just aren't counted as bundles. That's why we see so many Amazon games being given away here whenever there's a sale. It's one of the easiest ways to up contrib value, the other being Indie Gala store keys. Once you reach a substantial amount, you can then use bundle keys to gain 20% more. And repeat.
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but Amazon paid their normal price to the publisher [usually around 60% msrp].
the pwyw bundles do not pay full price to the publisheer, in fact many times they are given in a sort of consignment way, getting paid whatever buyers set aside for publisher.
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I am fairly confident that no publisher or developer is forced to be on the Humble Bundle. Which means they probably know that a lot of people will pay minimal price, and they're ok with it for the sake of the publicity (or getting some money in the door).
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Did you know that Amazon offered a bundle that gave you $140 CV for $2.50?
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Wow, are you dense?
Do you read each comment as if it not part of a thread?
For example, the post before mine said quote "Did you know that Amazon offered a bundle that gave you $140 CV for $2.50?", so in reply to that I stated, quote "And did you know that Amazon paid much more for the bundle than they sold it for, essentially giving it away.".
So, in case can not comprehend, my point was that unlike the typical pwyw bundle in where the games are essentially donated/consigned to the "bundler", the Amazon titles were most likely indiviually purchased at a set amount [usually around 60% msrp] and then bundled and sold at a loss.
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That's an observation, not a point. I fail to see how it ties into the topic discussed here.
Edit: before I get accused of density again:
So you're saying the publisher gets full money due to them even when Amazon bundle and discount games. Whereas in pwyw bundle sales, publishers only get what the buyers allocate to them. Yes, that's a fair observation. When I ask what point you're trying to make, I guess the question is, why is this of a concern to Steamgifts and the handling of bundle games?
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There was at one time a discussion on the allowance [or not] of bundle games, I recall one of the recommendations was that the game had to essentially be one in which publisher was fully compensated or donated, not consigned.
Which btw is why I still feel the THQ games should have been on the list (even if they aren't).
My comment a couple back was in fact a [counter] point.
And it all ties in by attempting to give some of the reasoning, there is one other point on why some do and some do not -- high turnover of moderators.
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Thank you for clarifying, now I understand where you're coming from.
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What is the problem with that? Is still games people want.
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It's not that it is a problem per se, I'm just pointing out that it would be a system that could be easily manipulated. I personally have nothing against giving away bundle games - I know I buy bundles because I want a few games and do absolutely nothing with the rest of the keys, so this is a good place to have them at least be useful to somebody
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So where is the difference in using a bundle game key to get CV, and using, say, an Xcom key they got for free, to get CV?
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That you needed to spend however much Bioshock Infinite cost to get the XCOM, thus creating a much higher threshold
ok then yeah.. that's ONE xcom key. compared to people who made emails or fb accounts to get multiple Metro key. If you wanted 10 Metro keys that required about 40 minutes. if you wanted 10 xcom keys you had to spend $600 dollars.
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how'd they get the xcom key? was it from a facebook post where "click here to get free xcom" like happened with Metro 2033 because those keys are also banned for similar reasons. It's bundle keys, exploited keys, and 'free giveaway' keys basically.
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That and didn't they only get a copy that could be gifted if they already owned XCOM?
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I have four keys to Victoria 2 from the Indie Gala Magicka bundle (used Happy Hour once so I could get me some extra Deponia). I've yet to use any of them (and don't know any friends that want 'em), so if the bundle status is dropped sometime in the future, you bet I'd probably do a 4-key giveaway which would up my contrib value by $80.
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So what's keeping you from making GA's for those keys now?
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Because I'd get $0 value out of it (maxed bundle value so far), I don't want to make giveaways right now and who knows, maybe I'll meet someone I like who wants the game sometime in the future. Those keys don't expire over time.
Not wanting to make any giveaways is the biggest factor. I'm content with giving to just friends right now. If I have spare change or keys, I usually make sure that my friends don't want 'em before I give 'em away. The only exception to that would be Fortix - that has to be won, not given. Hence so many Fortix giveaways.
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I, on the other hand, have four keys to Victoria 2 from Amazon, which are now worthless thanks to being bundled.
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I'm stuck with Amazon and Steam Tradeables for Darksiders 2 as well. Also Darksiders, The Red Faction games, A Game of Dwarves, Warlock, King Arthur, etc. I have more than one copy of most of them too T__T
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I think there shouldn't be a set cooldown period. Let that be up to the admin to determine when it is a good idea. If it were up to me, it would be when the bundle status looks like it is actively preventing the game from being given away. Like we see it go on sale for a good price and very few giveaways come up for it.
Either that, or set a reasonably lengthy one, like a year. I definitely think everything in bundles from 2011 that wasn't repeated in a later bundle in 2012 or 2013 should be removed from the bundle list. Those ones definitely are at the point of its bundled status is actively preventing the game from being given away.
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A variable timer would probably be the only way it could work. Again, I would love to see a system to only define games as "bundle" versions when they truly are. I just don't know that it's possible without compromising the ideas that caused the system to be implemented in the first place.
Maybe a temporary lift of the bundle status for say a week after the game goes on a substantial sale?
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Really, what even happens is that after a few months, the game is pretty much rare to be given away unless it shows up in another bundle. And given time, there will be few games that are not bundled somewhere and getting contributor value above $30 will be very hard for new members.
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Which wouldn't be a problem if CV wasn't so 'valuable'.
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see the list http://www.steamgifts.com/bundles/list the games when you create a entry with * is a bundle game
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I know about the list, I am just not sure about the criteria.
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So would you say that there is a lack in consistency here?
Edit: rephrased
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They're not really pay what you want. Technically, maybe, but in spirit, hell no! Even their use of the "BTA" expression is abusive, as there's no known average. They're just tiered bundles and there's likely no one ever paying an amount between the mininum and the "BTA" threshold.
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My guess is that AAA games are just more attractive and that's why they aren't considered bundle games (yet)
For example, I prefer seeing a 100 copies of darksiders over a 100 copies of shadow harvest. (bad example but you get my point)
I haven't given it a thought until 2 days ago when there was a huge influx of darksiders, and for some reason darksiders ended up on the bundle list for maybe an hour at most.
The first thing that happened was that all of a sudden no new darksiders GA's where created until it got removed from the list, and within a couple of minutes at least 10 new hour long GA's showed up, thus creating a lot of traffic and a lot of users where way more active on SG.
But that being said, i'm also anticipating that after the bundle closes it might be added to the list, and all the people (if any) who bought multiple copies just to increase CV will start bitching on the forum again.
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Pardon me, us Germans are not known for our sense of humour. And no, I didn't know most of these things. As someone who has used the site for a few weeks, I got a somewhat different impression.
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Could you explain why bundles such as HIB 1,2,3 etc which have single key for all games were added to the list, yet the games from THQ Bundle were not? The only games added from THQ Bundle were the ones that had individual keys.
I never understood that one.
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Bundle list under different management, bundle keys were entirely forbidden before, people were trying to submit them as individual games to get more credit and there wasn't enough manpower to adequately police them on top of other support duties, take your pick. I don't think there is one good, solid answer, but these are all perfectly plausible. Just a change that happened somewhere down the line.
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See, that's what I'm trying to figure out - the mentality that if you give away a bundle game, you're not contributing anything and therefore don't deserve any credit (past a certain point).
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It should be also noted that back then, you were able to get bundles and Steam keys for just one penny.
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There were bundles with a single key after they stopped the .01 purchases that were still added to the list. wbarton mentioned not being able to police the issue well enough before, but that is irrelevant in my opinion. When you enter a giveaway for one game and are given multiple games, who is going to complain? I really don't think the winners would report someone for giving a THQ Bundle key when the giveaway was for a single game and as such, the problem still exists.
Regardless, is it safe to assume that any Humble Bundles that are not individual keys will not be added in the future?
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I was merely showing a reason for konyo42's remark, about why it was actually an improvement.
As wbarton said, bundle list is not managed by the support staff. We cannot make assumptions on how the bundle list is managed.
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I've seen his comments, but it doesn't really answer the different issues and questions I have regarding the whole topic.
I mean, it's one thing to exploit free giveaways for CV. I agree with policing that. But so what if someone drops $40 to get 40 keys for a specific game? It's still games that end up with someone who wanted them (assuming most people only enter GAs for games they want), someone who maybe doesn't even have a few bucks left over to just go and buy the bundle. So even if it's a small contribution, it is a contribution and should be credited.
Colour me confused more than anything else.
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You're missing the point, regardless of the state of mind of the gift receiver, the people who created this site didn't want bundle games to be gifted on this particular site in the first place, it wasn't the original intent of the website, but as time passed by the site has evolved and there was a certain demand for these games to be giftable, so they made that happen, with a restriction though.
To still stimulate people to gift "regular" games the bundle CV has been capped to let the people who really deserve a reward for contributing (more expensive) games still have a decent chance at winning something in the higher CV levels.
Let's take your example, 40 key for 40 bucks wouldn't make 40 CV, it would give you about 400-800 CV for those key depending on the steamprice of that particular game.
Since steam sales rarely ever drop below 75% of it would make it really tempting just to gift a couple of bundle games instead of 1 game that's too new to be in a bundle.
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I think it's safe to say that the majority of games gifted on this site have not been bought for full price or mostly even half price. Check any ongoing sales on GMG, Amazon and similar sites and you'll see a correlation to the gifts here. The CV system will be gamed one way or the other, because CV is apparently worth so much.
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Well, as I mentioned, it was what the community wanted, so this is the compromise that was reached. I believe it's not so much that they're not contributing anything, as it is that it smacks of unfairness that they would receive the same credit as someone who gave away the game normally, though they paid pennies on the dollar by comparison. It was a very contentious topic at the time, and I'm not sure I have the explanatory power necessary at the moment to properly put it into words.
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Most of us do get the reasoning, but the issue comes that we have tons of bundles coming out now with new games being added all the time and old games that haven't been bundled again not being removed after not being in a bundle for upwards of two years or more. That just leads to some great games that people won't give away because it doesn't add to contributor value when stuff is at the same price that will.
And given time, there won't be much in a threshold that the average user can afford to buy that isn't bundled outside of DLC and a few games and very new stuff that most people cannot afford to just give away. All we're really saying here is that it wouldn't hurt to consider removing certain games that haven't been in a bundle for years since the vast majority of the people who would give those away now are actually buying them from Steam.
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It opens up exploitation of the system. People would be disproportionately rewarded for giving games that they could buy en masse for $1 or so. People who want to give games back to those who are truly generous and have spent a lot of money giving to the community would probably also rather not be giving to those who game the system for maximum reward with as little actual expenditure as possible. The bundle games system limits this exploitation.
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Which is easy enough to get around. I am not in the US and I frequently buy steam keys on Amazon. It's not like they enforce that in any way.
On the other hand, I have so far been unable to acquire anything from GMG. They don't like my credit cards.
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I think older 'bundle' games should be removed from the list after a cooldown for sure.
Yes, people will argue that "People will just hoard games", but that point is moot when GalaStore or Amazon bundle games give full value from day one.
C.V. boosters are going to find a way to boost no matter what, limiting games that were in a bundle over a year ago doesn't change anything.
It would be nice to have good games like Super Meat Boy or VVVVVV be worth full value again.
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oh, just saw this and was surprised why darksiders doesn't have star on giveaway creation page? Didn't know thq humble bundle wasn't included in bundle list. I mean, humble thq bundle gave us a key that has multiple games on it (Including DS1). Why is it not on the bundle list?
I'm tempted to buy truckloads of copy of DS1 for 1$ since its a 1:20 ratio. Still dat 1$ crazy machines bundle beats this ratio.
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people like being elite. people like trying to get into elites. elite people like keeping other people out of elites.
contrib value is just one way of creating an elite, and some people is cheating to enter. when this cheating will be too much, contrib value will suffer inflation and, as you understand macroeconomics, an inflated currency is worth almost nothing. easy, this is not to be done by a mod, it works automatically.
there are already a couple of other ways to make elites in here: groups and privates. they work and are easily controlled. end of the story.
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Thanks. Interesting answer, I am not sure if I would fully agree. But hey, I don't run the site.
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I don't mean to stir shit or flame, I'm just wondering what the criteria are for tagging a game as a bundle game.
For example, Bioshock and Bioshock 2 were part of several bundle sales on Amazon. Darksiders 2 right now is part of the humble bundle weekly sale. None of these have been tagged as bundle games. Last week Bastion was the humble weekly sale, and it is tagged as bundle.
How does it work?
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