I do. But I have an option enabled that pops up description and comments if there are any
Comment has been collapsed.
Is it so that 90%+ of people are bots or autojoiners that do not see the descriptions of the giveaways? I understand this has been a problem on this site for years, and I suppose there is no solution that could help here?
Well to be fair a lot of people use ESGT and that gives you an option to enter giveaways straight from the main GA page so that experiment doesn't really prove much on such a small sample.
I like to read descriptions or comments the gifters leave so i don't use it but I could see why a lot of people would, for expediency.
Comment has been collapsed.
I wasn't aware that ESGST had an option to hide giveaway descriptions entirely. I know there's a setting to cache repeated descriptions and to filter out specific words, but if I join a giveaway with a description that I hadn't seen before, it always comes up in a pop up window. Not reading descriptions entirely sounds like a terrible idea.
Comment has been collapsed.
Like the others said, many ESGST to enter from the front page. That said, I know there is a way to set it to have the description pop up if there is one on the giveaway. And another that will ignore exact duplicate descriptions from the same user. Not everyone may know about those options or whatnot. But I am definitely sure there are bots and auto-join scripts being used. Whenever I see public giveaways with comments I check the comments and see what their ratios are and if they're absolutely weighted toward Won and little to nothing on Sent I'm very suspicious. If it's blatant enough I'll even Blacklist those (I'm talking ones that are like 100+ won and 5 or less sent).
While I think you're not wrong about there being a lot of bots I do not think that particular DLC is a good litmus test to go by for two reasons:
I may have to do a similar test with some No CV keys I have lying around. Hmmm
Comment has been collapsed.
This comment for example, that I linked in the original post, is one of the many I have seen do exactly that. They did this double giveaway of the same game, one public, one in the description, and they did proper games. Games such as: Hollow Knight, A Plague Tale, Doom 2016, Rain World, and others. And each time, the number of people who read the description and entered both giveaways was around 3% to a maximum of 8% (for the most popular games).
I know my little "experiment" in isolation is about as useful as those DLC keys themselves (it was mostly a good reason to get rid of them), but there have been many people demonstrating this exact phenomenon with proper games. Again, I now just came across this one, but I know I have seen many more people do similar ones, and I've only been on this site since February.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to disagree or anything. I've only been here since December myself and have noticed the same things. Not much to do about than what's already being done though. People will always find a way to cheat a system if there's something to gain. All we can do is fight against that best we can. At the end of the day it's why I've chosen to primarily do Invite Only, Group, Whitelist, or SGTools screened giveaways. Don't think I'll be doing any public ones anytime soon. Except to clear out some more of those No CV keys I have.
Comment has been collapsed.
At the end of the day it's why I've chosen to primarily do Invite Only, Group, Whitelist, or SGTools screened giveaways. Don't think I'll be doing any public ones anytime soon.
This does seem to be the best way. I think I'll only use public ones if I want to give away something like a DLC I think most people won't want.
Comment has been collapsed.
fairly certain, that cg also installed advanced bot detection/exclusion, a couple of years ago
He used the bot detection for a few days, years ago.
Since that time it is deactivated and the only ones that fight against bots/autojoiners are motivated users + a few mods and none of them have server side rights/permissions and help from the sg servers/stats.
With other words, its wild west here and cg give a f*ck...
Comment has been collapsed.
In one of Masafor's comments below, there was one of your old giveaways given as another example of the same game also in the description. I mentioned it below, but I saw your comment here, so also share this with you.
In that public version giveaway 14 people wrote some variation of "thank you" in the comments. I manually checked each, and none of the 14, had entered the same invite only giveaway in the description. Not even the one who commented that they "whitelisted" you (they never made a single GA btw). You might already checked that yourself before, but I just saw that and it's just ridiculous.
Comment has been collapsed.
i know, i read it, but thanks anyway
I didn't looked at any of the entries, because i usually do level 5+ GAs to weed out the most rulebreakers and bad accounts and because my BL is limited to 1k people. It took some effort (e.g. checking all the entrants of my recent invite GAs), but i already blacklisted 983 people, some level 4, but the majority level 5+, i can't imagine the sheer amount of bad accounts on lower levels, besides that i met the worst people on those lower levels, who harrassed, defamed and threw insults at me left, right and center, turns out Mods don't do anything about it, because there are whitelisted insults, which you can throw at people without getting punished, great site isn't it?
Comment has been collapsed.
While there are a lot of bots, another thing I haven't seen mentioned much in these experiments is that the giveaways are typically different things. Even when it's the same genre or a popular game, having the second giveaway be something different from the first is going to affect the numbers - people might already have it, or simply not be interested in the second game.
I've skipped on entering a second giveaway once or twice myself, simply because I had no interest in the second game. And while it doesn't affect the ratio as significantly, especially for bots, this also cuts into the totals too - if the first game is something people don't want or have ignored, then they'll never see the second one.
Comment has been collapsed.
Some do it for different games, but I am looking at the stats from ones that do the exact same game, and as an extra chance for it. So if you clicked and enter for the game, obviously you'd also want to enter for the same game with 10 times better odds of winning.
This comment for example, that I linked in the original post. It was 3 years ago but they did it, with having the same exact game twice. Games such as: Hollow Knight, A Plague Tale, Doom 2016, Rain World, and others. And each time, the number of people who read the description and entered both giveaways was around 3% to a maximum of 8%.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, yes, but if they checked the giveaways they entered manually, they would often get better chances to win the same games they already want to win
Comment has been collapsed.
The addon i used to use for this site, let me join giveaways, without seeing the description.
The one i use now, has the description pop-up whenever i enter a giveaway.
Part of the problem is that for awhile, people got blacklisted for not commenting on giveaways, then giveaway creators got annoyed with the infinite spam of TY's and started BL'ing people for leaving canned responses. So now people are somewhat disinclined to say anything, unless inspired to do so, such as in events and community threads.
Comment has been collapsed.
I did the same tests a few years ago, when keys were plentiful and the "crackdown on auto-joiners" hadn't officially been declared yet. All were 24 hour giveaways to account for time zones. Tested at different levels, different regions. Didn't matter. The "best" region had like 4% conversion from public to invite GA. Worst was about 1%. I don't have links to my old posts with the stats but it was basically a big disappointment. I mostly started to stick to whitelist & group giveaways after that time.
Someone many many years ago made similar giveaways, with the description of "if you enter this giveaway, you will be blacklisted" on the public GA... still got like 100-to-1 ratio of entries on public vs private GA.
Comment has been collapsed.
Someone many many years ago made similar giveaways, with the description of "if you enter this giveaway, you will be blacklisted" on the public GA... still got like 100-to-1 ratio of entries on public vs private GA.
Love that idea, except that you'd still have a winner whom you will have to blacklist.
Comment has been collapsed.
My guess is that either there are too many violators(soft or blatant) and banning them all will harm the metrics of this site.
Or the admin is still struggling to tackle this 'scripts and bots' issue. I highly doubt the latter.
Im currently bothered that a recent winner of my GA isnt activating my key inspite of being online multiple times. I have even noticed that they keep entering new giveaways all this time. I texted them in their recent Public GA, but no luck... only to find that previous hosters also had tried to contact them many times. The user has less than 50 comments in total, so they're not browsing the discussions page or are riddled with many unread messages.
Leads me to speculate that they use some sort of tool for entering GAs. This might be why they appear to be online, when they probably arent. Having a history of VAC ban doesnt inspire my confidence either...I guess I'll wait an entire week before request a new winner.
Im just so fed up of creating tickets and linking Sgtools proofs and waiting. Then it usually turns out they had served their suspensions but there is always the exception. On top of that there is no way to filter Public GA entrants based on decent ratios. Ruins the joy of giving for sure.
Comment has been collapsed.
The easy answer ist, the only admin don't care.
He have the possibility for autojoiner checks, he used it for a few days years ago and catched (after 2 warnings that catched autojoiners got) around 2k autojoiners that still had at the 3rd time the autojoiners active (and got a 2 days suspension for it), but it got never used again after this.
The site is infested with autojoiners (thousands) and a lot of the ""low"" level (all below level 4) public GAs are won from such accounts.
To your winner:
The most, of course not all, autojoiner users check each 4 days if they won something in the meantime. And yes, they are, nearly, always online in the same rythm (as example each 3, 4 or 6h) and not react on sg or steam. If you seen other ones with "contact tries" it is nearly 100% that you have a autojoiner winner. And yes, the VAC ban add a raised red flag to the pool.
My advice:
If the winner not reacted after 6 days on the "you have won" message in sg, than write him in a old GA (if he ever done one) or write in his steam comments (if he have them accessible) and at day 7, delete the key from his win message (possible with edit) and send the link to your contact try in a reroll request to the support.
This way the winner can't claim the key in the meantime till the ticket gets handled.
I always done the key thing because reroll request got not handled anymore very fast in the past. Since the new junior mods are around it goes fast but i would still make sure that such a winner don't get the (not really earned) key from me (yes, in such cases i am not more so friendly).
Of course it is something else if you know the winner, had only good experiences with him, expect a vacation, it is in the christmas time or something like this, that could explain "short visits with no time for messages".
Im just so fed up of creating tickets and linking Sgtools proofs and waiting. Then it usually turns out they had served their suspensions but there is always the exception. On top of that there is no way to filter Public GA entrants based on decent ratios. Ruins the joy of giving for sure.
This hit it, sadly, very good.
And is the reason why so many active gifters left the side, switched from creating public low level GAs to higher level ones or switched from creating public GAs to creating, more, group/whitelist GAs.
The majority of the members in my group joined the group to have cheater free GAs without problems and stress.
Comment has been collapsed.
It’s similar to making a discussion with a giveaway - you are going to have less entries, even if it’s a good or popular game.
I generally do discussions to make trains. It doesn’t mean the entrants are more worthy of winning, but it does cut out a lot of autojoiners.
It also has the added bonus of less rerolls because those members tend to be more active on SG and can read somewhat.
Comment has been collapsed.
The bar being set at "can read somewhat" made me laugh.
Comment has been collapsed.
Your assumings and observations are, nearly complete, correct.
Infos and tests, made from other users (i done multiple too):
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/2RCI0/werewolf-the-apocalypse-heart-of-the-forest
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/Q0WKE/farnham-fables (The interesting stats)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/oEt99/vendetta-curse-of-ravens-cry (public GA, Entries: 2,038)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/9PxYF/vendetta-curse-of-ravens-cry (invite only GA that was posted in the description of the public one, Entries: 63)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/HSRvZ/1-ride (public GA, lvl 4, Entries: 167)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/buWfY/1-ride (invite only GA that was posted in the description of the public one, lvl 4, Entries: 6)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/4PoIq/doom-eternal (public GA, lvl 0, 9338)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/RDeBM/doom-eternal-deluxe-edition (invite only GA that was posted, as link, in the description of the public one, lvl 0, Entries: 1338)
I can only give you the advice not to waste your lifetime, as i did, with all the black sheeps hunting because you have here more black sheeps as ok/nice/friendly users and you don't have the tools that would be needed to do something effective.
You can't block notifications from people (so no way against thanks spam in public GAs, from the dumbest autojoiners that activate on top the build-in thanks script), you can't prevent that black sheeps enter your GAs (because your blacklist have only 1k spaces and you would need at least 5k -not to speak from the needed time to add all this users...- [1k isn't enough to blacklist all the black sheeps that are level 5 or higher]), you can't prevent that users with unactivated wins enter your GAs (you have no possibility to see if suspensions for unactivated wins got served in the past or not), you can't prevent it with sgtools protected GAs because they can still join if they can enter the GA with one of their other accounts or if a "friend" give them the direct link (if they are perma banned on sgtools or not, because sg don't work together with the sgtools owner to "deliver a suspension on sg too, when someone cheat on sgtools" [so the perma banned on sgtools only need a second account to go around each block because they use the direct link to the sg GA]).
And yes you can download and install scripts etc. that can block notifications from user XYZ (but it would be still a lot of work till the thanks script spam would be on a low level) but it isn't the same as when a site offer such possibilities direct.
I advice only level 4+ public GAs, if you really want to do them, and to join good groups that control which users can enter (and don't accept everyone).
I know you work on the "joining good groups" point ;o)
Ps.: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/j5zjU/the-ratio-of-bots-and-autojoiners-and-my-mini-replication-experiement#xuzGsJP my comment above shown other aspects in more detail. Maybe interesting for you.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, I remember finding and reading some of the Kappaking tests, those were interesting to read, and they were very thorough.
In the Vendetta Curse of Ravens Cry example you provided, 14 people wrote some variation of "thank you" in the comments of the public one. I manually checked each, and none of the 14, had entered the same giveaway in the description. Not even the one who commented that they "whitelisted" the GA creator Prosac.
I also love the the Doom Eternal one, providing the better version of the game in the description GA.
you can't prevent that users with unactivated wins enter your GAs (you have no possibility to see if suspensions for unactivated wins got served in the past or not)
I feel like this a such a big oversight, that could be easily fixed if there was the desire for it. Incorporating the SGTools into the actual website, shouldn't be too difficult from a technical standpoint, and that's a real shame if the SG and SGTools don't want to work together. It would be very beneficial for both. And hadn't even realised how it is possible to go around the current SGTools, by users who break the rules and use multiple accounts.
I also didn't know that blacklist has a cap at 1k, that also should be something that could be raised, however, again who is going to manually add each and every person like that. Maybe by creating bait/trap public giveaways, where you write in the description that everyone entering this will be added to a blacklist, and then if there was a in site function "add all" to a blacklist. But still none of this would address the wider problem.
I also read your other comment, and it is odd that there wouldn't be more of an effort made to stop the use of autojoiners and bots, especially if the tools to do so are already available. So it is a bit of a sad state of affairs for the public giveaways. Though thanks for the comment and engaging with this, I do find it all quite fascinating (as well as a bit depressing :D)
Comment has been collapsed.
Well it doesn't have to be bots necessarily.
It's just people not being smart or unable to "read" (not illiterate, but they just don't look at any information).
They are focused on pretty much headlines only. They are easy to manipulate which is what certain (political) parties abuse to the max.
Apparently this is what the society (schools, but mostly media) has made out of us.
Tik-Tok is popular for a reason and that reason is people are unable to pickup anything that is more complex than a single short sentence. Any more and they're done with it. And this hasn't started with Tik-Tok... when you have observed twitch streams for e.g. for some years: People do not read the title, they do not read the rules they do not read the stream description. Usually when someone new comes into chat they ask stuff that is directly presented to them on the screen. Either in the title or even on the screen (overlay). Giveaways on stream? Instructions on how to enter or what the is being given away in the first place: clearly in big red letters on the stream and yet many people do not see it. They keep asking. You answer the question verbally (and someone else in chat at the same time) - it won't take 2 seconds before the next person asks the same thing again. Someone types "!enteryoufool" in chat as a joke for it being the command to enter a giveaway. Chat starts spamming said fake command in the thousands. The giveaway entry period is over. This is announced in chat, verbally on stream, in letters on screen. You can bet that people in large streams (like for e.g. say an overwatch event) will keep spamming the entry command for the next few hours (until the streams has ended or even thereafter).
And it hasn't started with streaming either. For many years even before that, you might remember the time, people were using forums to communicate rather than Whatsapp or Discord and even back then people kept registering and asking questions directly answered in a pinned topic. Questions that were answered thousands of times before. Questions answered by the FAQ. Answere easily found by using the forum search.
That being said, this "illiteracy", this stupidity doesn't stop at people not picking up information, it reaches into pretty much all aspects of these peoples life. I don't forsee a bright future for us. We might be the dumbest humans to ever have existed and we will kill ourselves (and take the majority of life on earth with us).Try having a good time and don't lose too much sleep over these things ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Those examples are very on point, and this is a great, although severely depressing take. I also love the contrast between your last two sentences. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting experiment! I've been thinking about this myself and great to see the results, as doubted the no. of bots keep increasing every day. This is so frustrating, some people wanna enjoy some games and then these ppl are trying to grab games for free & sell the account in hopes to make some money, ruining everyone's fun...
Comment has been collapsed.
404 Comments - Last post 2 minutes ago by UltraMaster
21 Comments - Last post 17 minutes ago by lewriczin
81 Comments - Last post 25 minutes ago by SebastianCrenshaw
38 Comments - Last post 57 minutes ago by M0J
15 Comments - Last post 58 minutes ago by hallak65
1,502 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by Seibitsu
20 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by darksun1980
80 Comments - Last post 9 minutes ago by RePlayBe
42 Comments - Last post 15 minutes ago by RePlayBe
19 Comments - Last post 26 minutes ago by Drae
27 Comments - Last post 51 minutes ago by Shanti
26,750 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Peiperissimus
7,194 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by BorjaGRouco
10,918 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by plasmasoup
There are plenty of examples of people doing this "experiment" with having the same giveaway twice, with one public, and another one in the description of the public one. I don't know who originally did this, but for example, this comment I recently came across, doing this with even major highly desired games, and for pretty much all cases, the second GA that is in the description, has less than 10% of the entries of the public one. For smaller games it would often be below 5%.
I had 2 pretty much useless DLC codes, with which I could run this same little experiment on. The Public GA and the Invite Only GA as a link in the description of the public one with huge bold letters.
My results, 53 entries for the public one, and only 1 entry for the invite only in the description (another person who found it and commented, but not entered either). If the giveaway description is opened it is nearly impossible to miss it, as it is the largest heading you can format on this site, saying to "click below for same giveaway with better odds" in all bold giant letters. Suggesting 52/53 people who entered, did not even see the description. That's more than 98% did not see it, in other words less than 2% who saw it. Sure, limitation of this "experiment" is that this is a very small sample size, and it is for a DLC that most people would not even want. But given similar experiments with different games of variable desirability, offering very similar results of consistently having less than 10% of people seeing the description, does highlight the wider problem.
Is it so that 90%+ of people are bots or autojoiners that do not see the descriptions of the giveaways? I understand this has been a problem on this site for years, and I suppose there is no solution that could help here?
People who have been on this site longer than me, are all probably very familiar with this issue, and I don't have anything much meaningful to add to this discussion, hence I'm posting in off-topic, but I am just still so shocked at how prevalent this issue is.
Comment has been collapsed.