What kind of blacklists? Could you be more specific? I'd like to understand your perspective on this.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't see how the new policy can be abused, honestly. If the site admins have decided that broken bundle keys are work a bit of contributor status for someone who has contributed things that didn't come from a bundle, that hits me as an acceptable policy. They are still giveaways, after all, and they did still make someone happy.
When I post my 25 keys, it will surely take my status from the 99.94 or whatever it is right now straight up to 118/119. Will that be a bad thing? Will the 25 people who are happy with the games they've won think it wasn't worth it if I got a tiny boost to my number? I think not. My contributor status will be 118 or whatever, and it will be totally legitimate, because that is the "new" legit.
Comment has been collapsed.
For one, certain bundle sites' TOS is still abused by this sharing. Second, even if it's not abused that doesn't stop people from disliking what you might do and thus blacklisting you.
I do not personally own a blacklist or say that's what I'll do. Just thought lots might, after considering what you said.
Comment has been collapsed.
I really like it because more games that aren't given away normally that certain people want (ME) will be given away a LOT more often.
Comment has been collapsed.
And on the same token, I don't like it because I like indie games and those will get far fewer giveaways.
How many people sit on mountains of unused bundle keys to give them away? I know I don't; I keep all the keys to myself even if I don't use them.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wait, there's still a chat room for this (other than the Steam group chat room, which also requires you be signed into Steam all the time)? I noticed it disappeared from the top banner and I figured it was gone for good.
Comment has been collapsed.
The only chat room I know of is the steam chat one... Which is a shame because I only post and use the site from work, where installing steam would surely be the death of me. (working a weekend... what a drag, right?)
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess we might see the following shifts in this area:
People who gave away keys in chat/forums will stop doing this, and will now create giveaways for them -- because they don't see any moral/ethical problems with that, and because now, they can get at least something out of it (as opposed to nothing at all, which was the case in chat/forum).
People who made bundle key giveaways against the rules to raise their contributor value (hoping to slip below the radar) will stop doing this -- because it will no longer count for most of them.
People who were making giveaways for non-bundle indie games will now hesitate to post them here, and may instead "invest" the games at other sites, such as Playblink, or can try them as trade padding -- because they will fear the games will lose all their contributor value.
People whose main contributions are from non-bundles will pad their accounts with carefully measured leftover giveaways (if they don't see any moral/ethical problems with that).
(Of course, not everyone will do such things. However, I think that on average, something like this is quite likely.)
The question is, is this a desirable change? If not, is there any way it could be "tweaked" to reach better results, or is this altogether a bad idea?
Comment has been collapsed.
well, I'd say point #1 is good. Forum and chat giveaways mostly went to ninjas without so much as a thankyou or scraping scripts, so this is more fair. Also, if you're going to give a game, why not get a little credit?
point #2 is also good. Rule breaking is never a good thing, and these people were honestly, cheats.
point #3, that one isn't so good. It may reduce contributions to the site, but this may be offset by #1 and #4.
And point #4 is also good. More games is always more good, and a lot of people (like me) have a pile of keys doing nothing that they WANT to see played, but refuse to break the rules to do it.
So, by my calculus, this would be a good change.
Comment has been collapsed.
...but refuse to break the rules to do it.
Most of the "rules" involved in this are basically "wishes" of certain parties. Either of the SteamGifts staff, or of the bundle organizers. Now I'll admit that I haven't done much research in this area, but I believe that at least Indie Royale and Humble Bundle have explicitly expressed -- regardless of whether they call it "terms of service", "FAQ", or something else -- a wish that the bundles should not be split and games given to different people.
So, (foolishly) assuming people will refuse to go against the wishes of the bundle organizers, do you think #1 + #4 (severely reduced by such refusal) would still outweigh #3?
Comment has been collapsed.
.#1 already consists of people who have made that determination.
.#4 is more of a grey area.
But, that is all still assuming #3, which operates on a foundation that people won't gift without credit, which is disproven by the fact that SG existed before there were ever contributor giveaways. And, I'll point out that on the SG site, their "wishes" are indeed the "rules", and they can take action against you on the site if you decide to break them.
Comment has been collapsed.
I missed a lot of bundles so I look forward too a chance to win keys of missing games I wanted too play.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah I have a few spare keys myself. I sometimes just give it away by posting somewhere it or something similar. Want to give it away here since the winner choosing is more fair but I'm sure if I do, I'm gonna get a post saying something like "read the rules" or "reported" within 5 secs.
It's like some of those guys patrol this site like it's their job. And worse part is some of them have $0 contributions!
Another rant: I like how there were always peope who bring up the TOS of the indie bundles as a reason why people shouldn't post bundle game giveaways. Yet when people do giveaways on forums, no one bitches about it. Heck they do it all the time on SPUF and the mods there think it's fine. So is this truly just an e-peen thing?
Comment has been collapsed.
Precisely. I haven't given my keys out on the forums or in chat for two reasons: 1, as a slow typist, I know that shit ain't fair, and 2, I think it's totally hypocritical to allow it on the forums and chat, but not in the giveaways proper. Makes it feel sleazy.
I'll be honest, sometimes I am one of those guys that "patrol the site". I do it because rules are rules, and without rules there is chaos, and in chaos the most terrible people usually win. But I've ALWAYS hated the bundle key rule, and I'm as excited as hell to see it being reformed.
Comment has been collapsed.
I brought up the TOS but really I dont care if people give them away, I just tried to look at it from steamgifts perspective. Now its also a matter of we cant have real contributor giveaways and allow people to gift individual keys because its far to easy to inflate your value. Buy yourself an indie gala and then when happy hour starts its $5 for 20+ CD keys or anywhere from $100 to $200 in contributor value.
Comment has been collapsed.
I just don't like that people are breaking the rules of the site. I mean all it does is create a lot of work for support. I personally don't care to much about where somebody got their game (so long as it wasn't stolen/can be revoked) but if Cg says not to create giveaways for bundle keys then you shouldn't do it.
Comment has been collapsed.
That depends on the value of the bundle game you're talking about.
If it's worth $20 then, yes, a contribution of $100 non-bundle games will make the bundle-key cap rise to $100*0.2=$20.
If, on the other hand, the bundle game is worth $25, then it would take $125 (of non-bundle games) to raise the bundle-key cap on par with the bundle game ($125*0.2=$25).
EDIT: Remember... the total bundle-game contribution cap value is 20% of the total non-bundle game contribution value.
Comment has been collapsed.
Good for the people who bought Trainz... $3.5 for $35 contributor value, and still can give $7 more in bundle keys (that's the double of what they spend...). Thats one way to exploit it.
But I really liked this rule, even I'm going to get back to $0 contributor value :P
Comment has been collapsed.
Good for trainz indeed. Good for people that bought the saints row collection, good for people that bought the dawn of war franchise pack, good for people that bought the space marine collection, Generally speaking, buying something on sale to give away is good for everyone involved.
Comment has been collapsed.
Where's the line between a sale and exploitation?
The summer sale made iit ridiculously easy to infalte your contrib. score for less than 20 cents on the dollar. Where does sale end and exploitation begin?
Those trainz giveaways DID get hundreds of entries. Are those entrants - people who we must assume want to win the game, given that they spent the points on it - somehow not relevant?
Comment has been collapsed.
I think it helps make sure that rich givers are appreciated more than poor givers.
Like I said, our collective wishlist are primarily newer or expensive titles.
Comment has been collapsed.
And givers are more appreciated than leechers. What's your point? I mean, you're saying it as if it's not right that people who spend more money on games will be more appreciated. That's pretty much what any solution tries to achieve: reduce the value of games which are extremely cheap or free to get, and emphasise those games which people spend good money on.
Comment has been collapsed.
The main problem with option 3 as it was described is that it deincentivizes giveaways for indie, fringe, or niche games. Anything that isn't a AAA title loses a lot of value with this system.
It is a good idea to give people a motive to spend more money (Capitalism, ho!) but it's not very smart for the site to punish those who have little money or plan their budgets with extreme care.
The best solution I can think of is contributor score being set to the point value of the giveaway, at the time the giveaway was created. That way people who buy expensive games when they come out receive recognition for this, without penalizing everyone else. Sales still give people more points than usual, but we shouldn't punish people for using sales exactly as they were designed.
Let's be honest here, the vast majority of giveaways on this site were at least half off, if not more.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree it's a problem and that option 3 shouldn't be implemented as described. However I still think we want to discourage spamming the site with certain games just because they're heavily discounted or free. That's the origin of this discussion, trying to understand what can be done with bundle games. It extends to free games (Shadowgrounds) and heavily discounted fringe games (Railworks 3), which many people still feel is a cheat.
We don't try to "punish people for using sales exactly as they were designed". Sales aren't designed to be a source of giveaways, and the main thing which encourages giving heavily discounted games is contributor giveaways. We want to break this link and make it so that contributor giveaways continue to encourage giving away games, but they encourage giving away games which more people want, rather than those games which are sold at the highest discount. If these games are on sale, great, everyone wins.
I like solution 3 (with modifications) because I think that a solution which originates in what we want to see rather than what we don't is more likely to achieve a good result. Option 1 will also deincentivizes giveaways for indie games because any game which was in a bundle will lose its appeal, but it will still continue to provide incentive for people to game the system and require more management (adding the bundle games to the system).
Comment has been collapsed.
Sales aren't DESIGNED to be a source of giveaways, but did you happen to see this site during the summer sale? It was great. Would you have that end just because the summer sale wasn't DESIGNED to see a surge in giveaways on this site? Of course not, that's silly. Ergo, the fact that sales aren't designed to be a source of giveaways is entirely irrelevant to this discussion.
Anyway, as long as giveaways for games get entries, that means people want them, which means they shouldn't be disincentivized.
Comment has been collapsed.
Why would option 3 end a game surge related to sales? All it will do is increase the chance that the games on sale which are more desired will be represented more.
Option 3 doesn't necessarily mean that people will get zero contributor points for games which aren't highly desirable, it will just reduce the incentive to give them. If Railworks 3 costs $3.50 and gives 10 points and Orc Must Die costs $3.74 and gives 15 points, then people will have less incentive to buy Railworks just because it's 90% off, but anyone who's still interested in giving away this game because he thinks it's a good game will most likely not be put off.
The exact formula is indeed a thorny point, and thought will have to be given to it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can think of a simpler solution than any formula based on wishlists or something:
Why not give points based on how many entries a giveaway has? Perhaps divided by time, of course, so that longer giveaways aren't credited more than shorter ones.
Comment has been collapsed.
The ONLY problem with that is what's stopping me from "stocking up" on games during Steam sales for 75-80% off, then making giveaways after the sale ends when they show as full price again?
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm saying that greed is not in the spirit of this site. And option 3 is going to disincentivize cheaper giveaways even though plenty of people still want them. It's foolish to think if we disincentivize cheap giveaways, that suddenly everybody is going to give away Skyrim. That's just not how it works.
Comment has been collapsed.
Question: Where does the fact that it's probably against the bundle's TOS to submit individual keys fit into this?
Comment has been collapsed.
Was this only for Indie Gala? Or do all of them have this?
Comment has been collapsed.
Actually, I don't know much about Indie Gala, but I know it wasn't in the very first Indie Gala.
On the other hand, it's been in Humble Bundle for a while now.
Comment has been collapsed.
reply question: What does steam gifts have to do with an agreement you made with someone else? It's no more an issue for them than if my car payment was made on time.
Comment has been collapsed.
They are related because you're taking an instance of a game you got in a bundle purchase and gifting it here.
Otherwise I'm not sure what your point of dispute is, but...
If you're saying whether such a TOS is enforceable...well, obviously, it's not very enforceable. That doesn't prevent it from being a TOS. Someone in the new bundle policy megathread mentioned the possibility of getting SG into legal trouble over this.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, now, let's not get carried away... this was asked with a smirk, not a sneer.
What I'm saying is that steamgifts has no liability and should not care at all about whatever contract (legally enforceable or not... and by the way, EULAs are by and large not) you made with anyone else. It's not like they're aiding in the comission of a criminal act -- it's not a crime.
EULAs are not the law. All they are is an agreement you made with someone. You didn't make it with steamgifts, and steamgifts didn't make it for you, and steamgifts was not a party to the negotiation over the agreement (there was no negotiation? One of the reasons EULAs usually don't stand up in court).
In short, the point I was trying to make is that it really doesn't concern steamgifts one iota, save for if they choose to take it into consideration when deciding how to run their site.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, I see your point.
That said, the concern was whether SG can get in trouble for facilitating.
Comment has been collapsed.
When has the spirit of the law ever been the letter and the rule?
Just because it's silly and quite frankly bullshit.. doesn't mean SteamGifts isn't going to get C&Ds. If SteamGifts took it to court, they'd win- but who wants to get into a legal battle? Why even put yourself out there?
EDIT: Actually, in many cases the contributor value (however small) can be used to say that SteamGifts was rewarding people for distributing these keys.
Yes, they should care if someone might send them a legal notice by running their site a certain way.
Comment has been collapsed.
another reason to get rid of contributor value? lol
Comment has been collapsed.
The games on Steam that are tradable don't carry the TOS of the Indie Bundles. They can be traded for the most part without the bat of an eyelash. (Russia to US excluded) We don't have to completely wipe contributor value to fix this, just prevent the sharing of Indie Bundle keys.
Comment has been collapsed.
In word? Exactly. It's not their job to police you. It's up to each person's own honor and personal responsibility to take care of their agreements.
Comment has been collapsed.
Very well, I will humor you.
Now that the statement condemning sharing individual bundle keys has been in the rules for quite some time, it has been established as a baseline. Don't you think that removing this now would equal making a statement recommending or even supporting breaking the guidelines of indie bundles?
Your argument is valid and complete, if somewhat baffling on its own; but I doubt introducing it to the current discussion is in any way helpful. Any rule that enforces another, related, even if only circumstantial rule is in my honest opinion a good one. We should not go about building situations that give others free reign to "break the law", so to speak; in a philosophical attempt to reintroduce some arbitrary freedoms.
Comment has been collapsed.
I appreciate your ability to view my argument objectively, while not debasing your own in any way. What I am saying is that in light of the proposed revised rule changes regarding bundle keys, it is an ideal time to take a step back completely.
The bundle key rule was being ignored, and it was overreaching the resources of SG to attempt to enforce it. While the concept is noble, its execution was unfeasable, and the attempt to enforce was uneven and flawed. Now we have a propsed rule to make more uniform enforcement that will not break the backs of the SG staff, and will reduce user v. user strife considerably.
Maintaining the old rule at that point would be useless, and since the primary reason for the rule in the first place (contributor status abuse) would be already dealt with, there is no reason to maintain it.
Also, speaking philosophically, no freedom is arbitrary.
Comment has been collapsed.
From Indie Royale's FAQ:
" Indie Royale bundles are strictly for personal use only. Sharing Steam keys because you already own a game in the bundle is not allowed. The same applies for Desura keys. If your friend wants a bundle you should gift them or they can purchase it themselves.
The idea behind Indie Royale bundles is to support indie games, we always offer excellent games at a price you cannot beat - so please recognize this and support the developers participating by buying your own bundle. "
Comment has been collapsed.
Does it hurt anyone? Oo
If people would be willing to buy it, they wouldn´t enter the giveaway, right?
btw: are you one of those persons calling the cops just because someone is speeding on the highway and that´s a forbidden thing to do?
Another edit:
Just checked indieroyale and went through their Term of Use. There is nothing about giving (selling) keys to other persons, if i´didn´t miss that part somewhere. FAQs aren´t something you are legally bound to!
Comment has been collapsed.
Well not legally bound, but if that's their wish I wouldn't do it myself because it's their site and I respect their request.
Not sure why you're overreacting to me though... I was just quoting the part in the FAQ. I don't get upset at people who actually do give away individual games because heck, there's really no clear rules on this site or many of the bundle sites regarding this matter. However I'd be okay with a clearly stated rule that individual games shouldn't be gifted not because of any legal reasons, but because I think it's right to honour their request not to share these individual keys.
Comment has been collapsed.
I just thought you are the one pointing it out over and over again (since it´s the second time i saw you posting this^^). Anyway, yes, of course you could be so nice to follow these requests, then again you could not.
It´s up to you, i guess, since it´s not legally binding. Personally i preferred gifting away the ones i didn´t like because i think it´s a waste to let them unused just because i don´t like all of them.
But okay, i also spend like 3-4 times the average price, so i think it´s kind of fair after all.
Comment has been collapsed.
I know Royale tells you not to. HIB makes it literally impossible by having just one singular Steam key, however I understand their reasoning, since all of them come with DRM free downloads too.
Indie Gala on the other hand explicitly does allow you to give out individual keys; they tweeted back when HIB changed to the one-key system that they would retain their original single-key-single-game policy for exactly this reason. They also encourage users to buy multiple bundles for their private use, and obviously a single account doesn't need 2+ keys for any one game.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indie Gala allows it eh? Maybe this post I made earlier is relevant again!
Comment has been collapsed.
+1.
Now it's all about lengthening your epeen and not about giving away games.
I have ten loose game keys in a notepad file somewhere (plus a HIB3 key I got with HIB4 that I can't giveaway because of the seperate "only unused gift URLs" rule). That's ten games I could give away, except I can't because the epeen society had it outlawed to protect their score. That's ten giveaways from just one person that this site was deprived of to protect the sanctity of an elitist community.
Comment has been collapsed.
Actually, before the contributor's giveaway, it was done to respect the bundle's TOS that prevents you from giving away individual games. It wasn't so much of a problem before contributor giveaways came in as people are now using them to increase their value. The new rule would allow people to give them away (SG staff would no longer be the one enforcing the TOS you agreed on when buying the bundle) but would lower their value as to not encourage people tu give them away for that reason. We'd still see people who just have leftover keys they want to give away and not pages and pages of people trying to get their contributor level higher.
Comment has been collapsed.
Enlighten me. Where exactly does it say that users are not permitted to freely distribute the games after they have purchased the bundle? The TOS' for all the different bundle sites out there are basically identical and I've read through the entirety of Indie Gala's, Groupees', and Humble Bundle's. They NEVER mention this ANYWHERE.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indie Royale asks you not to because they come with both Desura and Steam keys and DRM free downloads. Gala explicitly allows it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indie Royale
Indie Royale bundles are strictly for personal use only. Sharing Steam keys because you already own a game in the bundle is not allowed. The same applies for Desura keys. If your friend wants a bundle you should gift them or they can purchase it themselves.
Humble Bundle
Please consider your bundle a "unit", and not to share copies of the games or Steam keys from it.
Didn't check all the others but at least those two have it.
Comment has been collapsed.
You should check the others. Groupees and Indie Gala have allowed it in the past.
Comment has been collapsed.
What's against their policy is using their service to generate multiple copies (i.e. sharing DRM free links, or keeping a DRM free copy for myself and giving away a Steam copy). Besides, Indie Gala (where they all came from) explicitly DOES allow it and have stated repeatedly that that's why they didn't switch to a one-key-multiple-games system like HIB.
And honestly, I'd tell them TFB. I legally purchased a copy of a game and I am legally allowed to do whatever the hell I want with my individual copy, including giving it away.
Edit: Also, there's a difference between a TOS and a legally binding contract. The worst they could actually do just for a TOS violation is cease their service with me. It's not an illegal activity even if they ask us not to do it. And it's a moot point anyway, because the bundles that give out individual keys don't seriously expect you to just throw away a copy of a game because you already own it. They really don't care, they only care about sharing individual copies among multiple people.
Comment has been collapsed.
How? Contributor giveaways are meant to be, in a way, thank you's to the people that have contributed to the community, nothing more and the whole point of changing how bundles are calculated is to avoid people abusing that system, i get you probably feel entitled to be in every giveaway, but the whole idea of this site is charity and goodwill for fellow gamers and to say that giveaways tailor made as thank you's to the people who have donated to that idea are somehow the death of this site? that's an insult to this entire community
Comment has been collapsed.
I agreed with you originally but due to some horribly lazy coding for the contributer system it just ends up pissing people off and causing more rules about what we can't give away. The concept is good but they need to actually fix the issues with it and they don't want to because it requires a lot of work so they just keep trying to find other quick solutions that ultimately cause even more problems.
They still have issues with people loosing contributor value when game prices go down which makes it really annoying for people who give away new titles as they get step discounts later. Now with their new "fix" for bundle releases they are basically saying indie games are worthless, you can give them away but if you do it doesn't count towards contributor status.
It's getting to the point that someone giving away indie games is now considered a leech on the site because of contributor status. You take contributor status out and the whole problem is fixed. People can resume giving away the games they want and don't have to deal with constant complaining about how they are gaming the system.
Comment has been collapsed.
Exactly this.
This site now has incredibly convoluted rules (both official and unwritten) about what games can or can't be given away, and it's driving people away.
As I said in an earlier post, I have ten spare keys from Gala bundles (who unlike Royale or Humble, allow you to give away individual keys and "part out" bundles) that I can't give away because of rules passed to protect the epeen society's exclusitivity. That's ten games that ten winners won't be able to play, because of contributor scores having actual impact. And that's just from one person - I am far from the only one who has some spare keys left over.
Comment has been collapsed.
All these proposed new rules do is take away a loophole that some users manipulate to cheaply increase their chances into getting more exclusive giveaways, giveaways that were not made for them, but made for the people who honestly contributed to this site, will some people lose some people lose a bit off of their values? yes and I'm sorry that it does affect your own value, but what does that matter if the value means so little to you that you feel it's something that should be tossed out altogether? and what would it matter to anyone else for that matter unless of course they were only fluffing their own value with cheap bundles? and Bundles themselves are not cheapened at all in the process, in fact, if people stop trying to horde these bundles at the cheapest possible cost just for their value wouldn't that only help the cause in which the bundles were originally intended for? The charity of it all is cheapened when someone buys it for such a low price at such multitude with only selfish intentions in mind and it's these ass hats who will take the large majority of the punishment, for everyone else it is merely a slight inconvenience, one which i believe is worth it.
Comment has been collapsed.
The problem is their "fix" punishes people for giving away indie games. It creates a divide amongst users and rather then just fix this (and yes it could actually be fixed) they come out with a random statement saying they are too lazy to do it right and it seems complicated so we decided to just tell everyone who gives indie games that they are now banned from using the contributor system and their money isn't worth as much as those who give away big name games.
I understand what their trying to do but they are doing it very poorly and creating hositly in the community and activly discouraging people from making giveaways. I've never done a single bundle give away myself and most likely never would. I also have a bunch of games I'd like to give away but I don't do it because many of them have been in bundles and people actually complain if I try to give them away because of the very badly coded contributor system.
The currently suggested fix is horrible and guarantees the forums will be plagued with complaints about it as it's very hard to tell if a game you're giving away is worth contributor points and even if you do know for a fact that it is it could easily be worth nothing tomorrow if some bundle decides to release it.
Comment has been collapsed.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You can't just think about what it was MEANT to be, you have to think about what it IS.
Your argument is basically "This was meant to be a good thing, therefore you can't claim it's a bad thing." That's not a real argument.
Comment has been collapsed.
But that's wrong, just because in your opinion you think that the sites purpose died when contributor giveaways were created doesn't make that the reality. You're extremely ignorant to think that just because a few people use a loop hole that can be fixed, which is the whole bases for these discussions, that i am at all wrong about the contributor giveaways being thank you's to the contributors, which is indeed an easily recognizable fact. Contributor giveaways are not the death of this site, they are the natural progression of things and are a welcomed feature by those it was intended for, while it does little to none in effecting regular giveaways, seeing as they are still far outnumbering contributor giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
Again. Just because something was meant to be a good thing does not mean that it is.
You're simply asserting that you're right without actually giving any real, logical answer as to why. We all know that contributor giveaways were intended to be a thank you to contributors; nobody is questioning their intent, only their result.
Comment has been collapsed.
I do not argue about bundles. It's just the fact that you used low price as an argument. Maybe I misunderstood you but it looks for me like - it's cheap, anyone can afford it. The fact is, people don't care about the price and I just used Fortix as an example (1$ game is cheaper than any bundle you can buy and it still have lots of entries)
Comment has been collapsed.
So your idea of simple is to cause a lot of work for the Steam Gifts people banning stuff, and preventing anyone who missed a bundle from getting it. Great thinking, and if you want to go further along this line, why not just prevent posting any games and winning them? That really would be the simplest solution.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think his 'idea of simple' is to not allow bundled giveaways which shouldn't be shared anyway as per the rules of the bundle itself. If one is worried about staff work overload, another user had the great idea of creating a fake bundle page on the givaway list that links to a rule notice, stopping most innocent ignorant givers and the more lazy exploiters right then and there. Those who try beyond this would be obviously awaringly breaking the rules and more severe and lasting solutions could be used.
Comment has been collapsed.
"which shouldn't be shared anyway"
I wish people would stop spreading this misinformation. It's different for each major bundle. Indie Gala in particular totally allows it. As for the others, their goal is to prevent people from sharing DRM free links or "splitting" one copy of a game by giving a Steam key to one person and a Desura key to another et cetera.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't think you understood me. What do you think would create more work for staff? Simply deleting the option for giving away bundles, or trying to figure out a stystem that calcuates contributor value and have to update this as more and more bundles are released? If someone missed a bundle they don't need steamgifts to receive a gift from their friends.
My opinion is simple, you unecessarily complicated it.
Comment has been collapsed.
The problem with "banning" bundles from being given away is... the bundles aren't the problem. The problem is that SG needs to be able to tell whether any game on this list came from a bundle key (currently against the rules) or not (allowed unless a different rule gets in the way).
And unless you're going to propose removing every single one of those titles from being given away, period, it doesn't resolve the problem.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ah you're right. I think that bundles should still be banned though. Staff have to determine price for every new bundle don't they? Honestly, if anyone wants a bundle they should just buy it themselves. No one would really want a bundle and not buy it, knowing that it's only available for a certain period of time.
Comment has been collapsed.
The problem of how many points to assign to Bundle X is the least of the mods' problems, at this point.
Plus, the "buy it themselves" option doesn't always work -- you're assuming that every country has Paypal, and every user has Paypal or a credit card. Some SG users are minors with neither, or live in countries where Paypal simply doesn't operate (and don't have a credit card for whatever reason). Kind of hard to buy the Humble Indie Bundle if you're 16 and live in, say, Egypt, eh?
Comment has been collapsed.
_> WHEN did I mention that they should be excluded from entering giveaways? And WHEN did I mention that contributions were required? I'm giving you a reason why giving games to minors shouldn't be an objective. Simple, understand? Are you trying to pick a fight with me? :P
Comment has been collapsed.
Or you are in a hospice and rely on donations.
(Though some game companies and people have been generous with the hospice account so...
just the fact that you entered and have a chance at a game is fun whenther you win or not.)
Comment has been collapsed.
No, it doesn't. How does it defeat the purpose of the site? The purpose of the site is to give and receive games. Not to give and receive expensive games.
Comment has been collapsed.
You sure you've been here for 11 months? Sure, giving and receiving games is what this site does. But I've read over and over again that this site was also created to share games with individuals who couldn't afford them. I never mentioned expensive games......
Comment has been collapsed.
Even giveaways for bundled games get entries. Which means people want them. Which means banning them is contradictory to the point of this site.
Anyway, you nneve mentioned expnesive games by name, just said that giving away low-price games somehow defeats the purpose of this site, which it doesn't.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh come on. WHEN did I mention that giving away low priced games defeats the purpose of the site?? Are you guys seriously trying to pick a fight with me? :D
EVERYTHING will get entries. People don't lose anything by spending points so why not? Getting something for free is better than getting nothing at all, so they probably don't "want" them. There have been some absolutely terrible bundles lately :P
Comment has been collapsed.
"They're so cheap anyways, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the site?"
^ That's when, genius. You know, at the start of this thread of posts?
Comment has been collapsed.
If you're not going to discuss the topic seriously, then I'll stick with those who are.
Comment has been collapsed.
idk, I'm on the fence about it... I can see posting them broken up can be a big issue for contribution point farmers, but for good folks like me who bought bundles that had 1-2 games we already had or didn't want, then it kind of makes it difficult to get rid of em. so I guess if my buds don't want the left over keys, then it's just going in the trash (well... figuratively speaking).
Comment has been collapsed.
It's a bit easy for you to have this opinion, it's not like you are going to loss a lot over it....
I can't see ANY (none, nada, zip, zero) reason, why bundle games which were given away BEFORE they became a bundle game, should be deflated in value retroactively. Though judging from http://www.steamgifts.com/bundles/list it may look like it will not be the case.
Comment has been collapsed.
+1
I also can't see any reason why steam-giftable copy of bundle games should be deflated in value. Now i have few copies and i'm not sure what to do - give it away here with some + to karma, but 0 to contribution value or trade on steamtrades for something valuable for me.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, sadly there is a reason. giftable steam bundle-games can still be misused and that's what we are trying to avoid. There is no perfect solution and somebody will always be a victim here, so the best way to handle it, is to keep the amount of "victims" as low as possible.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have a suggestion: Is it possible to create a bot, which will receive and send gifts? For example - PlayBlinks uses one. If you send this giftable copy to bot - it marked as full-price gift, if you send it directly - it's marked as a bundle-key.
I'm not sure is it difficult or not to create such bot.
Comment has been collapsed.
23 Comments - Last post 29 minutes ago by herbesdeprovence
70 Comments - Last post 31 minutes ago by Reidor
15 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by ewoda
1,772 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by AKFalcon
5 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by OneManArmyStar
54 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by pizzahut
542 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by MagicDN
162 Comments - Last post 2 minutes ago by Fitz10024
27 Comments - Last post 3 minutes ago by grez1
5 Comments - Last post 5 minutes ago by Ninglor03
2 Comments - Last post 6 minutes ago by yugimax
1 Comments - Last post 7 minutes ago by SkeetSurfer
685 Comments - Last post 10 minutes ago by Fitz10024
7,969 Comments - Last post 13 minutes ago by greddo
I was reading the post about the proposed bundle rules, and I must say I think a lot of you guys are looking at it wrong. I mean, if you value contributor status, then you should know that letting broken bundle giveaways go all willy-nilly decreases your relative value with each new wave. If you don't care about it, hey, guess what? Now you can post all the broken up bundle keys you wish without getting suspended or banned!
And for those of you that are upset that you're going to lose some (or all) of your contributor value because you bought a game that went into a bundle later, or you broke the rules and have escaped punishment, or you just loooove giving away indie games, You should try to think of it this way:
The bundle games are worthless for contributor status. You can blame the bundle abusers for that, and not anyone else. But hey, to make it up, there's now going to be a 20% contributor point bonus for every non-bundle game you list, until you're at an even higher value than you were before.
As an added bonus, and this is a faith in humanity thing here -- assuming there are more people who were following the rules like I was, well, I'm sitting on about 25 bundle keys that were never going to see the light of day before this rule change. Now, if it goes through, that's 25 more games for everyone to enjoy. More gifts = more winners = more win. I know listing them all will surely exceed 20% of my current number, but that's ok. I'll catch up. Now there will be a 20% bonus waiting in the wings to entice me.
Comment has been collapsed.