Hey everyone, it's no surprise we've been struggling with bundle keys lately, and we're bouncing a lot of ideas back and forth. One suggestion is below, and we're curious to hear what people have to think.


Proposed changes to contributor values

Bundle games, and those freely available at one time or another (Ex. Shadowgrounds), will only add a maximum of 20% to a user's non-bundle contributor value. For example, if a user has submitted $50.00 in non-bundle games, they would have a cap of $10.00 (20% of $50.00) for any bundle games submitted. Therefore, if they submit $10.00 or $10,000.00 in bundles, their contributor value would reach a maximum of $60.00. To further demonstrate, a few scenarios are below.

User #1

  • Max Payne 3 ($59.99)
  • Counter-Strike Source ($19.99)
  • Far Cry 2 ($9.99)
  • Half-Life 2 (9.99)
  • Amnesia (Bundle Game $19.99)

Previous value: $119.95. New value: $119.95. They receive full value for Amnesia due to the amount of non-bundle games they have contributed.

User #2

  • Counter-Strike Source ($19.99)
  • Amnesia (Bundle Game $19.99)

Previous value: $39.98. New value: $23.99. The value of Amnesia drops from $19.99 to the max of $4.00 (20% of the Counter-Strike value) since their non-bundle contributions are quite low.

User #3

  • Counter-Strike Source ($19.99)
  • Amnesia (Bundle Game $19.99)
  • Shadowgrounds Survivor (Bundle Game $9.99)
  • Shadowgrounds Survivor (Bundle Game $9.99)
  • Shadowgrounds Survivor (Bundle Game $9.99)

Old value: $69.95. New value: $23.99. Same as the above, the max of 20% is reached, so it cannot increase any further through bundle games.

User #4

  • Amnesia (Bundle Game $19.99)
  • Shadowgrounds Survivor (Bundle Game $9.99)

Old value: $29.98. New value: $0.00. With zero contributions not from bundles, their contributor value remains at zero.


How will this affect your contributor value

Add /update to the end of your profile URL, and you'll see a new contributor value in brackets, next to your existing one. This reflects the updated value, limiting bundle giveaways to 20%. This will have no affect on the vast majority of our users, and only begins to adjust values on those that have submitted a higher than usual amount of bundle games.


Proposed changes to what can be submitted

  • Bundles can be listed anytime, whether the bundle is live or not.
  • Individual bundle keys are allowed, since their value can no longer be exploited.

Lately, the rules are difficult to understand. Certain bundles can only be submitted at given times, and there are over 100 individual bundle games. Users submitting individual bundle keys, whether on accident or on purpose get a bad reputation, and it's the cause of countless arguments. It creates a lot of confusion and brings a negative feel to the entire community, which completely goes against what we're trying to accomplish. The above changes would mean anything can be submitted at any time, and the site will automatically keep contributor values in line. If someone enters a $120 contributor giveaway, you know a minimum of $100 is coming from non-bundle games.


Feedback

No changes have taken place yet. At the moment we're looking for feedback from the community to decide on a fair approach. Please post your thoughts below. Thanks!

12 years ago*

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great idea.

I'd like to know though: If a game that I gave away this summer ends up in a bundle during the coming winter, will it be counted as a bundle game even though the giveaway happend before the bundle was ever considerd?

12 years ago
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This system will not account for that, when it gets flagged a bundle game the contribution will drop.

12 years ago
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Good idea !!! support it

12 years ago
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seems reasonable

12 years ago
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seems fine to me.

12 years ago
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Like it. Thank you for allowing bundle keys.

12 years ago
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Sounds good, although my contributor value will drop drastically lol. Not to worry, have more (non bundle) games and dlc to giveaway.

12 years ago
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Yeah mine will be screwed too but I think it will make things easier overall.

12 years ago
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For what it's worth, I've given away one game, and it was a Steam inventory item gift, even though said game was previously in an Indie Royale bundle. However, I bought it when it was discounted during the Because We May sale because I had a little money in my budget left over, and I bought it directly on Steam.

I am pretty sure that, of the over 50,000 or so people on this site, there are quite a lot of others like me, who have gifted games that happen to have been featured in bundles, even though their giveaways were not bundle keys.

I know I once entered a giveaway for Gundemonium Recollection, in which the giver specified that it was a Steam inventory instance, even though it was on Indie Royale at the same time.

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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"Not much of a motivator for giving any indies game here, for fear it'll show up in a bundle."

Well, I think that if I really, really like a game, I might just give it away anyway, even if it's been in a bundle. It won't help my contributor status, and I won't be able to enter much contributor giveaways. On the other hand, I never really liked the contributor giveaway system that much--it seems like a nice idea but its practical effect is "rich get richer"--so I'll just not participate in it when I make giveaways.

And yes, I really hate what this will do to the plethora of indie games that have shown up in bundles. And nowadays, even some non-indie games.

12 years ago
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Mine were not from Indie Bundles, and I am no longer a contributor, I physically bought 2 of them, one was a spare freebie key...sigh. lesson here is don't give away anything remotely indie as it will bite you later.

12 years ago
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Screenshots and/or CD case/key coupon photos?

12 years ago
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Steam inventory history for the inventory item sure, e-mail from purchase, probably if I still have it.

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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lol this is nice but then my contributor value goes to $0

12 years ago
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Same with mine...even though I never gave away Bundle Keys.... I support Indie games...

12 years ago
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I would like to see bundle games be worth at least a small fixed amount each - perhaps between 1 and 25 cents - so that everyone that has actually bothered to give something away can enter the 1 cent contributor giveaways, and those that have contributed substantial amounts of indie games can at least get in at the $1 level for their efforts.

Just to be clear, these minimum values would only come into play for those who have only (or mostly) given away indie games that end up on the bundle list, the 20% rule would be used when it gives a higher value.

12 years ago
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Wow, that's really great idea, I didn't think that you will figure it out in a such good way ;)

EDIT damn, no, I also gave away 20P game not from bundle, that appeared in one... That's not good. I would have to give 100$ more to get it's value back... It needs more figuring it out :)

12 years ago
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It's a great idea!

checks his own account

No it's a bad idea! Do more thinking!

12 years ago
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Haha, no, I still think it's a great idea (better than none) and will support it. But as many others said, it could be a little more polished :)

12 years ago
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Should I keep reporting indie gale key giveaways until this is officially put into place?

12 years ago
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I lost something like 15% of my value this way! Booooooo!

12 years ago
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A this point is better to just ban the game from the site when will be in any bundle.. because that is what this solution will accomplish ( + endless spam of keys ) and it punish who bought the game in the past in a honest way.
Yeah preventing the game to be added forever when become part in a bundle or become "free" ( like summerseal ) is better than this solution..
Than you could request the staff to giveaway a game that has been prevented and it will be approved if you have it on your steam inventory ( require public inventory ofc ).
My solution seem far better and fair for honest people ;)

12 years ago
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This!

12 years ago
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+1

12 years ago
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But what about those of us that want to give away bundle keys for honest reasons?

Some of us aren't trying to unfairly inflate our epeen value, we're just looking to offload keys for things like Indie Gala that give individual Steam keys. I have many keys from there that I already own the games to.

You seem to have forgotten that the original point of this site isn't a score competition, but to give away Steam games. What makes bundle games not legitimate Steam games other than that they were cheap?

12 years ago
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You can give them away on the forum if you don't care about epeen value

12 years ago
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Or chat. Those massive key drops are quite popular.

12 years ago
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Banning games that have ever been featured in bundles seems like it would really discourage people largely interested in indie games (such as myself) from being part of the site.

12 years ago
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is not a ban, is that you need a staff approval ( verify that you have the gift in your inventory ) to make a giveaway of a game that has been on a bundle.
I don't know if staff want to, surely is better than manual removing every giveaway ;)

12 years ago
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That would create far too much work for the mods. They already have their hands full simply removing bundle giveaways right now.

12 years ago
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It’s would create less work, actually.

12 years ago
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Yeah. There were far less legitimate copies than bundle keys out there I'm sure.

12 years ago
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What if, God forbid, Max Payne 3 gets into a bundle? Will future bundles affect users' contributor values?

For example, I gave away Puzzle Agent two months ago (two months before the Indie Royale bundle). What happens? I also gave away a giftable copy of Braid. Do I lose that too?

This system does have benefits, but I can see drawbacks as well. If my legit contributions turn to nil, I'll certainly second-guess contributing in the future. I know Steamgifts is about gifting, but I believe the contribution system wasn't put in place just for shits and giggles. It was to award contributors.

12 years ago
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Very true.

Maaan... if only Valve would implement a way to permanently label all keys as "bundle key" or "standalone key" or something like that and place them in the inventory. That would make things so much simpler.

12 years ago
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My point exactly!

12 years ago
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Only indie games go in Bundles.

You won't ever be seeing COD or MP3 or Dark Souls in a bundle.

12 years ago
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King's Bounty: Armored Princess is not an indie game. In fact, many of the games in IndieGala bundles are not indie.

12 years ago
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What about Killing Floor (during Steam Sale there were few bundle copies and DLC around, and it gets quite a big number of sales, so people might want to gift it then, and KF was in bundle)? And Red Orchestra 1 was also in some bundle, what will we do with RO2 when it goes into bundle (probably when RO3 gets released)?

12 years ago
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Psychonauts was an indie game?

12 years ago
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It went into the Humble, so it is classed as one now. Killing Floor too. While they are both big name games, they are still indie.

12 years ago
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Just out of curiosity, are EA-Indie-Bundle also indie games?

Just wondering what is indie...

12 years ago
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Awesome.

12 years ago
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You should all be happy to know that cg and lokonopa haven't been abusing the system privately all along.

12 years ago
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All they'd need to do is make a giveaway for $2000 value, and use mod powers to enter themselves, force it to end, and then mark as received. :<

12 years ago
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Yatterman has!! LYNCH THE UNDESERVING.

12 years ago
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He gave away several of those 11 months ago. :D
Also, the reason that cg, lokonopa, and your values didn't change is ratio, like in Example #1.
Not because you gave away zero of the 'bundle' status games.

12 years ago
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No, it's because we're hacking. God, get it right.

12 years ago
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What if Zero Gear goes in a bundle? xD

12 years ago
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^this lol XD

12 years ago
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short version: i dont think its fair, not for me in general

so those that have gifted an amnesia TRADEABLE copy for example will get owned?
not such an idea i think.. also if this happens people will be reluctant to gift as much as now, therefore more users/fewer giveaways
was nuclear dawn free? the answer is NO! the 1+1 offer came later.. so the user should be burdened by that..

NONETHELESS if you do that don't forget THE TRAINS

  • my thoughts
12 years ago
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He mentioned that Amnesia will be counted by the 20% thingy if you gave the bundle game and not tradable copy and only if you dont have many giveaways of normal games.About the trains....Everyone who gave it away,BOUGHT IT on a discount.Since when is that not allowed?If that is the case then every game that has been on sale should be the same :P

12 years ago
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Yeah.

I actually wouldn't mind if it went by "how much you spent on the game when you bought it". That would be really hard to enforce, but I'm saying that I think that passes a fairness test.

12 years ago
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I think that there is no way for them to know when someone bought a copy so figuring out the price would be impossible.Correct me if i am wrong

12 years ago
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That's why I figured it'd be really hard to enforce. By that I mean pretty much impossible.

I think you can see when an item entered your Steam inventory, but apart from that...yeah.

12 years ago
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Even if people were willing to post photos of that,it would need a lot of work to find the value at each date(there are sites that track this) and change it to each profile.But the mods are already pretty busy so no need for more work for them.

12 years ago
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check user 4 case on cg's description

12 years ago
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ok... but bundle games were basicly BOUGHT on a dicount too... i don't see the difference.

12 years ago
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I have to agree there, why is Railworks 3 at 90% off *$7.20 vs $72 still counted as a-ok, but other sales are bad....(Like Killing Floor had to pay $10 to get in Groupee bundle, meaning you paid $6 for it... yet paying $5 for it in the summer sale is better...) I didn't even exploit bundle keys yet I am punished the same

12 years ago
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Looks mostly good, which is about as good as I can reasonably expect! :)
It's somewhat unfortunate for legit givers, but understandable, at least for now.
It would be nice to have Bundle Games indicated clearly in a user's giveaway list, and perhaps an additional figure on their profile to indicate the max value available and used from their bundle giveaways (ideally, indicated similarly to how the Bundle Games in the list are indicated).
I assume this will apply retroactively.
Also, it might be nice to list somewhere which bundle(s) the Bundle Games are actually from.

How will P generation work?
(Trying to think of exploits, this question is in case there are people who still have hundreds of $0.01 bundle keys stashed away, with alt accounts, and would try to gain P just in time to snag an otherwise low-entry high-P giveaway. Though really, that sounds like more trouble than it's worth, and technically, the community would still reap the benefits of those giveaways and P.)

For "free games" (e.g. Shadowgrounds), what happens when people stack hundreds of free copies onto giveaways of non-bundle 90% off games? Imho, that starts getting nearly as janky as mass-$0.01 key giveaways.

12 years ago
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Each copy of Railworks will cover one copy of Shadowgrounds.
I'd really say this is an edge case though.

12 years ago
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I don't like this new idea. It doesn't devalue bundle keys, it devalues every game that have been in a bundle at some time. This will make it highly unnattractive to give away indie games and will also lead to a lot confusion for users that buy a game in the Steam store and don't know why they only get up to 20% contributor value while they would get 100% for other Steam games

For bundle keys, i'd suggest the following addition: Giveaways of bundle games with less than 50 entries get only up to 20% of that value and for giveaways with more than 50 entries the winner can select an option whether this game comes from a bundle or not, since bundle keys can't ship with the official gifting or trading function. However, this wouldn't solve the problem with free games

12 years ago
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my thoughts exactly

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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But then you'll say, make their gift inventory visible!
The opposition will cry: "What if they plan to buy it at the last day?!" or "PRIVACY REASONS LOL"

I 100% agree. I tend to do that a lot with you I think lol.

But yea, people will always say some kind of bullshit.

12 years ago
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And considering how so many indie games eventually get bundled...

12 years ago
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Not just that. After seeing Bastion get in an indie bundle, I wouldn't be surprised if Torchlight gets featured in the next main-numbered-series Humble Bundle.

And then you look at the current bundle and, while it's a music bundle, Hitoshi Sakimoto is NOT a name to be sneezed at. He's a guy who's written multiple Final Fantasy soundtracks.

Now imagine if something like Portal 2 got dropped in a bundle. Or maybe an oldie-but-goodie like Morrowind.

12 years ago
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Point. Hey, look at the latest Indie Gala. Did we ever think that King's Bounty: Armoured Princess would ever be bundled? Also Theatre of War 2 in that same bundle.

12 years ago
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...wait, holy shit, you're right. I didn't even know there was a new IG bundle going.

And I thought IG only ever did all sorts of obscure indie games that I hadn't ever heard of...

12 years ago
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Theater of War 2 isn't in IG7, unless it's one of the games they arbitrarily withhold for no good reason.

link

and if it is, how do you know it?

12 years ago
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Someone leaked the list of games to be bundled a few days ago. Likely to be an unlock.

12 years ago
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Oh. Cool.

12 years ago
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Sorry that i spammed this post in the beginning, it didn't show up even in different browsers so i thought this was due to my bad internet connection

12 years ago
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It only devalues the bundle games if you've been giving away a higher than usual amount of them. For example, we have roughly 15 users that have contributed over $2,000.00 in giveaways. They've given away plenty of games that were once in bundles, and yet this update will have zero affect on every single one of their contributor values. Actually, this will have no affect on over 75% of our total contributors that have given away countless bundle games. Their contributor values will remain exactly the same.

12 years ago
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I must admit i slightly misunderstood your system (that's not good since those systems should be easy to understand, but it's my fault in this case). However, as you can see in this thread, there are a lot of people that would feel punished by your idea (I'm one of them) because their contributor value will be decreased without a reason. This is ok, since for every change there are people that don't like it, but it seems that mostly new contributors (with less than 5 games) will be punished which could prevent them from contributing further

12 years ago
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Agreed. Sorry if some of us dont have $2000 to spend. Im fairly new here, I gave away Dungeon Defenders so that I would be allowed to enter contributor giveaways. It was a tradeable inventory copy. I did not even know it was ever in a bundle, until today. I looked it up because I was shocked that my contributor status would be stripped to $0, as if I didn't contribute anything, wasted my money. If this goes through, I am stripped of my contributor status because of a sweeping generalization... I don't exactly feel encouraged to give away any more.

12 years ago
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It won't have zero affect on every single one of their values I believe. But I haven't single checked yet.

12 years ago
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SuperFluffyKitty for example loses $1.3k+ with this.

12 years ago
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Why would mine go to $0 when I gave away Dungeon Defenders? I didn't get it from a bundle

This punishes people who gave away legit inventory games that they did not obtain in a bundle. Why should I ever want to give away a game again when you take away my contributor status and waste my Dungeon Defenders purchase? I could have given it to a friend instead!
A better option is to disable or make games worth little to no contributor points *only when they are currently in a bundle. Don't make them worthless forever just because they were in one at some point. People do buy these games when they are not in a bundle.

12 years ago
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yep same here with oddworld it was a steamgift

12 years ago
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And same here with Serious Sam the Random Encounter.

12 years ago
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So your giveaway of DD was a "waste" because your epeen isn't lengthened over it?

The fact that a user won DD and now owns it doesn't make it not a "waste"?

12 years ago
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Thanks but I'm a female and I don't need your epeen comments. I gave it away because I wanted to have contributor status, even if it wasn't a high dollar amount. Had I known that it would now give me $0 I would have given it to a friend instead. The guy that won it did not even have the decency to thank me.

12 years ago
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I'm a female too, I'm still allowed to make epeen comments. That's really what this is. A contest to see who has a bigger contributor score, i.e. a bigger epeen. It sucks that the winner didn't thank you, but saying the only reason you would give away a game is to be arbitrarily recognised for giving away a game with an arbitrary score just tells me you missed the point of the site.

I give away games to give back to the community (especially since I've won more than a fair share of titles myself) and I don't begrudge the $7 or so I'm losing at all.

12 years ago
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I don't care how high my score is, if I did I would have bought a whole lot of those train games like a lot of people did. I just wanted the ability to enter some of the contributor only giveaways. I gave away a game, that I bought. And now I will have $0 contributor, so I will not be allowed to enter contributor giveaways anymore. Should I not at least be able to enter for contributor values equal to the game that I actually gave away?

12 years ago
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I never claimed the system was perfect, only that it was better. And like I said in some other posts, there should be a method of proving that you legitimately bought the game as a gift on Steam (Steam's gift history, for example). But, I'll flip your question around: Why would I want to make a contributor giveaway when all the entrants will just be people that cheaply increased their scores via bundles?

12 years ago
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Don't see how the question applies to me as I don't consider myself one of those people, I didn't buy a bundle. I don't have a high score, and I've only joined a few months ago...all I wanted was the ability to enter some of the contributor giveaways. Sure people have given away keys to increase their scores, but people have also bought deeply discounted, high value games to do the same thing. Should the site make every game that has ever been on sale worth no points too? We need to assume that everyone is guilty until proven innocent?

As far as I'm concerned they could scrap the contributor idea all together, or at least remove the numbers value (from everyone). Then, there would be no exploiting to increase contributor value, nobody worrying about their score at all. It has obviously resulted in an us vs them mentality.

12 years ago
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As far as I'm concerned they could scrap the contributor idea all together, or at least remove the numbers value (from everyone). Then, there would be no exploiting to increase contributor value, nobody worrying about their score at all. It has obviously resulted in an us vs them mentality.

I made that exact same point earlier - however, I think it's too late, I don't realistically expect the site to just throw out their value tracking entirely.

12 years ago
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I have always though that too. Give something away, get the flag, if they want to give back to others who gave, the amount they gave shouldn't matter. Not everyone has good jobs, some, like me, are crippled by student loans. I gave what I could, I bought during a sale an entire year before it went into an indie bundle, gave it away after I joined here because it was sitting in my inventory since no one wanted it/already had it. Basically all they are saying right now is if you have a lot of money, you can get more free stuff than those that don't....which doesn't seem that fair because odds are if you have given away thousands of dollars worth of stuff legitimately, then you probably don't even need to win the game to be able to play it if you wanted to. I think the flag system would be nice, because, you still are buying bundle keys, not like they are free, so you are still contributing, just you are getting a different kind of sale. The 1 cent Humble Bundle days are gone, min $1 now.

12 years ago
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I don't know, how do you feel about all those people that got $100 contributor status for $13? because of a steam sale.

12 years ago
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Like I said earlier, the value in general is laughably inaccurate when I can increase it, totally above-board, for less than 20 cents on the dollar.

12 years ago
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Actually, yes, you do. Technically, the penis is nothing more than an extented clitoris. Therefore, you do, in fact, have a e-peen to be lengthened. Just saying.

12 years ago
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I was just scrolling down for some similar comment to appear. Had to forsee it would come from you.

12 years ago
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I love you <3

12 years ago
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wow i realy do love you lol, thank you very much!

12 years ago
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Well, I think it is a nice idea :) I really have no problem of having my contribution value reduced a bit in order to stop this hassle.

12 years ago
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"Individual bundle keys are allowed, since their value can no longer be exploited."

"The above changes would mean anything can be submitted at any time,"

Thank you! All I wanted was to give away the excess keys I get from things like Indie Gala without putting the epeen society on the defensive. The only reason I ever disliked contributor giveaways is that so many new rules had to be put in place to protect contributor scores, and it really turned this community noticably more hostile and suspicious.

Edit: I do have one question, though, what about "Beat the Average" games and full bundles? Full bundles, I imagine, would be excluded, since the entire purpose was to stop the artificial inflation of buying a bundle for, say, $6 and getting $100 in contrib. score. But if the full bundle costs ~$6 minimum and gives 6P, there'd be no reason to deflate its value. As for BtA games, you still have to pay $7-$8 for them so it's not like you can spam them for $0.01 each. I'd say if you were willing to put in the work to program two different classifications (bundled and BtA) I'd have the BtA games contribute...I don't know, 50% or something. If not, well, it's still better off than we are now.

12 years ago
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Full bundles are not marked afaik. All individual games from bundles are though (BTA as well).
As for BTA value, you still give away one game of the BTA ones while you have separately used all the other ones. So you can't really say it cost you 7$-8$, can you?

12 years ago
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Dear cg

Your solution is very good... for computers. But people won't be able to understand what is happening with their contributor value. Get ready for "My contributor value??? O_o" - thread SPAM on forum :D

But look, this is my solution

While entering giveaways i always look for steamgifts, but most of contributors does not give this important information. Please, make it obligatory to select option steamgift, cd key, * bundle key while creating giveaways!

And now: steamgift should be 100% valued, cd key should be 50% valued, bundle key 5% valued

But if someone is cheating... you can ban him. Winner will report him if he gets cd key instead of steamgift for sure!

12 years ago
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No, a lot of winners might not care, and there're always going to be people trying to game the system.

Let's be honest, anyone who gave away nothing but games that JUST HAPPENED to be in bundles, got them from bundles.

12 years ago
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Ok so make it obligatory for winner to tell what he got while clicking "received": Please select what did you get: cd key, stemgift, bundle key

If most of winnes tell that contributor is giving something else that he is offering - can be banned automatically :P Or better - the number of availble giveaways he can create should be automatically decreased! (i am genius in good ideas :D)

edit: additionally contributor value should be calculated using winner answer not the contributor information!

12 years ago
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You're assuming it'll work like it should in theory.

I'm trying to keep in mind how much workload a solution will present to the staff. Having to investigate every individual claim and play "he said she said" over whehter it's a CD key or a bundle key or whatever is just going to increase their workload.

12 years ago
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No it can ce automatic.

Contributor select: You are giving away: steamgift, cd key, * bundle key

Winnes select: not received, received steamgift, received cd key, received bundle key

Contributor value is calculated using winner select but if winner selects key instead of steamgift the number of giveaways this contributor is allowed to create is decreased by 1.

:D

12 years ago
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You're still going to get a flood of "confused" (either honestly or not honestly) people registering complaints and whatnot over it.

You're still going to get contributors and winners disagreeing, you're still going to have dumbasses claim to have hit the wrong button or something, you're still going to get idiots claiming they didn't know what it meant or didn't know how it worked...et cetera.

It's just like the new accounts that go make 3 giveaways of Skyrim or MW3 or something, then claimed they thought that's how they won games.

12 years ago
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You are underestimating the amount of people who don't read the forum, the rules, the faq, the options they can click. Plus the ones who can't read/understand most of it.

12 years ago
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This idea isn't airtight, but it would definitely cut down on abuse. And be an improvement on the current system.

12 years ago
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But there is no airtight solution unless Valve itself gets involved in steamgifts!

12 years ago
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Exactly.

We need something that's a significant improvement over the current system, not necessarily something that is airtight.

12 years ago
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I would argue it's no more confusing to follow than three tiers of value at 100%, 50%, and 5%. Also, large amounts of people would select the wrong option every day. We'd also have countless support tickets saying 'I sent a Steam gift, but the winner said they received a CD key' (impossible for us to verify, it's one person's word against the other), and 'Oops, I wasn't cheating, I thought Steam gift meant Steam redeemable'. Anything that relies on user input will cause plenty of headaches. For example, what happens if a group decides they'll mark their friends bundle keys as Steam gifts. We're back to square one, chasing down users, while being unable to prove where a gift originated. A user posts three copies of Shadowgrounds and their friends verify they're Steam gifts. Where do we go from there? We can't ban them based on assumptions, and they receive full value for potential bundle keys.

12 years ago
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Ok, but please read my answers above. Or i'll just write once again. I improved this idea :D

It can be fully automatic

Ceating giveaway:

Contributor select: You are giving away: steamgift, cd key, * bundle key

Finallizing giveaway:

Winnes select: not received, received steamgift, received cd key, received bundle key

Contributor value is calculated using winner select but if winner selects key instead of steamgift the number of giveaways this contributor is allowed to create is decreased by 1.

edit: or for safety reasons it can be decreased by 0.5 (this should eliminate possible mistakes)

12 years ago
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player A created giveaway
player B won
player A "hey, it is a key, but please marked it as received steamgifts"
profit

and this idea will bait bunch of trolls who marked the wrong gift, for example winners get steamgifts but marked it as key, then bunch of ticket/thread will appears on forum, and it will be hard for SG staffs to track them down one by one.

/thread

12 years ago
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ok it is not a perfect solution, but i think that most of people who want steamgift, gets angry receiving key and will not lie

12 years ago
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In the end, support is just too small.

12 years ago
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You're going to have a lot of winners either maliciously or accidentally select the wrong type of gift, and then that makes work for the staff trying to play he-said-she-said between two disputing users.

You're going to get people selecting steam gift for bundle keys and saying "well it's a gift on steam not a CD doesn't that make it a steam gift???" or you're going to get people who give away keys from non-bundle sources (like Amazon, GMG etc) who say "Well it's not a CD key it doesn't come with a CD" or other stupid things.

Hell, a lot of people have had winners not even bother to note that they received a gift at all. And that literally takes two seconds and a single mouse click and comes with a freaking reminder on the front page.

12 years ago
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Awesome work cg

But what about to those who submitted ONLY bundle games, but as legitimate gifts, not keys?

12 years ago
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Do you really think that's really happened to folks?

And if so, perhaps they could prove it by showing their gift history in a screenshot to the admins on a case-by-case basis? Let's just be honest, there aren't that many people who just by coincidence gave away bundled games only, but nnot from bundles.

12 years ago
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There could be a few, a lot of indie games have been thrown in bundles. I still think this is the best plan but I can see how a few people will be burned by it.

12 years ago
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If there are so few, then it surely wouldn't be difficult to rectify it on a case-by-case basis.

12 years ago
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It's happened to me, and I'm far from the only one. There are at least two other people who mentioned this somewhere else on this page.

12 years ago
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Closed 12 years ago by cg.