I think its a good ideia. But could be a problem when the contributor have a legit game purchased or traded on Steam and it is misplaced as bundle key.
What about the community itself tell if it is a Steam gift or a bundle key? The creator of the giveaway put a link or screenshot in the description and the majority of users vote and validate that gift.
All games flaged will have some button, like "Is this a verified Steam gift? Y/N" and so on...
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What I don't get is why some think people would stop giving away indie games because of this. Who cares if your contributor value gets fucked? Is that the only reason people on this site giveaway games? If it is, people in this community must really love foursquare ("gotta get all the badges"). Just seems a little...shitty
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Well, the only explicitly functional reason for contributor value to even exist (other than bragging rights) is contributor giveaways.
To be honest, if you got rid of that feature, that would get rid of this present problem...
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You mean you don't come here to enter giveaways?! You don't want to win games?!
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I see your point.
Well, contributor value seems to have become a two-edged sword. On one hand it was meant to praise the gifters and give them extra (deserved, imo) privileges in case somebody wanted to thank them by making a giveaway just for them and, on the other hand, it made some greedy individuals find ways to reduce the odds and get to the loot quicker.
This doesn't mean that everyone here's a greedy opportunist but, unfortunately, the measures that cg wants to adopt are meant to dissuade those few and protect the integrity of the contributor status (so that only those who legitimately gifted get benefits as a form of thank you).
I hope I made myself clear. I'm not good at making things concise :S
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I hear what your saying SfaPiL. I am pretty new to this community, and I think I have much to learn. I guess I am just finding that the original intent of this site has become...distorted...
Oh, and I think I will post one more Borderlands: GOTY giveaway. I saw you entered the last two
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I was never a total fan of contributor giveaways anyway. They are a very nice way of thanking contributors, true. But they also produce a "rich get richer" effect.
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Probably someone said it but - what if the game is a gift, not a key? Making box with choice is not enought, because people will abuse it just by clicking is a gift, and receiving full money..
There was Commandos series in one bundle, what if someone have it as a normaln tradable gift?
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I have a few questions regarding this new system.
Will you be allowing HIB keys now or will it still have to be Gift URL for complete bundles? In the case of HIB V which was split into 3 keys, below average, BTA Games + Bastion key, will the BTA Games receive their own giveaway package? If so, would it be possible to implement the same check you have using the sync feature for multiple games? Say if you had over 50% of the games then you couldn't enter.
As others have mentioned, collecting the lists of games that have been offered may be a little tedious, perhaps if you added a new category to Support for submitting information when new keys are available from various sources. As incentive, offer them the game's value in non-bundle contribution to the first person to submit it.
Just some thoughts.
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Gift URLs only? Easy; note how many games are part of the package. Keys? Yeah, this is a bit complex.
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As far as I know the current rule is Gift URLs only and that is how they show the difference between them.
My question was really more geared to whether the keys from those URLs are allowed now if they aren't a single game and everything that stemmed from that. It'd really come down to just more research on the bundles and how they were distributed and then adding them to the list of entries.
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As people here have already said, this can hurt users who made (or will make) "proper" giveaways of these games, and the list of these games will only grow with time...
The idea itself is good, but only if this issue can be solved (and some good ways to solve this have been suggested), these users should not be punished.
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pls shoot me if you totally disagree, it's just a quick idea
(sorry if someone mentioned it before and i look as if i'm just copying, it just came to my mind
edit, so basically what 0x442E472E suggested on page 2)
What if the 'received button' for bundle-games could be split in 2 different buttons: received: steam tradable gift or received: key. If the winners are honest people, this way it could solve some future problems/confusions caused by the new system
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Many people abused this by now, and i don't think it's a good idea to "reward" them with an exception and letting them retain such high values.
On the other hand, some good ideas have been suggested here:
Giveaways made before the game was in a bundle should not be "punished", Giveaways made after that should give you a way to prove the copy isn't a bundle key, and most games that were in Humble Bundles may need some extra consideration (most of them were included in a single bundle key, a person cannot just give them seperately)
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I don't think it matters much what happens with previous contributors. They may be treated on a case by case basis or ignored. The important thing is the solution moving forward.
I think that not changing the value over time is a good thing in general. It's pretty discouraging to give away something of value only to see that value eroded over time, and this happens all the time even when giving away AAA games.
That said, there's still value in keeping the contribution value fluid for adjustments, but it's not too difficult technically to keep both a list of games as happens now and a single total contribution value, and adjust the total contribution based on the games list if necessary.
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I still don't understand why they can't be set to 0 value. If someone just wants to give the game away he will and not care about the contributor value. If they want contributor status then though luck.
This should also affect CS:GO and Dota 2. I have no idea what to say for Ravaged which some of the keys are beta only and some contain the full game. Maybe it should just be disabled until the launch and the only way to make a giveaway is to request it with proof.
"Lately, the rules are difficult to understand. [..] It creates a lot of confusion"
As someone already said, this will cause a new trend in topics: "Why is my contributor value lower" / "I gave away and it isn't showing on my profile".
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I agree with most all people who think this is a very good idea, yet it affects people who gave away the 'bundlegames' that were no bundle keys (let's hope there aren't a lot of those who have their 'honest' contibuted value dropped hard...
Also, a list of bundle-games would be good.
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I am one of those that the honest contributor dropped hard, 44 bucks hard....sure, not an issue to all the Russians who bought 50 billion copies of railworks for pennies, but for someone with just over 100 to drop to 60...not cool. Not even sure which was supposedly a 'bundle' game. None of my games have been from bundles, I have given one key out from Gamersgate that I bought on sale of course, but still, not in a bundle.
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Mine will drop a fair bit due to this and I only give away inventory gifts, never keys. I lose out because I followed the rules? Oh well. The last few winners didn't even bother to even say Hi on Steam to me so I had kinda decided to stop gifting stuff here anyway.
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The last few winners didn't even bother to even say Hi - well, i think this is not a community problem, but just evolution of mankind in real life too :), so somehow, i don't believe it to be a reason to stop gifting. There's just for every nice person at least 10 scumbags... that's how it is and how it is everywhere you find a mass of people:).
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I dunno. I'd always catch people online after a giveaway and they'd be really grateful and say thanks (I do the same when I win, though I don't spam thanks in the comments as I normally do my entries on a handheld device). However, the last few giveaways I did, even in Contributor AND Group giveaways, I didn't even hear back. I don't do it just to get the thanks, of course, but it does make me sad that people just take.
In other news, I still can't find a list of bundle games to see what I should avoid giving away, either. I'd like to at least catch up to my real contributor value by gifting some non-bundle games.
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I have been throwing this idea around but never got to pm'ing you cg:
This site can read out your steam community, and needs it to function. Some other sites such as http://www.tf2outpost.com/ are able to read out your Inventory for a more personal trading experience. You can just upload your Inventory with a click, and then take offers on those items/games. So what if steamgifts asks to read out your Inventory, and you can only submit those games as a giveaway? Surely, this would delay some gifts, and there had to be another solution for non-bundle keys, however that would render almost every giveaway legit, without a need for a report button (Since the game HAS to be owned). I'd like to hear what you're thinking of this one!
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I think that, as someone suggested on the second page, you could at least do a simple check to see when the giveaway was completed, query whether that date was before or after the game-that-has-been-featured-in-a-bundle was in fact featured in a bundle.
So the people who, say, gifted King's Bounty: Armored Princess before it appeared in the current Indie Gala would get their fair share, and people who buy it afterwards...well, I guess they still won't, but this will at least be better than screwing both before givers and after givers, and one could say "we told you so".
Also, for all bundles that are no longer available, set the bundle inclusion date to the day this new policy is implemented. This is to be fair about "we told you so".
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An alternate idea (that can be combined with the above idea) is to not make a cap, but simply devalue bundle-included games across the board, but not completely.
Devalue them to, like, $1 each. This way this won't unfairly target people who like gifting indie games, many of which have already been featured in bundles.
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That would hurt them far harder. If someone gave away a hundred of the same game, then it was in a bundle, then they'd have $100. Max. With this system, the more non-bundle games that get listed, the higher their value rises.
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Hmm...
...come to think of it, it would be much nicer to small-time gifters (people who've made just a few giveaways), but hurt big-time gifters (those who've contributed tons of games).
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Set the point value to the manufacturer suggested steam price and the contributor value to the lowest recorded price. Allow bundle keys and set the value for all the games contained in the pack to whatever fraction of the minimum value for the pack to obtain keys was. (5 games, minimum to get steam keys 10 dollars, all games are set to 2 dollars.) Realistically at least half the games on here were purchased on sale. If you're upset because the 60 dollar game you just bought to give away was on sale last week for 20 dollars and all you care about is contributor value suck it up and gift it to an actual friend or trade it for a game that has not been on sale.
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Since every single game that has ever been on steam has been on sale for at least half off, all this would accomplish is piss off the people who buy at full price and create even further incentive not to buy games that aren't 75% off or more.
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So.. if you guys are going to implement this, how exactly are you going to tell what's a bundle and what isn't?
The copy of Choplifter wasn't from a bundle, yet it appears to have been counted as such. How about the four copies of Indie Gala 6 I gave away but listed as The Void and Commandos BEL because there was no listing for Indie Gala 6? I don't even care about my contributor value, because people have been exploiting the contributor system since it was implemented and I've yet to win a contributor giveaway due to said people. Meanwhile, when I want to give away a couple of copies of IG6, moralfags decide to report the giveaways to high heavens, despite my saying in the description that the giveaways are actually the entire bundle.
Frankly, if you guys are going to implement this, you best get on top of creating listings for the bundles.
Edit: Also, what exactly is the difference between a bundle key and when somebody buys a game that's.... let's say 92% off during the summer sale? Why does the latter get full value yet the former does not? Hell, the person paying for the bundle key is probably giving more money to the damned developers!
How is buying ten copies of a game that's on some sort of super-sale any less "exploiting" the system than posting bundle keys?
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Choplifter HD was given out for "free" from IGN Prime, which has a known exploit allowing you to infinitely re-register as a trial for free.
Edit: Also, you realize Indie Gala 6 is a giveaway you can make, right?
As for Steam sales, the difference is really just extent, but I raised the same question myself - contrib. scores are really quite meaningless when I can, totally aboveboard and with no deception or trickery, raise it for less than twenty cents on the dollar.
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I believe I made the same sentiment, repeatedly, when contributor giveaways were first introduced.
I said - quite correctly - that this would only incentivize abusive or fake giveaways intended to increase a user's contributor score.
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I didn't claim this was a problem, only that it makes contributor scores rather meaningless regardless of bundles.
I LIKE that sales = more giveaways. That's great. I just think it's strange that indie games are shat upon by the epeen society for being "unfair" but nobody thinks twice about Steam's rather incredible sales. Obviously the "profit margin" in contrib. score is higher from indie bundles...but it's still rather cheaply doable to spend, oh, $20 and get over $100 in contrib. score.
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The endless whining is due in no small part to the fact that the indie bundle profit margin can be exploited in such a manner that, without safeguards, it's possible to get what is effectively a 99.5% discount on the things you gave away. Theoretically even more, if you stockpiled old Humble Bundles for one cent each and never used them, but I seriously doubt that anyone had the foresight to do that; this site only even existed for all of one humble bundle before they implemented the minimum payment threshold, and it was invite-only back then, to boot.
But yeah, people have been bitching about Railworks for weeks now. To each their own; they get their e-peen from enforcing rules they perceive as fair on other people, I get mine from spending my money effectively to maximize my generosity rating without ever actually doing anything against the rules. (I would lose about $15 of POINTS with the proposed changes, but that's more due to my two The Ship giveaways than anything else.)
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Your statement does nothing to prove that buying a game at 92% off is somehow more generous than giving away an individual bundle game. I bought Indie Gala 6 for something like $7.50, I gave all of that to the developers, didn't I do more to "support the community" than someone who bought Microsoft Train Simulator for $3.50?
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If they report, then that's your own fault for not being patient enough to list it properly.
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Doesn't this require keeping active tabs on all 5 and growing indie bundles, with a list of games on those bundles at one point or another growing multiple times per month, a problem listed in the FAQ explaining why they couldn't set up a system like this?
Also, this is a site dedicated to people trying to get things for free. the entire reason for and draw of steam is that you can get things like Saints row the Third complete for $13 if you wait, so what is with all this whining of "Its not fair, they didn't pay as much money as me."?
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I'll lose $40 in contributor value to this, but that's ok. I guess it's because of The Ship? Or maybe cause I bought 4 packs of DD and The Darkness II? Either way I don't feel too badly about it, just a tiny bit confused which games are losing value of the ones I've gifted. I guess they were in a bundle I've never seen?
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I get a devaluation of my donations already at 20% yet have given no bundle keys, only tradables I bought myself (and an IGN key) I'm not even sure what counts as bundle games for me to have so many. (An indicator would be nice) Plus I know there are some games I gave away that ended up in bundles later on. I think 20% is probably a good amount to not punish too much those that get caught with games losing value over their games suddenly being included in a bundle.
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I like it, but I don't see any reason to punish people who gave away a game BEFORE it became a bundle game. Also what if some huge game, eg. Portal 2 (just for laughs) was added to a bundle, it shouldn't punish those who gave away the game BEFORE it got bundle status. I know it punishes people who wants to giveaway a legit copy of Portal 2 from AFTER it changes status to a bundle game, but it's hard to avoid with this system, but lets not punish those, who we are certain did a legit giveaway.
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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
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
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
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
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
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!
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