If there was something you didn't fully understand, feel free to ask for my elaboration. If you don't believe me, it's not hard to find examples of people acting like this already.
P.S.: I'm not pointing on anyone, I'll just link a profile, feel free to check out this generous person.
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The only way to fix it is to make bundles to not count to the contributions total.
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Oh man, don't you have anything less related to the topic? Do you have any idea what would other give for the electricity you just spent while writing that nonsense? (I know it applies on me too, I just don't see you logic bringing this off-topic here)
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Do you really think people will spend $100 just to have a little higher chance of winnig something? For that kind of money you can buy 3-4 AAA titles for yourself...
Group Contributor giveaways will be great imho. That way you could give away games for your group and leechers wouldn't be able to join.
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It has happened before and there's no guarantee it won't happen again.
If you can still get a giftable url (without steam keys) for 0.01 then they could still do it.
Aside from that, I'm not the one making the point I was just clarifying it.
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It's a giveaway. There's already much people with over 100$ contribution. It's not likely they will get an instant win.
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My point being contributor giveaways are just another kind of public giveaway. If you don't want to participate in giveaways with a lot of entries stick to private/group ones.
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Then they shouldn't be called "Contributor giveaways". 100 game bundles bought at whatever price you buy them are still 100 bundles contributed to the site and the community. 100 bundles that will go to people who wanted them and who will most likely enjoy them.
You don't need to spend loads of money to contribute something to the community. In my eyes, someone who contributes over 100 games contributes much more than someone who contributed a 60$ game. Just because they cost less does it mean that it's not a worthy contribution?
As I said below: "Anyone willing to go through SO much trouble just to have an opportunity to win a certain game must really want said game. At least he/she is giving games away in order to have a chance to win."
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Couldn't disagree with you more.
I'll recycle one thought I already used here:
Uploading cracks and linking it to this forum is also contributing, right? You don't need to spend any money to contribute something to the community. The end justifies the means.
As for the "trouble" - to buy 100 gifts is not much harder than to buy 1 gift. And the will to go through trouble is hardly a measure of competency to be part of any privileged group.
I think it's also important to note that this particular "contribution" to the community simultaneously hurts other community - the devs etc.
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Your example does not apply. This is not a cracking site, so it's only a contribution if you are looking for that crack. The same way that posting porn is only a contribution if you are looking for porn, but there are much better sites where you can look both for cracks and porn. We come here to give games away. Contributor giveaways are a way of saying thanks to people who contribute to the community. This ontributions should not be measured by how much you have spent.
Plus there is no such thing as a "privileged group". Nobody is better than anyone else for being able to participate in a contributor giveaway. I'd much rather have someone in my private giveaways who has given away 100 bundles, no matter what he/she paid for them, than someone who gifted one random expensive game.
Finally, there is no hurting the devs or anything like that. It doesn't cost them anything to sell the bundles, and most likely people who paid little money for the bundles wouldn't have bought them otherwise. If it hurted the devs they wouldn't have the option to pay so little.
Not even to mention the fact that nobody here can predict the future, so nobody would be able to exploit bundles in order to participate in contributor giveaways unless they last for over 2 weeks, since bundles can't be given away in this site while they are still being sold.
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Chat Room, Forum, and Site Etiquette:
The chat room or forum is NOT used for trading items/games.
Please avoid creating topics for political discussion.
Do not link to any referral programs.
Puzzles: Do not leak, post answers, suggest hints, or directly link to the prize/giveaway.
If you would like to include some self-promotion in the chat or forum, please run it by a mod first.
Be considerate of all users at all times related to the site/chat, etc.
Do not beg or offer to trade in chat or forum. Do not beg for games in chat/forum or PM SG members from chat for games.
Always thank submitters. Thanking is not required to enter a giveaway.You can choose which rules to follow and which not but you WILL not last long if you are picky like that here. Ball is in your court. Remove the link to the user above and have a nice day.
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What about this:
"Important: All gifts should be Steam redeemable CD keys or Steam gifts only."
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Right, like Battlefield 3 is steam redeemable... :)
FAQ has evolved over time, thus it's very inconsistent. Bundles were added after some time, and they technically violate this rule (bundle URLs are neither Steam redeemable CD keys or Steam gifts).
I'd be glad if someone could "read between the lines".
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Maybe it is, I was just pointing out your error in logic.
Those URLs are possibly unused, but yet with (some) Steam keys missing.
This whole discussion was intended to target also moral side of the problem, not just strict following of the rules.
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Dunno about the last or future Humble Bundles, but in one particular case you got at least 2 of 4 keys when you paid 1 cent.
And I'm not even talking here about other bundles which do not have any policy regarding steam key abuse for 1 cent. Solving this problem would be pretty hard...
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I suppose the greatest threat would be people breaking the bundle rule and putting up individual keys with short raffle durations. That will boost a contributor's total quite a bit and some raffles are sure to slip by unnoticed , on the other hand heavily abused it should be an easy pick off for the moderators.
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That problem is old and long gone. New rules dealt with it pretty strictly. Here I'm presenting brand new way of massive abuse/exploitation which is completely uncovered by present rules.
EDIT: well, not "long gone", but also not the point of this discussion.
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I think the real problem are individual keys from bundles, a lot of public giveaways are created using this way and not all get reported or deleted before the gift is sent.
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Yes this is a big risk, i'm hoping the admins will take care of this quickly though..
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Time will tell I suppose. Either way, I will never win anything lol.
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ive won with 21th entry
but this was a very lucky week at all^^
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You don't need steam key to make a giveaway for a bundle. As long as it's an unused bundle URL it's valid.
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probably, there is always someone that fucke ups the things for the rest... but in this case for getting the steamkeys of the games, you have to pay more than $1 for get the keys... so, exepnding $100 just for enter a couple of giveaways is stupid (and yes, people is stupid but people is greedy before stupid)
anyway... the title of "contributor" should be something more hard to get that just spend money, usually the contributors are active in the comunity we will know who is a real contributor and just a leech...
(sorry the crapy english)
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Thing is: it's not literally forbidden to gift a bundle without Steam keys (that's how I understand FAQ). Also, other bundles do not apply this restriction like Humble Bundle does. Hopefully they will follow.
And don't apologize for your English, I also haven't :)
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Just make it a requirement from now on for problem bundles like that to contain Steam keys. Other bundles, like Indie Royale, actually have a minimum price, or have different tiers of value like Indie Gala, in which the lower tiers could fail to count for contributor but the higher tiers would still count.
Also, the mods aren't dumb enough that they wouldn't get suspicious of a user with 100 Humble Bundle giveaways (or one Humble Bundle giveaway with 100 copies).
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If they go through all the trouble and time investment that takes to buy that many bundles and make that many giveaways why not let them participate anyways. Why do you care if more people enter giveaways?
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Contributor giveaways have been made to reward the people that have spent a lot of money contributing to the site and giving away gifts for everybody. Do you mean that someone that spent a minimal effort cheating the system should get the same reward, even if they didn't spend nor contribute to the site nearly as much?
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The aim of the site is to contribute games, not to show how much money you spent contributing. Are you saying that contributing 100 game bundles, even if they were bought at $0.01, is not contributing? Thanks to that person 100 people will be able to play something they wanted to.
Anyone willing to go through SO much trouble just to have an opportunity to win a certain game must really want said game. At least he/she is giving games away in order to have a chance to win.
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As I said before, totally unrelated. It's not a cracking or piracy site, so posting cracks or pirate games does not contribute to the spirit of the community.
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No, I don't think it's the same that someone might spend 100$ and giveaway, for example, Saints Row 3 and Skyrim, than someone that spent 1$ in giving away games that anyone can buy for 1 cent. How cheap do you have to be? Yes, both are giving away stuff, but they shouldn't be rewarded the same.
Otherwise everybody might as well stop giving away expensive games. Just giveaway cheap Humble Bundles, you're gonna get the same rep, points, and get in the Contributors giveaways.
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I think that $100 is $100. Either way they're giving a lot to the community. It's a good idea to reward those who have spent time and money into this place. As much as I would like to enter that Darksiders 2 giveaway, it's a great idea to offer it to contributors.
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Ah, I misread. I get it now. But reading other comments, looks like you don't get steam keys for less than a certain amount paid. That solves the problem for Humble Bundles, right?
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And the problem still retains. I'm just pointing out that until now a few individuals exploited the system for virtually nothing. From now on many will exploit the system so they have much better chances for winning.
You are questioning every single argument I propose, yet I don't get what exactly you disagree with.
Do you doubt that people will do that? You think present rules cover this issue adequately? Do you think it's OK to buy bundles for 1 cent be considered VIP like genuinely generous gifters?
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Dude go for it! From what I have read you show more than enough passion to make a difference here
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That's what mods' job is, right? Anyway that thought was really well hidden deep down under all that criticism :)
Well primarily I wanted to point out this way of abuse and the hole in rules that don't cover this issue. This stuff needs to be taken into consideration before the Contributor giveaway system goes fully live.
If you noticed that huge giveaway increase during today, you must see that this new system might have huge impact, in positive and negative sense - depends on the initial conditions.
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Perhaps we could implement a system that only gives you so much credit for indie bundles and their games? Like, cap out at 2 or 3 bundles worth? Or whatever? Either that or remove the value of bundles that don't contain the "beat the average" content?
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Now we're getting to the constructive part from the endless negativism.
Capping the amount of bundles could be contra-productive. (Some might buy more bundles for more than the average)
The second one I like more, it would require to add more entries in the "create giveaway" list. Even it still relies on truth-telling of the gifter, it seems like a viable option.
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So much for so little.
What people love to forget is that this site is in first place a community, we should come here to GIVEAWAY games to our fellow users and try ur luck in winning some games too. If this were a shop or something like this ur resoaning would be the best, but it is not. If you have find a failure or what you trying to show us as an exploit in the way the community work you should try find a solution for it and not try to overreact about it.
This said, think with me here for a moment. What you are exposing is the same that happens when users try to give bundle keys separated. There is something everyone should have in their mind that is if someone own something he/she should be able to do whatever he/she liked with it, if, being it in legal terms of PROPPER LAW. The reason for the rule that you can´t give away separated keys is that it would be a prejudice with the devs trying to help charity, but this is an ethic matter and not a law infraction. Your concern is the same. One doing what you are trying to say someone will do, would not be going against law, they would be going against your ethic.
So no, I don´t think this is wrong. And since the time I started being a part of this community I´ve seen many people forgetting that they are here to TRY winning games, and just thinking they HAVE THE RIGHT to win something here.
And to end my comment, sorry for my mistakes in writting, I am not a native english speaker.
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I love you for giving a great deal of thought into this.
Not sure if I followed all that properly.
You are saying that giving away individual keys and buying bundles for 1 cent is "the same issue", or similar in that being an ethic question.
The latter one is OK with you. How about giving away individual keys, is it OK too? (disregard the rules for now)
If it's not OK, where's the difference?
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"You are saying that giving away individual keys and buying bundles for 1 cent is "the same issue", or similar in that being an ethic question." - Being an ethic question.
"The latter one is OK with you. How about giving away individual keys, is it OK too? (disregard the rules for now)" - I think it´s ok, since I´ve bought them, I´ve spent my money on it.
They are my property and I should be able to do whatever I like with it. I could be giving my keys separated for my friends like I do when I don´t want one of the games in the bundle. Even if this go against the terms in bundles. My friends did not pay for the games but I bought it, I am not using it but my friends are. If you think this is piracy of some sort, it is not, I have not even downloaded the installer of the games I am not interested.
But since I have ethics and I agree with the rule to be a part of the community, I will not go against it, I will not do giveaways with separated keys.
See, in your point of $100, the person who gave 100 bundles here would be helping charity with $100.
This site has nothing to do with it, you should be able to see it, cause NO ONE PAYS NOTHING TO BE HERE.
Hope I´ve clarified and thank you too for loving me.
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there are zillions of users abusing point system by using separate bundle keys/exploited games. Check anyone with big giveaway values they might have a history of humble giveaways or exploited game keys etc (I know there are a few gifters who are not like that but those are exceptions) ...
Not sure how to solve the issue easily since bundle games were not in a bundle before the bundle date or they are still sold as steam gifts after bundle date so keeping track of that is not very easy.
There's a sure way which is letting only steam tradable gifts for giveaways which are counted and any keys would worth 0$ value giveaways.
Or there's another way; to make any exploited/humble game worth 0$ value. And maybe users can contact to mods individually if they're using legit gifts of those type of games. Actually I think this second option is a must since those kinda giveaways are against SG rules and they're removed when theyr reported.
*** Best solution I've come up with: So just make a list of exploited/bundle games. Make their value 0$ and give a warning to the gifters who are creating such giveaways saying they should contact to mods with proof if they want the value of games on their account. This might require some work for mods but can't think of a better and more effective solution. Just make exploited/bundle games value 0$ by default.
Best regards
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You're right but this might be less work than expected probably. Because users will get a warning from SG system that they're creating a bundle giveaway so they have to contact to xxx person or mail with proof. Well there might be a thread explaining how they should prove it.
So only people who are creating such giveaways and who will try to contact mods for confirmation will cause more workload. Don't think that can be a huge number.. Also bundle keys and point inflation issue and would be solved forever.
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Number of times it's been said that you DO NOT need a public inventory to participate in SteamGifts: Uncountable.
Portion of SteamGifts giveaways that are keys purchased from Amazon, GMG, GamersGate, Nuuvem, GetGamesGo, Impulse, etc.: I'm gonna go ahead and estimate at least 20%, if not more. Frequently these places are also the ones with best prices on very popular giveaways like Skyrim and Saints Row 3. Not to mention incredibly affordable yet still in demand stuff like Magicka and Serious Sam.
How many people, with the necessary ethics and dependability, is it going to take to personally contact and verify hundreds of gifts per day? Especially Group, Private, and Short Duration giveaways.
Either there needs to be an automated system to prevent or inhibit unwanted behaviors, or we continue to rely on user reporting and moderator investigation, or some combination of those two.
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dys i think u misunderstood me I'm suggesting that only for games counted as exploited or bundle games. And I assume someone with that kinda key wouldn't bother to contact mods with fake proofs or at least that would be very unlikely..
So it has to be those games in the blacklist, you can contact to mods and show your inventory or any proof of purchase or maybe some screenshot of part of the inventory. And users might have some awareness against such keys if such a rule exists so after all measures if the gifter used fake proofs he might get reported.
At worst case gifter gets no account value credits for those bundle games if he can't/doesn't want to provide proofs, doesn't sound too bad to me to be honest..
You're suggesting an automated system but how's that gonna work for retail keys or even for inventory auto checking i bet it'll cause huge problems
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Pure Fiction!!!
What causes raping of indie bundles is the lazyness to read forum rules or giveaway descriptions... Or simply the lack of will to follow them. Some users who abused giving away bundle keys were banned, as in my opinion should be all who even feel they have the right to not agree with the rules of a site they still agree to use.
But then again opinions are like genitals, each has his own and is free to give it.
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Just saw mod to give his approval for a private giveaway of 31st Humble Bundle that was clearly bought for 1 cent like all the previous ones. That makes me sad panda.
I ... don't understand. One way of robbing the devs is forbidden by a rule while other one is ... approved.
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I'm not sure how different this is from buying games that are on sale and then gifting them here. The guy in your example still has spent 100 bucks, and I'm not sure anyone would spend that much just to raise their odds for potentially winning games they could've bought it thelselves.
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PLS if you want to contribute to the discussion, read at least the whole first post and not just "tl;dr". The guy in my example bought all those bundles for a single buck altogether. (Edited first post for clarity)
And the difference you seek lies in the quantity. If you buy a game on sale you pay about 25% of the original price. If you pay 1 cent for a bundle of several games, developers divide about $0.003 among them all.
I admit this is not the case of Humble Bundle anymore. Some other bundles with model "pay what you want" are still exploitable though.
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Despite believing my post will got lost in this mess, I think people are taking his example too directly. In literally any bundle, you don't need to put in $100 in bundles to get to the example $100-minimum contributor giveaway, that can be done in MUCH less bundles.
Take IndieGala for example. I can spend $5 right now (since I purchased in the first week) and get 4 bundles. If I put each game up individually, I'd be giving $184 worth of games for $5 since each bundle contains about $46 in games. If someone output $100 in IndieGala to follow the example, that'd be $3,680 'given' away.
My opinion, somehow exclude keys from counting towards contributor or go to the extreme and exclude games that have been in bundles over the previous 3 (or 6) months. Contributor will encourage some to give more, but I agree that bugs need to be sorted through and make sure abuse goes clear. I'll stick with my $10 and contribute more once these questions get ironed out.
//Edit: Just noticed my Indiegala statement isn't 100% accurate. Outputting $100 into IndieGala yields more than $3,680. It'd actually be $15,984. Buying 5 5-gift packs and 1 2-gift pack is cheaper. You get 108 bundles for $100.
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Ahh, here we go again...
Giving away individual keys from a bundle is not permitted by present rules (the success rate of enforcing such rule is another matter). Your example violate said rules.
Giving away lots of bundles, each bought for 1 cent, doesn't violate any rule as for today.
My point is: there is "legal" way to exploit indie bundles to increase your gift-value. There wasn't any serious reason to do that - not until today.
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That's easy for you to say. But you must think through all consequences.
Some games were in a bundle and are exploited for is now. But you can still buy them on Steam for instance. If you don't want to punish people gifting those giftable copies, you suddenly need to distinguish between keys and giftable copies.
Plus not all keys come from a bundle. Other shops like GamersGate sell Steam keys. Now you can't tell what's exploited copy and what's not.
There definitely is a simple solution, but it certainly isn't the right one.
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TL;DR - guy buys 100 bundles for $1 total, gives away, gets about 100 times higher chances of winning great gifts on SG.
(Discussion about this in the according Sticky thread would get buried by countless "thanks" so I bring it here separately.)
So, everyone has surely noticed the new cool feature "Contributor giveaway". If everything goes well, many giveaways like that will start popping up soon. So far so good...
Now imagine the following: a new Humble Bundle goes live. A SG user buys 100 of those bundles for a single dollar in total (EDIT: Humble is out of question now, others are still exploitable in this way). Gives them away, which adds about $500 value of gifted games to his statistics. Suddenly he can enter nearly any Contributor giveaway - his winning odds skyrocket.
Now AFAIK this action doesn't violate any present rules of SG (gifting a bundle that comes with no Steam keys is not forbidden). I think this is horribly wrong. But believe me many people will do the simple math and find this strategy extremely viable.
Question for you is: do you think that this is wrong? If so, how would you solve this situation before Contributor giveaways go fully live?
EDIT:
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