what do you think about the amount of points we get?
I think the current cap is a nice mix between having enough to enter giveaways we really want, and not so much that people get to join every giveaway on the website.
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Even if I had 50 a day I would still have to much points, but what if there is a bundle with a game someone wants? then 200/300 points are gone very fast so I would think just because you don't need that many doesn't mean others don't and it's not that much that people can join everything.
So I think points are fine, but I dislike more is people just joining good (not the fake game crap) games just for a+1 or just because they have points so why not spend them while they don't even want the game...
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yeah that's true. i don't care about the trashy ones either but someone winning a game that deserves some love is always a pain to see.
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Tbh I have 400 points more often then not. I think it's already more than fair because you get points with time and giveaways are usually 3 days to a week long. Having any more would just benefit people who enter for the +1 and people using auto-join scripts.
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You asked if it was fair… everyone gets the same points system thus it’s fair.
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i usually only join the giveaway that interest me and although i capped the point a lot recently, there was a time when i ran out of points when i had a lot of games that interest me too, so i think i'm content with the current point cap, or a reduction to 300 points.
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I think the community would benefit if winners experienced a cooldown period after each win. 30 days without the ability to enter giveaways. Enough time to play the game and find a new game you want to play.
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That's an interesting idea, that seems to be worth a deeper discussion, though I would cut the cooldown to a week or even less. maybe you could start a threat about this. But generally I'm OK with the system as it is.
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interesting take, i have never thought of that. this would make the site much more attractive to people with multiple accounts tho.
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Sadly Would be great for all the multiaccounters.....
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It would be too much work for multiaccounters to only get 12 more games per year per account, and it would be easy to develop automatic identification of multiaccounters.
I think the system we have now is even better for multiaccounters.
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Didn't we already had this discussion several times before?
If you got some bundle with 40p games yes your points will easily be gone, and some will be picky and say its enough points, and others want to empty them, and always want more, it's that simple.
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I often store points in GAs that are far in the future. About 2000 points is not hard to store for the occasion when someone gifts plenty of high quality 1h GAs.
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I would prefer a larger cap like 500 or 600 and to compensate a very slow recovery rate.
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I think the level cap should be decreased. 400 points is a lot nowadays, there are people ignoring 20000 games, I don't think people need as many points to enter the giveaways of the games they want to play.
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I have no reason to increase points.
It seems that some people stockpile points by applying for a GA of a game they don't want for 50p a month later as a wicked way to accumulate points and then cancel it.
I'm tempted to suggest implementing a significant reduction in points for canceling to prevent them.
But since you are sad, I have made this story invisible.
📝:Updated Changes to Point System
Serious comments seem to be made above.
In my opinion, there is something that should be done before increasing the points.
That is to "take care" of those annoying community deviant users who do not hesitate to violate the rules.
👿 🔫(Θ'o)Zap♪ Zap♪ Zap♪
I am continuing to educate people about them.
Are there any bad kids?
Bad kids will disappear from the SG community.
In the real world, bad kids will be plagued with "curses".
In my part of the world, we get chills in the summer from all the horror stories.
And staying cool is considered to be a good thing.⛄(人Θ'o)❄
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I have only been here a month. What rules are most often broken? Is it intentional or by mistake? By now I think I have read the rules ten times and I'm still learning more each time I read them. I really think that the rules need to be simplified.
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In the beginning, I once got suspended for breaking a rule. I had read the rules, but misunderstood a couple of words. It would not hurt for the rules section to contain definitions of important terms. ;)
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I can't give you the details because the crooks will try to find a way out.😉
However, generally speaking, the actions that are not allowed are those that are listed in the guidelines, and this is where they are described with some subdivision of them.
📝
Suspension Permissions
In general, you will find fraud in something that SG Tools can detect.
We will report it in a Support ticket. =͟͟͞͞( っ'Θ')╮ =͟͟͞͞✉ 📮
It looks like a small injustice that we can understand.
However, when the supporters scrutinize it, it actually turns out to be more evil.
During the scrutiny of those offenders, you may also get an indefinite suspension if you are the owner of multiple accounts or are found to be a bot.
If you want to simplify Rule, it's easy.
Minor mistakes may be tolerated.
After the revision, he was banished with one mistake.
Probably something like that.
Receive a gift immediately.
If you forget to receive it, you will be banished from the community.
If you have a problem with not receiving gifts well, you will be banished if you do not communicate properly.
Simplifying things means creating this aspect.
If there is a "regional difference" in the amount of things, water will flow from high to low.
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Bots would become quite pointless if a winner had a cooldown period of 30 days. Hoarding thousand of games would also get harder. It would do a lot to help increase the mental health of the userbase. I see many users claiming any crap they find on a daily basis to increase their collection of games well above 5000 titles. This obsessive behavior then turn people into rule breakers. This behavior is created by the site and the rules.
We would most likely have less rule breakers if we started to help people break their obsessive behavior. But I can understand if this is undesirable for the owners of the site. Right now every part of this site is designed to maximize the number of page views, to maximize ad revenue. Even the incentive to enter GAs to store points is designed to maximize the page views. First display an ad when someone enter the GA, then a second time when they exit, and a third time when they enter the GA they actually want to enter. It's really clever. And I wish the owner all the luck and want to congratulate for the successful site.
I did a quick calculation. I have been exposed to more ads on this site in one month than I have been exposed to in ten years on Facebook. This site is super profitable! It has given me deeper understanding in how to design black hat gamification principles. Super educational!
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Your permanent incantation of having thousands of games being obsessive behavior is obsessive in itself ironically. Drawing the line at <1000 games as you do is judgemental as there is no qualitative difference in having hundreds of games or thousands in respect of your purely theoretical assumption of an obsession.
Imagine Valve would roll out a subscription service for the whole Steam catalogue of 50,000+ games. That must be Armageddon in your eyes.
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Yes absolutely! Social science and cognitive science is my lifelong obsession.
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...It would do a lot to help increase the mental health of the userbase...
...This obsessive behavior then turn people into rule breakers. This behavior is created by the site and the rules...
...We would most likely have less rule breakers if we started to help people break their obsessive behavior...
I just have to say, that I hate that you keep saying that people collecting games is some kind of a mental health issue without actually basing it on any study or anything like that.
Without basing it on anything, I could do the same to you; Why are you in 800+ steam groups? Isn't that a bit too much? I think we should write to Valve to help "break your obsessive behavior".
...I see many users claiming any crap they find on a daily basis to increase their collection of games well above 5000 titles...
...I did a quick calculation. I have been exposed to more ads on this site in one month than I have been exposed to in ten years on Facebook...
I think that says more about you, rather than anything else (I mean, damn, do you check every persons' profile?).
Right now every part of this site is designed to maximize the number of page views, to maximize ad revenue.
Hmmmmmm... how is it that I didn't notice a single ad on the entire forum part of the site? Stop exaggerating it all so much.
Even the incentive to enter GAs to store points is designed to maximize the page views. First display an ad when someone enter the GA, then a second time when they exit, and a third time when they enter the GA they actually want to enter. It's really clever. And I wish the owner all the luck and want to congratulate for the successful site.
I don't think you know how ads on the internet work. Websites (mostly) earn money from ads when you click on them. Because Steamgifts uses Google Ads for advertising I will go off that.
From Google Ads FAQ:
How much does Google Ads cost?
... You are only charged when users interact with your ad, like clicking to visit your website or to call your business. ...
Also, if you think that the owner(s) of the site makes so much money off ads, feel free to support the site by paying $3 a month to remove all ads.
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It's easier to study the behavior of users if I'm in the groups where they are. I found this site and the users interesting and thereafter added lots of groups with steamgifts -activity to be able to study the behavior. It's really super interesting! I have always been interested in cognitive and social science, and this site was a new form of pay-it-forward community that seemed to work, at least before I scratched the surface. :)
I create games, so this subculture was interesting. And scary. The interesting part is that only a handful of individuals gift games. Most active users engage in trading by entering in very small highly administrated groups where GAs get at most 6 entries and the group has ratio requirements or quality requirements. That's trading in my book. And it is a smart method to level up to access the GAs of the actual gifters.
The majority of users never visit the forum. Everything has a reason... Ad placements especially!
You really need to read more about google ads.
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6310?hl=en
I have no issues with the ads. They are close to the enter-GA button on my smartphone, as they should to maximize ad revenue. Have clicked them by mistake maybe hundred times by now. This is also smart advertising placement to earn even more. I simply acknowledge that the design is perfect for the intended outcome.
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I like the fact that you ignored the part, where I say that you don't base it on anything at all.
Oh wow, what a coincidence! I own 1000+ games because I'm also making a study... that's a lie, obviously, but why do you assume that I can't do the same?
There are multiple reasons, why do I own 1000+, although I doubt you care about those as instead of asking people, why do they own so many games, you rather insult them by saying they have mental health issues.
Why do I have so many games, you may ask?
1) I buy games which I play, that's a kinda obvious one
2) I used to share my games with a friend, so I also tried getting some games that he would enjoy.
https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing
3) I claim free games - It usually doesn't take much time (checking if I would like the game would take even more time) and it potentially saves me money in the future if I would take interest in the game.
4) Buying bundles - If just one game in a bundle interests me, as long as the price isn't too high (for me that's usually under 5€) I buy it and then play the game. But I also receive other games from the bundle, what am I supposed to do with those?
I can do multiple things:
- Trade them - it is a thing I sometimes do, but it takes time (a lot of it if the game isn't that popular)
- Gift them to someone - I would gladly do that, but I don't have anyone who would then return the favor
- Giveaway them - I sometimes do that (right now I'm actually "hoarding" a lot of game codes to make a giveaway train here)
- Sell them - It's an option, but... I don't think it's a good thing to do (here I mean selling the games with a profit - reselling them).
- Just activate them on my account - It's what you call a mental health issue.
Now comes a problem with Humble Bundle (I will refer to it as HB), which I don't know if you are aware of. HB hates people giving their bought keys to anyone else (you are supposed to be able to gift the keys to "your friends", but they don't say what counts as a "friend"). More info here.
That removes all options besides 5. If I don't want to have problems with HB, I don't have a choice...
(If we then assume that I would buy every Humble choice - 12 (sometimes more) games each month + 5 bundles with 3 games each - I get 150+ games every year, with which I can't do anything but activate them on my account.
5) Trading games and items - A lot of the games on my account are... let's say bad (I don't want to insult the developers who made them). I won't ever play them, because (at least for me) it would be a waste of my time. But many of those games have steam cards, which I can then trade for games that interest me. By that I can, again, save money, because a lot of the "bad games" were free or relatively cheap (e.g. there was a task you had to do - enter a steam group or something like that, which wasn't hard or time-consuming).
Here are some examples of games I got for "free" with trading:
L.A. Noire
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Just Cause 3
Dishonored
Mad Max
Life is Strange
and the list could go on.
I don't understand why do you think that collecting the games on my account impacts my life anyhow negatively. I don't even care about that number, but it is rather an off-product of my other activities, I can't do anything about.
The interesting part is that only a handful of individuals gift games.
That's right. It's because a lot of users entering the giveaways are bots or people who just want to get free games (I would gladly get rid of those, but those aren't active on the forums ;) ).
Most active users engage in trading by entering in very small highly administrated groups where GAs get at most 6 entries and the group has ratio requirements or quality requirements. That's trading in my book. And it is a smart method to level up to access the GAs of the actual gifters.
I don't think that's trading, but you are not wrong.
You really need to read more about google ads.
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6310?hl=en
Fair enough. Although I still don't think that this site makes that much money.
Thanks for the BL.
No need to thank me, now. You were on it since the moment you started insulting people with 1000+ games in some different thread.
You really need to ask yourself why you have such a strong reaction. I am really starting to get concerned about the mental health of the userbase on this site.
Do you call that a strong reaction? 5 seconds spent by going to your profile and clicking that small button? ...okay
What do you think I should've done instead? Go and insult you too? What would that bring? I would only waste my time.
No need to be concerned about my mental health, I think you should look after yourself first.
So many lives are destroyed every day because of the black hat gamification principles.
Oof, ouch! It's like you think that my/our entire life(s) revolve around Steamgifts and owning games on our accounts.
And too few are opposed to the trend.
Thank you for being the knight in shining armor that will save us all! /s, in case it wasn't obvious
I like how even the article you linked in your steam group doesn't support you.
Hoarding is a mental health disorder characterized by a persistent and powerful difficulty in getting rid of collected items, regardless of their value.
I would gladly get rid of a part of my steam library, even more, if I would get something for it.
It is also important to distinguish between hoarding and collecting. Collectors are proud of their collections and enjoy displaying them. Hoarders, on the other hand, are ashamed.
I wouldn't say that I'm "proud" of the number of games I own, as it isn't much to be proud about - it's just a number. Though, I for sure am not ashamed of it. So, by the articles you link, I'm nothing more than a collector and I'm totally fine in this regard.
This took a lot of time to write and I hope that you at least read it. So now, please stop insulting people whom you know nothing about.
(I probably won't respond anymore, as this took much longer than I thought it would and I have better things to do.)
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Thanks for the BL. You really need to ask yourself why you have such a strong reaction. I am really starting to get concerned about the mental health of the userbase on this site. So many lives are destroyed every day because of the black hat gamification principles. And too few are opposed to the trend.
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Telling people you know very little about they have a mental health problem will inevitably lead to some of them blacklisting you.
For me it's about someone's contribution to the community and thus you qualify for my whitelist.
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Of course. And it is an important step in the process to first get upset. Then reflect on this. Finally acknowledge that there might be more behind it, if the feeling was unreasonable. And then get help. I usually get thank you -messages after 9 months. It's a long journey to break free from bad habits.
Helping people to reflect is actually very rewarding.
Mental health is way to Taboo in our culture. It really should be the opposite. We should care more about each other. Especially in a community related to gamification, the science of controlling the feelings and behavior of the gamer.
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It's amazing how everything here is "scary", "obsessive" or "creating rulebreakers" for you. Yes, rule breakers exist. They exist everywhere, not just here. And they don't exist here on a greater scale than anywhere else.
Possibly the greatest joke was your description of SG as some kind of "ad trap" though.
But maybe you desperately need to overdramatize everything you see? Sounds like a mental health problem to me ...
P.S.
How you immediately checked if he blacklisted you is quite obsessive too btw. I'm almost getting concerned about you!
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I guess that's one way of thinking about it.
Humans are evil.
When we switch to that rule, some people will create duplicate sites.
Humans are lazy.
They will continue to use the community out of inertia.
People are greedy.
They will continue to plan to increase the number of BOTs and exploit them with minimal amount of money.
In the past, there have been phishing sites that appear to be duplicates.
I even laughed at the fake Spacecat that was set up.
You may or may not switch along those lines of thinking.
If you are aware of the fact that you will need time to understand your surroundings, you will not have a serious problem.
In my personal , such "shackles" and "rules" are things that are done in the GA of the ”group ga”.
I don't think it needs to be totalitarian in its operation.
In my opinion, such "constraints" and "rules" seem to be in place in the "Group GA".
I guess that satisfies me.
When you think it is not fulfilled by that, it probably means that you feel there is not enough "public GA".
If you want to change the whole thing, you have to prove your success by increasing the number of "advocates" through group activities.
After that, it seems to me that it would be better to show that adapting to the SG as a whole will work.
Either way, we are part of the SG community and we have obligations.
Cheater will be reported in a support ticket.
Hoping that this will protect the good community users who follow the rules and keep the good community alive.
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I often find myself not being able to use my 400 points daily, so I'd say this amount is fair for me.
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I'm relatively picky about games and have a lot of games already. Combine this with my avoidance of GAs with thousands of entries as probability for winning is laughably low there are simply not enough interesting giveaways to spend my points on.
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I see no need to increase the amount of points. I' ve hidden about 10000 games and counting and I only enter GAs for games I'm really interested in. Most likely I'd be able to manage quite fine with less points, since I rarely come close to spending 400 points a day.
Kurzfassung: Meiner Meinung nach sollte das Punktelimit bleiben wie es ist.
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Instead of points, we should have tickets, where it costs 1 ticket to enter any giveaway.
Everyone would get as many tickets daily, as the number is in their username.
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But then won't all the newbies have names like Whatever9876543210?
It's going to be so hard to know who to blacklist!
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I'm not biased, I'm adam :D
Just wanted to shake up the topic a bit with a silly, obviously horrible solution. I'm more than fine with 1+2+2+4 daily entries, I'm usually sub-5 :P
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Edit: If you just want an answer about the current supply of points. I think we receive too many points and I like the idea of getting less to make people consider what they enter. That way more people will win games they want to play instead of so many games going to people that just spend all their points to get a +1 on Steam.
I think we get too many points and also not enough points because we now have a static points system that does not take into account how many giveaways are being created. I like the old points system better.
We used to get points based on a percentage of the value of all the giveaways created. This meant when there was more giveaways being created, you would have more points to spend and when there were less giveaways, you would get less points. So when a big bundle is released like the Humble Monthly, you would have a lot of points to spend instead of instantly running out of points like you do now if there is 1 or 2 games you are interested in. Then when things slowed down, you would get less points instead of now where you just continue to get flooded with points and can't find anywhere to spend them. The system we have now makes storing points in future giveaways much more valuable if you want somewhat decent odds of winning compared to bots or people who just spend all their points on anything the can to get a +1 on Steam.
I think we used to get 5% of the value of all giveaways created, and a lot of people, including myself, wanted to lower the percent. I think it would have been good to try dropping it down to 3 or 2%, maybe less.
You can read a lot of opinions of the points system before and after it was changed in these threads:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/kGtHd/point-distribution
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/9cWgD/point-system-updates
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/DppnG/thoughts-on-further-point-system-changes
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/rgtRD/updated-changes-to-point-system
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i prefered the old system over the new one as well. i couldn't find a poll where it was decided to go with the new system or was there never one?
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CG created a topic asking for user feedback on the points system before the change, but there was no poll. It's possible a user could have created a thread with a poll, but I'm not sure.
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less points = people entering in giveaways they want more
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Well, there were a few cases when I reached 0 points (namely, right after Humble Monthly/Choice release that had something for me), but usually I'm at 400 points almost all the time. Still, I don't see any reasons to lower the cap, it's fine as it is, apparently many people actually need those points.
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For myself, I think it's a fair amount. I daily share all my points on as many games of interest I can, because I found several unexpected gems I would never buy myself among small or niche GAs. Since I tend to play quickly what I win, I'm always happy to try.
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Not sure if there was a site like this in the past or was it SG 9 years ago..? But I do remember a system in which at the end of one of your created giveaway, if the game was succesfuly sent and activated, you would had received like "# entries* divided by 50 or 100 or something like that, I don't remember exactly. So if your giveaway ended up with 5000 entries, you'd receive 100 extra points at the end.
I'd love to see something like that on SG, but I can see the downsides as well. I embrace changes, but not too drastic.
edit: I just realized how wrong my math was. Fixed, lol.
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It would be a good idea but it would drasticly restain any person that is not able to contribute to the community to participate, which is both a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion.
SG woun't have an active community like it is right now if you had necessarily "to pay" to enter giveaways.
Ratio systems are good but it's also a pain sometimes, like, even if you are in good faith, there is moments you maybe wont be able to contribute for whatever reason and be locked. It's frustrating and would probably divide users even more and lock in the community.
By preventing problems you create others.
Torrenting sites that base their model on ratio are a very good example: If you have the means to get a good connection, you can't share files. You can resolve the problem either in upgrading your internet provider contract (but sometimes it's unavailable at your location) or you can pay a seedbox monthly, which is a serv that upload for you.
... Or you can cheat, that's also free.
And ratio system sites are crippled with people cheating on the system with programs that trick the ratio system.
And SG would probably be no exception, as where is stuff to obtain people will always find a way to get it if it's unavailable to them.
So, ratio is good but the current system is way better in my opinion. Getting everyone equivalent chances is also fair, and the way it is done on SG (I mean with the more levels you get, the more points you get) is also a good way to make people want to participate in the community.
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Meh, we already went through this a few years ago. The cap used to be 300 points, then it got raised to 500 for a short while and then CG settled at 400 after asking for feedback. The current system was reached through trial and error, it's fine as it is.
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For someone unlucky like myself, more is always a plus.
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i personally hit the 400 point limit a lot since i've started to only join giveaways for games i think i would really enjoy/play.
i would be okay with having less points, so people are forced to pick their entries more carefully.
but that's just my opinion and you might think it's wrong, so what's yours?
what would a discussion without a giveaway be
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