Yes, because people frequently list multiple game keys as individual games.
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(As was suggested somewhere else -- if the system knows which games were "tied together", and only finds one of them on the giftee's account, then it can relatively safely assume that the giveaway really was just for that single game, and therefore did not come from that bundle. Granted, this adds more coding (esp. if a game appears in more than one "indivisible package"), and also makes maintaining the list with the connections more difficult.)
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I actually don't mind this solution. The only issue I can possibly see with it is $25.01 being the new $0.01. The past action bit I like. I no longer need to fear giving away an indie game in the future that it might one day in the future be bundled.
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"Over 200 games have been in bundles, so we don't want users that just started out to lose value because of bad luck."
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There's no issue. I just pointed out that the reason for the $25 "tax free" is because new users might legitimately have bought/want to buy and give away a game that is on the continuously growing list of bungle games and they might be deterred from doing so if they don't get any recognition. It's a way of easing the "punishment" on legitimate gifters but of course also letting a few bundlers get through.
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This. Make the bundle games included with IGN keys. Or make 20$ worth of IGN keys(so they aren't abused)
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From all the solutions from the admins, this is the best so far.
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meh.. still the same like the old #1 version just 0 $ became 30 $ (25$+ 20%); as i see it, its not improved, it is worse.. can't you make it stay at 0 and make a "sistem" to verify users that they gave giftable copies when they made giveaways for games that were in bundle? screenshoots from gifting history?
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I feel for him, I know how hard is to spare & justify spending any money for games in our country, let alone if you're giving them away.
And I've said it before, it'd be nice if this option was altered in a way so that would be possible to 'prove' that you gave a giftable copy of the game. Don't know if it's doable, but would definitely minimize the 'damage' from the change to the larges part of the users.
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That proof can be manipulated or faked, and it results in MORE work for the SG staff. That's the problem.
It'd be great if everyone just gave inventory items away and there was some sort of automated middleman that would handle it for you and mark it as received automatically (and not allow the user to do it themselves, so they couldn't give people keys and have them mark as received), but SteamGifts doesn't have the technical capability to do that, and not all games come as tradeable Steam inventory items.
This is the best compromise.
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I think support would see, if it's fake, when you give them 100 screenshots from games that are "accidentally" from the same bundle. Eg. for me it's Hard reset, the ship, Killing floor and zeno clash, who are in the bundle list, but were legit copys. Imho, the point is that support couldn't handle all those requests.
However: I like this option most so far, the only improvement would be that someone has to give a non-exploited game away before getting the bundle-points.
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I have nothing to add now. Everything else, in the lines of 'But what if I bought the game before it was in a bundle and stored it in my inventory waiting for it to get better like good old wine' can be disregarded as unimportant.
I fully support this solution.
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Yep, my giveaways were all like that, and I don't really appreciate that this option still penalizes me as if I gave away bundle keys. I keep saying that without that distinction, this option has issues. Why should I lose credit when I did nothing wrong?
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Huh?
1) It's still possible to buy those indie games on Steam after they've been in bundles.
2) There are many reasons why someone might have acquired the game before the bundle and want to give it away months later. e.g.
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I also thought of that and think that's no problem. That would mean that everyone has to spend a lot of games (Some of them could be bundle games) to join those giveaways which isn't bad at all :D
Also, just one indiegala would be enough to get to 30$ ^^...
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I'm way too sleep-deprived to think this through too much right now, but on the surface it sounds good. I like that it allows $25 worth of leeway for "legitimate" games that might get hit as collateral damage (e.g. a Bastion gift giveaway made today, after the HIB).
There's one thing that I'm a little confused about, though. All of these discussions seem to center around the idea that rampant bundle giveaways are a problem because people are abusing them for contributor status, so we need to find a way to fix the contributor system so having tons of bundle game giveaways is no longer a problem. However, unless my memory is off bundle games have been prohibited since I first got here, before the contributor system was in place. I always assumed that was due to a combination of bundle TOSes and fear of people abusing getting a Steam key + DRM-free copy to essentially duplicate the game. Am I wrong about that? Are there going to be any restrictions on allowing bundle giveaways, or is the new policy just going to be to leave it up to the individual to decide what they can or cannot do? I don't really have strong feelings one way or another, just trying to understand what the goal is.
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Actually yes I was wondering about that too. Those keys seem to be intended as complimentary convenience factor to redeem your ONE license. It just seems to be universally ignored and who knows maybe even bundle creators don't particularly care that much but it's there not to discourage devs or something and hey I sure was beneficiary to that.
Them bundle sites I've seen say you are responsible for the stuff on the pages with keys and that they are for personal use. Even on HIB, it's just a note below steam keys afaik, not a spelled out part of ToS as far as I can tell, but it's there. I just thought SteamGifts was supposed also to at least officially not agree with that :3
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The new system may work very well without repealing the rule about individual bundle keys. I think the main reason this rule is broken isn't due to users who trying to boost the own contribute value, but for lack of communication. The rules should be made more visible.
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The major problem is that indie bundles are not disappearing anytime soon. Over 200 games were once in a bundle, and this number grows daily. When bundles started, it was easy to keep on eye on a couple of flagged games, and to ask users not to submit them. Since that number has become too large, we can no longer ask users to avoid those games. We can't tell the community to no longer post Amensia, and hundreds of other games because they were in a bundle years ago, and we're unable to verify where their gift was purchased. The new solution is to ask users to respect the terms of service from bundles, and to setup the above system, ensuring that anyone posting a suspicious number of bundle games maintains a fair contributor value inline with the rest of the community.
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Unfortunately this means that people who make giveaways of tradable items that also happen to be in bundles are being treated as if they submitted bundle keys. All of my giveaways are in that situation, and I feel like this proposal (original and revised) punishes me when I didn't do anything wrong. I think I basically understand the site's situation, but I don't like being considered a sort of collateral damage and being penalized like this when I followed the rules. If something like this is put into effect, will there be any chance to appeal our reduction in contributor credit? Can we provide evidence, like screen shots of Steam histories, that we gave inventory items to show they're not bundle keys? It seems like we should at least be offered some kind of chance to clear our names. I don't want to be treated like an abuser when I'm not.
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I feel the same way, but they are going to do something, there is nothing we can do about it. I still don't get why you can buy $100+ worth of games on Amazon for $5/10 when they have dev bundles and that is thought of as fine and dandy, but Indie bundles are considered evil. The only real difference between them is Indie is Charity related often, and Indie is small time devs trying to make it in a AAA world. I can however understand Shadowgrounds which was exploited to raise the contributor values being an issue, but Indie bundles you still need to buy with money. Amazon's page says you are not supposed to gift the keys, and doesn't give you a way to do it through them.
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Yes, I realize they're planning to make some change relatively soon, and it's nice that they're asking for our feedback about it. They certainly didn't have to get community feedback. And I realize they're trying to simplify things here, because it's hard to monitor things as they are now. But if they're going to penalize innocent users in the process of implementing a fix, then we should have an opportunity to straighten things out. If they make a change that basically punishes me when I did no wrong and will not give me a chance to clear my name, I may have to reconsider giving away games here again. If I'm going to be treated like an abuser of the system when I'm not, I'm not sure I'll want to stick around.
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Out of curiosity, where does Amazon say you're not supposed to give the keys away? I can't find anything on it, and when asked about an official "buy game as gift for another user" option the Amazon rep on CAG has said (paraphrasing) that he's pushing for it and in the meantime people are welcome to just give the keys to the person they want to send the gift to. It's also the reason Amazon allows you to buy multiple copies of the same key, I think.
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I am just refering to what it says any given individual game page. Perhaps it is my misinterpretation, but it does say Gifting is not an option. It also says they are not available for anyone outside of USA, so not sure if that means you can't officially give them to someone outside of USA.
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Repost from other thread.
So if someone will decide to make, for example Aquaria giveaway (shame on me, still have it only in my wishlist), there will be no point in it as it was in 1 and 2 year old bundles, so he won't rise contributor scores.
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True, but then it's pointless after you reach that value, and it's almost useless from the start if people just compensate for it by setting contributor giveaway requirements to over that $25 or $30 max credit you can get with only games in bundles (which I expect at least some people to start doing).
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Yes, it is the best solution by far in comparison to other ones that were suggested, its just sad that community needs to b regulated like this on a giveaway site.
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But giving away a bundle (as a whole) counts toward your "non-bundle" value.
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Sounds like a good start. However, what happened to that plan to do a complete sweep of them or something along those lines? And while devaluation helps deter those who think value matters or want to abuse that aspect of it, has the plan changed from keeping them off of the site to allowing them but making them worth less? I might have missed that little detail if so.
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Please review the previous thread if you missed it.
Based on all the comments, there have been a few updates.
This is a little complicated, so I'll try to explain. When calculating contributor values, the following happens.
Non-Bundle Value = The value of games received, which are not in the above list, as well as any games in the list that were created before the bundle.
Bundle Value = The value of games received, which fall into the above list. They're only included if you created your giveaway after the earliest bundle, meaning there's a possibility of boosting values with these games.
Now the first $25 from the Bundle Value is moved over to Non-Bundle Value. If you have $26 in Bundle Value, and $15 in Non-Bundle Value, it's updated to $1 and $40 in this example. This happens to give new contributors a free pass. Over 200 games have been in bundles, so we don't want users that just started out to lose value because of bad luck. This way, we wait until they've contributed a few more gifts, to get a better sample size.
Total Value = Non-Bundle Value + min(Bundle Value, Non-Bundle Value * 0.2);
The above determines the total value based on those two numbers. The value coming from bundle games can only contribute to 20%.
Profiles are now updated with the new values. Take a look, and let us know if you think this is fair.
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