they should add more features and not remove them and make the client even less appealing to use. if they did it because of the regional varieties, they're making people use other key sites to get their games "cheaper". 😐
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"When there is a large difference in pricing between countries, gifting won't be available and you'll know before purchase."
I used to get certain EA products like Sims 3 DLCs from a friend in the US, because, even on sale, they're more than twice as expensive over here in the EU. I suppose this would be one of those situations, when gifting won't be available anymore?
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Correct. Same is true for EA games that are half-price in EU compared to US.
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Well, there's a simple solution. I'll just move my Sims3 over to Origin, and buy Origin DLC keys on Amazon. Or, since they clearly don't deserve any better for not adjusting their regional pricing for years, I might as well grab those Origin keys from G2A. I can understand, that they want to stop people from exploiting special prices made for countries with lower income, but this is clearly different. EA just doesn't care to set their prices straight on those few games they have left on Steam. As you said, there's also EA games where it's the other way round, so it's not about different income, it's just plain stupidity.
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"Large difference" probably means "slight difference". xD
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You sure or you're just guessing? And 10% looks like a slight difference, just like I said.
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Read through the comments here and on the article. It was tested.
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Ffs. I live in the most expensive region. I'm screwed. ;_; I guess I'll be buying my games from key traders from now on. About giving away games, that'll be almost impossible, but I'll think about it. xD Anyway, thanks for all the information.
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Europe is actually one of the better ROW regions now. But stores also supporting EUR can often offer better prices. Right now, for me, Steam only can beat Humble Store in a very few cases.
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Did the people testing it mention what Steam says when you're unable to gift a game to a specific friend? As in if you are US buyer looking to give a friend some Sims DLC, but you have both US and EU friends on your list. Does Steam just forbid you from gifting the DLC entirely or will it only show your US friends on the list of available recipients?
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You can select anyone who doesn't own the game, and it even lets you compose a nice little message you normally send along with the gifts. But when it comes to checkout, you see this below.
I was trying to send a game to someone living in the US and I am in the EU1 zone on Steam.
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Urgh, that's just awful. Thanks for the info, gotta be careful from now on.
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They really, really should tell you before you spend all the time going through the steps and composing the nice little message :/
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What, and miss the opportunity to kill user-friendliness as a side bonus to making the next anti-consumer change ?
Not Valve's style: when they decide to fuck things up, they fuck things up right.
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almost like they didnt think this half-assed implementation well-through... as always :?
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I wish Valve would let the developers decide what happens to their gifts. Some devs might be happy about the new gift system. But I'm sure many are not.
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It's valve that's behind this. You can't believe that ALL developers got together and asked valve to kill trading.. It served it's purpose in bringing customers to steam, and now that valve knows steam is everyone's number one choice, valve is ready to start killing features that don't maximize their profits.
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Great, just great. This will massively hinder me making GAs because now I can't just make those based on what's on a good weekend sale... And now I won't be able to make a Valentine's Day train next year because those games were always Steam gifts... :(
It's also awful for the reason that sometimes I would buy a game that I was somewhat interested in, but I wasn't yet committed enough to add it to my library so I just stored it. I'd let the game stay there for a while until I'd decide that I was interested in it enough to add to library, or just give it away if I had lost any interest.
They should've just made gifts untradeable and only allow to options for recipients of gifts: "Add to library" and "Decline" then this change would have been reasonable.
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Very much this. I don't mind the time limit on giveaways THAT much, I could make a 1 hour giveaway on the same day I bought the game if it's a short sale. Wouldn't be as fun, but it'll work.
But the fact I can't buy a game I'm not sure about and take my time deciding whether or not I want to keep it or gift it is pretty damn annoying.
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There's just that you never know if you'll have trouble with the winner or not. The winner has seven days to mark the gift as received, but you could end up with a winner who has mysteriously vanished and doesn't claim the gift. Or you might need to re-roll the winner for other reasons, and a shorter sale would already be over by the time you got a new winner in either case.
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The 7 days to mark as received thing will need to go. Best course of action in my opinion is to let the giveaway creator decide how long winner has to accept (with a minimum of 1 day) and display that info somewhere noticeable on the giveaway page.
The re-roll thing will also need to be changed - If a winner doesn't accept within the time limit you should have permission to delete the giveaway with no further consequences, and if you reroll for other reasons... well, I guess the reroll will just have to happen fast or something. Maybe give creators 1 free reroll without forcing a support ticket, I don't know.
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We'd probably have GOGGifts already if GOG had an OpenID login (or something else to that effect) and a public API for checking users' libraries. I'm sure that a GOG equivalent to SteamGifts would generate a lot of sales once it starts getting momentum.
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This sucks for us, but from a business standpoint it's very logical. They want to make sure people only buy from steam itself instead of traders. This way they keep the profit margin the traders used to get.
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Except traders won't buy games for trading during sales anymore so Valve loses those sales, people who previously used to buy cheap games from traders will just get cheap steam keys instead they won't suddenly start paying full prices for games.Also people who were buying games during sales when they were cheap and storing them in their inventory to either activate later or regift them will probably stop doing that and be more selective about what they buy and spend less so Valve loses on that front aswell. And in the end grey market sites will profit from all this.
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Most people don't buy from the grey market or humble store. They buy from the steam platform itself. The traders will go out of business, that's the whole point.
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I don't think that's really the case. PC platform users arent that narrowminded or stupid.
If that were the case other market places wouldnt even thrive.
I think this change causes quite a bit of issues and barely fixes the problems they wanted to deal with.
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I'm not saying they are stupid or narrowminded. I do hope you're right though, because if it indeed makes things worse in terms of revenue they will roll back.
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There are other ways to deal with resellers. This is a very narrow minded and poorly thought-of approach. They could have a time limit on gifts (gift within 1 month or it becomes ungiftable, and then you can either refund or activate) for example, and that's just off the top of my head. I'd expect a huge company to put more thought into this and find a way to deal with this that doesn't hurt the community so much, if they cared about their customers at all
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I think they just want to get rid of resellers altogether this way.
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we need a petition guys against this rule we can rollback this update
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you remember about paid mods ? yeah i think they will think twice about this
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If the backlash is big enough, they may think twice, but you gotta keep in mind though that there's probably pressure from developers who want a solution to their games being resold for cheap prices. This won't be as easy as the paid mods thing
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maybe but for me this is a direct answer to this http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-being-investigated-by-the-european-commission-over-suspected-anti-competitive-practices/
i doubt if the developers asked for this change because Sales will decrease from now...
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edit: forget this. I seriously misread a number of things and was spouting rubbish as a result
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They were adamant on keeping paid mods up to the point where the press picked up the story and started to seriously put a dent in their public image. They gave zero shits about the comments. Neither did Bethesda, even when Sykrim as a result dropped to nearly "Mixed" results in reviews.
The press will not do the same here since from a business standpoint, this change is pretty understandable. Additionally, this new gifting system is actually letter-by-letter the exact same as the one on Origin, which was heralded with a mildly positive reaction.
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This beginning the damned end. They got so popular over past years but their greed and capitalism have appeared gradually.
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I wonder why they would do something like this...
My take is that since they removed regional pricing on the eurozone now they want to prevent people from getting games from other regions. Bad news for consumers, particularly people from the european countries with less purchasing power.
Can't wait to see what will come out of the ruling on the right to resell digital products...
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Can't wait to see what will come out of the ruling on the right to resell digital products...
That's quite interesting.
But:
"If you're going to start reselling digital goods, who would be the fool who buys the original book?"
In my opinion this makes things quite difficult. It may work in system where the developer/author/creator get's a big percentage (40%+) everytime one of his digital products gets resold.
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A lot of people actually, as can be seen by the market. And it is a false question, in my opinion, because the cost of production tends to 0 and you have unlimited copies to sell. Not to mention draconian copyright laws that give you waaaay too much time (75+ years after the death of the author??? Come on...).
Prices of digital goods just need to get more competitive and eventually they will grow into a streaming service like what is happening with movies and music (books and games are also starting to go this route). The only people actually buying the product will be collectors and they should have the right to resell it (although they would probably not do it that much), lend it and share it.
As I have mentioned before, I want to give my collections to my kids when they grow up and, as it stands now, I cannot do it legally.
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'because the cost of production tends to 0 and you have unlimited copies to sell'
Yea, and time of production/writing ebook/making game is for free...
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Of course not but you kind of missed the context of that phrase.
One of the points against being able to resell a digital product is that it does not have wear and is as good as the initial product. My point is that this is counterbalanced by the production cost of unlimited copies. And the scales are tipped in favour of the publisher, in my opinion.
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The worst update ever. Steam become a big trash. Change for humble,indiegala,and others ,never buy any game for store anymore.
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im still failing to see why would they do this, unless this was the requirement for an EA to comeback, these are bad news all around, bad for them, bad for publishers, and consumers....
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They just see $$$ for people buying from their store rather than trading (forgetting traders bought a copy, and the people buying from them would never pay full price). Screw the rest.
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So now I can't giveaway gifts through this site, right? Buying gifts in steam-store is only option for me(
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You can, you just gotta buy the gift when the giveaway is over and the user accepted your friend request.
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what rupti said.
or, make sure the GA ends before the sale ends. enough time to account for a reroll if needed
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Enough time for reroll is the key problem here. I've hardly seen any Steam sale lasting longer than a week. Now, according to SG rules, you'll have to allow your winner one week to redeem their gift. Let's say, do a very quick giveaway at the beginning of a sale, but your winner doesn't redeem the gift right away, you might be already close to the end of the sale when you learn that you need to reroll, now another few days for support to grant your reroll request and a few days for your new winner to pick up their gift. At that point, the sale's already over and you'd be forced to buy the gift at full price or not deliver your promise.
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Yeah, just how would you revise it exactly? No matter what, rerolls and giveaways just take time. I still say, if you can't buy stuff in advance, steamgifts have become pretty much useless for giveaways, because not matter how well you time it, you might always run into trouble when things take longer than intended and the sale ends. Maybe we could introduce a second type of giveaway where everyone who enters has to agree to pick up their gift within 24 hours otherwise it gets automatically passed on (rerolled that is) to someone else. Apart from that, there's also the risk, that the recepient of your gift lives in a region where prices are higher, in which case you can't even gift at all. Andf again, you'd fail to deliver.
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i suggest stuff. not implement...
also, most GA are bundled.
and those that are not can still be purchased from HB, GMG or elsewhere on sales. just not gifts anymore.
yes, it sucks for SG. but not that big a deal
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Well, it sucks bigtime for folks like vilantobe, who stated that they can only do giveaways from the Steam store. They won't be able to do any more giveaways at all. It also means that nobody will be able to give away GTA5 here anymore. It also sucks for me, as I cannot use extra wallet cash from selling trading cards for gifting on SG anymore.
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it sucks. yes.
but you can, in theory, just make a fast GA for a week long sale that you like...
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I wouldn't risk it, in case you have a winner who doesn't check SG daily, need more than one reroll ...and so forth. Paying full price just to deliver your promise to give away something really sucks.
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You can still cancel or change the recipient of a sent gift? Because if not, how can you re-roll?
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Well, if the gift is not accepted you get a refund and you can reroll and buy it again for the new winner, as long as the sale still runs. Comes down to the same thing as changing the recipient in the end. Again, the problem is that you'll always risk that the sale might be over already after everything is sorted out.
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why are people upvoting this?
http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1301948399254001159
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People who never gift (or only gift to their friends for special occasions like birthdays or something) think this is a good idea and don't understand why others are complaining. I've seen some comments where people said "the only ones complaining are resellers who can no longer make a profit".
Trading and gifting outside the friend list is not something the casual user does
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I sure there're much more down votes (which we're unfortunattly not able to see).
The amount of comments in comparrison to the upvote says a lot anyways.
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Cause it's brought as "this is an improvement" and some people eat that stuff up.
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sorry but, looking at valve point of view, this action is expected.
you guy buy games in Russia/Brazilian IPs in low prices them sell in other places for the full USA/EU price, this is exploiting the system.
i bet this action if valve actually just answering the complains of many companies how want to end this abuse to their games.
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Who buys those region locked gifts for the USA/EU price?
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I think valve has done enough research to know that their customers are, well, suckers. Every time they have removed a feature or added / tightened a restrictiion, some of us kick and scream and moan, but by the time the next sale rolls around, we happily throw money at valve. Case and point, over the last two years, the seasonal sales have gotten worse and worse, with less "decent" offerings and worse discounts, not to mention the loss of exciting events and the death of flash sales... yet the sales have only become more and more profitable for valve. Face it, "we" steam users are... well, yeah, we're suckers. You and I specifically may not, but the bulk really do have the "shut up and take my money" mentality - and boy do valve know it.
I completely disagree with what George said though; this has nothing to do with devs or publishers, this was 100% a valve call to maximise their profits, and we know this is their call because their strategy has slowly, incrementally, been building up to this with worse still yet to come.
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i know, and most casual users won't have this effect them in the slightest, and it will certainly help cutback on some excessive trading and reselling.. but this fight against hoarders/traders/resellers effectively kills genuine gifting to random users which is where they will lose out on some $.
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True they lose some gifting sales, but those losses will be far exceeded by people paying more for games in their own regions, and buying more during sales since people won't wait and hope they can maybe get a game later and cheaper through trading... and the fact they no longer have to devote any resources to scam complaints.
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idk honestly. i think it will push a lot of users towards hb, ig, bs, & actual grey market sites too though. i know i'll start utilizing HB a lot more often now due to this change anyways, and i'm sure i'm not alone in that mentality.
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Firts of all, you need not only region IP to buy a region priced games on Steam, you need a regional pay method. In case of RU+CIS region it can be any e-wallet. But, due to laws of RF, you cant create that wallet without regional + number (sim-card). And sim-card cant be bought without a passport. And if you managed to buy this game for that low price in rubles, you cant gift it anyway, because it stilll region locked for the RU+CIS region. That no business strategy here. Gifts only were used to get out of steam wallet money from CS/DoTA trades.
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You don't understand how region-locking works apparently.
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actually that means that on steamgifts we cant do a giveaway with gifts right? only cdkeys now
because they are buying the gifts cheap on sale and making giveaways, sending them to the winner after they won
it would be still possible, but they have to make the giveaways by a short time that it will be still in the sale time
but the giveaways will be reduced to more than the half with gifts
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look above:
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/WrgufQD
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That is how Valve works, always shooting in their own foot :/
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Nope, not their foot, just their customers. In the back. This is all good for valves coffers, it's only bad for us.
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Mmmmm... RIP cheap Steam bundles that gave extra copies for the games you already owned as gifts that you could store in your inventory? O_o
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Now they give you a discount if you already own something from a bundle
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Nice going Steam, I hope you're watching your gift sales before and after this very wonderful move.
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Well, looks like I'll be using Humble Bundle store that much more often ^^
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Or Gamesplanet, GMG, Indiegala, there's so many others. Problem's though, none of these stores offers the whole Steam library, there's thousands of titles that can only be bought on Steam.
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Well, HB has most of the stuff that I need in the form of convenient Steam keys and is also a legit reseller.
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Gamesplanet is also a legit reseller. Still, about half of the games on my wishlist aren't available neither from Humble Store nor Gamesplanet or anywhere else outside Steam.
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You must have some rarer games on your wishlist then :P I think I could buy 90% of my wl on HB. I don't know about Gamesplanet, never used them. GMG and Indiegala have some history though where the keys were not stolen from devs, not really their fault though, it's just what happens with those resellers. I still use them from time to time when they have a really good discount going.
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Not really that rare, I think it depends a lot on the publisher. I have a few things on my wishlist published by EA, like Dragon Age Origins. Also Baldur's Gate Enchanced Editions, Quantum Break or Pinball FX2, Pinball Arcade DLCs... and few really obscure titles. There's not really much I really want anymore ... so it's no biggie. It's just sad, that I can't use the extra wallet money from trading cards for giveaways anymore.
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Baldur's Gate Enchanced Editions, Quantum Break
?? plentifully available
Quantum Break even on awesome Win10 store ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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I know that you can get Baldur's Gate on GOG, but that wasn't the question, we were talking about Steam keys and whether you can get it on HB store, which you can't. Same goes for Quantum Break. I don't care if it's on Win10 store, it would never buy anything from M$ ... and I don't even have or want Win10.
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I actually got Quantum Break for half the Steam price via Amazon (physical copy with extra booklet and poster, with Steam key of course)
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Except removed games from Steam store where roles swap.
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Can someone create a website that petitions this decision that we all can go and write our feelings?
They can decide to reverse this decision if we all speak up!
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There's already change.org >_>
Why do we need another petition site?
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Well shit, i was going to make GA next month by using Steam gifts, i can't buy bundles from HB or BS as i live in a shitty country with no internet payment.
Guess i'm fucked.
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So you live in a country that can't use PayPal or is blocked from doing so?
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I don't know about them but paypal is blocked in my country. So yeah that can happen. :)
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I can have a PayPal or MasterCard account but can't fill them with real money, i need to go to the closest country that have this feature.
I live in Algeria, in order to use Internet payment i need to go all the way to Tunisia (or Morocco) and fill my account with Tunisian currency, so i need to convert Algerian currency to the one in Tunisia and then to Euro (or dollar)
Buying games directly from Steam store is only my option (buying for me or to GA)
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https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791457287600/announcements/detail/1301948399254001159
You can now only buy something directly for another steam user and if they decline, your money gets refunded.
"Steam Gifting will now be a system of direct exchange from gift buyer to gift receiver, and we will be retiring the Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory options."
"Note: Pre-existing gifts will be unaffected by this change."
here's a change.org petition created by another user in the thread,
https://www.change.org/p/valve-corporation-valve-please-bring-back-previous-gift-system-on-steam
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