There will be a spike in usage of third party and grey market websites with steamgifts anyway. Giveaways will have to end within the sale period. So many issues with rerolls... Valves profits are now going to be from market transactions with the new increase in wallet etc. Trading is going to go downhill so purchases of csgo keys will diminish.
What an awful move from Valve. I'm astonished at the sheer stupidity of it :/
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Not really because the resellers buy from steam! I think Valve is trying to stop traders to stop scammers. However, making game keys basically the only think to trade will increase them because tradeable gift copies were safe
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No they are also trying to stop people buying 100copies of a game in the sale and then selling them for years, so steam does not sell full priced games anymore.
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Its still profit for them. If they really hurt from that then they wouldn't do sales as deep. A lot of these resellers actually have keys instead of gifts so they buy it retail and not from steam anyway. This is at least from my experience.
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I think its about all these people stacking steamgifts and trading against TF2-keys.
Like they do on https://dispenser.tf/.
The main advantage to game-keys is that you can use the steam trade system...
And you do not really get the point of sales. A sale should force the people to buy the game NOW because later on it will be more expensive.
Due to all these trades that effect vanished, since you can buy it for (nearly) the same cheap price all year.
Thats not the only and most likely not the main reason, but it sure played a role.
Trading with game-keys is a complete different story and they might tackle that next.
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Well that's assuming they won't do anything about the keys. Like it is said in many other comments, most likely keys will be the next step of this change.
What they can do:
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They can bring back oauth key redemption, make sure all official steam resellers sell games that way and you can activate those copies only on your steam account. or they can do the same process I'll explain for the physical copies when you purchase the key...
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For the physical copies, they can bind the key to your account at the time of the purchase by either generating an extra code or implementing that code into the key. The code includes the info: date/time of the purchase, country, steam account or phone number of the buyer, price and retailer information. And the key activation will have the same limitations they made for the new gifting system. In order to gift the physical copies, they can limit you to max 3 copies bound to your account (even with all the restrictions recipient being from the same country, added to your friendlist etc...) any further copies will require manual approval from steam support.
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Another way might be, you get physical copies, or reseller keys (not keys just links) added to your account at the time of the purchase like torrent site invites. So you have to give them your steam account or steam bound phone number when you buy physical or digital copies. You can have 3 gift links at most and they also have all the restrictions new gifting system has.
I guess this is how they can totally kill the gray-market for steam games.
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physical copies
not going to happen. Way to expensive. For online shops maybe, but not for old school shops.
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what is so expensive? They can use some kind of steam app and bind the key/game to your account or phone number when you make the payment. It shouldn't be too hard or too expensive.
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In real world shops you can not require people to bring stuff as requirement to buy things. If they do everyone would buy online. Shops will not accept that.
So you would need an inplace system in the shop, where you can login/register to steam when purchasing, which requires more personal, new hardware and a secure network and software -> expensive as fuck.
Besides that it does not make sense to restrikt physical copies, since they do not go on sale with that big of a discount (at least for newer games) .
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actually a lot of keys, resellers sell are obtained via physical copies I think. Either from shops in different regions or some physical copy promo, pay one get one free etc, or stolen copies...
Also they need to do something about it if they want to remove the key activation system altogether...
The way I see it, they only need 2 things in the shop:
- Wireless or wired Internet access
- A tablet, laptop or similar hardware
Valve can easily design an app, so that any shop selling physical copies can add them to the buyer's account in any one of the ways below:
- you tell them your phone number which is bound to your steam account
- you tell them your steam account link in any form (steamID, steamID64, customURL...)
- login to your steam account via shop's key activation app while making the purchase
- If you fail to do all other steps, you get a special activation code which will expire in a few days, after that you need to manually provide proof of purchase either to the shop or to steam support to get a new one.
There might be better or more practical ways which I can't think of now...
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Wireless Internet access
money
A tablet, laptop or similar hardware
money
Valve can easily design an app
a shitload of money.
I do think you underestimate the effort needed for a reliable system. Even if you throw security over board...
So if I go in a shop to buy a game and steamservers are down (never happens, you know) I just wait half an hour until I can buy my game?
The easiest way would be special keys that can only be redeemend when the CD is inserted. Which brings us to the fact that some releases are only a key...
actually a lot of keys, resellers sell are obtained via physical copies I think
I highly highly doubt that. Maybe for older games that where cleaned from storage by the shops, but not for somewhat new games. And before I steal a physical copy I can just use stolen credit cards...
Besides it totally kills the gifting from "non-technical" people. Like the grandma buying stuff for christmas and so on.
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then key resellers will start selling keys with a downloadable cd img file...
Besides it totally kills the gifting from "non-technical" people.
Isn't it like that already? If you are at a technical level that you can't use a smart phone or pc, you can't do many things... Sooner or later that is bound to happen. Though the last thing I mentioned can be a solution in such cases (getting a code/key with 1 or 2 weeks expiration date)
Anyway, I am not trying to find the perfect solution for Valve here, but looking at what they are doing with the gifts, a change in key activation process (and possibly removal of keys since they can't be easily price restricted unlike steam gifts) might be the next step of the operation.
Otherwise, as we all know, things won't change a lot, gray-market will use only keys and people who are stocking gifts will just do the same thing with the keys.
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I do think doing something with keys is being likely.
But I think as well, that physical copies are their smallest problem and there is no "easy" fix for that. Espicially not as easy as you suggest.
Even when doing the easiest thing "giving a 1 week code up on purchase" that would cost a massive shitload of money. You need to establish a new system to distribute these keys WORLDWIDE for 100s over 100s of different shop systems.
Or you need to install extra hardware.
Besides (I repeat) physical copies are not the problem in the vast majority of cases.
then key resellers will start selling keys with a downloadable cd img file
Then you sue the fuck out of them for distributing copyrighted material.
Isn't it like that already? If you are at a technical level that you can't use a smart phone or pc, you can't do many things...
Jeha. But going into a shop buying shit, isn't one of them. And for now the market of people walking into a store to buy that wierd game their kids/grandkids are talking about is just to big.
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maybe they made a cartel agreement with HB, IG & BS? maybe Steam will have %% from their operations..?
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Would they need to make a cartel agreement with key sites? Or could they just add an extra charge onto the creation of Steam keys in order to get extra revenue from key sites with or without their agreement? Or just make them uncompetitive through extra costs?
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If that's the case I want in! SadisticBundles.com for killer prices for your games. All profits go to the wallet of SadisticKitten account! Deadly Bundles for Killer Prices™
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Sorry but I'm not a masochist. I can't use your site. :(
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This change is overwhelmingly dissapointing. I apprechiated the option to have a purchased game in the inventory a lot. Sometimes I don't want to attach a game permanently to my account straight away. This safety was very important to me!
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Im not going to buy gifts from steam anymore, not even for friends. For any giveaways i will make, HB and other sites will provide me keys.
Wait till they remove keys.
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I don't think they can do that in near future. They would have to negotiate new agreements with all publishers and "self published" developers and Valve would lost revenue with some of those new agreements. For example Frontier Developments crowdfunded Elite Dangerous and they sold it on their own store. ED have a standalone launcher but anyone who own the game but didn't bought it on Steam can get a steam key from Frontier and when a player got a Steam key from Frontier, Valve gets a percentage any time that player purchase anything ED releated from Frontier's store. That game don't even use any Steamworks feature.
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If you have a really good game this is the way to go. I think "Escape from Tarkov" will do It that way. They will probably go to Steam at some point, but It would be great that developers start to skip GabeN and do their own PR and servers like these guys.
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They won't remove keys, they'll just find a way to make sure you can only activate a game in your account to curb resellers and grey market. Else there is no sense in prohibiting gifiting when people can still trade keys.
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sigh guess that I'll have to giveaway all my remaining gifts, who knows Valve will come up with something worse than this (ಥ﹏ಥ)
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And this change does not seem to address chargeback scams, sadly, revoke your cc and gifts get revoked too, right?
I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're going to change gifting so much, why can't you foolproof the process too. It's still exploitable.
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It's a gift system, so in the event of a chargeback you should only be losing a gift you were given as far as they're concerned. If you were making a trade/purchase on a secondary market then it's caveat emptor. And you're less likely to be doing so following these changes.
This will decrease the amount of chargebacks they suffer significantly. They're not something you can build a "foolproof" system against.
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I would receive this better if regional restrictions isn't a thing. I'd still hate it then, but this way I can't even gift to people in other countries anymore. Even Philippines to Singapore which used to be included in the same region is now restricted. How stupid.
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I wouldn't mind if they'd allowed me to pay the difference in order to buy gifts for other regions. I don't care if I need to spend twice more to send a gift to a friend in the US, but at least give me this option... Right now, I (Brazil) can only gift to a handful of countries, most of them outside South America.
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You want pirates? Because this is how you get pirates.
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No, it's always been about the loot.
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What this means to gifting games can someone explain me? Also why most controversial ideas Valve announced before big sales?
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What this means to gifting games?
For starters, i can no longer store gifts bought at discounted prices. Now giving steamgifts will be a shore and most likely i would miss the sale before the winner even contacted me and added me on steam, meaning i would have to buy it at full price
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This sucks - but it will ultimately hurt Valve. Now people will just buy from other places and use keys instead of buying direct from Steam and keeping the games. Yes, they still get money - but not as much.
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I want to help keeping steam down,, anywone know how?
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This change sucks, but I don't think there is a need to panic as far as SG is concerned.
Roughly 85 percent of all giveaways are bundled, thus not affected by the change.. With the non-bundled giveaways, you could easily get another copy via websites like Humble Bundle and GMG, we would just have to pay closer attention to when the sales are.
In my opinion, the past couple sales from Humble have been better than Steam anyways.
Edit: Also, has there not been a petition to arise from this yet?
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there's still quite a few AAA titles that are considered bundled that still were frequently purchased for GAs regardless of the CV decrease though.
for example: Bioshock's, Borderlands, and many other Eidos, Capcom, & 2K Pub games.
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The thing is a lot of us do not buy gamea with real money. Almost all my purchases in last 2 years were using steam wallet, gmg credit and such things. I'd be getting 10-20$ steam wallet per month on avg and spend it all on gifting, it does not mean I am ready to spend 20$ real money per month on buying keys from Humble Store or GMG. And keep in mind that my numbers are still small, there are people on SG that were making hundreds of $ of wallet money, surwly none of them gonna spend hundreds of $ real cash.
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+1
i almost edited my post to add that point too. almost all my steam store purchases for gifting purposes were made off of card sales funds, not money i tossed in my wallet that i could use elsewhere.
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I've been doing it wrong... mostly all my giveaways have been with my money...
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Apparently I have too, all of my giveaways have been done with real money.
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+1 Unless you're farming cards like a madman, you'd have to spend real money to buy gifts.
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2803 games eligible for booster packs
^^ that's a lot of gibs really.
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Not really, if you have even a few right games it's enough for gem/booster flipping. Also real big wallet wont come from cards anyway. Cards can earn you dozen or two of bucks, trading csgo stuff is where ppl get hundreds of $ of wallet.
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right games
which are those? :3
trading csgo stuff is where ppl get hundreds of $ of wallet
where does the money come from?
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which are those? :3do your own research ;) In general games that either cards themselves or average things crafted will be worth more than cost of gems ;) hint,hint - a lot of animu stuff counts ;p these backgrounds/emojis are hella expensive.
as for trading - I am not a trader ;p don't have time for it and especially patience to deal with idiots/scammers/lowballers ;p But witrh gifts dead trading will be mostly dead now as well. Even if someone was just doing skin trading nothing can be known now - Vby removing gifts Valve cut out a big chunk of Steam Trading, even is things like cards, skins etc remains there's no telling how lackj of gifts will affect an economy, but it will surely affect it in major way.
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Same... then again they were all bundle-leftovers from bundles I bought since I liked the stuff I didn't have so...
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Only my bundle GAs has been made with real money, all my gift GAs and big chunk of non-bundle key GAs have been made for no real money or not all paid with real money (like lets say spwnding 4$ gmg credit and adding 1-2$ real to make a purchase). With new system it basically means no more non-bundle GAs from me.
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I forgot about Steam Wallet. I have updated figures on attached keys on the site though, "Last month, 93.5% of gifts had a key attached to them on the site", these would remain unaffected. But I understand your pain. I got 60 bucks in the wallet now, and I just realized that the game I was going to buy that isn't released yet the winner might not be in my area :/
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I wouldn't be so fast to trust these numbers. Some users, me included, use keys as notification option for gift GAs as well (and I've seen quite few other users doing the same). If someone wins a gift from me I will add a key saying Sent-Via-Email or Sent-Via-Steam. All such GAs will end up as false positive in your data.
Ofc most of GAs on SG are for keys, but that's because most of GAs on SG are bundle games. If 85% of GAs are bundle games it's obvious that over 85% will be Key GAs. But if we focus only on non-bundle GAs - which are much more expensive than bundles, much rarer and unique, I bet considerable amount of them are gifts. Not to mention many of the more niche games are available on Steam only, you won't find them in any keystore, and now these will be basically ungiftable.
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I may be the odd one out here, but for me if already completely fucked over a few giveaways I wanted to do.
- Those are for games that are not available outside of the steam store (at least, not yet)
- And I'm not going through the hassle of not being able to buy the games whenever I want to and sending them at a later time of my choosing.
- And the "buy whenever I want to" isn't even tied to waiting on a good deal here. I just want to have everything ready when I start a GA, so I'm sure I can deliver quickly when it finishes.
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I would say 15% screwed over is indeed a good reason to panic. That's not a small amount.
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Especially as it affects rare and more desired expensive games. I see those getting hit hard.
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the real problem is, how will SG rules adapt to the new changes?
I tried to think about it and gave up when it got too complicated..
For the keys nothing has changed for now, but for the steam gifts, even when the winner declines the gift, it requires a new rule.
For any situation the winner fails to accept the key (decline, regional price difference, already owns the giveaway etc...), since reroll is not an option anymore the giveaway should be deleted. But that can also cause other types of abuse, I wonder how the sender will prove the winner didn't accept the gift... What if the winner disagrees and says the gift was never sent to him in the first place etc.. ?? O_o
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But this will kind of stop unactivated wins? Winner wont be able to add the won gift in their inventory now. :p
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It's a good point - but I'd think most unactivated wins were from keys so it won't stop the problem.
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Most of GAs on SG are bundled games also most of GAs are keys. So it will stop only small % of nonactivation.
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Considering most unactivations are from re-gifting keys (just check any 1000+ giveaways ending); doubtful.
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This sucks especially for countries like Germany, Australia or Japan, where quite a few games are only available in a censored version (if at all). Before this move, it was already a confusing situation and lots of false info floating around. A LOT of region-lock warnings are just plain wrong. Examples: Dead Rising 1-4, Dead Island Definitive (+Riptide), Dying Light and the Sega Classics can all be activated via keys in Germany, but I've seen more than enough warnings on store pages that they would not activate.
Wrong. They can.
And now they ADD to the confusion instead of finally removing those barriers?
Why make something MORE complicated and confusing?
Has anyone already (with the new ruleset) tried gifting an uncensored game to a country where it is only available censored? Wouldn't surprise me if this would activate the censored version, but I'd love to see that verified.
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Has anyone already (with the new ruleset) tried gifting an uncensored game to a country where it is only available censored?
Confirmed to not be possible.
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Fuck, this is gonna hurt simultaneous events a lot. It's horrible...
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valve start to breack my balls really...we must stop letting them what they want and limit steam use..forcing to buy only formt hem will be the end of steam..
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easy solution. If you want to buy someone a gift for steam... don't use steam. I'm just kidding that's ridiculous. Were they high?
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december's gonna flip from being one of the most generous months to one of the most selfish months of the year now....
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Well December is at least a holiday season - I always send quite a bit gifts during that sale to friends. The summer sale on the other hand, no immediate opportunity so I liked to buy couple things to store in my inventory and give away later, that now ends.
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to direct friends yes.. i meant for here on this site.. it used to be one of the best months for tons upon tons of GAs, but now people will be hoarding their steam wallet funds for more selfish purposes due to the fact they won't even have a chance to win certain sale titles like they did before.
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I thought about that - but at least half the people I sent gifts to directly last December might not be able to receive gifts from me now because of regional pricing differences, and I probably still live in a relatively good region for gifting. Might be worse for others.
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Wah, didn't even think of this aspect. The new draconian region-locking might be the worst part of this.
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hmm.... now my GAs will only be keys in the future <_<
do not like at all
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Will the giftee be able to put gift into its inventory or does he have to add it to his library ?
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No putting in inventory anymore, just tried it... it only leaves you with the options to decline or accept.
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Thanks for testing !
Well... no more grey market with Steam store and harder time for CS:GO serial cheaters.
I wounder what else they reserve us until they release Steam Direct !
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library only or they can decline at which point it automatically refunds the $ too you rather then return the gift to you. you additionally have to specify who you are scheduling a delivery too upon the purchase, so randomized gifting like this site does won't work like that.
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So, in the end ST is kinda taking care of itself in a way, eh :>? Meh, jokes aside, kinda sucks for guys like me who rely on these gifts to get some of the games uncensored due to them being chopped up over here in Germany or even unable to be activated via key... makes the whole process a lot more complicated and inconvenient :[.
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It may not be for everyone, but changing store location was the my best decision in this regard.
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Disappointing news, but ultimately not surprising.
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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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