Indeed, they seem hell bent on destroying trading. -_-
Dota keys, then the weird lock, then the 30 day no trading, now total region locks.
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So you don't want to picket their terrible customer service? The CS that hasn't improved in 10 years? The CS that can sometimes take a month to respond?
Yeah, you got your priorities straight.
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Who said I didn't want to picket those too? But disabling trading is too far. They also made me loose a lot because of their horrible customer service.
Also you need to understand that trading is what mostly keeps users running.
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And how did they obtain video games? Trading, that is what most people do. Also some bundles on the side.
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I would guess that actually accounts (acquisition by trade, exploiting region pricing outside your region) for less than 5% of all peoples on Steam games on account.
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At least 80% of active sales on steam happen for trading purposes. Only 20%, and that's the maximum buy games straight out at whatever price they're getting in their store.
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Trading is much bigger than you believe. :p
RU/CIS isn't the only region, there's many other countries you don't know of. ;)
Ofc, major part of their revenue is games like Dota, which are mostly played or farmed due to trading. Same goes for TF2 and CS:GO.
I'm talking about sales. 80% of steam's active population is involved in trading of one kind or another. 20% are just unaware. Keep in mind, there's millions of dead accounts too.
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sure. any company will leave a huge portion of their profit just to annoy a bunch of people-
if valve did something so stupid like this (which will hurt trading) is because they are not going to lose a lot of money on it, they probably will make more money, somehow, after this.
no company would do something to destroy their profit margin...
not even Ubisoft is that retarded, and they are going full reatarded lately.
customer will keep buying things, they know that, they are going to lose, what? a thousand customers? 10 thousand? the usual customer who spends a LOT of money is will keep buying, and keep spending money, even if they decide to punch every 100th customer in the face.
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No it doesn't. Russian/other traders represent such a small number of sales for Valve compared to their own store sales. Sure, it is a vocal minority, especially vocal on here given SteamTrades, but why would Valve give a shit about your opinion? You purposely circumvent regional pricing, in order to pay less, meaning Valve makes less money as a result. Again, you are potentially costing Valve profit, why would they give a crap if you protest? As far as Gaben is concerned, you are a leech. And I am one too, and we all know we are basically breaking the rules. Sucks that it has ended, but get over it.
Valve's issue is with the scammers, that ultimately end up creating additional cost for Valve in the form of CS time spent dealing with complaints. Maybe with less of those to deal with, they can offer better customer service to others.
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So trading is limited to Russia for you? XD Congratz, you learned first alphabet of trading, try to move a little faster so you reach D by X-Mas.
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He was referring to where most game trades originate from. Any other country represents an even smaller number that probably isn't even worth mentioning. He makes complete sense and actually provides a solid reason why Valve are taking drastic steps regarding trade restrictions.
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Someone who isn't going to pay full price ain't playing it regardless. They can't loose profit they were never gonna get anyway.
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It's not over you just have to wait 30 days before you can get a good deal.
Im not paying 20-30-60 dollars for some early access game im going to regret buying later. So i usually traded for it. All russian sellers will do is just buy the game ahead of time. So now i will just wait 30 days after it comes out and trade for it again. This rule solves nothing and is only an inconvenience.
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Only rich traders would do that, most russian traders buy by selling keys on the spot.
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Lacking CS doesn't affect their ability to buy games cheaply (thus deals and grade A trade fodder). I'd be careful as you might be picking a fight you'd be out numbered in.
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there are zones like games only for russian federation or games only for north america or games only for china or row(rest of the world) this restriction applies if you buy the game in say zone "A" and try to trade it to someone who live in Zone "B"
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The only way i see this affecting trading is stopping people from exploiting price glitches and russian prices. You people are crazy if you did not see something like this coming. If you're gonna picket Valve picket them for their shit support, shit refund policy, the cesspool that is Greenlight or allowing devs to scam people through Early Access.
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Because Valve does not care about you and Gaben, as much as some people would like to believe is not your friend. They only want your money and they have no interest in letting you get games cheaper than what they think you should be paying. US has better prices than EU as well so of course they don't want you swapping with your american friend.
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That is something they simply add to make you feel better but the truth behind it is horrible.
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More like it cuts down on the amount of work Steam support has to do, because it will reduce the number of trade window trades (which they must cover), but increase the number of non-trade window trades.
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In the short run, people will cry and bitch and moan that they can't exploit regional prices anymore. But in the long run, people will be much happier with Valve simply because buying straight from your local market is the safest and most secure option.
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Can't do anything about it? Ummm I can buy a console and play the same game? Choice and competition have always been there, that's why Sony and Microsoft are doing so well too. Steam has dominated the PC market for years and all this time they've managed to keep prices at console levels or even cheaper in many cases. Why would they jeopardize losing customers to console competitors? Like I've already hinted at, it wouldn't take much to ruin their popularity seeing as most games are multi-platform. It's also safe to assume that most of Steam users buy below retail prices so getting them to pay retail would be risky enough. Let alone increasing those prices. The publishers know this and so does Valve.
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Origin is getting better and... well its support actually is not an auto-reply from a bot
Gog is awesome too :P
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They gave away lots of games during that coal-christmas event, IIRC.
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3 years ago? Wow, such generosity. Also, I remember how they ran out of games midway through event (without any warning) thanks to exploiters. Instead of revoking and re-gifting exploited games, they just made sure everyone who waited with crafting their coal was shafted...
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L4D2 was free last Christmas, Arma Gold was a little while ago.
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Quoting you: "and none from steam for years..."
I think you meant Valve, the developers of the games, and not Steam which is the DRM in that case.
But anyways, if you meant games developed by Valve...
Valve developed approximately 8 purchasable games: Half-Life 1/2, Ep 1/2, L4D, L4D2, Portal, Portal 2.
According to Wikipedia, EA developed approximately 376 titles for Windows. I don't know how many of these are on Origin, but that's quite a lot. If EA gives a free game once in a while, more than Valve does, it's simply because they have way more games to spare than Valve.
Waiting for a free game from Valve (not Steam) makes just as much sense as waiting for a free game from Bethesda. Yep, you're gonna wait.
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the problem is that valve manage a store of thousands of games (and yes only 8 are from valve) and this is a handicap for all that games. Meanwhile Origin have a store with 460 games and they gave away 7 games in one year and steam 4 in 4 years.
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But to your logic, Valve should give away 7 games in one year as well, which would be pretty much all of their developed games? Makes no sense whatsoever.
This year, EA gave away 1.5% of their games. For Valve to give away as many games as EA, they would have to give away 87.5% of their developed games. That doesn't sound fair at all, doesn't it? Especially when bearing in mind that EA gave away some old games, mostly. Almost every Valve titles are best selling games, and are still being purchased today.
Basically, EA giving away Battlefield 3 equals Valve giving away Left 4 Dead 2. Other than that, it nearly doesn't count for anything.
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yeah. and EA gave away games out of the kind of their hearth.
it's a marketing thing, they need the userbase, they need to hook up people to use origin store, same with the humble store, same with GOG, GMG and every other store who gave games for free.
steam doesn't need to get new people (at the same rate others store needs them), they are the standard, they are the best thing out there (in the over all, they are), they already have the userbase.
free games are awesome, no one complains about them, but they are no charity nor kindness from the devs/publishers (well, most of the time), they are a nice way to get good publicity.
Valve is indeed doing some shitty things in the last year nobody is denying that, but they don HAVE to gave you free things...
people seems to forget that companies are all about money, nothing else.
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I remember a time when the whole point of Steam was buying and playing games without having to deal with other terrible DRM. Where along the line did Steam become about buying and hoarding games in hopes of trading them for something you want? Oh, right. The time when people decided one-use TF2 keys were worth games simply because they'd paid money. So much entitlement these days. That's literally a I see from this latest outcry. "Waaah, you're infringing on my entitlement to do anything I can, up-to-and-including exploiting regional pricing to skirt the TOS, to avoid paying full price for a video game."
You should just be happy that you don't have to deal with DRM like Starforce that could sabotage your CD/DVD writers because of 'incompatibilities'. Hell, be happy that the services like Origin, uPlay and Steam don't have a mechanism to sabotage your internet connection if it so much as detects 'questionable software'.
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Steam actually is a DRM :|
Try Gog if you wanna be FREEEE ! :D
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I know that steam is a form of DRM. What I said was 'other terrible DRM'. I much prefer Steam to Starforce or Tagès any day.
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Wait, so thinking something I paid $2 for on a store, is worth equal to another $2 item sold from the same store, is a form of "too much entitlement"?
Steam itself has not been consistent with their regional trading policies. I've tried reading through the whole ToS to find anything on regional trading, but have so far failed to find anything about that. On the other hand a quick search on their FAQ page clearly stated that there are no regional restrictions to trading gifts (until the changed it together with the 30-day update).
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That whole thirty day thing sounds pretty reasonable... Find better things to picket, maybe things that cause people actual suffering, for example.
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is all about the money
maybe someday steam will do correct currencies convertions on store and not on wallet cards redeems
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The reasons of why the 30 day block is NOT reasonable, since some people probably don't trade much and possibly have no experience:
Traders will buy games from sales.
They have to either use the gift option or wait 30 days for more security to be added to the trade.
If they use the gift option, there is a possibility that one of the parties will get scammed (unless he is a legit trader).
If they use the window option and wait 30 days, the traders will increase price of gifts if the sale is currently over.
If I made any mistakes, please feel free to correct me.
Also remember, people with gifts usually go second, so you might have to go first during every trade.
Another PS, lets not forget about how every newly released game is region restricted, if that keeps happening then buying from your own Steam store could pretty much be your only way of getting games. Traders don't run charities to sell games without making profit, so if their price is similar to yours, you are better off buying from your own Steam store.
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It would be nice to see a change in people's opinion of Steam. Fuck knows it's due and deserved for a long time.
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Yeah no...more important things in this world to protest...
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This isn't just about regional trading. Region locks are one thing, 30 day restrictions are another.
In the past I've bought games on sale with TF2 keys and metal. Now I'm forced to pay Valve Steam Wallet, which is actual money, if I want a game during a sale.
That's the whole point. They want users to pay them money directly instead of trading each other the profit that they could be making.
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It says that it is still possible to immediatly gift the game to anyone. As far as I remember you can transform games you receive as a gift into an inventory item. Wouldn't that allow to bypass the rule somehow?
I know it's annoying that you lose the possibility to trade gifts. But that shouldn't destroy the trade market. If you have a trustworthy trader you can still go first and let him gift you the game afterwards and there will be no risk at all..if he is trustworthy like I said.
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So, what makes you so entitled to demand anything at all?
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I am still a customer. I bought games from Steam and I buy from traders who buy from Steam, without my money those traders wouldn't buy anything from the store.
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So customers can demand stuff nowadays? Didn't know about that. Just because you use some service you're entitled to make demands?
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Well, I hope the companies have enough money to buy their own games through their own ways.
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So you're going to stop buying and playing games simply because Valve introduced a new rule regarding trading games? Well, good luck with that. Even if 1% of Steam players did that (which is highly improbable) they wouldn't suffer much as a company. I think they're the biggest company on the PC market (or one of the biggest anyway, possibly right after Microsoft).
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Currently all they are doing to 'help' trading is horrible.
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