Nothing wrong with bringing them back and having that shiny * next to them in giveaway section.
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I agree that they should be brought back after a while. Of course the specifics of how the points would work, how long after, etc would have to be worked out by cg. I won't comment on those since others have said my own thoughts already. Whatever the case, I just want them to be able to come back at some point.
I bought Rainslick Precipice of Darkness 3 a month and a half before the whole free key thing. I bought it specifically to giveaway here; it was a real giftable copy in my inventory. I just wanted to hold on to it a while and choose when I wanted to give it away. Lucky for me, I actually made the giveaway a couple days before the free keys and my giveaway ended quite close to the free giveaway date. But it was just a lucky coincidence. If I had just decided that I wanted to hold on to it for one week more then I wouldn't have been able to make that giveaway. In that sense it does punish those unfortunate enough to be caught right in that time frame.
People can talk all they want about how you can just give it away on forums but I personally just don't like doing that. Being able to make a giveaway comes with a sense of security. I do not like to key drop or put my gift-redeem link just in the forums because I like the interaction between gifter and receiver. I like setting my own time frame in which to give people a chance at my game; I like knowing who got it; and I like knowing that they actually activated it on their own account as per the rules. If they don't follow the rules then I would like to be able to actually get support behind me and suspend the guy rather than it just be a case of "shrug, it was ninja-ed".
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If there was a rule that said "if a game goes on sale for free, it will be removed from the site and returned to the site 3 months after the free sale ended" people would amass as many copies of that game as they could, knowing they would be able to unload them 3 months later for CV.
The simple fact is that if people KNOW because of a set guideline that games that are temporarily free will be brought back after a certain amount of time after the "free" period ends, they will take the games and horde them until they are put back on the site. This is not a speculation, this WILL happen. It's pretty much guaranteed.
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If they are flagged as Bundle Games, there is very little incentive. Most people who try and boost CV are already at max "Bundle Value".
Just like if I gave away 20 copies of 'Little Inferno', it would give me no additional C.V. The only reason I would be doing it is to give the game away.
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Personally, if this comes to pass, I don't think cg should disclose how long it takes and change the amount of time according to how big the free giveaway event was. So less time for a 100 key drop, more time for a 10,000 key drop. Admittedly I do see the flaw in this plan of people complaining about how this game took longer than that game even though this game had more copies given out, etc. etc. But then again, when are people not complaining?
And I think it's pretty much agreed by all that it would be for no CV or bundle CV. The Crazy Machines and Humble Weekly floods both stopped once they were deemed as bundles so I would expect similar results on these. Though I do understand that because they're free more people would be inclined to just do it for the hell of it.
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But if they are doing it for no CV or gain, then is it really that harmful?
Nice for people who missed the freebies.
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That's a whole 'nother can of worms. I do see both sides of the argument on it. People who work all day might miss a promotion or maybe they just didn't find out about it in time. I think it's okay if the company has an unlimited (or big enough) supply to give to all requesters. But that's not usually the case. Usually it's "while quantities last" in which case people who horde keys could stop people who were legitimately there for the promotion from getting it. That's pretty discourteous. It's only fair that those who were there for the promotion should benefit from it first before those who were not.
We have to remember the people outside of the SG community. Those people who didn't get a copy because people from SG horded it don't get a chance at it through giveaways or key drops. So yes, I do think it is harmful. But I also think that that behaviour will dramatically decrease if they don't give CV and the option to give it away is disabled for a while.
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I think people will hoard free keys regardless, and not just SG'ers (we really aren't that big vs. Reddit Gaming, etc.)
Hopefully with it being worth no CV people wouldn't waste their time farming up dozens of keys for no gain. It would mainly allow people who had a copy before the free keys, or people who picked up a freebie, to give it to someone who missed out.
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I think they should be allowed to be given away after a set period of time but for absolutely no CV.
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Of course. It would still be nice to give them away with the SG system.
I much prefer to give games away with "giveaways" than key drops, easier to track, etc.
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Yeah some people are really rude when it comes to key drops and don't say when they're claimed. I'd rather it be luck of the draw from the SG system rather than the person with the fastest comp relentlessly refreshing who expresses no gratitude.
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This would be a good way to giveaway. Make them worth $0 CV, and SG/SG+ would have a filter for 0 CV games (but they still require their old amount of points to enter the giveaway - or maybe half).
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No need for a special filter, just filter the game itself. There aren't that many to worry about.
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IIRC, Metro 2033 & Defense Grid freebies were via Facebook. I do not now, nor will I ever have a Facebook account. Thus, the current policy means that once any non-casual game is given away in any number (Faerie Solitaire is still available as a giveaway, despite the mass giveaway on Reddit), I and others like me no longer have the option to win it here. Essentially, I am punished for not doing social media.
Secondly, those of us who are not constantly connected lose out as well. The Defense Grid keys on Facebook were all gone before I even learned about them. As somebody who can't deal with the information overload of being constantly online and/or signed in to a twitter account following hundreds of other feeds, again, I and others like me lose out.
You might ask: Why not just buy the games and support the devs? Using the two examples I've discussed, in the case of Metro, I did buy it. In the case of Defense Grid, I'm not overly fond of tower defense. OTOH, my favorite game villain is GladOS. As such, if I won Defense Grid, I'd be very likely to purchase the You Monster DLC next time it goes on sale, but I wouldn't buy Defense Grid just to play the DLC.
This is yet another example of management not having consistent rules about when something is done a certain way and people loosing out because of it.
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This post is a perfect example of a few good reasons to allow these games to come back; thanks Rapajya :)
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Instead of keeping the Steam client open to the key entry screen and DOSing the SteamGifts servers with F5, hoping to be able to get to a key drop with 1.5 seconds of it posting (in my experience, this is the approximate amount of time a key is available before it is ninja'd), I prefer to actually have time to be able to play the games in my inventory. Combine this with the fact that most ninjas don't bother to report that they've collected a key and such key drop threads are, IMNSHO, nothing more than an exercise in frustration for most people.
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For sure. I'd much rather a normal giveaway, both as a creator and as a entrant.
Also, you can track winners and ensure they are following SG's rules with actual giveaways.
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I agree with you post.
These are really good games and its better to see them on ur giveaway list even if they have add CV (i dont mind that), rather then key drops.
Personally i think they should be added to the list with zero CV so ppl know there wont be any point trying to hoard up on keys just to make giveaways on SG
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Note: This isn't a begging/"wanting to win more" thread. I have all of these games already.
So, it seems whenever a game has free copies given out, it's removed from the site altogether. This remains the case forever.
While I can understand removing them to prevent a flood, it would be nice to see them come back as Bundle Games after a cooldown. I doubt people will hoard keys for months just for "Bundle" Contributor Value.
There are some quality games that have been removed that would be nice to have back in the giveaway list; such as:
Metro 2033
Rainslick 3
Defense Grid
Others?
EDIT: NOT DOTA2 (Didn't think this needed to be said...)
Now, some of these were recent, so they can stay off if need be; but it would be nice to have them back one day. I know some people who even bought extra Rainslick copies to giveaway!
Thoughts?
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