this is what happens when you give away the overpriced asset flips/stuff from shady devs that cost pennies.
they all get set to 0CV eventually so nobody gets CV from them.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think it's way too harsh to word it like that. They still gave away 400USD worth of games.
Comment has been collapsed.
They definitely did not give away 400USD worth of games.
Comment has been collapsed.
not really that harsh... at least $240 are the games that are sold on the steam store for $1-4 for a brief period of time to get their paid reviews in so steam says its rated positive, jack the price up to $30+ to sell on shady markets for pennies to claim its $X+ worth of games.
Comment has been collapsed.
I feel that's too generous, actually. Most, if not all of those reviews are clearly fake. Built with fake assets, with 10 (always 10) paid reviews (Sentinels https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store did a work about that. Good work, guys), and dropped on steam, and then being sold on DIG or gray market "500€ bundles".
Comment has been collapsed.
Thats not how it works, the Games are never intended to sell on Steam. They usually launch with these insane Prices, and the "Developer" sells Keys for a few Cents in Masses to Keysites and those Sites that give you a free Key for joining Groups, following Games etc.
Comment has been collapsed.
only paid purchases count for reviews, hince the brief period of time they are cheap on steam, this time period is usually only a few days(they need to get their paid reviews in at the lowest possible cost(so valve isn't taking that large cut).
you can easily look at the historic pricing for these, you will see the initial launch prices are low then jacked up a few days later.
Comment has been collapsed.
I could definitely post reviews for any games not purchased on steam but activated with a key from any possible store.
Why they are not "count" in statistics?
People see, react, comment them.
Regards those games of topic starter - agree. It is like 1 dollar bundles stockpiled with BS garbage bloatware from years ago which were made to build an SG level and to scum people.
To be honest - I also bought those and also created giveaways with them but mixed with quality ones. At the time everyone did that. Nowadays it makes literally no sense since everything will became 0CV. So only quality ones.
Comment has been collapsed.
they aren't counted for the shown review average because valve wants all that to be from verified purchases, devs can generate tons of keys, and give them for free on the promise of good reviews to just be overwhelming positive with a garbage game.
Comment has been collapsed.
Many keys come from DIG where such games are bundled for $1-2.
Comment has been collapsed.
I wish this was a banner at the top of the main page of SG.
Maybe if people who are flooding the site with those shit asset flips in the hopes of grabbing cheat CV would get that it will give them nothing, maybe, maybe... they would stop...
Comment has been collapsed.
https://www.steamgifts.com/about/faq
Why did my level decrease?
There are two reasons why a decrease could occur.
- Values are calculated based on the current USD prices of games in the Steam store. If a game lowers in price, the value of previously created giveaways will adjust accordingly, and this will be reflected on profiles and levels.
- Certain games on our site are flagged as "No Value" or "Reduced Value". This is done manually by our volunteers, and therefore there might be a delay before these values are assigned. For example, a game might be included in a bundle on January 10, 2018. If on January 13, 2018 we flag that game as "Reduced Value", with an effective date starting January 10, 2018 (the day the bundle started), then giveaways created between January 10-13, 2018 would have their value reduced accordingly.
There is a delay usually for games to enter the "Reduced Value" or "No Value" list. 10 of your games got put on the "No Value" list, which are most likely the 30/40P games that have massively inflated MSRPs and the Trivia Vault games.
Comment has been collapsed.
https://www.steamgifts.com/user/tpedrozo
Put the mouse on the 16 at the right of "Gifts Sent", and you'll see 12 of the given games are considered "no value" right now, so they maybe used to increase your Contributor Level, but now they don't.
F
Comment has been collapsed.
By making this thread you have pointed out that https://www.steamgifts.com/game/6vNNd/the-sacred-stone hasn't been reduced to 0CV yet. Soon? From the same publisher as the other games. Maybe it escaped by being cheaper and having slightly better cover art? 22% positive rating.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, I'd be happy to win it myself, but it would still likely be reduced to 0CV under the current system. Of course it's not absolute. All kinds of exceptions get made, or things you don't expect to get reduced to zero end up there.
Comment has been collapsed.
Skyrim (Legendary edition), Postal 2 and Escape the Backrooms wasn't a bad trade off for Mirror's Edge :)
Comment has been collapsed.
SG tries to keep the CV system fair. CV is calculated based on the full US retail price of the game. You will get the full amount if the game has not been heavily discounted in the past. A game will be considered "reduced value" if it is available on sale or in a bundle for around 95% off or more. Reduced value means that anyone who creates a giveaway for that game after the date of the sale will get 15% CV of the full price of the game. Any game that is given away in a free promotion will not give you any CV for the giveaway. Sometimes it takes support a little while to add games to the proper CV list, so they will back date them so that people get the correct CV amount based on when the discount was available and when the giveaway was created. That means you can create a giveaway the day a bundle is available and temporarily get full CV, which may incorrectly increase your level, and then the next day when support adds those games to the reduced CV list, your CV will drop to the correct reduced CV and you may drop back down to a lower level.
The reason you lost so many levels is because of the specific games you created giveaways for. There are tons of fake games being added to Steam that are sold for extremely cheap somewhere, but the price on the Steam store is very high. When users get these games almost for free and create giveaways, the high price on Steam makes their CV here go up extremely high. These games are essentially allowing users to abuse the CV system and gain enormous amount of CV that they should not have. Because of this issue, support is completely removing the CV for these specific games. There is a thread about it here. You have given away some of these games and temporarily received high amounts of CV for them which caused your level to jump up a lot. Then support recently removed CV for those specific games for everyone and that caused your level to drop back to where it should be.
Comment has been collapsed.
Also they're mostly by Atomic Fabrik (under various aliases) who doesn't even care if the product is functional. You'll hardly find any trace of a game. They're asset flips dumped endlessly on Steam specifically to scam people.
Comment has been collapsed.
I really don't understand why Steam isn't doing anything about it. All of these games follow a specific pattern that is easy to spot. Also, I thought they used to ban games for having fake reviews and everyone one of these games has fake reviews. Steam should be mass banning all of the developers or publishers of these fake games.
Comment has been collapsed.
Because Valve sees no problem in being complicit with scammers by getting a cut from it too. if not from sales through their store (though surely, some customers must've done the mistake and missed the refund period), then at least from scammers paying to post it on the platform.
Comment has been collapsed.
TBF, in my experience of working for a large corporation: It's probably incompetence and not malice.
Steam is not really making enough money from these asset flips to care for them...
They're just not losing enough money/customers on them to care enough to do something about it.
They're probably not selling enough copies to cause a spike in refund tickets.
And probably mostly selling through keys and not directly on Steam - so Steam cares much less.
And I'm pretty sure there are automated tools in Steam that probably catch 90% of clear fakes and scams (otherwise their number would have been x100s of time more than "normal" games on Steam. So the ones that do pass the cut, are the ones that care enough to game the Steam automation and post things that don't blatantly look like a scam.
And Steam developers probably have 100 other features/improvements they can be working on, that would improve the experience of Steam users...
Comment has been collapsed.
This is it. Valve keeps a small number of employees globally and one can imagine that most are pretty busy all the time. It is easy to say "Then why don't they hire more people?" But have seen the results of that reckless hiring in the video game industry over the last few years too. It is a tough balancing act running such a business successfully for so many years.
Now if we look at Recent app events at steamdb, we'll see hundreds of games and DLC being added every single day. If you scroll down, you'll also see some marked as removed/retired/deleted. Sometime this happens in waves and dozens of these fake products gets removed all at once.
So we can conclude that they are doing something to address the issue, and the way the Steam front page is set keeps us protected from the mess you can see at the mobile shop fronts. But considering the flood and how big our ignored titles list keeps getting, sometimes it is hard not to get worried...
Comment has been collapsed.
In my personal experience, some of them get removed if they get reported by enough people. I have some ways you can help on all of my giveaways.
Direct action works. Cynicism just supports the status quo.
Comment has been collapsed.
I really don't understand why Steam isn't doing anything about it. All of these games follow a specific pattern that is easy to spot.
Well, they're making money off it so i guess that's the answer right there.
The only way this would stop is if they got indicted as part of a money laundering scheme which is definitely behind some of those games but I am not holding my breath.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have to wonder how much money Steam actually makes from these games, I wouldn't think much. Is anyone really buying these games directly through the Steam store? I know they sell keys almost for free on other sites, but does Steam even charge anything when those keys are generated?
Comment has been collapsed.
If that's money laundering - then it would be quite profitable :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I know they sell keys almost for free on other sites, but does Steam even charge anything when those keys are generated?
Actually not sure about that. You'd have to ask a Steam expert
I'm sure there are people buying them on Steam though. That's why the prices are high. I really don't think the point of these prices is helping people get CV on SG.
Comment has been collapsed.
When I first noticed these kind of games, I saw a few accounts here giving a lot of them away and getting tons of CV, so I thought maybe they were creating the games to cheat the CV system. Then, after creating the thread, getting more info, seeing how long it has been happening and how many of them are being created, I quickly gave up on that theory and figured it is some kind of scam or money laundering not connected to this site at all and users here just happen to be able to take advantage of it.
I am just confused about who is actually buying these games for more than pennies on keys sites or getting them from scam bundles that claim to be giving you highly rated games worth a certain value based on their Steam price and fake reviews. Maybe it is some kind of money laundering operation, but I just don't understand how it works.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the concise explanation. Figured it was something like that but just wanted to make sure!
Comment has been collapsed.
Stop giving away crap and you won't face such problems in the future :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Getting level 1 during 9 years is quite an achievement
Comment has been collapsed.
Seus últimos sorteios infelizmente são de asset flips já conhecidos da SG.
F
Comment has been collapsed.
Look on the bright side: only one more game (Take The Cake) needs to be reduced to zero CV and you'll be allowed to enter my giveaways.
BTW thanks to the mods for ploughing through the price manipulation list, nice to see the system working :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep. There was a discussion about it and now I am seeing a lot those games got zeroed.
The system works if you do your part and remember that they are mostly volunteers.
Comment has been collapsed.
Small correction, they don't ploughing through the price manipulation list, they (as far as i know 1) ploughing through report tickets made for the games (1 by 1 as they wanted it).
But yes, it is good to see that something happens.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep, kind of what I meant but it's a good reminder to also thank Gelweo, AllTracTurbo, and everyone who's contributed to their topics on this matter :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Only one thing I can say due to the cv abuse
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh im also on your blacklist ^^
First time i found someone who blacklisted me.
I wonder what was the reason, any idea?
Anyway... You are apparently still on my whitelist.
How does it work, can you enter my giveaways and only i cant enter yours?
Still not too familiar how everything works...
Comment has been collapsed.
Since you ask: You have been blacklisted for something many of us old users call "circle jerk groups". Those are groups with only a very small number of members, often only five to get the minimum number of entrants needed to gain CV from a GA. People within those groups hardly create GAs outside of their group, so essentially they only trade games within their small circle of friends while also gaining CV from it, thus raising their level so that they can enter public GAs.
Now, of course I don't know if you are really doing that, but you have quite a lot of group GAs with under 10 entries which is indicative for such a behaviour and in those cases, I err on the side of caution.
And no worries, the blacklist supersedes the WL and is also a two way street, so neither of us can join the GAs of the other person. While I still thank you for your WL :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh thanks a lot for the reply, didnt know if it would actually happen at all ^^
I mean when i started to do my giveaways i did it only public , cuz i didnt even know there are groups.
So probably i got blacklisted recently ^^
I didnt even know about those kind of "circle jerk groups" and it sounds pretty weird for me.
I think im in around ~10 groups and all are pretty common here on SG, at least thats what i think, with around 100 - 300 users. (those which are really active)
All are public and you can apply as well :D
Actually for me its the opposite of what you describe.
Cuz in some of those groups people apparenty own all the games in the world and its hard to get entries...> 5 entries maybe for something unbundled or just new to bundles.
So i didnt get CV for a lot of my games there on the one side, but on the other my "Won CV" increased even tho i was also just the only enrtry. So basically im not getting anything for my CV there and destroying my ratio this way^^
Earlier i was like 6sent 1won ratio and its getting more and more into getting break even.
The upside is that with only few entries its easier to win in those, but as i dont care about my lvl anyway too much im fine to be also in this kind of groups.
I was also doing public giveaways every now and then and did add around 40 carts to the christmas even train and did my first own train recently as well :)
So now after reading your reply and feeling like apparently i did not enough giveaways for public i was curious how many you were making and , surprise surprise i only saw around 3 public giveaway for the last 12 months (thats when i stopped my stalking trip) so i feel like your accusition is pretty "double-standard" ^^ No offense but that doesnt make too much sense for me at all.
And im not worried at all, i wouldnt mind too much if you would be able to join my giveaways and i really appreciate your reply, cuz was always curious who are those guys who are blacklisting innocent little me :D
Comment has been collapsed.
As I said, I could not have been sure because I can not see what those groups are. But when I see something like described in my previous reply, I err on the side of caution.
I did not accuse you of anything. You asked a question and I answered. I gave you reasons for your blacklist and specifically told you that I can not be 100% certain of your behaviour and intentions.
I also did not say that you are not doing (enough) public giveaways. I said that it looks like you are actively participating in circle jerk groups which is enough for me to blacklist you.
Regarding me, I stopped doing public giveaways even before you were registered on this site and publicly declared my reasons for doing so. Which is buried somewhere in the depths of this forum, of course.
And I will not start doing public giveaways again anytime soon before this site plugs all the holes that exist and make life easier for cheaters, botters, scammers, ungrateful persons, selfish persons and so on.
Through my ten years here, I often tried to help make things better but CG refuses to listen and I am no longer willing to help. It is more fruitful to offer good advice to a brick wall because the wall actually listens what you have to say.
But everyone who is a good GA creator on this site has the possibility to get on my WL. Of course, my WL is way smaller than any public I would reach with a public giveaway. But with nearly 350 people on my whitelist my giveaways are far from being circle jerks.
P.S.: This is the first and maybe also last time I am actually discussing blacklists within the forums because your answer shows me how easy it is to twist words and meaning or simply to misunderstand eachother.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah and im thankful for your answer , cuz i was really curious.
For now i didnt add anyone to my blacklist so i wanted to know what kind of reasons lead people to do it.
English is not my mother language so maybe i also didnt express what i wanted to say 100% correctly.
I just meant about the accusition part, that i saw you are doing basically only giveaways for groups apparently, so its also kinda a "circle" and thats why i said it feels like "double-standard".
I mean, i wonder if you would blacklist yourself after reviewing? :P
I know that you didnt mention anything about me not doing enough public giveaways and i didnt say you did, just that i got this feeling im not doing enough while reading your reply. (between the lines).
Maybe its just that i have no idea about those "jerk groups" etc
I dont know in which groups you are, but without adding whitelist i guess you also wouldnt get as many entries.
And im in some groups where whitelist and sharing is not allowed and sometimes i also just want to make group exclusive ga's so that someone of the actual group will win and not someone from my ~300+ whitelisted people.
And if you would be curious what kind of groups im in, my steam is public and im in only 13 groups total so its quite easy to figure it out actually ^^ Also like i said those are the "common" ones which are usually on top of the group recruitment thread.
About what you described related to CG (i guess thats the owner of this site?) i dont know anything tbh. Im aware from talking to some guys in the discussions that apparently there are autojoiners etc so im also not too encouraged to do a lot of public giveaways, but still doing it every now and then, cuz i kinda dont want the "innconet" community to suffer for them.
It was also a reason for me to the the trains in the discussion forum and doing some random "hidden" giveaways in random discussion just for fun, cuz at least i think that those cheaters, autojoiners etc are less likely to enter for those.
related to your "PS":
I dont think i twisted your words, maybe misunderstanding, but i mean thats also how a discussion works... if there is a misunderstanding then you can clarify your point of view, asking what or how the others wanted to say or if you understood correctly etc.
I wouldnt like the fact at all that cuz of my reply you are discouraged to discuss, cuz this was for sure not my intention!
PS: Oh you are from Germany... Moin :D
PS2: and i just noticed you have Gedi in your friendlist. So in his groups im getting hardly any entries ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
All my giveaways are exclusively for my whitelist and for the group SG Pillars. Nothing else. With both I try to reward people who gave way more then they won, since to either be on my WL or in the group SG Pillars you have to have a Real CV ratio of clearly above 1.x or even 2.x.
Since those people are very generous and keep doing (public) giveaways while also not winning often, I try to reward them for it by doing GAs for them.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah i was doing the same. Did a lot of giveaways for the Pillars group actually (there it was easier for entries actually than in my other groups) , but just got kicked recently cuz my ratio dropped.
And if you wanna have more details you can read it here how rude i got kicked! ;-)
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/wNLEK/sg-pillars-a-group-for-steamgifts-contributors/search?page=22#jIqNpEs
So yeah i was kinda upset that i got kicked, but i understand the reason. If i will manage it to get back there i will apply again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Just ignore this guy, i think his arguments are full of shit. He doesn't do public GAs anymore, because of all the bad sheeps, but when we do the same, because of all the bad sheeps, he will blacklist you.
And instead of blacklisting users who didn't do a GA in 6 years or doing only region restricted GAs to one country (and there are enough of them to fill your 1000 blacklist slots easily), he will blacklist users who still do public GAs, which he refuses to do, pretty double-standards, besides the toxicity putting people on his BL, who can't even enter his GAs in the first place.
Comment has been collapsed.
So Gedi's groups are those circle jerkers groups?
I mean for me what Amano said it was basically about kinda "farming CV" , but actually in his group im only ruining my ratio, cuz im getting in 90% <5 entries ^^ ... if i get an entry at all , cuz they own apparently every single game in the world already :D
I mean maybe he put me on his blacklist while i still was in the SG Pillars group, so that i wouldnt be able to enter, but actually i didnt win there almost anything... maybe like a handful of games which were shared in most cases with other groups i was in anyway, but i still did a lot of giveaways there and had easily 500$+ ratio with only games i bought from official stores like Humble/Fanatical, so not like "trash/asset flips" Maybe not the most exciting games in the world but im actually poor so i cant afford to give away randomly Baldurs Gate 3 etc.
And about ignoring.. i was the one who actually wanted to discuss with him and im still glad he shared his point of view., but i also agree that i would rather blacklist a lot of other user than me, cuz i dont think i did anything wrong here so far.. probably.
Maybe it is kinda frustrating after specific experiences and being here for a decade... idk im here for ~2 years and i like it and i have no plans to stop doing giveaways and also i dont plan to change anything in my behaviour as long if someone will point out something im doing wrong to make me realize i should change....
Comment has been collapsed.
I wouldn't worry about it in general. Being blacklisted by a user for random reasons is like a SG rite of passage.
There are plenty of groups that fall into the category of limited/restricted membership where you'll always be in the 2-10 entry range, who have no goals other than to make sure members are getting the actual best SG experience. Such as requiring unbundled games giveaways and just better overall odds of winning games you actually want to play. And often, there is a play or pay rule attached to the groups to prevent abuse. And those groups also tend to encourage developing comraderie and even friendship with the other members. Doesn't sound so bad to me.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah im not worried , but just curious.
The only thing which i really hate is if people blacklisting... but then redo it to enter a giveaway and then back to blacklist.
Those are the only guys i would like to blacklist actually, but its not possible to figure out who it is... but its just bull****
In general i also like the idea of groups and i dont feel like its a "jerk circle" cuz everyone can actually apply like i did (if they meet the requirements of course). Im also not able to join some groups or got kicked like from SG Pillars, cuz my ratio isnt 2:1 anymore.
But i have no idea what those "veterans" are thinking/feeling about it... Who knows... maybe in 10 years i will have also a completly different point of view and a full blacklist :D
Comment has been collapsed.
The only thing which i really hate is if people blacklisting... but then redo it to enter a giveaway and then back to blacklist.
That loophole was fixed several years ago (could be only two or three years ago, I don't remember the exact date). If you remove someone from your BL, there is a grace period (I think it is one week) where you still are not able to enter said users GAs. To prevent the behaviour you described.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh i see, didnt know about it. I like the fact that there is such a cooldown.
I only read some discussion here about it, that people were doing this kind of stuff , but nothing about that its fixed.
So thanks for the infos.
Comment has been collapsed.
The only thing which i really hate is if people blacklisting... but then redo it to enter a giveaway and then back to blacklist.
You can prevent this by creating GAs that runs max. 6 days.
Because when someone unblacklist you the blacklist gets first really deactivated after the time you were in/on his blacklist, if it was below 7 days that amount of time, if more then max. 1 week.
I do this since "forever" after i seen how many unblacklisted me when they wanted to enter my GAs and blacklisted me later again.
It's a ugly and greedy behavior
Have more contact with me and/or our discord active members and your BL will be filled very fast with the worst cheaters of sg ;o)
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh thanks for the info its very useful to know!
But my giveaways are in most cases anyway for less then 1 week, cuz im too unpatient to wait longer to sent the winner the keys :D
But now that im aware of it , i will definately not doing giveaways for more than 1 week ^^
Hehe i feel like the more i will get involved into the whole cheater topic the more i will be discouraged to make giveaways ;-)
Comment has been collapsed.
Even with my well cultivated blacklist i get upset every time i make a public GA and looking at the entrants
Comment has been collapsed.
So Gedi's groups are those circle jerkers groups?
Does he even have multiple groups?
I don't know how much members his group is having, but it can't be large with always having the same winners or even no entries at all, which is a strong indicator for a circle jerk group.
I mean maybe he put me on his blacklist while i still was in the SG Pillars group
He blacklisted me too and i never was in Pillars, pretty toxic behaviour IMHO
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah actually 3 groups. Mini Jedi has around 170 members and the other ones close to 100.
For me it was just an idicator that all those people have basically like 10k - 20k games in their account already and thats why its so hard to find something they didnt own yet.
I feel like i cant even stay there for too long as it will be only harder to find something which will get entries, but for now i will stay for at least a while until i run out of stuff ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
At least 2 Jedi groups.
But i don't know if he owns/maintain more (not really from interest for me).
Comment has been collapsed.
Gedis groups, 2 jedi groups, are full of black sheeps (= autojoiners, multiaccounters, cv exploiters/abusers etc.) and yes, this ones can be called circle jerking groups.
This members lure to get good/decent games, prefered unbundled ones, and enter only for them (autojoiners excluded) and they giveaway freebies that they collected with their 30+ bot accounts on each freebie site (Sadly no joke, such users exist here on sg and i am not allowed to expose them here -if you want names, write me on steam....-) or they giveaway the games they bought in the shady ru stores or the dig store for a few cents.
In the Pillars group are a lot of this users too.
The rcv system is sadly not very effective because of the amount of exploiting/abusing, loophole use.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks to you whitelisted me, im still kinda a part of the Pillars group \o/
Comment has been collapsed.
It's sad but take a few min. and check some members there and you see the shady ru store/dig store (the dig store get 95% of the same games as the shady ru stores have but 1-3 weeks later as them [i assume the dig store owner buy them there or is involved in the shady ru stores too]) games.
They get full value and pay 4-16 cents for a game. Very often this games get never set to bundled status.
Same for the multiaccounters on all freebie sites. They are generous with giving the games away that they stole everywhere with their bots (and get their asses kissed because "so generous people...")
And voila you have a great rcv ratio and look generous as long as none dig a tiny bit deeper with checking for the sources of the games.
I think i can count the ones that have a very positive rcv ratio without some sort of cheating on 2 hands (ok maybe a few hands more too, but the amount is very limited when you compare it to the cheater faction).
Comment has been collapsed.
Sherlock in action :D
Edit: At least in your group i dont have to be afraid of black sheeps getting my precious games, probably :P
Comment has been collapsed.
I hunted the cheaters for around 5 years on a daily basis.
So i known very well ALL sources for the games that were given away, and i am still nearly everytime know it nowadays alone from seeing which users give the game away and in which amount.
I reported the shady ru store games and the freebies, daily (but the max. 20 tickets limit was annoying as fuck...)
And i know, very, well which users use multiple accounts to grab freebies and the ones that give 30 copies away (of course they dont do it with one GA but if you check someone and search for a game in his GAs you see a few weeks after the freebie time how many copies the user gave away) use bots, not really rocket science.
But, of course, not so many people are aware of how extreme the cheating is on sg and a lower amount are willing to invest time to dig (deeper) into it.
And so in the end the most people don't care, which is a win in many cases for the cheaters because they are on many WL, in many groups and are often seen as "generous" people.
Around 1,5 years ago i stopped to hunt the cheaters (i report from time to time someone if he actively jumps in the spotlight but not on a regular basis) and check only my GA winners and the ones that want to enter my group.
Because it's a fight against windmills, with the hands bound on the back, and in the end only eat a lot of (high value) lifetime and brings a bad/lower mood in the end because not much get done against the abuser accounts (none of the ones that cheat the system with every GA they do since years, get perma suspended -but banning this, maybe, 50 accounts would lower the abuse by 75%- [no rule exists to suspend such users and it will never exist]).
Comment has been collapsed.
I fully get it. If you put effort into something and the result is not satisfying, then of course its discouraging to continue and basically just a waste of time , if nothing is done about it at all.
At least those asset flip games are getting 0 CV so at least this isa good sign i guess.
Comment has been collapsed.
Sounds not so good. I feel sorry for all the honest people who doesn't use shady methods/abuse the system. But think it's not only a Pillars problem, but an universal problem of this site sadly.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's correct, it's a general problem.
Groups that offer, more or less, good rewards, = good games, low entries etc., are more interesting for the cheaters and will be prefered joined.
And if the rcv will only be seen as, pure, number and not be checked from which sources the rcv comes in the end, then it is like a invitation for the cheaters.
A lot of the fresh accounts that only gave away the overpriced trash games were level 5 after 1 week and investing below $5. This accounts are ultra obvious and will lose, most likely, nearly, all of the gained cv.
And it give a lot of accounts that do the same, with games that are, mostly, "only" $12 - $18, bought for 4 - 16 cents in the shady ru shops. After my reports the cv got pushed down to 15% but it is still a lot of cv that gets earned this way, special because the abusers mostly create 5 copies GAs for each of this games. They didn't lost their complete cv of this GAs and will not in the future, so it is still a fast earning/leveling for a tiny bit of invested money.
Comment has been collapsed.
i assume the dig store owner buy them there or is involved in the shady ru stores too
Yes, exosyphant in the past has bought keys from RU stores and resold them on DIG. If he is still doing that, I don't know.
Comment has been collapsed.
In the Pillars group are a lot of this users too.
Maybe contact Jiggakills about that. It might help.
Comment has been collapsed.
Nah, too much work and if he is interested he can check the GAs of the members and would see, very easily, a lot of the abusers/exploiters with his own eyes.
If he would kick the absolute obvious ones i would MAYBE invest the time to give him names of the ones that need a bit more checking but i don't expect that something in this direction happens (or it would have happened already in the last years....).
My comment aren't something against jiggakills, only to make this clear.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hmm...
After what I just have seen regarding certain space knights, I will hit you up via Steam if that is okay.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gedi is on my Blacklist for years. Just like you (after I removed you from my Whitelist you wanted to be on to enter some of my giveaways).
Comment has been collapsed.
I never was on your whitelist, idk why you're claiming this.
About Gedi, i misread friendlist for whitelist and already deleted that part.
Comment has been collapsed.
I never was on your whitelist, idk why you're claiming this.
Although this was not a normal Whitelist and just a temporary thing, but you were on my WL ;) Technically speaking.
Comment has been collapsed.
I looked at your GAs and i didn't joined any of them.
Even, if i applied there, there is no evidence you accepted it.
Comment has been collapsed.
So, wait...
Just because, after being temporarily added to my WL to join some GAs with less than five entries in April 22, you did not find a game you wanted to enter a GA for and you knowing damn well that, today, I have no possibility to proof you once were on my WL without any GA entries, you are now insinuating that it was all a devious plan by me and from all the other users I temporarily added in April 22 I singled you out and did not add you because of... reasons?
Dude, are you for real?
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm just saying you're claiming something happend 2 years ago and we have to take your word, that it was like you're telling us.
Doesn't explains the blacklist though, which was the original topic.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, you also wanted an explanation for your BL? I missed that. All I will say is: I want to make sure that you will not be the winner of one of my giveaways. I will not add anything more.
Comment has been collapsed.
No, i didn't wanted a reason, because i don't care and i already explained my opinion above.
Comment has been collapsed.
Went and checked, and I already had the user blacklisted. No wonder, giving away asset flip games.
Comment has been collapsed.
I mean its not like everyone is doing it to abuse the system.
For example i bought out of curiosity a mystery bundle from a keyshop (the only time i used a keyshop actually) just to see if its similar to the mystery bundles from Fanatical and i got those kind of games and didnt know what to do with them, so i just gave them away here... later i regretted it, cuz people started to blacklist me for it and i had no idea why and was upset.
After a while i also got "demoted" (lost one lvl) , but i wasnt upset at all and im more than happy it happend, cuz now after i know how everything works those games are annoying me as well. Earlier i was more like: If someone enters they apparently want them and its all good.
Now i even dont like to see them even if they give 0 CV so i started to hide all of this stuff.
Basically what i want to say its that not everyone who is/was giving those games away has the intention to abuse the system, but i guess there are a lot who do it intentionally.
Comment has been collapsed.
I understand you. Once I saw on ebay offer of 100 mystery keys for like 15€ and thought it is good offer. That day I learnt about existence of fake games.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ehh that sucks.
For me it was that a friend told me: "Did you see them? Should we try?"
And i was like yeah why not lets go.
But it was only something like 2-3$ for 10 games. Cant remember anymore...
It said like 10 games with positive rating / >10$ on steam each game
Back then i also didnt know about this kind of games and i was like wtf who is buying/playing this trash at all
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah that's exactly my case. I thought I'd get some real games but ended up receiving all duds. The first giveaways had some number of entries so I thought it'd be fine, guess I was wrong. Never buying any of those shit key bundles again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah i also thought it would be some real games... im fine to even play something "bad" , but not this kind of stuff for sure.
And i knew some people are out there who are just collecting everything to own everything so i thought its fine to drop those for them.
if there wouldnt be any entries i would just delete the email with the codes i got cuz it was basically worth nothing for me.
Comment has been collapsed.
You get CV for giving away games.
Game-like objects might not count.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gives away asset flip overpriced scam games
Asks why he got down to level 1
Lmao. Hmmm, maybe because you gave away scam games that are worth 0CV?
Giveaway actual games and you can climb up the ladder again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for letting me know SG mods are doing a great job!
I hope it will become a lesson for you to not create ridiculously overpriced shovelwares as your giveaway in future...
Comment has been collapsed.
This is called the Cristian Manolachi Effect aka The Atomik Fabrik Effect.
See good old Cristian likes to jack the prices of his shitware "games" if that's what you want to call them to ridiculous prices. He even tries to cover up that they are his by switching dev/publisher names.
Let's take a moment and be real. Is anyone paying $30 for this crap?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2884880/Pro_Bus_Driver_2/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2852270/Ghost_Ninja/
Or $40 for these monstrosities?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840050/Win_or_Crash/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2879250/King_Kong_City_Destroyer/
He has the prices jacked up to like $100 on some. I don't have an example atm, but I'm sure someone will post one.
And yes all of these are him. He has a ridiculous amount of dev and publisher accounts on Steam. So when good old Cristian does something like this or other "devs" do this it results in 0 CV.
Comment has been collapsed.
Just search in the steam store for "Hidden 3D" and you will find tons of overpriced trash games up to even 1000$
Its ridiculous that something like this is allowed on steam.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes! Thank you for commenting.
For the low low price of only $700 you can this pile of crap. lol
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2137250/Hidden_Office_TopDown_3D/
Comment has been collapsed.
I kept in mind the publisher "Hede"
This dude has only those trash games. I just checked now and there are even few for more than 1k....
Comment has been collapsed.
Hede aka Aleksey Yorzh. This guy has been around a LONG time.
This is his game engine.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1313330/HEDE_Game_Engine/
Comment has been collapsed.
You should just take the chance to get this epic bundle as long as there is something left!
HOT HOT HOT
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/27263/My_Hidden_TopDown/
Comment has been collapsed.
Damn I didn't know this was such an issue. I got gamed by buying a "random key" bundle and just thought I'd give them away. What websites are safe to buy keys from that will actually be decent games instead of that overpriced bullshit?
Comment has been collapsed.
If it could help, there is a list of overpriced games, at risk to be 0Cv : https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/mgNMJ/summary-table-of-overpriced-and-shovelware-games-that-are-not-0-cv-new-version-april-june-2024
Comment has been collapsed.
It's really unfortunate that this "dev" behavior has become more and more common now a days. I'd say that most of the time it seems like it's done for money laundering, but sometimes from understanding SG CV does have role as well as other things. If you're trying to level up it's definitely not worth using those types of games. Sometimes it can take a bit before the CV status changes, but it eventually it can.
Fantical, Humble Bundle, and Indiegala are sites that offer bundles and also have legit stores. Here's a list of other licensed stores that aren't grey market: Greenmangaming, Gamesplanet, Voidu, eTail.Market, DLGamer, Gamersgate, Gamesload, Dreamgame, 2Game, Allyouplay, Gamebillet, and Joybuggy. I think Greenmangaming does have bundles sometimes, but I might be mistaken.
I haven't used a lot of those sites, but those are on the list of official licensed Steam key selling storefronts.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the list! I'll be sure to check them out sometime.
Comment has been collapsed.
Nuuvem is also great, even if most games there are locked for the LATAM region. Also it's a way to get games that have never been bundled, and those will give you full CV.
Also I believe your story (mystery bundles at shady sites are tempting) so I'm removing you from my blacklist. Take care.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the BL removal! I'm from Brazil so I often check Nuuvem for some sales. They have some pretty good ones every now and then.
Comment has been collapsed.
Opa, Nuuvem é otimo pra comprar uns joguinhos, so toma cuidado que muita coisa vem region locked.
Still, you could just give them away specifying the right region.
You will love this website <3
Comment has been collapsed.
I thought I added that, but I was mistaken. That should be on the list as well.
Comment has been collapsed.
Bit sad to see all the angry comments but that's to be expected. I figured it might've been something to do with the shovelware games but just wanted to make sure. I got those keys by buying one of those mystery bundles, thinking I'd actually get at least a couple decent games but no luck. When I saw that they were all bad I thought I'd at least try to make some giveaways and maybe improve my level but that's fine, it's quite obvious that they were definitely NOT worth their given value.
Thanks for all the replies except for the mean ones! You guys really should try to be better people :)
Comment has been collapsed.
It's unneccesary maybe, but sometimes these topics come in waves when it could all been avoided if the guides been read properly.
When something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Also when you make a giveaway you can see * reduced value or ** no value, you could have and still check beforehand.
Comment has been collapsed.
I did realize that some of the games had reduced or no value while others had no asterisk beside the name, but I decided to go through with all of them anyway even if some weren't worth anything, In hindsight I realize I shouldn't have done that (bloating the system, giving away literal shit, etc) but oh well. Guess I'll steer away from those bundles from now on.
Comment has been collapsed.
if your addicted to mysteries, fanaticals give real games, you will get a mix of full cv, reduced cv and no cv games.
I would avoid any not from an authorized retailer because they will almost always have this junk.
Comment has been collapsed.
The thing about Fanatical that screws me over is that my credit card barely has any limit on it (almost all of it goes to my monthly subscriptions like Game Pass and Netflix) and for some fucking reason my debit card doesn't work on online purchases. The website I bought the random keys from had an alternative method of paying that is VERY commonly used here in Brazil and that's mainly what caught my attention.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah they are trying to make it easy to give them your money for shit :P
Comment has been collapsed.
My country is cockblocking me for fanatical, I am out of luck here.
Comment has been collapsed.
Some of the mean ones are more worded more aggressively than it's meant in my eyes but it's kind of par for the course. Those games are given away to "game" the system when they give some CV and people naturally don't like it. It's more against the games and people that purposefully abuse the system than you in particular.
Also some people would rather you see give nothing than give away a trash game with 0 CV. I got blacklisted by someone for giving away "Yellow: The Yellow Artifact", even though it gives 0 CV since in my mind, even if I don't get anything, It's better than it going to waste. But eh, next time I'll just throw it into the oprhan key drop thread - https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/hK2kQ/orphan-keys-drop-thread
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah I totally understand, I'd be pissed too if I spent 40 bucks on a key to give away and someone spent cents on a 40 dollar "game" and got the same CV. If I lost my progress because the system is now working properly, that's totally fine.
Comment has been collapsed.
I believe your explanation and will remove my blacklist
Comment has been collapsed.
I believe your story as well so I removed you from my BL. I don't create many GAs but still.
Apparently you were absent on SG for quite some time, you didn't even enter many giveaways in almost 10 years. Your story is consistent.
I don't add someone to my BL immediately after I see them create obvious asset flip giveaways. However if they continue to do this, I suspect they're trying to game the system, especially when they have older accounts like yours. So it's not personal in any means.
Don't let asset flip devs win by buying mystery bundles from unknown sources. If you ask me, never buy any mystery bundle though. No one would go to a restaurant and buys a mystery menu (only happens in movies (e.g. surprise me)). :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks! Nah I've learned my lesson, I'm never buying random key bundles. I'd rather save my money for a good game. As for the mystery menu thing, I'd actually like that! There's a movie theater in my city that sometimes has mystery movie showings and I love the idea.
Comment has been collapsed.
No problem!
Heh, I guess it wasn't a good analogy after all. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I just logged in to SG to spend my points and enter some GAs, but noticed I was Level 1 instead of 4 or 5 as I was before? I feel like earlier today even I was of a higher level... Don't know if it's just a visual bug or if I've actually been demoted to Level 1. Any help?
Thanks in advance everyone, and keep up being such a great community!
Comment has been collapsed.