If you want to be sure to check what people gave away, don't look at their number of giveaways but their Real CV, that way it's clear they gave away free stuff and I doubt many people would stop grabbing many copies of a free game if we ban it here + you always end up hurting real givers as well.
They had a rule here some years ago that free or bundled games couldn't be given away and they changed that rule, doubt they will change it back.
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Even bundled games forbidden from being given away here? By the time I first joined that restriction must have been lifted, but the restriction on games that were given away for free on other websites was still there. One reason I didn't like the rule was that I wasn't aware that a few of the games I wanted to give away were either bundled or free. So to make things fair they reduce CV or give no CV.
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Yes, in the old days they had a ban on bundled games, at least that's what I was told because when I joined it was already lifted though a ban on free games were indeed not lifted yet because when I first joined I wanted to make a giveaway for a bundled game and couldn't choose that game because it was given for free before.
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How many keys can you own from a bundle? 1? 2? 5? I was referring to slew of GAs from botted keys off a game made free same day some even GA 10+, 50+
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It's not about the number of games people are giving away, but rather the blatent exploitation of the places they get them. Just the other day, in one example a guy gave away over 100 copies (perhaps more by now) of the game from Stardock. The site was down for genuine people because it was under bot attack. If free games were limited to 5 copies per account, we'd at least deter people from doing it for gain on SG. (EDIT: for clarification, I know it won't stop them doing it for resale on G2A etc. :P).
I don't think banning them completely is the answer. I've won and given away copies of games that I didn't care were free at some point.
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Oh I know that. That's why I worded my post the way I did. ;)
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If it won't be allowed to make giveaways for those games on SG - it won't stop people from abusing the places to get them. But it would bring more issues for SG, because people will again do giveaways with wrong game specified. So best we can do on SG about it - is do nothing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Oh, I know it won't stop them. I probably should have extended that sentence to say "...even if they do it for gain elsewhere." I was thinking that it would be a few less doing it, when I made the post. I disagree with banning the games from GA, but do support a restriction on how many copies one account can give away of the same free game. The number of people gaining mass numbers of those games are small I think, so don't think that would affect SG overall.
However, I am only on the site for 1 year, so I don't know much about past issues.
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I'm not bother giveaways of an already free game here, but I can't stand people making multiple accounts to take bunch of copies on official giveaway site and regular users don't have enough time to take one for themselves the same way. If some limitations here can make abusers stop this practice - than it's not a bad thing.
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That's not a good idea.
The same game given away for free today, will be sold for full price or bundled a week from now.
So you're basically limiting the ability of people to give away games they bought at full price.
Not to mention the fact that people miss fee giveaways, so they don't own the game, and would love a chance to win it on SteamGifts.
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So you're basically limiting the ability of people to give away games they bought at full price.
Well, they're not at full price in a bundle but that's a good point.
Not to mention the fact that people miss fee giveaways, so they don't own the game, and would love a chance to win it on SteamGifts.
Having missed quite a few freebies and being grateful for the chance to win them on SG, I can relate to that. On the other hand a lot of times I missed them not because I didn't know but because free keys ran out before I could get one, and that's a problem that, even though is due mostly to people making money off keys, like the grey market (and Lootboy to name just one), is compounded by SG people who are getting dozens of keys to make GAs that will only result in inflating their number of GAs.
It's a vicious cycle. But not one we can do anything about, I think. Limiting GAs is always a bad idea.
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I also don't like that idea
Yes, I've made GAs for games i got for free... as well as entered GAs for free games.
Often enough because i don't have the access to those free games or choose not to get those for free because i don't trust that site it's on as they have dubious requirements (e.g. liking facebook pages, joining groups, joining twitter, etc.).
So if a game actually interests me and i don't want to get it from a specific site I'm glad i get the chance to enter in those GAs here on SG.
And i'm sure others feel the same.
Of course i also don't look kindly on those that somehow amass bunches of keys. 1 should be enough, no?
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How many keys can you own from a bundle? 1? 2? 5? I was referring to slew of GAs from botted keys off a game made free same day some even GA 10+, 50+
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yes, i understand. i dont think its a good thing as well.
But you suggested to generally disable giving those free games away for everyone... to generally ban those games from being gift-able.
it would affect everyone, bots as well as all the genuine people out there.
And this is something i dont agree with.
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Read again. I suggested either there be a 1 year ban of such games GA. OR. They don't count as Given away in numbers at all. Suppose you have Given away 10 Games and now Give away 5 of those botted free games after it went free, You should be allowed to GA keys but your Given away games should still read 10 not 15. With 0 CV that would stop both CV and level manipulation.
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yes i read that, but since the banning was even in your title i regarded it as your main suggestion and the "not counting" one as just some side/altenrative suggestion. so i replied to the main suggestion of banning which i dont like.
.... but still ... wouldnt the "not counting" one stil affect the honest ppl that bought the game before or after it became free??
you said yourself that you have some old keys sitting somewhere... lets say some of those would be available for free at some point and were added to some list just like the reduced/no value list SG already has.so if you gave your old keys away after that, they also wouldnt count towards the amount... even though they were regularly bought.
also this:
With 0 CV that would stop both CV and level manipulation.
every game that has been given away for free at some point of time will be added to the "no value" list and wont give CV anymore. So even bots that give away 50 of those games, wont gain any level. no level manipulation here
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This rule existed a long time ago and was removed because it was ridiculous.
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Also, 5) even though there was the rule in place, that still didn't stop profitors from trying to sneak in quick giveaways to rack up CV, possibly winning giveaways above their normal level, during the time window between the game going free and the staff removing it from the giveaway list (and that still happens, except before they're added to the 0 CV list); and 6) even after that, there still were users trying to give freebies under the wrong name ("I couldn't find it in the list, so I chose a similar one"... not always in good faith), further adding up to the extra work as in point 3).
In any case, the amount of freebies we see here are just a small part, the majority end up being used on farming bots, traded, or sold on grey markets for actual profits.
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...during the time window between the game going free and the staff removing it from the giveaway list...
Those changes are retroactive. They might "sneak in some CV" before the game is marked as "free," but that CV will disappear once the change is made.
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To prevent abuse free games already give no CV.
Something a lot of people giving dozens of those game away do not seem to know, most of the time. Then they create threads to say "how come my level doesn't budge when I make all these GAs??"
I guess you'd need to you know... read the rules, but it seems to prove harder than you'd imagine.
Who the F cares if someone wants to win that game let them enter the giveaway.
Maybe they also would have liked the chance to get the game without entering a lottery by getting the free key themselves but they couldn't because some cretin thought he hit the mother lode siphoning hundreds of keys to make GAs that won't give him any CV.
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Some C would do it anyway, and changing the rule would just do what MikuIT said under 5 and 6 just before you replied. You know how I can know for certain? Was here when the rule was forbidding it instead of allowing it with no CV. Still happened. Only thing is it made more work for the mods and slowed down the entire community, irritated people who'd enter something only to be deleted, irritated people who'd answer 1000 "why was my giveaway deleted" and so on threads. This way they give the game. They earn 0 cv. Some of them don't even notice. Some ask, you link them the rules, the end.
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LOL. Even as I speak I realize my leftover keys from couple of years ago are now 0 CV most likely went free some point in my prolonged absence. That said wouldn't mind them shown as 0 Given away. Just don't see how people end up GA 50x keys same day it goes free.
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just don't rely too much on GA counts
you also have dev that giveaway tons of keys of never free keys
SG is supposed to be a facilitating site to share and give keys, im glad they opened possibility of easily giving away free keys sleeping in our key bundles and spreadsheets)
just care about levels and CVs
(that can be kinda cheated since public level/private group levels are shared)
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Well even if they weren't, if "people" gave away 50 keys of a game that was never free... even if that was not one but 50x 1 key giveaways... you know what happens? Only the initial 4 give full CV, every single key afterwards gives less and less until it's zero, for that giver only. And if the game was free, it's 0 immediatelly. So it's sort of impossible to boost your CV with many copies of the same game. But hey, why read the rules before opening threads, no one has time for that I guess.
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There are people making it to level 5 on free shit or even higher, i reported some a few times, last time i actually did get a reply, saying it would be a lot of work to get everything on the free cv list, yeah it might be but then it might actually stop the spam, and i even offered to help even but as usually since then i didn't get answer back. Some profile you can just easilly pick and figure out all their giveaways been free.
As others said users that abuse it should be something done about. So many abusing the system, we let them, so why would they stop on their own?
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Nope.
In response to the question posed in the title. However of course I'm not a big fan of someone redeeming multiple keys just to giveaway a bunch of copies of a game. It discourages Devs from doing it in future which is not in our own self interests. Whether people should be punished by the site I'm not too keen on, since there's room for people being punished for giving away a large quantity of a free game who may well have bought them through a grey market seller or traded for them.
I guess that only leaves voting with your BL if there are people exploiting those free keys.
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This was discussed (ad nauseam) a couple years back when they used to be removed from the giveaway list. People voted, and cg decided it was fine to give them away.
For my part, I'm completely fine with people making giveaways with them (though I wasn't at first), for all the reasons NB264 listed in his comment. If you don't approve of someone giving away freebies, for whatever reason, you have the tools at hand to exclude those people from your own giveaways.
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Suppose you have Given away 10 Games and now Give away 5 of those botted free games after it went free, You should be allowed to GA keys but your Given away games should still read 10 not 15. With 0 CV that would stop both CV and level manipulation.
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When you go to someones profile and it says they gave away 10 games, if you hover over that number it will show "full value 3, reduced value (bundled) 8, no value (free) 1". Can you please please stop asking for the existing things and use the website a bit before asking for stuff that are implemented for years now. Pretty please.
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There is no way to win on this one. If you stopped people from giving away free games it would also hurt people who already had a copy of the game to give away, or those buying it after the free game stops being free.
That said, I would have loved to get a copy of Dark Souls when it was given free but it was hit by bots so hard that they ran out of keys, then to add insult to injury it was given away or sold by people who should not have even had access to the giveaway. Yeah, I'm still bitter.
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As a couple of people mentioned, I don't think professional botters who leech mass GA keys do it with the purpose of creating a bunch of GAs on SG. I'm pretty sure they do it for real profit on grey market sites.
And yes, as others have mentioned it used to be impossible to create SG GAs for previously free games, which was a shame IMO because people with keys couldn't give them away and people who wanted the keys couldn't enter GAs for them. I've won over 60 "free" games and without this silly rule being removed those keys would have rotted somewhere (or been sold, or been ninja'd by bots if dropped there)
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Should games given free by sites be banned from GAs a year since made free?
no, this is why: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/UUGiG/allowing-giveaways-for-games-in-promotions-or-games-that-are-temporarily-free
With 0 CV that would stop both CV and level manipulation.
they are already 0 cv, they only give a +1 sent count (they should give nothing at all, but i suppose it's complex to code that into sg without messing things up).
but i would say YES to banning all free games from promotions, like sg was almost 3 years ago before this: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/RCZPq/reduced-cv-and-no-cv-giveaways
btw, you guys need to find a new hobby instead of getting angry at everything everyone else does on sg. finding someone that farmed 50,000 copies of some trash game NO ONE would ever play, is just a waste of time. it won't kill the site, and it doesn't hurt anyone.
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I'll just leave this excerpt from the current FAQ here:
After you give away a game 5 times (whether in the same giveaway, or in multiple giveaways), it will begin decreasing in value. The value is decreased by 10% for each additional copy. This means if you decide to give away 8 copies of a $10 game, it would add $74.39 (10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 9 + 8.10 + 7.29) to your contributor value. This has little effect on the majority of users, but prevents individuals from receiving a high contributor value from gifting a large number of promotional gifts, games obtained through pricing errors, or keys from contacting game developers.
I'm content with prior discussions and decisions at SG.
If people give away a game that was part of a mass giveaway, SG mods tend to give that game "No Value", and it doesn't count toward (Real) Contributor Value, period. Counts of No Value games sent is available on profiles by mousing over "Gifts Sent" # and (Real) CV is seen by mousing over Gifts Sent $.
It'd be nice if group stats counted (Real) Contributor Value, but they don't. So group admins like me just pull from ESGST's API and/or barter.vg's giveaway list, and compare group giveaways to that to make sure people aren't abusing groups with tons games previously given in mass giveaways elsewhere.
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To stop people botting it and Giving away for adding to their GA numbers falsely? Many genuine accounts get deprived of owning a key due to these nuisance makers? Why take it if you want to Give it away and exploit system for adding number of games given? They wont get CV but get fake respectability giving away 50 free keys shamelessly. perhaps such games should not be added to number of games Given?
Suppose one has Given away 10 Games. Now Giving away 5 of those botted free games after it went free, One should be allowed to GA keys but the Given away games should still read 10 not 15. With 0 CV that would stop both CV and level manipulation.
Opinions?
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