How do you feel about those users, who are raise level by giveaway developers keys. ( some have since reached 10 level names have been removed at the request of the FBI )
As an experiment, i wrote a letter to one of the developers and spent only a couple of minutes to write, i received 11 keys.
Almost $200 Real CV, one email.
I know people, handing out a good game, but they still have not reached level 10
And others wrote hundreds of similar letters and after a couple of weeks reached maximum.
It's easier than buying a good game for the money.
This opens up the opportunity to join a high-level giveaways of good games.
This is how to use a bug in the game that would get everything at once, the abuse.

I'm sure the moderators know about this method, but do nothing.
Should moderators somehow regulate this simple way to raise the level?
Maybe ignore Real CV for Sent Gifts for large numbers of copies. Or still somehow.

8 years ago*

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Should moderators somehow regulate this simple way to raise the level?

View Results
yes
no
I reached level 10 through devkeys

Hm.. I really need to make some game and make GA for it.
No need to beg for keys to other developers..

8 years ago
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Actually, there is already a rule for this: Only the first 5 gifts fully count, all further gifts give less and less Real CV. Especially the gifts of 100 or more keys have thereby a far lower value.

From the FAQ: "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) in value towards your level. This has little effect on the majority of users, but prevents individuals from receiving a high level from gifting a large number of promotional gifts, games obtained through pricing errors, or keys from contacting game developers."

8 years ago
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That still gives a total value of hundreds of dollars of non-bundled CV for minimal effort per game. The fact that they're non-bundled just adds insult to injury as most of these games get bundled within days/weeks of release, but by obtaining early keys from devs they are even guaranteed permanent full CV. 50-100 keys still add up to a lot of value given the slow process of decreasing by 10%.

8 years ago
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Well, it depends on the base value. The first 5 will give full value, and then the value rapidly decreases and converges to 9*base value for all the other gifts. I just tried it in Excel: If the base value is 10, then the value will be like this (rounded to two digits):

  • 1: 10
  • 5: 50
  • 10: 86.86
  • 20: 131.47
  • 30: 133.54
  • 40: 137.75
  • 50: 139.21
  • 60: 139.73
  • 70: 139.90
  • 80: 139.97
  • 90: 139.99
  • 100: 140.00
  • 150: 140.00
  • 200: 140.00
  • 300: 140.00
  • 500: 140.00

If the base value is 5 then the results will end up at 70, a base value of 20 will end up at 280, and so on. So you can reach about 14 times the base value for any base value.

The highest base value is 100 at the moment, I think, therefore you can reach 1400 Real CV by this, giving you level 7 (as this applies to a Real CV of 1000 to 2000). If the base value is 10, which is more realistic, you'll reach level 4 (Real CV between 100 and 250). And of course if the game was bundled before, the value is even lower.

8 years ago
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Yes, and that's just for one game. So I guess you would choose to stop somewhere around 10-20 copies, then rinse and repeat for another game from another developer.

8 years ago
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meh, math
but real is

i wrote a letter to one of the developers and spent only a couple of minutes to write, i received 11 keys.
Almost $200 Real CV, one email.

repeat ~25 times with different devs, and from zero to 10 level

8 years ago
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Well, that's correct. Hmm.

But on the other hand, what's the benefit on both sides (side 1: the guy asking developers, side 2: the Steamgifts community)?
Side 1 gets access to level 10 giveaways, big deal. Side 2 gets like 250 more keys of more or less unknown games as giveaways. And you can always put a guy doing this on your blacklist.
The only really unfair part I see is that these keys, albeit gotten for free, don't count as bundled, which they should. But this is technically not easy to detect and implement.

I'm not sure we really need a new rule to prevent this behavior.

8 years ago
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Yes, but I can write different developers and give ten different keys of average quality games
every day comes a hundred games and many of them agree to give the keys https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/news/?appid=765&section=faq

8 years ago
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you cant really moderate that. large number of keys can be bought too. or they will just gave away one by one.

also thats a call out what is forbidden so pls delete

8 years ago
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As an experiment, i wrote a letter to one of the developers and spent only a couple of minutes to write, i received 11 keys.
Almost $200 Real CV, one email.

The game you gave away recently ?

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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So what?
You are asked to check the high-level, I checked and saw good game.

8 years ago
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:)

8 years ago
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It's not only the ability to reach level 10. These days it's far more common to put SGTools restrictions on ratios which scale proportionally with this very same issue, meaning that these users have access to far more exclusive giveaways than others.

8 years ago
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Knew it was around, but them reaching level 10?

8 years ago
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8 years ago*
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Not may, is*

It's already removed.

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8 years ago
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I don't think it's any worse than people who do giveaways almost exclusively for their small group of friends and then join lots of public giveaways with their boosted level. In fact at least the dev key giveaways are usually giving most users of the site a chance to win. But then I don't care much either way :p It's unlikely anything will ever be done to change it as far as I know.

8 years ago
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Good point about chance to win for new users

and then join lots of public

Giveaways in public choice creators, they might use sgtools with filtres, if wanted

8 years ago*
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Well, some of them are welcomed members in groups like Bundlelicious...well I dislike this people of leechers...
You can reach level 9 with begged keys from developer...what a joke...

8 years ago
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What and irony that someone like you create thread like this :D
Let the fun begin

8 years ago
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Write on the topic of discussion, not the creators of discussion, please.

8 years ago
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Maybe something like adding good point modifier for most wished games like in another giveaway site could help? Or positive point modifier for games with low "given away" count but good recent reviews on steam could somewhat help devolopers and new players? Or additional negative point modifier for games that are currently in early acess could help? Or epic devolopers whitelist, lol. Its all about point system and number balancing. And its not an easy decision.

8 years ago*
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I'm sure the moderators know about this method, but do nothing.

Libel.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Salty

8 years ago
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View attached image.
8 years ago
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eh. No worse than people who pick up 5 * 3 games of a crappy bundle for $3, and get $20 CV for it.

8 years ago
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But atleast people still put some money in rather then just free handouts, difference.
90% of the giveaways runs on bundled games, if you want that to be changed.

8 years ago*
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Or region restricted games. Where you pay a fraction of the cost, and get the same CV, and even if we were to change that, you'd just join a group and not claim it as region restricted. There are lvl 10s that got there simply by doing that.

8 years ago
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:)

View attached image.
8 years ago
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You were blacklisted weeks ago =D this thread has very little to do with it.

8 years ago
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Once again, with the exception of CG throwing excellent games at us, there honestly aren't that GAs for lvl 10 to begin with so this isn't actually a real problem. Oh the lvl 10s get awesome giveaways. Like there isn't a secret club or anything. So getting irritated when at the core you still need to give 5k in games to get to lvl 10 is silly. Something that really isn't that easy to do. Most of these people work hard to keep getting games and it does help the dev's even a tiny bit. So eh.

8 years ago
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I don't know how it helps the developers if someone gets some free keys and gives them away here
except if you're talking trading cards, but fuck that business model

8 years ago
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Well given the horrendous state of the steam store as of late, finding good indie games is hard, personally I don't even try. However that's not to say that there aren't good indie games, so maybe word of mouth helps a bit. get a hundred people to try my game, we're running under the assumption that they'll play the game and maybe they'll tell their friends and write a positive review. It's not like Valve is helping you promote your game.

8 years ago
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I'm not in this "work" actually, or real hard work. But what work are you talking about? Remade a tamplate of requesting letter a bit, write a review and mark it as positive/funny with alt-accounts? Thats sounds like helpful marketing for me, if i was an average indie devoloper met with devoloper keys getter. Personally i don`t think here is a secret club of succesful people who are really generous. But i thought more lvl = more good games sended = more respect between people. And the answer is: who can stay beeing generous between hardworkers, when system just stimulate level and those game getters = real hardworkers in terms of level? And its not only about level 10.

8 years ago*
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It's not like high levels give any advantage. Public high-level (6+) giveaways make up so small part of the site that I don't think they can even be measured in hundredths of percents.

8 years ago
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i dont mind. its not against the rules. people gain levels and access to better giveaways - good for them, its not my business. after all its "just" steamgifts, i dont know why so many get almost emotional about every little thing here, again its not against the rules. personally, i dont have the time or desire to rant about minor/trivial things. if you cant handle dealing with users that dont "deserve" their level, blacklists and groups exists. yeah its not cool to have to use those tools, but we are not living in a world where everyone acts ethically correct, if people want to do something about it they should rather use their energy on important stuff in RL, not on a gaming forum. thats just my opinion ofc :)

8 years ago
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It's not that big of a deal, honestly. I mean, a huge chunk of the games being givenaway are leftovers from a bundle that are basically free. Take the Deep Silver bundle, for instance: $1, and you get 5 games worth what, $80? Let's say someone only wanted Saints Row 2 from the bundle - they saved $9, and got four extra games they don't care about. If they give the rest away, that's about $60-$70 CV added to their level, and they didn't pay a dime for them, since they were prepared to spend $9 more for SR2 alone.

It's not about how much one spends, it's the consideration that's important. One could ask for developer keys and just give them to their friends to save their friends money, trade them for games they want more and boost their feedback, or even sell them on G2A to make some cash. Choosing to to give them away to random people on here promotes the game, and is the more selfless thing to do, in my opinion q: Plus, it gives more people a chance to win :D

8 years ago*
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I feel a little jelly. And it makes me reflect on myself.

So all these giveaways...just to raise your sg level? No. There's also the "want to enter high level giveaways" part, too.
Maybe you should change your motivation. "This game is awesome and I want to support the developer!" Maybe.

About the question should it be regulated: It's up to cg. It's cg's site and it's cg who provided the place to host these giveaways
(which are provided by the community). It feels like an arms-race to me. One could just lie about the origin of the keys.
This doesn't mean we just become defeatist (we can't stop them! what could we do?!).
I guess you could blacklist them.

8 years ago
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Suggestion: 1) Let users choose, when creating a giveaway, if they want CV for it or not, in a way similar to Steamcompanion. I'll not say I always use it there because you need to create 2 or more copies to have the option, but it could have some similar option here. So while there isn't a solution, people would know who is serious in this and who isn't. Who want to do to boost and who don't.

8 years ago*
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You interviewed yourself :D
haha I must try that <3

8 years ago
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Hahaha a bit douchery but just stuff I've heard before that I wanted to get addressed and didn't wanted to wait before people asked again. :P

8 years ago
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