I just read the Update 2. Thanks for making my day :)
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As a little Info, at least one of the abusing/exploiting ones started to blacklist the ones that wrote here in the Thread- Maybe "only" the ones that reported games.
I assume, in the end, with the target to hide the fake game GAs and try to prevent the reduced/free status for this games.
Of course this person don't change their gifting behavior, because it is perfect for cheating in groups that have autojoiners -each time entries guaranteed :-D ... that's so dumb that it is very funny for me-.
I think that absolutely each group that allow such exploiting/abusing is a bad group.
Oh and to this person...
Did you really think you could hide this games and none else would report them ?
And did you really think we don't know the sources and don't have tools to scan there for new stuff ?
You don't get anymore cv with such games.
As earlier you learn the lesson as better is it for all -and you save on top a few cents- :o)
Till now...
Level 7 --> 4
Have a nice day
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I know you're not naming individual, but it does feel a bit like witch hunt. "Someone started to BL people, I will give how much they dropped in level, go and find on your own if you want". Users in this thread helped a lot to spot this issue (I did not even know source shop of those keys exist before...) but thread should not move into mocking / pointing fingers corner.
Affected users did lose CV. I hope most of them will not try to find another really cheap shop to try again to go to level 9 by spending $60.
I think the games in OP list had biggest "return value" but I went through all games available in this shop and set those that met certain threshold as no-CV.
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It could be only seen as a "witch hunt" when i would write a user name.
Good luck finding someone alone with the dropped level (i would say this is impossible).
I reported a bunch of those shops, with a tracker to have lesser work to find stuff, 2 or 3 years ago. A mod said it got forwarded to cg.
But cg never programmed something to add the stuff from this stores, automaticly, to the bundled list. Which was my thoughts at the begin, behind it, to reduce the needed mod work.
The games were at that time "only" in the $15 - $30 price range but the problem were the same as now and the same users/accounts abused/exploited it as nowadays -or some accounts wouldn't loose $2000 - $3000-.
In the end i am a bit surprised that not all mods seen this help.
I know the ones that handled in the past, the biggest part, of the add game tickets, known it.
I went through all games available in this shop and set those that met certain threshold as no-CV.
Thank you :o)
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It could be only seen as a "witch hunt" when i would write a user name.
Good luck finding someone alone with the dropped level (i would say this is impossible).
I'm just saying it brings negativity to the forum. There is no other reason to go where users are already polarized and be like "oh look there is someone who's doing x, they are silly for doing it against us". It is off topic. Some people tried to exploit system, we put games on no-CV list. There is no reason to go after them any more, and talk about individuals or hint towards them. Thread is about games that OP felt are exploitative. And you write random post about someone else adding people to blacklist.
As it was said anyone can search for those games, see who gave them away and made their own conclusions. I added dozens of games to no-CV list from gamehag giveaways in the past week and it's the same pattern - people were making GAs for each single free game, many of them were not added to no-CV list afterwards. But I will not go to a thread where people complain about gamehag giveaways, give list of games and wait for others to jump on it, search for people and add them to BL or whatever. They had boosted CV, now they don't. I will not try to point or hint toward individuals, say they started to BL moderator team in revenge etc.
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There is no other reason to go where users are already polarized and be like "oh look there is someone who's doing x, they are silly for doing it against us"
You are wrong.
The reason were that people know the detail that they get blacklisted from, at least, one user when they report in this thread, such "games".
And "us" would include me, that is wrong too because i have this user (and 999) other ones on my BL to minimize the stuff i see from all the cv system abusers/exploiters.
It wasn't a "random post" as you called it.
But i learned my lesson, next time i will give a fuck if people have a backlash for doing the right thing. That will make the site, for sure, better and more positive /sarcasm.
Besides that "sorry that i am not happy with all the abuse/exploiting on sg" and that i don't want to hide that i don't like users that not only do this but changed then only the way how they tried to still abuse/exploit the cv system. I can't go into details because that would give hints to the user but it gave, much more, as one way that he/she tried it, instead of stop with it. So yes, the second part, that was directed to him, was for sure "not the friendliest" but far away from insults or something that is punishable. I can dislike someone and/or his behavior without to insult.
From my reports got hundreds catched and i seen thousands of user profiles and steam profiles that shown black sheeps (multiaccounter, autojoiner, unactivated wins, regifter etc.) but have you seen me, on sg, "going after specific users" in public ?
I don't think so.
And trust me it is hard to write nothing when a catched autojoiner write then as he is fully against autojoiners and hunt the people that use them (or other extreme examples).
So please don't come up with "There is no reason to go after them any more...".
I am not dumb and i don't have so much lifetime or nothing else to do, that i could/want waste it to "go after them (after a report)" on sg.
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It's not hard to find at all Masafor. I think i found the person you're talking about by doing a few minutes searching those giveaways and based on the info you provided. Highlighting one person in particular with respect to this issue is surely what a "witch hunt" is. For me, the punishment for losing levels will make them think twice about making those giveaways so no real need to make a major song and dance about it. I am glad that you are letting the mods know when you see rule breaking but any punishment should be left for the mods to do. If people use autojoiners to join these giveaways, that means more chance for me to win the giveaways i enter as they are wasting their points on those giveaways.
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The extremely important part is
"I think i found the person you're talking about"
Which means, you aren't sure.
And that proof my words.
I am glad that you are letting the mods know when you see rule breaking but any punishment should be left for the mods to do.
It's new for me that i can do some punishment (as normal user).
Special after i warned the people here in the thread, that when they post "fake games", that they will be then, most likely/maybe, a target for, at least, one user.
It was discussed, days/weeks ago, if users should write the found stuff here in the channel or in a ticket.
I wanted to show this infos, that the users can decide, with the full knowledge, which way they want to handle that fake game "reports".
(Some will not care for the blacklist[s], others will avoid to get blacklisted)
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Unless i can read your mind i can never be 100% sure but i am pretty confident i know the person you are talking about. I probably would not have been able to work out who the person is but with the additional info you provided, i was able to. If you really want i can message you who it is on steam but that isn't the main point .The main point is you're indirectly calling out this person and if i can work out who this person is, others can too.
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Good morning,
it's interesting for me that other ones call directly out and don't get a punishment (or a comment), that other ones write stuff like "my last winner don't activated..." + "he have/do x" (so calling out for something) and no one cares but if the evil Masafor write that someone with level 4 BL users that report the overpriced fake games here in this channel, then it is indirect calling out.
It give 12,403 level 4 users and when someone wants to check them, it isn't forbidden.
To be honest the construct feels like some people want to dig and find something that they could see as (indirect) calling out.
In the end, i don't called out, i don't broke the rules.
But i learned my lesson, next time i will give a fuck if people have a backlash for doing the right thing. That will make the site, for sure, better and more positive /sarcasm.
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Good evening masafor,
The message/response wasn't meant as a insult to you but more a way of advise you that you may get into trouble over the way your message came across. If the tone of my response made you feel uncomfortable then i apologise as it was not meant in that way. I actually do agree with a lot of the points you made and i understand why you did some of the things you did. I do hope you have a good upcoming week!
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Hi Stevey,
thanks for your words.
To be honest, yes, your message came different over, special in combination with MSKOTOR`s comment that i read direct before yours -it was maybe in this case a bad combination-, because it gave me the impression as for other ones get easy rules used and for me count much stricter ones (like trying to find a hair in the soup).
And after checking the half day, no joke, autojoiner stuff (60 tickets done, 20 ready for the last checks before sending the tickets and around 20-40 need much more infos), wanted than to relax a bit and seen then incomming "critic", hit me on the wrong spot at that moment.
So let's see it as a missunderstanding that we cleared :o)
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(I did not even know source shop of those keys exist before...)
Oh come on, these type of games have been discussed here on the forums since at least early 2021. I remember a bunch of these priced at 30-50 USD showing up then. And it's been an ongoing issue ever since. I'm not sure how and why this specific topic finally broke through when several former ones didn't result in any action but it was very welcome so thank you for that. But not only were these asset flips discussed here, their source was also even advertised on SG. I know of at least 1 user who had a very visible whitelist topic, openly advertised this Russian keyshop on the forums and in his giveaways and in the end got banned for it. That was also in 2021 (summer I think). I'm pretty sure several mods knew about gamesforfarm (and possibly other similar shops) for a long while.
A question: Will you try to do something about the accounts that managed to register on steamgifts because of these scummy asset flips? I've seen SG users who didn't have a single playable game on their Steam account, only a few of these overpriced asset flips. I'd assume the 100 USD registration limit is there for a reason.
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"...and in the end got banned for it."
As far as i know, was someone banned for the advertising only because that shop sold accounts too.
Since that shop deleted this advertising part it was allowed and all other shady shops are still allowed too.
At least if we speak over the same shop and the same user(s).
I am not 100% sure if we do :-D
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Oh come on, these type of games have been discussed here on the forums since at least early 2021. I remember a bunch of these priced at 30-50 USD showing up then. And it's been an ongoing issue ever since.
And I don't need to know all the things that happens here, it's impossible. I've been focusing on deals, group recruitment and some individual topics. Personal life also means I did not have much time for SG for long periods of time. I did know about gamehag before. I learned about keyjoker, giveaway.su and other russian websites 3 or 4 weeks ago. And apart from knowing about G2A or kinguin I never followed keyshops, espesially not some random russian ones. I don't know if other moderators knew about those websites. But I didn't.
A question: Will you try to do something about the accounts that managed to register on steamgifts because of these scummy asset flips? I've seen SG users who didn't have a single playable game on their Steam account, only a few of these overpriced asset flips. I'd assume the 100 USD registration limit is there for a reason.
We do suspend accounts if they do not meet registration requirements. This is not a new problem, it is also possible to have Steam account worth $100 with some bundles before we manage to add game to the bundle list etc.
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Yeah, that's ridiculous. It looks like support has already backdated that game to not give anyone CV.
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is there a tool to filter who create expensive applets GA's from a list of members? Or do we have to scout manually who abuse the system?
@anothabrotha
I've found this useful link in first page thank you , just wanted to know if there was an addon to filter these GAs from GAs created by a list of members
@quijote
you're not wrong, the link below is useful but has limits, since its a general log and can not be used for a member list
@Masafor
thank you , that's what I thought
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Manually, I'm afraid.
But the users who do that usually create a lot of them at the same time, so they are easy to spot.
Edit: forget what I wrote. Read what the post below me said. I didn't know myself
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I think it has been said before but there´s a not so well known button on the bottom of steamgiftts(dot)com - it´s called archive.
Within archive you can search within all past giveaways for a game ..
eg: https://www.steamgifts.com/archive/search?q=splait%20rage
(I just picked the 1st one on the OP´s list)
hope that´s what your looking for!
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No official tools or for everyone available ones, besides the archive to search for specific games.
But you see often the same names that abuse/exploit the cv system with the same type of "games" from always the same, few, sources.
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there are still a few level 8-10 users with overpriced giveaways that were not affected at all by the zero CV because either the set dates are not correct or not all games are reported 😕
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All the games listed in this thread have been backdated to give 0 CV from before the first GA was created, so nobody will get CV from any of these. I didn't spend a ton of time looking for all the games and new ones are created all the time, so I'm sure support is still working on other games. I was just pointing out the ones I noticed that were giving ridiculously high CV because the price was increased on Steam.
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Report the ones that you see and it will be lesser and lesser advantage that they have from them.
My around 550 add game tickets, that were open, are solved. So from me comes now nearly nothing anymore because my attention is lately directed against the autojoiners.
In the last weeks got 32 autojoiners suspended, because of reports from one of my group members and me, the half of them permanent. 24 of them were level 0-1, the rest level 2-5. And around 100 tickets more, against autojoiners, wait to be handled.
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https://steamdb.info/app/2099940/ < Interesting regional prices.
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I don't know why they are doing that, but since SG uses the US price, I don't think it should cause any issues here.
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Could be something innocent like shifted decimal places by mistake as most of them are around 1400€ which probably should have been 14€. But might also be money laundering.
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2095230/Limousine_Parking_Simulator/ 31 euro not on sale.
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It looks like support already set it to 0 CV. I'm not sure if they already had it marked as free or if they are watching this thread and saw your comment.
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They are watching and someone made a 19 copy giveaway that might have triggered it.
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1259300/Spot_Sample_Witness_Simulator/
This one was free & then converted to paid game on 14 Dec 2021, price $199.99 ...
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I'm not sure what is going on with that dev. They have 3 games and it looks like they can't decide whether they should charge $200, $5, or free. 2 games started at $200, dropped to $5 or $8, and then went free for a long time. This game shot back up to $200 while the other stayed free and the 3rd launched at and still is $5.
I don't know how legitimate these "games" are, but if they are actually training or testing tools that a business would buy, I can see them charging a lot because businesses always get charged a lot of money for things. Since they are specialized to certain industries and will sell very few copies, I could see them charging a lot because they will not be selling much volume. That doesn't explain the drastic price drops though.
It doesn't look like the same pattern as the other games and there hasn't been any giveaways here for them, so I'm guessing they aren't selling cheap keys on gray market sites. Since there are no cheap keys or giveaways, I'm not sure if these should be reported and dropped to 0 CV. This is something support would have to weigh in on. If any of these games do stay at $200 and someone creates GAs, then I would definitely think they should be dropped, but I don't know what should be done at this point.
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I was thinking less about giveaways, I guess, and more about someone who previously claimed the game for free (like me) and now has +$200 account value
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@Everyone and especially Support:
I created a new community thread merging the problems with Asset flips, FOMO and deliberately overpriced games. For keeping it up to date, I need your help :)
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I saw the thread, but I don't really understand the purpose of making a list of games or devs. I never intended for this thread to turn into a list of these kind of games and it would make no difference to me to remove them from the OP. I just left them up incase others want to see them for some reason. There are dozens or possibly hundreds of other similar games to these that have been set to 0 CV and not added to this list because other users reported them or support got to them first, but I don't see any reason to seek them out and add them to the list because I don't feel like it serves any purpose.
My intention with this thread was just to find out why these overpriced games were being created and to bring attention to users and support that these games are being used to cheat the CV system. I just wanted something to be done about it so that the CV system of this site wouldn't be ruined. I still don't know why these games are created, but I am happy that they are now getting marked as 0 CV and that is all I wanted. It would be nice if Steam did something about it so that support here doesn't have to work as hard, but I'm not sure what can make that happen.
I just don't understand what the purpose of having a list of bad games and devs is. I know these type of games and devs exist, but I would never look through the lists in these threads and I don't see why anyone else would want to. I collect and play games that I am interested in and everything else on Steam doesn't really matter to me. I can see putting effort in to do something if there is some kind of solution, but I don't see how making a list will achieve anything.
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Thanks. Updated my blocked Creator list with that one...
Lots of other Dev & Publisher names... track 'em down & report too. .02
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/QPMnF/hidden-office-top-down-3d
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/jwpUp/hidden-cube-world-top-down-3d
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/orrXA/climb-challenge-castle
generic games with weird price tags, 50p to enter.
EDIT: Just saw it's already 0CV already, glad to know.
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how come ball fall is now 0 CV? it's never changed it's price or been given away
https://barter.vg/i/97218/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/857590/Ball_Fall/
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It was in a bundle where it was available for less than 3 cents per key. Maybe that is why.
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This is true! I looked at the bundled games list. It was set as bundled in 2019, but set as zero value on June 2, 2022. In the months leading up to that, you gave away 180 copies of the game. I assume you got those keys for free, since it is your son's game. Maybe the SG bundle patrol assumed likewise and added it to the freebie list. I guess only they would be able to say for certain, but that would be my bet.
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it's 182 and will be a lot more since i had a bunch left over - but yes he did have some he didn't need and it didn't really bother me but i was just wondering thanks
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I feel we need some kind of thread alive, and keep mentioning the garbage, because it's getting out of hand again.
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I don't really keep track of the games. I never intended to list all the games here, I was just curious to find out what was happening with these games and why users were getting away with using them to farm CV. I just wanted to bring peoples attention to what was happening and hopefully find some kind of solution to stop the CV abuse. As of now, it seems like the only solution is for people to just report the games when they see them and support needs to manually deal with each game.
I am very thankful to the support members that spend their time trying to fix this issue, and if I notice games that are being abused like the others here, I will report them, but I don't go out of my way to find them.
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Yeah i know, you said so before in this thread, but i thought maybe we should have a thread with someone willing to keep updating the OP but i guess maybe it's also a staff issue, although it takes 1 person, but maybe he/they got (too) busy too.
Around the time you made this thread staff was very hands on, on it, but lately yeah it's getting worse again. I mean we can send in tickets but in the end that just overburdens them too with extra tickets rather then 1 topic someone atleast could focus on, was my idea.
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I don't really have the time or ambition to stay on top of it because there are so many new games being released that do this and I find it hard enough to even find time to play the games I want to play. I was hoping support manually changing the game values would just be a temporary solution until Steam made some kind of change that would fix the issue or maybe SG could implement some kind of automated system to identify the games to make it easier, but it doesn't look like any of that is going to happen.
It's a lot of work for anyone to stay on top of and without some kind of better solution, I think whoever takes over the job is just going to get burned out after a short time and I don't blame them, especially now during the holiday season when people have even less free time.
Any users that see games like this can post comments here to report the games, but I can't really do anything about it since I am not a support member (I feel bad to say it, but I would prefer to not join support, I just don't have the ambition). I don't know if any support members still watch this thread though, so it might be better to just report the games in the "Add game to list" category and hopefully the generous support members will eventually get to it. I don't mind if it takes them a while to get through the tickets. The users will get a temporary CV boost, but eventually they will lose the CV and drop back down to where they should be. Also, I think the number of users using these games to boost CV is a very small percent of the active users (I would guess less than 1%), so I don't feel like it has too big of an affect on the site. Hopefully they will realize that they keep loosing the CV from these type of games and maybe some of them will stop giving them away.
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If we're looking to post games here, these are the ones that have been circulating around SG lately.
I have tickets pending for all of them except for Storekeeper Revenge which only showed up recently.
All of them are currently full cv. The $100 ones should count as 0cv, similar to how other games with such massive discounts were treated in the past. e.g. Hidden Office top-Down 3D
I find it interesting how every single game has almost exactly 10 reviews :P Clearly, these publishers are following the same script.
| Game | Publisher | Steam Price | Grey market price | # Reviews | Ticket filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Hidden Ghost | Atomic Fabrik | $100 | $0.50 | 10 | Yes |
| Cowboy Girl | KIG Team | $100 | $0.50 | 12 | Yes |
| Fire Truck Simulator | KIG Team | $100 | $0.50 | 13 | Yes |
| The Smash Cars Tournament | Atomic Fabrik | $100 | $0.50 | 12 | Yes |
| The Ultimate Shot | Cristian Manolachi | $100 | $0.50 | 12 | Yes |
| Storekeeper Revenge | Gamesforgames | $20 | $0.19 | 0 | No |
| Cocktail Rush | Piece of Voxel | $10 | $0.13 | 10 | Yes |
| Feathered Run: Worlds | Piece of Voxel | $10 | $0.13 | 10 | Yes |
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10-15 positive reviews for crap games = bought reviews for together around $2-5
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People are getting 100 CV for $0.50 so of course you're going to see this garbage :P
It wasn't so much of an issue when we had a very active mod who was setting the games to 0cv as soon as they were reported. Now, support is much less responsive; I've had tickets Pending for more than 2 weeks. I have 22 open tickets in this one category. I'm not even sure that the current support staff will set them to 0cv in the end; I get the feeling that they're somewhat reluctant to and might settle for making them Reduced Value despite the obscene discount.
These types of games are going to be with us for a long time, as long as we don't have someone squashing them constantly, and aggressively.
FWIW, support is not even handling simple, well-known bundles like the November Humble Choice. Those games are still Full CV, almost an entire month later (Yes, I have an open ticket for it). So, my hopes of things improving are quite low, unless the support team gets fresh volunteers - something we've been requesting for months, with zero results so far, for some reason.
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"...something we've been asking for for
monthsyears..."
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Well, and that active part was just 3 months ago, i mean with Alltracturbo's thread a lot got added to the no cv list, i am sure others will get reduced too if/when proper mods will get to them. And it was "quiet" for a while during that time, until now.
I just thought the thing is when people would just send in a ticket enmass staff would just even get more swamped, and rather have 1 topic where someone is williing to keep the OP updated so they atleast have 1 easier reference.
But i guess staff issues became even more of a problem then it already was.
A thread was made where people could offer themselves as volunteers, while it's so easy to pick a few, and it got closed, you barely see CG drop a line to say hello, One can only guess his reasons..
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I've been beginning to notice the frequency of garbage games, and i've been having fun checking them out and adding them to my filter list.
Recently i've begun to take note of users that give away nothing but garbage, and seeing they'll often have the same users entering multiple of their giveaways and leaving the same comment.
So i'm thinking in some ways that SG is being gamed with bots, and perhaps we need to add the hated "captcha" in order to derail the bot mob?
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I have always thought it would be a good idea to add a captcha. Something on a timer so you don't have to do it too often. After a certain number of hours it expires and you have to do another. Maybe also add an option to renew the captcha timer at any time you want if it has not expired yet. I have opened the site many times and found giveaways I wanted to enter with less than 10 seconds remaining and just managed to enter in time. There can be a captcha time counting down on the top of the page. If you are using the site on a regular basis and see that you will need to do another captcha in 30 minutes, you can just do it now and renew it for whatever the time is, maybe something like 3 hours.
It would kind of work kind of the same as how the site works now with auto syncing your Steam account. I think it automatically syncs after 72 hours, but you can manually sync it before that interval whenever you want.
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Please no, i got locked out once completely from anything that used it. And with Google you can't get proper support, only threads with dozens of people having the same issue but no solution.
One tip was to turn off your modem/router for 24 hours to get a new IP, in the end i dunno how i exactly got it to work again, but it was a pain and lasted about 2 weeks.
In any case certainly not Google's.
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Ouch! That sounds like quite the annoyance.
I dont like captcha's, but it was my first thought to trip up some of these bot patterns i'm seeing.
Like users with hundreds of giveaways, but all garbage, and all of them with a few other users saying thanks. But when you look at which users are commenting, they're the same ones in most of the giveaways, and saying the same thing.
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Perma suspending all autojoiners the first time would help. Right now they get a second chance and after the perma suspension they come back after 1 year with a trick (that i don't reveal). I assume the same few guys behind hundreds of autojoiners and i see 2 new autojoiner accounts each week (and that mean only the stupid ones with activated thanks script, the ones without the thanks script activated are harder to spot but visible too -and there are much more as the visible ones, i assume 20% of the active accounts use autojoiners-).
CG, as only programmer of the site, don't do his job.
That's the core problem and will not be fixed with changing something and that he implement something will anyway not happen.
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There were stories he was always "busy" on ths site, but i think at a point a site almost runs by itself by now, aside from perhaps having a full time job aside, but i seen people with full time jobs, a family and took on some major things on themselves.
Like Exodos and Win3x (and now working on Windows 95) a whole collection of all the old dos games, with screenshots, one click install, manuals etc etc.
Which makes it more like he just also cares very little.
And yes it's a trust thing which i think he also fears, but should be very easy to just pick out a few, and while many left, many volunteered, and good people were included.
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On a related note: "PlayStation Bans Shovelware And Easy Platinum Games On The Playstation Store."
https://dexdotexe.com/playstation-bans-shovelware-and-easy-platinum-games-on-the-playstation-store/
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That sounds good, but it seems like this kind of thing would have to be done manually and there are a lot of these games. I wonder if Steam could do something similar and keep up with all the new games. I don't like the platform deciding what should or shouldn't get released, but if it truly is spam or fake games like these, then I think they should be banned.
Also, I wonder if the Ubermosh series would get caught up in this. I don't know if I would agree or disagree with that. I have always wondered why it seems like every small update they release, instead of updating the game, they just release a completely new game.
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looks like this game is asset flipping
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/RSg7P/the-smash-cars-tournament
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What an amazing looking game, I would be happy to pay $100 :)
I really hope Steam will do something to remove these type of games soon. It's getting crazy.
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It wouldn't be bad if all the games from this thread cost 0P, as for the groups ratios it still adds up to 50 for each giveaway, and everything is out of balance
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Only bad groups allow such trash games as GAs and/or don't react when a member cheat/exploit/abuse the group stats with such stuff....
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At some point, someone at Valve is bound to notice that these games are getting fake reviews and never ever are sold on Steam for that price, right?
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About time and I'm sure the problem wasn't even half as bad on Playstation as it is on Steam.
Normally I would say live and let live but with a limited ignore list (for some reason) and the buckets of trash being poured on Steam every day, it's getting increasingly hard to find those little indies I love and I don't want to be stuck between AAA and trash.
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Saw couple users who gave it away, also gave away
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2018850/Fire_Truck_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917740/The_Ultimate_Shot/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2017020/Cowboy_Girl/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1927540/The_Hidden_Ghost/
I created ticket for all 5
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Honestly at this point, it would be almost simpler for support to put a hold on any new game worth 50p and to manually approve the actual games instead of having to shoot down all the CV farming scams one by one.
It's like 20 new ones appear every week.
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feels like it indeed, absurd to what lengths people will go just to grind CV and quite soon you get none, they must be earning those 100$ or else its like what the heck is wrong with them
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I don't know what they think happens at level 10 really. I have been at level 7 for 2 years (maybe 3) and I have rarely seen any GA past my level so that seems to be a lot of effort to cheat the system for little reward.
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I agree. I don't understand some people's obsession with reaching those top levels. There's hardly no additional benefit.
What irks me, are what is probably more consequential, are those users who've exploited such games to speedrun from level 1 to level 5 or 6 for a few bucks. Imagine: all you have to do is give away 5 of these $100 full CV games, and you're instantly at level 6, reaping 90% of the rewards. Most of the time, these things get corrected eventually, but sometimes, people do get away with blatant CV farming.
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Exactly this is the problem.
A lot of accounts that are on level 5 or 6 for $1 - $5 (and mostly only with trash games that nearly no one will ever play).
They can enter all and behind a good amount of accounts are the same few guys.
Only solution -because the few active mods can't handle all freebies/bundles-:
Join GOOD groups that don't allow such exploiting GAs and don't do public GAs anymore (till it is fixed).
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Yeah support has a lot of work on their hands with those and CV takes a while to "regulate" (which doesn't seem to prevent these users from trying again).
As I said, at this point, it would almost be less work to auto** 50p games and to manually unlock the actual CV for those who are actual games, as they don't come so often.
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I've said this before in other threads, SG needs to adopt a model of moderation backed by the community, like that of Stack Overflow (by organizing yearly elections, candidates meeting a certain criteria can nominate themselves, and the community votes for them for the position of moderators)
https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/05/18/a-theory-of-moderation/
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It feels like it's really needed. But then the number of "inactive" members (as in who only enter for GAs) seems to be creeping up while the number of active members seem to be decreasing. Maybe it's a ratio thing.
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Or perma suspend users that, clearly, cheat/exploit the system with such GAs (mostly since years and a good part of them are multiaccounters and/or autojoiner accounts on top -so a double win situation for the site-)....
That would limit the work with such stuff very fast to a tiny amount of now.
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Yep it seems a purge would be very beneficial. But that takes time too I guess.
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In the end not important because it will never happen (as many many many other things too that would improve the site and lower the work for everyone).
I see lately more and more "perma suspended" users come back after 1 year.
And i know, at least a part of, the reason(s). Let's describe it, in many cases, with "the mods can't do something against it" and in a few with "not enough knowledge of the staff (to say it positive)".
CG don't do his job ... so all invested time of other ones is wasted time in the end.
That's the hard truth. That i don't wanted to see and accept for a very long time
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I entered a giveaway and my chances of winning was 100% as I was the only one until the last 2 hours
Then someone entered they were level 10. I was level 7 at the time when I looked at my chances of winning
I thought it would be 50% with just two of us entered but NO my chance had dropped to just over 30% of winning so it seems you have better chances of winning at level 10. Maybe that's why these people are trying to beat the system by making these giveaways to level up also let's them enter giveaways they are not entitled to Just yesterday I made a giveaway level 4 and someone entered they had given one of the listed games and got level 4 out of it 🤔🤔 I was wondering if they had have won could I ask for a reroll ?? 🤔🤔
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I was wondering if they had have won could I ask for a reroll ??
No you couldn't, as far as i know you would still forced to give him the win. If he is not anymore on the needed level it is seen as "when he entered, he were on the needed level".
Only solution -because the few active mods can't handle all freebies/bundles-:
Join GOOD groups that don't allow such exploiting GAs and don't do public GAs anymore (till it is fixed).
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I thought it would be 50% with just two of us entered but NO my chance had dropped to just over 30% of winning so it seems you have better chances of winning at level 10.
The percent chance of winning (which is not a feature of the site itself by the way) tries to factor in a probable amount of entries at the end of the giveaway. As long as you were the only entry, there was no base to assume more would follow. After the second entry and based on the time left, it was probable that one more entry would follow, which then leads to 33% chance of winning for each. Of course this estimation is much more imprecise when there's just a small amount of entries. But that's just what it is, an estimation. It's not your actual chance at winning.
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I can see why that would be annoying. All the level yo-yo makes it harder for everyone to keep things straight and support is already neck-deep in tickets so they can't add every one of these to the 0CV list as they come.
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I created tickets for these, and a few others, 8 days ago. See my post here
Having duplicate tickets can't hurt. It might finally draw support's attention to this category. There are currently 69 pending "Add Game to List" tickets, 35 of which are from me.
There has been literally zero action taken on CV category adjustment in the past few weeks. The last time support responded to one of my tickets was 16 days ago... The last time any game was changed from Full to Reduced value was on Nov 9, according to sgtools
Screenshots of my 35 pending tickets (Covering 80 games):
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I expect it to take a long time if ever since PeteOzzy is no longer a support member. Otherwise it would have been sorted by now.
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PeteOzzy used to resolve my tickets almost instantly! Before that, I had tickets linger for months with no end in sight. We might be back to those days...
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Cg should just pay Pete for his service and this website would be a better place.
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I got response to my ticket 4 hours ago "...submitted these already to the the staff discussion board, so hopefully they'll be taken care of soon..."
Also, I created "Other" ticket
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It can't be the solution that members must invest time to report bundles and freebies that are listed in the sg discussions AND on barter.
Each mod could look into that sources, without extra work for someone (at least for such basic stuff).
And on top a mod need to look anyway into that sources AFTER he read a ticket because he need to check the infos.
So it is, in the end, more work for the mods too.
One of the reasons why i gave up with the tickets.
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Last Village
https://steamdb.info/app/1594340/
Edit: give 0 CV
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Two more garbage games I saw on the front page that give full CV...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2010570/Me_Alone_Reissue/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2010400/Hell_Green_Blue/
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https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=KOA%20BOA
and
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=MSI%20Digital%20Games
have both made a LOT of asset-flip trash and are asking $45 for them, hell they're probably both the same shell company pumping out this money laundering garbage.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1971730/Put_Your_Brain_On/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2080570/NoAmmo/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948240/Shark_Assault_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1974310/Airport_Administrator_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1926630/Waves_Running_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2005630/Babysitter_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085500/Restaurant_Manager_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1989180/The_World_of_a_Mermaid/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2027290/Stunts_Contest_Police_Car/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917780/Humans_vs_Tigers/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2104760/The_Absolute_Destroyer/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2095230/Limousine_Parking_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2098280/The_Perfect_Garden/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2086990/Tanks_Boom_Boom/
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Oh here's a new one going for 116.99 euros. The .99 is art.
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Lately they're coming in the 20-30P categories. They adapt!!
CAR DESTROYER
Russian Hunter
Oceancatch
Saw others that were same-ish, but couldn't be bothered to report them. They're getting more and more, so what to do?
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I don't know. I lost ambition trying to keep up with them and and kind of gave up. It's a never ending process and without having some kind of automated system to help detect them, it's too much work.
I am thankful that support is still trying to do something about it, but doing this manually seems like a never ending fight and I don't see how they could keep up with it for too long without getting burned out. It makes using the site feel like a chore and that is not good.
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Set all 'Steam is Learning' games to 1p. Even though it never happens, in the future, when they sell enough to become full games, the tag will be removed by Steam and they will be subject to regular SG rules of CV.
The point is to have a clear system that can be automated and doesn't rely on witch hunts demanding that CV be manually set by random people who have a bone to pick. Some of the games submitted on this thread are for low p values, 5p, 10p. In the greater scheme these are hardly abusive or overpriced as the thread name labels.
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The games that are showing low values now were high in the past when they were reported (at least the ones I put in the OP when I was still updating the thread were). They were reported because users were using them to farm CV when they were $25 to $50 and then the price was dropped back down for some reason. I don't know why they fluctuate the price so much, but they will probably increase it again. You can view the price history for each game on steamdb.info.
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That may be true for you but I have observed lower value games being reported and they were low value when reported. At one point I was asking how low can this go.
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Normaly the price go up when they put that trash games in DIG bundles and in other shops (before they appear as DIG bundles) but it give up and downs where i don't know the reason and it looks like the publisher/dev are bored and play around with the price.
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There's a new game by Hede. $60 on Steam. $0.40 in grey market shop.
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It looks like support already got to it and marked it as no CV.
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Yeah, it's getting ridiculous. Even though it costs 50 points to enter a GA, people will still get the full $120 CV for giving it away. It would be nice if there was some kind of automated way to detect them to end this mess.
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To end this mess would be only a few punishments/suspensions needed.
Always the same "few" accounts give all this "games" away. It's very easy to detect which ones use them to exploit/abuse the system.
They would learn the lesson very fast and the extreme exploits would stop -one way or the other-.
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Sadly the efforts here only partly works. They simply pass these games on to other gift sites like indiegala's one and get high user rank there. which means they just find another outlet for the exploit. people at those sites need to get warned to create more awareness, but the real solution would be to get it of steam entirely to begin with, else this battle to prevent the forest fire spreading will continue endlessly.
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onslaught - $60 on Steam. $0.33 in key shop. Currently full CV.
PS: Kudos to the support team. They've added a lot of such games released in the past 2 weeks to the 0 CV list.
But a lot of not-as-overpriced yet ridiculously cheap (and cheaply made) games that I have open tickets for are still full CV. Hopefully those get demoted to * soon.
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Please read this part before linking a game: If you are going to link a game here, please check to make sure that it has not already had it's CV removed. Support has already removed the CV from a very large number of these type of games. People can still create giveaways for the games, they just won't get any credit for them. There are a few different ways you can check. If you see a giveaway, you can just click the magnifying glass icon to the right of the game name and it will bring you to a page that will show a date next to "No Value" if it has already been reduced to give 0 CV. You can also go to the bundle game list here and search the name of the game or it's Steam ID. It will show a date in the "No Value" column if it has already had it's CV removed. The last way you can check is to go to the page to create a giveaway here and type in the name of the game or the Steam ID. The game has already had it's CV removed if there are 2 red asterisks next to the name of the game.
A lot of games have been reported in this thread that have not had their value reduced. To make it easier to see if a full CV game has already been reported here in the past, PoeticKatana has taken the time to go through the entire thread and check all the reported games. He found a large number of games that have not been reduced and created a table with a list of all the games and other helpful info about them.
Gelweo has taken over and is updating the list of games that have already been reported.
List of reported games that have not had their CV removed yet
List of reported games that have already been reduced to 0 CV
Update: Thanks to the support members who are looking into this. I noticed that many of the games listed below have been set to reduced or no value. Dropping the games to no value is great, but letting them get reduced value on fake $50 games is still kind of crazy. They are still getting $7.50 real CV each for dozens of copies of $50 games. It would be nice if those could be reduced more, but at least something is being done. Thanks for helping :)
Update 2: Big thanks again to support. A comment has been posted to let us know that all the games listed here have been added to the free list so they don't give anyone CV at these crazy prices. I just checked the dates on all the games compared to the date of the first GA anyone created for them on SG and I am happy to report that every game listed here has been set so that nobody will get any CV from these games no matter when they created the GAs.
Update 3: I just want to point out that this thread is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all of these type of games. I stopped adding games to the list here a long time ago. I originally created the thread to try and figure out why these games are being priced so high and if there was something that could be done to prevent users from abusing them to cheat the CV system. There is a large number of these games being created and support has been working to remove the CV from them. There are probably hundreds of these games at this point and I have no intention of trying to keep track of them all.
I am not a support member, so I personally cannot modify the value of these games. If you want to report one of these games that has not had it's value reduced yet, support members may be watching this thread and posting about the game here may get their attention, but I am not positive. I believe the official way to report these games is to file a support ticket in the "Add game to list" category.
Also, if you notice that some of the games listed here are not expensive anymore, they were at one time and probably will be again. I do not know why they change the prices so drastically. The game may be $2 one day and $200 the next.
Original Thread
I just noticed users giving away multiple copies of games that are full CV with a value of $50 (a lot are $50, some are $25-45) and they look like they should cost $1 or $2. There is no way anyone would pay that much for these games and they all have around 10-12 review that are 100% or 90% positive.
Is someone creating these games for the purpose of cheating the CV system here or is there some other reason why they would be created and somehow users here got keys to give away?
I am not saying that everyone who gives away one of these games is bad since I can understand if a user normally creates giveaways for any free keys they get and happens to get one of these from somewhere, but I checked one user's account and they are creating multiple GAs of most of these games and another account that is giving away 5 copies each of a lot of them.
I'm not sure what can be done, but maybe support could manually set the value of games like these to $1 or just mark them as free so they don't give any CV. I don't think anyone would have much to complain about because I doubt anyone is actually paying much if anything for these. The only ones that would be upset would be the ones who lose their fake CV, but they have nothing to complain about.
I just want to point out that the majority of users, like myself, have been here for many years slowly working our way up through the levels. I am almost level 8 after 8 years, but if I knew where to buy these games on grey market sites for pennies, I could be level 10 tomorrow. I don't want to do that though because it is wrong and if everyone started doing it, it would hurt the site. If a new level 0 user gives away 5 copies each of 12 of the $50 games listed, they would be level 9. It would probably only cost them around $10 to do this where it would cost the average user giving away their spare Humble Monthly games around $1200 or someone who looks for decent sales or bundles that give about 4 times what they pay in CV around $750. (Edit: It is no longer just $50 games, there is now a very large number of these games giving $200 CV)
This is just a short list of examples from when I created the thread. There are hundreds more that follow the same pattern.
Aoihana
Art your brains
Ball Torture
BeachRun
Bots City
CHICKWEED
cookies СOOkies COOKIES
CowboysShowdown
Crazy Zoo
DOLPHIN HUSTLE
DonutCrabs
Dr. Science quest
DUCK Mission
Eagle Simulator
Fishy Business
Fortitude invasion
Grot Slasher
helicopter 2.0
Hot Summer
Ink World
The Last Metal Shooter
Limousine Parking Simulator
Magic War
Mechaguard
MOVERS IN THE WAREHOUSE
My Sweet Ants!
Need for Spirit: Off-Road Edition
Over City
Panda Run
Pixel Pirate
PLANETOIDS
Police Hot Pursuit
Puzzles with nature
Ragedanger Earth
Rich Taste of Ecchi
SCALEPLANET
SpearFrog
SPLAIT RAGE
Super Arkanoid
TOTO Quest
Underwater battles
Villwars
Voice Shooter "Pif Paf"
What do you hear?? Yanny vs Laurel
Yuonger Adventure
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