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The gifter has been giving away tons of such games, such as:
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/lk9Ir/black-prophecy
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/t6mjA/city-of-death
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/XHUtN/eternal-gem
These games follow a different pattern from others we've seen, there's no review manipulation (they don't have reviews at all) and don't advertise themselves with 90% discounts.
But where are the keys coming from? Is the gifter the developer and giving away their own keys, or are they getting them from somewhere for cheap?
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new one - https://www.steamgifts.com/game/G51de/heaven-and-hell
They're all super fishy and probably from the same developer using different names and also only given out by the same SG person.
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Looking at the heaps of other trash games that SG user has been giving away, they would have to be a lot of different developers at the same time including the infamous Hede. But most of the latest ones seem to be Chinese only and on his Steam profile he claims to be Chinese so the source is probably also from there.
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I made another attempt at finding a cheap Chinese game store and while I didn't find one that sells these games, I did find some articles mentioning that there are key sellers on Taobao, an AliExpress-like marketplace.
Problem is that I can't seem to use the search there without an account, and you can't get an account without providing a phone number, which I'd rather not do (even though I'm very curious to see what they sell on there)
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While looking for cheap keys for these I found a whole bunch of other overpriced games (but no real review manipulation afaik) that are sold for almost nothing:
Artifact Run
Knights Shadow
Island Treasure Chase
Deep Sea Pursuit
Star Runaway
Hungry Mouse
Poor Thief
Cube War
Unique Identy
Richest Thief
Space Warrior
Marauder Knight
Cave Ghost
Despite being listed under different developers and publishers, the games are clearly made by the same person/people.
I found a legit looking marketplace, Plati, where keys for those Archaeology games and others are sold for about € 0.28. Also "Realm of Gems", that we encountered before, popped up here.
The only thing is that according to this seller's profile they haven't made a single sale. However this same website is full of other sellers that have made sales on 0CV games, like those "Hidden ... Top-Down 3D" and "3D Puzzle" games so it has to be legit.
See the screenshots for a sample what I saw over there :)
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/tMcMP/archaeology-frozen-wall (50p, fake positive reviews)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/8DEvq/unique-identy (50p)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/9xVTk/bladepink (30p)
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I thought Bladepink didn't look too suspicious (it's "only" 30 euro) but keys do seem to be sold for very cheap. I don't know if this website is legit but if it is, it's also selling other games that were mentioned in posts above.
(Reviews auto-translated from Russian)
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Then look at this: https://steamdb.info/app/3118870?utm_source=SteamGifts#pricehistory - a couple months ago its full price (no discounts, etc) was $1, now $30.
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You see always the same game (mechanics) and they exchange only the used visual assets in the end.
So more or less around 5 games that get always a new "life cycle", each few months :D
And yes, all this "games" get sold very cheap in shady russian stores.
That you posted the pictures of the source help the ones that will report the games (i don't done it). Thanks.
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Added City of death | varaqtP | Link | Full | $30 | Dec 3, 2023 | Oct 31, 2024 |
all giveaways from the same user : https://www.steamgifts.com/user/SJRS
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When if ever do the giveaways made get put down to 0 CV if already completed?
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When the games get reported to support in the category "Add Game to List" including some sort of evidence, that they have been sold very cheap or given away for free. The evidence part is the hard part in some of these cases, since it's not that easy to find the shady stores they've been sold at.
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Underwater Cycling Steam $ [Underwater Cycling](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3231910?utm_source=SteamGifts) | givanni pellegio | [Link](https://www.steamgifts.com/game/JMNT0/underwater-cycling) | full | $40](https://steamdb.info/app/3231910?utm_source=SteamGifts#pricehistory) | Nov 5 2024 | Nov 14 2024
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it has no more games at the moment (https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=givanni%20pellegio)
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I didn't find it listed anywhere. Overpriced, fake reviews, multiple aliases.
Dev/Publisher: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=DarkEnergyStudio
Jessica Deliverson
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067080/
Nuke Bomberman
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3066920/
Fastest Cashier
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067350/
Miraculous Fall
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067410/
Goldy Pig Adventure
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067040/
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=ZaratustraGameDev
Spaceport Assault
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067030/
Taxi Goldmania
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3066970/
Pirates Slayer
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067390/
Recovering Stolen
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067420/
Search Dungeon Master
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067020/
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=NAD%20Games
Alcoholic Daddy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067060/
Boom and Rum
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067380/
Beachgirl Dreams
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067070/
Bottle Collector Run
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067010/
Survivalo
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3066950/
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=DeepRootsDevelop
Defense of the Sodomites
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067330/
Cosmo Magnat
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067360/
Capers vs Pirates
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067370/
Cursed Cove
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067400/
Dude Fighter
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3067340/
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Sigh, looking at some of these "games" I wouldn't be surprised to find out that both the reviews AND the game were written by AI.
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I'm not sure how this works ... there's a game that's about $200 USD, that I could have probably made myself in an hour and I have very little programming experience. Only reason I even discovered it is because somebody was giving away a key on here (for 50 points). "Richest Thief" indeed. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3207070/Richest_Thief/
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Best way to check if a game has already been reported here, is to use the search function within the thread:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/eIkkz/search?q=richest
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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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