What is your attitude towards the situation with bots?
It is psychology. Let me quote the interesting part for me: "I thought that the main goal of the entire site was simply to bring joy and positive emotions to people based on randomness."
Exactly, I want people to have joy. Though, this also implies that the winner has some actual interest in the game he won. If now someone is automating this process because he can't be bothered, then I don't feel like he actually cares about what he wins. Don't misunderstand. This specific issue is not singled out to bots but collectors in general.
When I give away something, I may want to promote a game, want a game I enjoyed to be enjoyed by others, maybe want to connect to people, or maybe want to promote something else within the giveaway description. It is somehow demotivating when a bot is just entering for it to collect dust unplayed in a library.
Someone who manually enters giveaways he cares for and wins will have a lot more joy than someone farming SG for a +1 in the library. As said, this is not bot-specific per se. But using bots is again a level higher in disrespect for giveaway creators.
And sure, the reason why people give away games is different for everyone. If you just want to get rid of unwanted stuff, you will simply not care how someone acquires the key or what he does with it. Therefore, the "issue" with bots is something many might not complain about it. Though, it will be seen more negatively by the actual active part of the community who want to connect.
So yea, my take on this.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don’t want to say that you are wrong, you have the right to do with your keys as you want and introduce any restrictions for giveaways participants in your opinion. My perception of the world is subjective and is not the only true one.
I would like to express my vision of the situation as a person who can very easily be classified as a collector.
I am always sincerely happy when I win something on the site and set myself in a positive mood for the whole day. Thanks to these victories, I became more active in purchasing a Humble or Fanatical set, even when some of the games were already in my collection. I have a peculiar idea in my head that thanks to SG I already have more than before and I want to somehow equalize my internal balance.
Now I’m putting all the games from the sets on a separate list and planning to arrange a train for my birthday or for the New Year (they will be nearby and I haven’t decided yet what will be nicer).
Also, due to my large collection, I simply have an extremely limited selection of hands in which I can participate. So it seems to me that collectors are balancing themselves.
And from my experience, I believe that collectors think in a similar way and it is not something negative. BUT I do not encourage you to somehow change your attitude towards the phenomenon. Bring positive emotions to people as you want.
Comment has been collapsed.
And from my experience, I believe that collectors think in a similar way and it is not something negative
Collecting is all good. I have a lot of collections. Most people give away games in the hope that the game will be played though. Games are not objects to put on a shelf just to gaze at the number on a Steam page and feel powerful or whatever.
Collectors can collect whatever they want by all means and there are lots of places for freebies, dollar bundles and the like for people who don't care about the games they are collecting. It's just a shame to be taking away a chance to actually play the game from people who might enjoy you know... gaming.
Comment has been collapsed.
You have about 2000 games in your collection, but you continue to participate in giveaways and also do not play games with keys for which you won (at least at the time of writing the comment).
Based on my logic that we participate in the process for the sake of positive emotions, there is nothing wrong with this.
Based on your comment, by participating in giveaways you are taking away the opportunity for others to enjoy gaming...
It seems to me that giving advice that you yourself do not adhere to is at least hypocritical. Based on your logic, you should stop participating in giveaways, and should only create them until you have completed all the games in your collection, or at least those games that you have won.
I repeat. Based on my logic, you are doing everything right. You give people positive emotions by creating giveaways and get pleasure from participating in giveaways. A cycle of positive emotions has occurred and everyone should be happy.
Have a nice day! And good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
You have about 2000 games in your collection, but you continue to participate in giveaways
Worse than that, I also have games on Ubisoft and EA gasp and yet I only ever enter for games I know I will play. I do not collect games for the sake of having a big library. Every game I win, I'll play eventually. I just haven't gotten around to all of them yet.
also do not play games with keys for which you won (at least at the time of writing the comment).
I have played at least 45% of my 700+ wins so far. You have not touched more than 4 or 5 games out of 40 you won. Do you really want to talk stats?
Based on your logic, you should stop participating in giveaways
You didn't understand my point at all then. I never said people should drop everything every time they win a game and not shower, eat or watch a movie until they finish the game. I said collecting games for the sake of +1 is not cool as there are other easy ways to just add games to a collection for the sake of numbers and people who give away games they have paid for most likely would prefer to give them away to people who will play their games...
Almost half the games in my Steam library are wins from SG. Out of those, I have played almost half (and I'm still playing about 7 or 8 games a month which is way more than I'm winning lately). I'm not saying people should play relentlessly just because they win. But they should at least be willing to give their wins a try... eventually.
+1 for the sake of it is fine if that's your thing but on a site where people are giving away their own games, not devs, not stores, it would be cooler to leave the games to people who'd want to play them instead of idling them or never touching them.
Comment has been collapsed.
Perhaps I didn’t fully understand you due to the difficulty of translation, but statistically I’m ready for a discussion!
Of the 5500+ games in my collection, I won only 34 in SG. That is, I won even less than 1 percent of my collection. I bought everything else myself. I completely agree with you that it is impossible to find time in your schedule to complete it. But due to the abundance of games that you want to play, the games you win are not in the immediate queue.
In general, let's not argue about whose worldview is better. In any case, I enjoyed our discussion with you; your arguments made me recheck my moral guidelines and make sure that I live in peace with myself, which is also very important.
Thank you for the discussion, all the best and good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
I would rather not contribute to the grey market, but that's a long discussion that I feel strongly about and would rather not get into here.
Putting aside my strong stance against the grey market, I still find bots disruptive, both as a giveaway contributor and participant. As a giver, It's a major annoyance when I have to chase after a bot winner to activate their win, and a guaranteed spot on my blacklist. This happens WAY more often with bots than with manual users. As a participant, they lower my chances for wishlisted games, are more likely to clutter my giveaways page with asset flips, and don't contribute anything good to my experience.
My issue is not with the automation itself but with its practices. I wouldn't mind as much if there was a way to distinguish between trader bots and users who use bots for convenience, but there isn't.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indeed, your point of view on the situation explains why part of the community has such a bad attitude towards the problem.
Bot owners can certainly react to winnings very slowly, if at all. Thank you for taking the time to highlight the situation from this angle.
Although my most negative experience was with a real person who, as a result, a week after he confirmed the fact of receiving the Gift and its acceptance, suddenly changed the status to not received and support has been keeping my request under consideration for 5 months.
Have a nice day! And good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
I see your point. I think there are two things mixed up here. Firstly the usage of bots and secondly the "reckless" behavior (like e.g. no thanks on win, not reacting on Win , only entering for the +1, ... ). So I guess the people do not actually hate the bots, but more the fact that most of bot users are also fitting in second category.
I actually also thought about writing myself a bot a while ago, but ditched the idea when I realized how people hate it (and actually I also enjoy checking the page now and then). And don't understand me wrong I am not talking about a bot which joins like every possible GA. I thought about something which joins only my whishlisted games or other games I explicitly put on a list of games which I really want. So the Idea just was to automate the constantly checking of this page.
P.S. regarding "reckless" behavior described above. I also think it depends on what is given away that I would consider it reckless. For me there is a big difference between asset flip games and full value games given away.
Comment has been collapsed.
Having to wait 7 days till bot master comes to collect wins while script keeps him online every hour is enough to hate them.
Person who doesn't even login into site to look at games these are giveawayed doesn't care enough about gaming at all.
Comment has been collapsed.
Bots win 50% of the giveaways despite making up a mere 13% of the population
Comment has been collapsed.
The unfairness of the tool and the gross greed of +1 culture. Most people here, spend their hard earned money on the good keys.
Why? Just so some dude who has a script set up, who might be taking a nap... wins these games ??
Yes Im jumping to the correlation that people who use unfair means, seldom play their wins . Because I have seen that to be true, I wont even elaborate other unsettling correlations like bad ratios, habit of only taking and never giving back.
What is the point of such a wasteful and pointless joy if it reinforces negative attributes to the person under the garb of a fun hobby/passion like games.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't really bother about bots - it is what it is and will always be this way can't really fight it and spending too much time doing so not a good use of time - I have people on my white list and people on my blacklist as I am sure most people do - heck I'm even on a bunch myself (of both white and black) but I will say that my blacklist has never been added to because I think someone is a bot
If people hate bots just make group giveaways or white list giveaways which I also do to give back to the people I like most - not to rid my giveaways of bots
Comment has been collapsed.
As far as unfairness goes, it is unethical but there will always be cheaters and morally questionable people in the world, always. It's fighting a worthless fight if you try to expand your whitelist and blacklist to only good people you know aren't botting or making higher level giveaways. The only solution is really just making group only or whitelist only giveaways to reach your games onto grateful peoples' pockets but that's about it. I totally agree with you, it is pointless to try and fight it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Seems pretty obvious. Bots function 24/7 while people don't. Bot users can enter more giveaways as they generate more points. If you used up your points and don't enter giveaways for 12+ hours you're not generating points as you're at your max. But people using bots will enter giveaways all day long so they will never be at max points and constantly regenerate. It is an unfair advantage over what a human is capable of doing while having to sleep (and most likely work).
If you want to randomly give away keys, use the Steam forum. Levels on here place the expectation on people to also give away games. And by giving away games you also benefit by being able to enter giveaways with less participants. Nobody is here to be selflessly chartiable.
Comment has been collapsed.
What's the problem? According to the statistics of SG users:
Level 0 - 1,007,614
Level 1 - 115,285
2 - 18,979
3 - 14.395
4 - 12,956
5 - 6,098
6 - 3.655
7 - 2.119
8 - 712
9 - 545
10 - 476.
Therefore, if you want a real person to win and minimize the chance of a bot participating, just set the limit to level 2-5.
True, as a rule, people from levels 3 to 4 already have more than 300 games in their collection and they are unlikely to immediately start playing your game. and if you want the probability of completing your game to be greater, then do not set any restrictions, but then the chance of bots appearing will apparently be higher.
P.S.
It seems to me that you were deceived... There are no gamer girls))) Although maybe you came across a trap or a genderfluid person... Which is also not bad! They play games, unlike girls)))
Comment has been collapsed.
You are angry for an idiotic comment and slamming the door you mean? No, that's a tantrum.. You are pissed af with the site or the people using it or the mods or whatever else and you have been for some time now.. You were ALREADY fed up, looong before an idiotic comment.. And you found this as an excuse to slam the door..
All fine and dandy so far, you could had even cursed a bit.. But trying to make OP carry the weight of your entire decision is a joke.. Especially with such an extremelly STUPID line:
"Anyone sad, you can thank Malkavian1331 personally.
I have other places I can go.
Bye."
That's nothing but smoke and theatrics. I have no clue if you'll return or if you'll even leave in the first place but what you are trying to do now to him (be a him OP xD ) is crappier and you know it. And don't get me started on how offensive the word "trap" was.. I'm veeery familiar with lgbtq+. So I'm leaving it to "stupid use of a word". And something to make you feel better.. A word is neither good nor evil. A word is what we make it to be and how we color it. If you know there was no ill intent, explaining WOULD make a difference.. This tantrum and attempt at making someone feel shit and guilty, is waaaaaaay lower.
Comment has been collapsed.
For the sake of you and your commenter LuckyStrike1305, I will associate myself with a man for at least a week!!! (Although I was much more comfortable feeling like a combat helicopter than some kind of man)
Comment has been collapsed.
You called him a "Trap"? How could you.
As gamers we should be against spoilers.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, or we can conclude that English is not my native language of communication and I use Google translator and, not being a native speaker of the language and culture, I cannot assess how offensive this or that joke or expression is in another culture.
But probably in your culture it is customary to take nonsense seriously and to belittle people simply because they are different.
P.S. It seemed to me that hiding my way of thinking and feelings was wrong and pretending to be someone else for the sake of everyone’s approval was wrong. I believe that you need to be who you are, regardless of how other people look at it.
I thought that your community was much more tolerant and capable of understanding the full value of any individual. But I probably also misunderstood something due to the difficulties of translation.
Comment has been collapsed.
The moment you start fearing any word is the moment you have lost. Censorship in ANY form will create A LOT more problems in the long run.
Same excuses racists and bigots always give? Are you sure about this?.. I wouldn't be in your place. Perhaps some have twisted words of great philosophers and writers. Dunno, I don't tend to read on shit.. But those words and the philosophy behind it has EVERYTHING to do with freedom.. Let alone the one you are "fighting" for. For reasons that I couldn't explain to you without needing to write a book.
You see what you want to see in me. Yet you read whatever you want instead of what I actually wrote.
I don't care if you'll respond or not. You are hurting and you won't understand anything right now. But if you ever calm down and read back, I hope you MIGHT understand what I'm actually saying instead of the shit you "read between the lines" (and failing at that as well).
By walking away (from a situation, I'm not talking about sg), you help NOONE. Let alone yourself. If you want a change, BE that change. Speak instead of throwing tantrums and running to the shadows. How you are trying to twist what I said and stretch it is actually mindblowing. Because I was very careful in my wording and left no room for such shit.. Yet you imagined something and somehow I said it?..
And yes, a word is just that. A word. Letters. The meaning is what we give it
And yes, you are trying to make him feel guilty for the world.
"The whole "use of a word, a word is what we make it" and "making someone feel guilty" about their use of bigoted language is the same tied old "the worst thing you can call someone is a bigot" trope rephrased."
That's trash with 0 reasoning.. It's just plain stupid
"Use language that insults a persecuted minority, blame their upset on themselves, and then hypocritically (and pathetically) whine like babies when called on it."
More trash.. People can be oblivious you know.. And nobody whined except you :P
I hear you talk and talk and talk and insult a lot more than the insult you took.. That's justifiable in your eyes? Because you talk crap about people that you know NOTHING about all while you play the offended card..
Oh and PS.. Context MATTERS
Edit: Many moons ago this conversation played out in front of me
-"Men call women whores to belittle them"
-"Men shouldn't call them that, it's bad"
-"Why is this bad? Going with many men (for money or no)"
-"It's isn't! Women are free to do what they like and be with howmany people they like just like men"
-"So isn't it more offensive to discuss if they should be called whores in the first place since it isn't bad to begin with?"
That's a rough translation but you get the idea.. Obviously this went on and on over if it's moral or no, what defines a whore (money or many men or or or) BUT for the purposes of THIS convo, stick to what's relevant
Perhaps this will help you see why your whole tantrum helps with nothing.. You are approaching the issue the wrong way
Comment has been collapsed.
It is very sad that you have no sense of humor and are not able to perceive irony.
Speaking about the fact that there are no girl gamers, I naturally deliberately exposed myself as an ignoramus so that the girl gamer would gladly laugh at the unbelieving fool.
But different people have different tolerances for humor and I will never encourage you to laugh at something you are not ready for.
My views on the gender issue, as well as my gender on the site dedicated to sharing games, do not matter.
In any case, have a nice day and good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you for this. Misogyny and transphobia are endemic in gamer culture (and, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you, society in general), and it's exhausting. Even when it's played off, or intended, as a "joke", it's gross and alienating. I don't blame you for not wanting to participate here anymore if that's the kind of crap you're going to get back after sharing your views.
I won't tell you to stick around, or to keep giving away games, or anything like that. You should do whatever you think is best for you. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you said here, both about the bigoted language and the bot issue.
Comment has been collapsed.
A couple things come to mind.
Someone using bots can enter a lot more giveaways than people who don't use them. It's a low effort and indiscriminate thing.
The majority of users who employ bots are debatably even collectors so much as they're card farmers.
My personal practice is to gate my giveaways to get better odds of the winner playing the game. I'm never going to follow up on that outside of play or pay groups, but the hope is that: the entrant puts at least the bare minimum effort of clicking on the giveaway themselves, makes a conscious decision to join the giveaway, and actually goes through the nominal effort of clicking the join button while also balancing their entries against their available points. And maybe...just maybe, they'll be appreciative enough to play their wins.
Comment has been collapsed.
Your point of view is close to me. I registered on the site relatively recently and before that I simply made distributions with minimal level restrictions.
Now that I discovered such a phenomenon as trains, I became eager to collect 20-30 games and launch my own train with a minimal mystery for the New Year or birthday.
Now I giveaway only very simple and cheap games without restrictions.
Have a nice day! And good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
ESGST can show the train as a lost of GAs, highlighted as "owned", "wishlisted" and "unowned".
So in the end, it create more effort for you and for the people that don't use scripts and addons.
Comment has been collapsed.
I honestly don't care for the bot (script) itself.
If someone doesn't want to read your description, they won't read it.. Same thing with opening 20 games in tabs to join them all at one go..
If you want "real" people to actually PLAY your game then forget groups etc.. Make friends, make whitelists, make an invite only thread and carefully handpick the participants.. If there is a reason you want something extra just state it..
You can make people happy when you give away. It can be because they enjoyed the game, the finished their card set, the got a new game to their collection or they just felt lucky that day. Many say "how will the rest feel".. They will feel NOTHING. In a month, there is max 1-2 ga's people might go back and keep refreshing to see if they won.. When they don't, they move on.. 1% of them (low %, not accurate one, I didn't make an experiment) will look WHO the winner was (unless it's a big ga.. and even then, nobody cried..). They won't feel sad because a bot took it, they will feel sad because they didn't won and try to shift that emotion into anger towards a bad evil that stole from them instead of just their luck. Like they would be happy somebody else won instead of them........ Especially if it wasn't a friend. Bittersweet or indiferrent yeah, but nobody ENTERING is happy that someone ELSE won..
Automated solutions to puzzles? Quizes? Etc, like you can't have a friend solve it.. Or or or.. Cheating is a mentality, the how matters little. But again, it's human. And all bots down the line have a human.
I reeeeeeeally dislike having to wait the bot master and I will curse a lot.. But I also had idiots waiting on purpose 1 week minus 1 hour to claim their gift and being rude as well and they used no bots...
The "they spent more points" argument makes no sense since if someone DIDN'T enter a ga has 0 chances. It doesn't matter if 1 or 1 million entered that ga, his % will ALWAYS be 0.. SO again, it makes no sense
What I mind? The people.. The bot itself is harmless. But usually, most of those that they call "bots" make many more stuff that aren't "good". Obviously any non botter can make the same shit (some stuff just slower)..
But I don't want to overcomplicate this and bring up other issues commonly associated with botting and "bad behaviours".
In the end of the day everyone will give (or no) what they wanna give to those they wanna give and when something disrupts that, people get (understandably) angry.
And I failed.. I wanted this to be a loooooot smaller than it is :/ meh
Comment has been collapsed.
You roughly described all my feelings about the situation! I'm very glad that you weren't lazy and did it.
Seeing another stream of complaints about bots, I wanted to speak out and try with my arguments to reassure people who are too worried about this problem.
Maybe after reading our messages, some people will at least stop worrying about this problem. There are enough reasons to worry in life without it.
Have a nice day! And good luck for the whole year ahead!
Comment has been collapsed.
I'd say bots were much bigger issue when points were generated with every created giveaway, which kinda turned into infinite points, which meant bots (that could join every hour-or-so, all day and night) had much higher chance to win anything (yes, there used to be a time when you'd have 400 points every hour, not every day).
Now-a-days, I would say it's mostly a matter of being rude, especially those ones that use bot to enter GAs every day, but actually login to take their wins once per week.
Comment has been collapsed.
do mods even try to ban the bots? my ticket was closed despite the evidence and the bot won a giveaway, great
Comment has been collapsed.
Personally, I don’t care how the winner enters my giveaway and when he finds time to complete the game he won
And that sums up the difference. If you dont care, obviously you wont care about bots.
IMO it also highly depends on what kinds of games you give away. If its truly leftovers which almost no one would play voluntarily, no problem with bots. But when its some better game which I would like to see played, I dont want it to end up for someone as a +1. Sure - I am not without blame myself.. Ive won some games which I still haven't gotten to playing + some I have realized I don't like. So I personally dont go overboard with trying to see that everything is being played. But I do try to go for higher levels and groups in order to increase chances of winning for some actual gamer who wants to play the game.
Havent been that active lately, but when I was giving away more I usually just checked how the game looks like. If it was shit - no problem if it goes to a bot. If its something worthwhile - no way I am making it below LVL4 or 5
Comment has been collapsed.
for me
having to wait for the asshole to claim his wins days later while his account is online and entering giveaways is very annoying to me.
i think i blacklisted.
for others, they feel it's unfair for them to have extra competition with no effort behind it,
and that they have higher chances to win specific games they want cause the bots can join 1 hour long giveaways made at 4 am while they're asleep or havent checked the website in 61 minutes.
for the paranoid, they believe the bots win everything and sell the keys, but if you look at the data there isn't that many unactivated wins.
also bots are not going away, and no one will fix the bot problem, it's been 10 years, so just accept reality or make your own website with anti-bot systems.
Comment has been collapsed.
Let me say right away that I have never used bots in my life and I absolutely don’t care whether the administration fights them or not. I enjoy the selection process and watching people create giveaways.
On this site we give away keys to games that are unnecessary for one reason or another to complete strangers. I thought that the main goal of the entire site was simply to bring joy and positive emotions to people based on randomness.
And what difference does it make in the end whether the user took part independently or through a bot? He still has the same points restrictions.
Do you think that someone is seriously capable of making money by reselling won keys? But most keys are sold for 0.1-3 dollars on trading platforms. I doubt this is a sound business plan.
Personally, I don’t care how the winner enters my giveaway and when he finds time to complete the game he won, the main thing is that he confirms that he received the key from me and that he doesn’t forget to say thank you!
I would like to clarify with active community members what is the problem with bots? Maybe your explanation can change my point of view.
All the best and have a wonderful weekend!
Comment has been collapsed.