Changes to the contribution system

The CV system is fine and fair enough to me right now. Games so get price cuts at times or even go free, thus the values drop and the system follows. Bundles also lower prices. This is to avoid CV abusers.

Like mods said: there is no way to check source of key. At least - no easy, secure, unfailing and doable way. Like, A Story About Uncle for example: game was given free on some store and since it's possible to had hundreds of Steam accounts and e-mail addresses combined with them, thus that amount of this store accounts with hundreds of keys from this game.

* Reduced value towards your contributor level.
** No value towards your contributor level.

Even if it is judged that it is worthless, I think it would be better than dying if you would like somebody to enjoy it.

Do you know the games that everyone in the community wants?
Do you not?CommunityWishlist
You also have the option of choosing a popular game that is unlikely to lose value.
(When the developer is new release and old work is distributed free of charge, the breath will stop. XD)
If it's not about raising the level but about having someone enjoy it, it's a small problem.
Did I go down in level? There are two times. It is a large addition to the Bundle list.
"Hmm? Really? Stop!"
It is something that community participants experience several times.XD

If a game has a discount of 95% or more when converted to USD, it gets added to the bundled list. This includes the Steam store.

Welcome aboard, KyeeoOverlord :)

In my opinion, the system is OK, as it is. You can see in advance, what contribution values the games have.

The only thing, that I would change immediately, would be the amount of points needed to enter a giveaway: like 2 x current value for full CV games, as it is for reduced CV (but maybe capping at 30 points), 0.5 x current value for 0 CV games (capping at 10?).

Which does not mean, that CV system could not be improved. However, the Mods, AFAIK, are already quite stressed and overworked keeping things afloat, so that would have to be done without giving them more work.

How could it be improved? By taking into the account, for games that have not been bundled for something like a year or 2, how often they are still showing in the giveaways, and how many people are taking part in those giveaways.

If the games have not been given for free, they are not showing in the giveaways, and folks want to get them, I don't think, that there would be anything wrong in increasing their CVs.

This, however, would have to be made by a script, not by Mods, and such script, taking into the account all variables, would probably be pretty complicated to write (and possibly hard to run, due to amount of data, that it would need to collect). So, unless there is someone willing and able to write such a script, I think, that the topic is purely theoretical.

The system is not perfect but it works and yes some people would probably save code to give them later on, just like some people hoard game that are given for free to give them here after.
Beside support works on the site in their own free time so I don't think that giving them more work would be fair to them...

Maybe it's just a matter of perspective.

Most users are unlikely to ever give a game away that hasn't previously had a heavy discount. So, instead of thinking of them as "reduced value", just think of them as normal - the proportion of CV points given for those games is just the normal standard.

A minority of users will occasionally give away a game which has never been available with a decent discount. So, they get full value super bonus points, almost 7 times the standard proportion.

No system is perfect, but this system works fine, and I can't see cause to change it.

i'm sorry if you paid full price for all the games you gave away, but i consider that unlikely since A Story About My Uncle was free 3 months ago and bundled several times, just like amnesia which also had several steam discounts.🤷

if anything, the 15% on bundled games is extremely high considering you can get between 5 and 20cv (and in some cases even 50cv) with $1 bundles.

leveling down is part of the process. the idea of sg isn't to level up, it's to give away (and for many, just to leech free stuff). this isn't a rpg game that you uninstall once you reach the level cap. if you're here, i assume you like to give away free games just for the sake or it, unless you plan to "trade" your cv for games you win (something many users also do here).

So you think it would be better to store current prices of games and apply those to the CV gained.
What about games with prices in the several $100 to $1000 range? Recently there have been cases that games were that expensive for a few days.

Assume you buy such a game before. You are lucky the price gets increased, before you create your giveaway. So you get a ridiculous CV. A day after your giveaway ends the price goes down again. Now you are level 10 and have created just a couple to a dozend giveaways. Is this really better?

How should this price changes be monitored? Keep in mind that the reduced/no CV list is maintained manually!

There are also cases that Steam's API reports a wrong price (search for "Daedalic bug" in the forums here). So again, users that give something away during such a time frame are just lucky?

I believe that the way contribution system for giveaways is unfair.

I disagree, the system is the same for everyone, that's fair.
It would be unfair if random people get full CV, while others get reduced or no CV (for the same game obviously).

A suggestion should come with a means of progression [ie, a solution], otherwise it's simply a complaint or request for change.
Just pointing out, the intent of your post is rather more vague in its intentions than it otherwise could be.

As far as the current CV system, it has been addressed plenty of times in previous discussions, and repeatedly confirmed as being unable to be improved any further (due in part to the limitations of Steam's API). Items already retain their CV value through any future sales and discounts [though delays in list updates mean the site may not yet properly reflect that CV, so it's useful to research a game's sale history on your own prior to giving a game away], and that's already enough to ensure adequate fairness in the system.

If you want a real element for criticism, you could focus on the fact that many of the list additions don't properly reflect actual sale dates (instead being initiated several days before the sale occurred). That's actually something that could perhaps be improved to be more accurate, as I've seen multiple value reductions under that premise that staff hasn't been able to provide clear basis for [seemingly, in each instance they either confused two overlapping sales, or tied a later exploitation to an earlier sale point].

As far as all of your games, they were all list-added way, way, way, way before you made giveaways for them, so the site would have already properly clarified their status to you when you made the giveaways. Hence, your concerns seem to have already been addressed, it was just your familarity with the site's structure that was lacking (namely, the fact that games in the Create Giveaway list note their list status via the asterixes beside their names).

Though, frankly, I don't think many of us would put much weight behind your word that you paid full price for those games, considering how easily obtained they are. Which isn't to cast doubt on your claims, but to note that whether or not you paid full price for them just flat out doesn't matter, because they just weren't worth much to begin with, and haven't been worth much for a very long time [or in the case of some of those, probably ever]. And by much, we're likely talking "more than 8 cents", given what I recall of DIG market prices.

Without scrapping the entire CV system outright, there's just no way to credit full value to those kinds of games, since they're rather firmly part of what the CV system is meant to protect against. Which brings us back to my initial point of, it's rather difficult to understand what you're actually asking for in this thread.

Well, typing the same answers a hundred times sure is fun:

At the time of posting this list is around 14K games long and growing. This seems ridiculous, especially when some of these games date back to bundles from 2014 and the list is growing larger with every bundle, yet not counting steam sales for some reason as far as I can tell. It seems unlikely that a person has saved a steam code from a humble bundle 5 years ago and only now is going to give it away (Especially at heavily reduced value).

I doesn't matter if you think that old Humble Keys aren't a thing, because they are anyways. For example, I can now open my Humble library and give you a very old key that I saved up to giveaway on a special occasion. It is for the same reason that you can buy old Humble keys that were given away for free for almost nothing. Steam keys don't expire and once the market was flooded with them, they lose basically all worth except the selling fee of grey market sites. And btw Steam sales are being tracked too, but very rarely you see a AAA game getting a 85~90% on Steam. The treshold is barely triggered because Steam usually just lowers the base price to incentivize store purchases.

My issue with the leveling system however is that you can LEVEL DOWN. If you give away a copy of a game and that game has its base price cut, not a temporary sale, the credit you received for the price you originally paid is cut as well while you still payed, for the sake of my argument, $60 for a game you now only get say $20 contributor credit for despite giving it away months before a price drop (If I misunderstood this part of the FAQ, or any other for that matter, correct/roast me)

In fact you got that wrong. But that happens to a lot of starters here. If you buy a game full price, to give it away here and the giveaway is finished and wrapped up at a time where the 15%-rule isn't triggered due to to a sale elsewhere, you will get the full contributor value for the giveaway and nobody is taking it away from you in the future. Maybe it's not easy to track the current value of a game due to the abundance of games and shops on the internet, but that is a whole different story.

A fair word of advice: I will never understand people that use SteamGifts with a calculator in one hand. If you came here expecting to make a profit and calculate your return on invest with every new giveaway, then SteamGifts might just not be the place for you. People here gift games because it is fun and that attracts leechers as well, but so is life... The current CV system might not be perfect, but it works.

I have a better idea:
Remove it. Altogether.

The actual system doest work. People buy keys in russia and grey markets and give them there for lots of CV points.

I totally agree with KyeeoOverlord!
That's why I stopped sending new giveaways.
When I will drop down to level 1 I will unistall SG and bye bye.
I'm not happy about it but IMHO: no reward (even just a little), no giveaway.

So you for example start playing soccer, then complain that your goals are disallowed because you were offside at that moment?

First look around and learn the rules of the game. Then complain. Not the other way round!
Rules are usually there for a reason. That you don't know the reason and start complaining right away only tells people you were too lazy to investigate what the rules are for.

EDIT And come on! You've won 2 games for a total of $20 as well! Having won 2 games in a month makes you quite lucky! So what gives you the right to complain? You want to receive more than you spend? A surefire way to get on a lot of blacklists! Oh, you haven't read the rules. A blacklist means you can\t enter people's giveaways. They can't enter yours, but as you won't be giving away much that won't be a big problem!

What the best system for everyone is aside, calculating your CV based on the date would be a nightmare. The site would have to save all the prices for every point in time, retroactively. And then look them all up to do the addition. And even then this still would show when you created the giveaway, not when you bought the game.

This is steamGIFTS. At the end of the day, something isn't really a gift, if you're expecting something in return.
There is a site called steamTRADES for that.

This seems ridiculous, especially when some of these games date back to bundles from 2014 and the list is growing larger with every bundle, yet not counting steam sales for some reason as far as I can tell. It seems unlikely that a person has saved a steam code from a humble bundle 5 years ago and only now is going to give it away

Funny that, my oldest unused Humble keys are from 2014 :P I do check older keys and use those in giveaways, it all depends on what theme I'm going for with a set of giveaways.

While the bundle list grows larger, so does the amount of available games on steam.

Had you actually read the available documentation before creating giveaways you would have been fully aware of these "issues". That you chose not to inform yourself on how the site works before using it is entirely on you.

As long as everybody is in the same boat, I dont see how it is unfair. It's not like you have the only giveaways that are reduced :P

If the CV is your main concern dont give away crap/low tear indie games/1 dollar games and instead give mid tear discounted titles.

But as I said that I dont see the reason why giveaways given away before said discounts have made them worthless should be reduced in value.

I love these commenters who pretend they only give games for the fuzzy feeling inside that you get for sharing and making all the children happy. Wait, nah, they don't want that feeling, they want nothing since it's purely selfless. Of course, they don't even enter in giveaways (wait... they have wins...). Well, then at least they haven't won giveaways that are group-only, whitelist giveaways or leveled giveaways (wait... they also enter in those too...). Well, shit. I guess it's hard to have your principles about equality while also taking advantage of an unequal system.
So many hypocrites on this thread, it's unreal.

As to the OP... I mean, they can't verify the key's origin and a manual check isn't feasible. It takes too long and it's unfair to the mods.
I personally can't think of a reason to increase the value for games again. There's 60,000 products on Steam. It's not like you're lacking options here. If you want to continue the way you did, then just take this experience as a cautionary tale and just adjust your habits. Of course, you choose what you do in the end, but that's what I'd suggest.