I think "points" start to shrink once you give 4 or more copies of the same game. Level going down might be due to other reasons, relax. It's usually quite normal for levels to go down all the time.
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I think it's after the 5th copy it goes down by 10% per.
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Its not shrink. It change cost on SG. I`ll have 644 $ & 6 level, but after few days it 349 and 5 level.
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When games in a pack are on sale, sometimes steamgifts shows points for the whole pack (this one: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/683/ ) instead of just the game. So those unreal games were supposed to be 15 and 20 pts each, but steamgifts saw the wrong price during sale the and showed 40 pts. Now they have correct pts.
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The Unreal games were also added to the bundle list today, finally. That dropped him another 200 or so.
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I don't. If someone is only looking for cheap deals to boost their CV because they think they can get better free games this way, then they deserve to learn that this site needs actual investment or some more cunning than that to reach higher CV levels, there is no easy way out, just like in real life.
Plus at least now his region-specific CV dropped to 30% from 80%. Looks a lot better. =)
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I looked at your profile and see that you giveaway only games purchased for the full price on Steam.
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Nope, I only give away bundled games. Essentially all my non-bundled CV came from highest-tier Humble Bundle and Humble monthly games.
I reached level 10 by carefully looking at bundle deals and optimising my levelling. Cost me maybe 1200 dollars over a year and a half and I still have keys bought in that period.
It requires time and brains, plus knowing how the underlying mechanics of the site work and also taking some chances with a few purchases. At one point, I lost over 700 dollars of CV just by adding a single game to a bundle. I shrugged and continued. And did not post a thread on the forums whining about it.
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Out of curiosity, why did you focus on optimizing your way to level 10? I can't imagine the "practical" value of being level 10 ever reaches $1200, especially since you could've just spent that $1200 on whatever games you wanted for yourself.
Was it that you wanted to be generous anyway, and levels served as a nice thing to aim at while doing it?
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Because I felt like that it in that particular time period. To show that it can be done. No other reason.
As for levels, no. I am still maintaining my opinion that the CV system should be abolished entirely.
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the site mentions what happens, so you can read it if you want to learn about CV. Click Help at the top. It's either Guidelines or FAQ.
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Also, since those Unreal games you are giving away have now an insane discount on them, be prepared to get them added to the bundle list as well, dropping your CV by another 1-200 dollars or so.
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Any game with a high enough discount ends up on the bundle list. The bundle list is not updated only with games which were in an actual bundle.
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Also, your 'points' or level or CV can go down gradually over time.
If today you give away a game that costs 40 dollar (40P), you get a CV of 40 dollar, But if next year the price is lowered to 25 dollar, your CV will be 25 dollar from then on.
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Most likely. Depends on what games you give away as well probably (where in ther 'lifecycle' they are, pricewise).
This giveaway I did for example a long time ago, was definitely more than 20P at the time I created it, since the price was higher than that. But when the price drops, so does the 'P'.
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The truth is that when you die, your CV on Steamgifts is the only thing Saint Peter looks at when deciding whether to let you into heaven.
Yes, this really sucked for everyone who died in the thousands of years before SG was a thing. They were all like "CV? Steamgifts? What? But I donated to the poor and was a faithful--" and he'd just shrug helplessly and pull the lever sending them to hell. As it says in cg 14:6: “CV is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through CV."
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I bought those in a bundle last April, can't believe they haven't been added earlier to the bundle list. Sucks for you indeed if you bought them full price :/
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/mGV1n/unreal-deal-pack-91
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... another .RU region restricted games with "my level is low"?
Look here:
http://www.sgtools.info/sent/SteppenWoolF
Real CV for Sent Gifts on account SteppenWoolF
332.60 $
Level 5 ( 33.04% to Level 6 )
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Hmm, was there any weird base price during sale? So now that it's normal again it might be that. But anyway looking at Russian price it will be bundle listed soon anyway.
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Probably it was the 80% discount on the Unreal Deal pack.
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I believe items will be bundled when they hit a certain discount percentage regardless of the source site selling the keys.
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If I remember correctly that certain discount limit was 90%
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There was deal for 80% on Steam and as usual price of the pack which is double compared to individual games got applied.
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We're talking about why there was a points bug for the games in the Steam bundle, not why they're getting added to the bundle list.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/bundle-games/search?q=unreal
They're on the list right now in fact., with bundle date in February last year. They might've been added only recently, but it would not be due to the most recent deal.
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After Unreal games be added to bundle list, you losing more. Be ready.
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Unfortunately the value of a game is calculated based on the current value of the game, not the value when you bought it. That means if it is bundled or offered at a huge discount somewhere it will be added to the bundled list and you'll only get 15% of the value for it - even if you gave it away days, weeks, months ago.
I agree this isn't entirely fair to people who buy a game at full price and then have their contribution slashed, but it's also not fair when people buy a game for a few cents and get the full retail value of the game, so it has to be done.
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This is not how it works. Games get added to the bundle list at a specific date and giveaways that has ended before that still retain their contribution value
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Games are added to the bundled list whenever the bundler is available, and CV is retroactively reduced. You can find a lot of threads in the forums about the bundler, mostly complaining when they are not around for a while, and all these threads complaining about level suddenly dropping is because he came back and entered several hundred games into the bundled list.
Or do you mean that when the bundler adds the game he also adds what date the game was bundled, retroactively if needed, so that giveaways before that date isn't reduced?
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Indeed a bundle date gets added and everything ending earlier is safe. Sorry for the confusion, it seemed a lot less ambiguous as I was typing it out.
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No problem. Keep in mind that this is basically how things work as I've not bothered to inform myself about the specifics. E.g. I wrote everything ending before the bundle date is safe but it might be starting before or somewhere in between I recon.
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Yeah and I mean it still doesn't matter how much someone paid for the game as long as it's after the date it was first bundled, so it's still not perfectly fair - but about as good as they can get it.
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It can be a lot better but that takes time and effort. There are small improvements implemented constantly though, maybe not specifically affecting the contribution value system but other small convenience stuff like the recent reveal key button on you won gifts page. Brilliant addition if it's purpose is what I'm imagining :)
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Yes, that's why there's a "bundled date" on the bundle list https://www.steamgifts.com/bundle-games
It marks the beginning of the disocunt / bundle, anything made before that date is uneffected by the 0.15 bundled multiplier.
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Just a recent talk with a mod about that, since i had to do some rerolls.
Q: What date is considered for bundled games, start/end date of the GA or the date key was given out(just in case this gets prolonged)? :)
A: It's judged by the start date of the giveaway. No matter how long this process takes, it won't affect this giveaway unless it would have been affected anyway.
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Yes, this sounds like the most logical way of handling things. I was just trying to explain the roughly how it works and didn't have the details. Thank you for clearing it up further :)
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Didn't know the details myself, so had to ask :D
And since i saw talk about it, why not share info :)
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I'm absolutely not convinced by that, I barely created any giveaway since September last year, and everything I did since was very low value (even at full price), yet my level just dropped from 7+ to 6.54.
Unless some big games were added with a date more than 10 months old, I can't see how that could happen.
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How did you buy 10 copies of various Unreal games from Steam, without checking their full price in Steam? o.O
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They aren't coming from Steam. The complete pack as separate keys is 91% off on Gamersgate.
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Thought it's Steam because of the region lock (would explain why OP is upset if the games would have been bought at full price) ... so either gamersgate also gives regionlocked keys, or it was just slapped on them for fun.
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"What have I spent my money for when I purchased the keys?"
To give them away to the community? You know, the whole point of the site.
If you're spending money just to level up just keep your money and buy the games you want.
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So you only giveaway games so you can level up and win better games? You're the same kind of person that exploited the Clickteam Fusion charity bundle. That's sad.
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Im dont giveaway bundled games, I took the game from https://www.sgtools.info/deals?page=1 and im chose normal, not bundled games for giveaway them. And yes, ill do this for level up. Because at high levels I can get normal games, not useless bundled crap.
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If you check this page on the site you were looking at, you can see that the dates on bundled effective and added to bundle list don't match.
That means the bundle list is not accurate and games might get bundled even after 3 years if it has been missed before.
Just remember if you buy something that is really cheap, it's most likely going to end on the bundled list.
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95%+ discount compared to USD price on Steam in any region is reason to be added to list, if enough copies is deemed to be given away...
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Bundled games give 0.15 value. So with 95% discount you will give at least 3x the paid in CV. Which would equal about 66% discount. It's logical to have break point somewhere. Anything over 85% in discount could be one logical place. But then you would be better of giving away games with 50% discount.
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"Im dont giveaway bundled games, I took the game from https://www.sgtools.info/deals?page=1 and im chose normal, not bundled games for giveaway them."
That sounds like you are talking about bundled games, but then again I'm not native English speaker so something might get lost in translation.
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Well, your english is pretty understandable. Can't say the same about his ):
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Because at high levels I can get normal games, not useless bundled crap.
You would not believe how not true that is. Just being high level will not suddenly open up some trove of AAA games. If you pay money to level and just to get some expensive stuff, then you will never get that money back, ever.
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It's hard to imagine why anyone would think this. I've seen very few examples of high-level members that actually had more won value than sent, and they probably worked their ass off to achieve that :P
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Well, it is more like pre-determined already. All Touhou giveaways are won by wany, all the rest by zelgh, so nothing remains for the rest. :3
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Ah, so this is where the real SG elite is grouping up. Gifting is becoming a costly hobby. First the games, then SG premium to increase the winning chance and now you're telling me I have to bribe someone to get into Touhou and buy the limited Platinum ticket that apparently only two members have afforded yet?
The more I find out about this site the more appealing "free to play" Android games are starting to look :P
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"Who is this Anonymous guy who keeps winning all of the giveaways?"
"That would be Zelghadis."
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Not everything bundled is "crap".
In short: Her story, the soundtracks, (probably MR. Donovan too) are all Bundled... Unreal had a big discount thus it also considered bundled.
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Rather than doing giveaways to get decent games later down the line (which will not happen) just save that money instead to actually buy the games you want to play.
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>giveaway region restricted bundled crap
>complains about winning bundled crap
The game is literally 0.96USD right now. How crappy is that?
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Three words then: "Unreal Tournament 2003". =)
(I do not want to get into a debate whether Unreal 2: The Awakening is a good game or not, even if it is the most controversial in this regard from the Unreal pack.)
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Welcome to the world of "The steam API reported the wrong value... again" ;)
Your current level, and contributor value, is the correct one. What happened was simply the steam API reporting the wrong value for some of your giveaways, which temporarily inflated your contributor value.
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I think that isn`t my fault, so It is unacceptable to translate responsibility from Steam, or SG into users. :(
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You can check the value for the game before making a giveaway for it. What you should look out for is if the game is in a bundle/collection, and if that's on sale. If it's not you don't need to check anything else.
There's no good way for SG to fix this, if they want to fetch values from Steam, as steam reports the value of the currently cheapest way to get it. The other option would be to let people keep the value of the game at the time you create the giveaway, but that would result in massive abuse as soon as the Daedalic bundle is on discount, which would be far worse.
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It's not even hard, just look at the USD price of the game itself. That is what is the medium term CV.
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But I checked it on sgtools, I checked on SG and when creating a giveaway the game cost 40p, I did a test giveaway and got Gifts Sent +40$. Therefore, I bought more keys and did it for a couple of days. My Gifts Sent value was 644 $. And after 2 days it is 340$ and my level 4 now. I do not see any sense in contributing to the purchase of games for giveaway on this site.
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There's nothing to be done about that though since it's a technical issue SG can't fix on their end. Why don't you cut out the middle-man and, instead of investing all that money solely to level up here, spend your cash buying the games you want directly? There's no greater purpose behind giving away games here than the giving itself, quickly leveling up to grab some AAA games is more of a myth than based on facts.
BTW the amount of points represents the value of the game at that moment, so to be sure you should always check ITAD or the Steam store itself for its real worth.
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I can buy any game. Level up here is like a sport, or some miracle. And possibility to make a little miracle for anybody. Check real $ price is pretty hard for non $ region.
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Google "Enhanced Steam" and install it to your browser. It will provide you with information about bundled status and international prices as well as all time historically lowest and current lowest price of any game upon watching the respective game's Steam page in your browser.
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You just checked the current value on SG, not of the game. The problem is with the steam API. Now you know of the steam API issue, and can take steps to avoid it in the future.
Don't stare yourself blind on contributor value, it's not a good "investment" to give away games to gain more contributor value.
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Nobody has transferred responsibility or their mistakes to users. There is nothing one can actually do. All the games are tracked by Steam API code. This is more versatile or reliable than creating own database to track and handle steam games.
The drawback for this system is glitches like Daedalic bundle where the single game from the bundle receives full price of the bundled list. This is what I have understood. I might be wrong. There will be pricing errors until sale ends.
I know it wasn't your fault but this could have been avoided. I see you just started SG a month ago. So you might have missed the issues regarding it. Most active users know about this issues by now.
There are some Rule of thumb regarding whether the game is bundled or not or what CV you'll get for it.
- Check if game is included in Bundled list or not. Please note that games are retroactively added to bundle list manually. Meaning: game that are included/sold as bundle will be eventually be added to bundle list 1 day from now or 3 years later.
- If the game is being sold at greater than 90% discount than the steam base price it will most probably end up being at bundled list.
- Check steamdb for the change in prices over the timeline.
- The more GA for the same game the less you'll get CV for it. Full CV for same game till 5 copies, more than that -10% CV and so on.
For example looking at your GA:
Unreal 2: The Awakening(15% of $15 = $2.25) got full CV till 5 games and 6th and 7th copy got less and less.
First 5 copies = $2.25 * 5 = $11.25
Sixth copy = ($2.25-10% of $2.25) = $2.025
Seventh copy = ($2.025 -10% of $2.025) = $1.8225
Hence total of $15.0975.
And no one can abuse the CV from bundled list. CV changes for GA from the date the bundle was introduced, no matter if it is listed on bundle list or not.
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Thank you for your post. Really. But I took these games from sgtools. I already wrote many times about all checks. When I wrote this post, these games were not in the bundle list. SG simply reduced my contribution in half. And reduced the level. And only later, they added game in bundle list and again cut down my level. From 6 to 5 and to 4.
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Let's be honest. You have still paid no where near for those cheap Unreal games that you have received in CV. you're Still up on your little plan, what exactly are you moaning about?
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No SG never did cut down your level. You gained extra level for a time being. You gained access to level 5 and 6 while you shouldn't have. So you can be grateful for that.
Sgtools deal is just a tool, it just checks good deals and tells us whether it is bundled or not. Its not accurate in terms of bundle information update but still sometime helpful. It all depends upon the user's decision to buy or not.
There is only 1 member to update the bundle list here on SG. Checking all those hundreds of sites and other regional sites is a tedious job. It takes time to update information.
You can still check sites like isthereanydeals or steamdb yourself to get idea if the game was/will be on a bundle. But don't hope it to be accurate. Deals with >90% discount chances are they are bundled.
BTW if you are doing this just for CV to increase your level thinking higher levels have better games then probably you are wasting your money. Buy yourself good games rather than buying not-that-good cheap games.
And to be fair you still got a good deal out of those GA. I guess you probably bought it at 80-90% discount. So $1-2 gave you $2-4 CV.
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SG simply reduced my contribution in half.
No it didn't. You bought the game not checking the real price in Steam, and a Steam-releated bug caused it to appear as 40P. SG has nothing to do with it, so please stop repeating it. You were the one not checking for prices, only points. (Like why would a 1,5 decade old game cost 40$. And each of them.)
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Same here! I was lvl 5,56 yesterday and now i'm 5,55
This site is scam!
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Unbelievable. I'm calling the internet police.
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I understand how you feel and a few other topics were made similar about it. Recently the bundle list did not get updated for almost a month, giving you for a long time a false impression about your CV or what games/DLC's do or do not get full CV. A suggestion was made to appoint another person that marks games as bundled, so changes can be make faster and it is more clear to you what games are bundled and what not via this site. Feel free to support it here.
As for the future, best is to look for the price of the game or DLC yourself. If was or is available in a bundle or had a huge discount (>85%), it should get bundled here in the future too, giving you only 15% of the retail value. You will not lose CV if you give it away before it gets bundled or the huge discount. More information about how the level system works you can find here. For a list of recently games/DLC's that got added to the bundle list, you can look here. IsThereAnyDeal.com and/or barter.vg are good sources as to see if a game got bundled before, but doesn't work that well for DLC's.
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Yes, it's so horrible thing to happen. Maybe some users should quit this site over this!
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While I understand the system and why there are delays sometimes, I feel that the bundle listing is too arbitrary. For example UltraGoodness was bundled for the first time this Monday (indie gala monday motivation #26) but it was added to the bundle list with the date... Jun 5, 2017. How the heck was it bundled on Jun 5? I bought that game on Jun 12 for a giveaway because I got a coupon from creating a badge. I got 100% CV for the giveaway then, but now it's only 15%. Why is it listed as bundled since Jun 5 when it was first bundled Jul 3? Are all games that have steam coupons suddenly "bundled"? That's just one example but for me it's a clear sign that there's no point whatsoever of giving away unbundled games until I reach lvl 10 and don't care about the cv an ymore.
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Regular price for that game is 5 cents on russian sites (pay attention to regular, not discounted), so yes, it should be in bundle list since first giveaway.
Also, majority of games that you can buy with 90% coupons on steam are there also, with similar price (cent up or down).
You weren't informed and you overpaid, simple as that.
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Heh, ok, Russian bulk stores strike again... but how about another example - Polarity was never bundled but it's listed as bundled since May 4, 2015?
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How about looking after them yourself instead of complaining and letting others collect evidence to support your case? :)
But there you go, Polarity was 96% off that day, which is more than the 95% of bundling treshold. https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/XExrr/polarity-96-off
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Great, another arbitrary rule. Nowhere on the site (I checked terms, faq, guidelines) does it state that a game with 95%+ discount lands on the bundled list. One more reason to stick to giving away bundle leftovers (which was why I came to this site in the first place ;-), at least I know where I stand with those. Thanks for the info.
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It says in the FAQ:
Games may also be added to the bundle list if they're available for free during a promotion, or if they're highly discounted in a sale.
It doesn't specify 95%, but that is indeed the criteria the bundler uses. Note that we are unable to edit the FAQ/guidelines, so not much we can do there to update.
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90% regular discount used to trigger the 95% threshold, because Russian store.
Now, ever since the rubel tanked, it is actually closer to a 85% discount to trigger it.
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That one was not only cheap, it was free (probably still is?) https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/4yy7H/ ... every game that is on bundle list deserves to be there, and they are still missing a shitload of them (several missing bundles, abuses by HB monthlies, recent 90% discounts due regional pricing, and new games are poping up daily on wholesale sites...)
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You got $350 in CV and only spent like $4. I'd say the system is working pretty good for you.
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SG cut my value of contribution in half! And cut my level!
I took the game from the list of non-bandled games on sgtools.info, I bought the key and made giveaway on SG. The game costs 40 points on SG, the giveaway was successful and without any questions, and my Contributor Value was $ 40 for games, so I started buying new copies and giveaway them on Steamgifts. And a few days later you just cut the cost half and less. What have I spent my money for when I purchased the keys? It looks like a scam.
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