Changes to Trading Cards

I don't understand why steam posted this. This is something between the devs and valve, this shouldn't change anything for the users.

I mean, the easiest way to implement their change would be to forbid some game from having trading cards before it is deemed worthy, which means the steam store would not say the game has trading cards or badge. So there would be virtually no functional difference for a user between a game that has no trading cards because the devs choose so, and a game that has no trading cards because valve chooses so.

And you can do this without warning the users, as they would have no way to actually see that something has changed.

UNLESS existing games are concerned.

Couldnt find an answer to my question:
When you play a game (As far as I understand you can't see if it will have Cards or not) for ex. 5hours - and then they add Cards to this game. Will you get your drops immediatly or do you have to play another couple of hours until you get them?

There should have been a maybe? option. While it's good fake games are getting targetted I'm not all to sure about this new card drop system. How will steam tell the difference between a game that's just very overlooked with barely any fans and legit fake games nobody wants to buy?

Edit: Also they should just drop the cards for all your games whether you've played them or not as long as you've had them in your library for a certain amount of time. It beats playing a game for cards then never getting the cards until some hazy metric is worked out in the background at some later date.

It's bad to see how many scammers use SG for parasiting on virtue (goodness) T_T

Sounds fine to me, but I don't think it will make a real difference.
It's almost like purchasing those greenlight bundles with a small twist... people continue getting bundles and just will have to wait for the games to be allowed to drop cards.

So going forward, even if you play a game before it has Trading Cards, you'll receive cards for your playtime when the developer adds cards and reaches the confidence metric.

my favorite part if i'm reading it correctly. i don't idle for cards except in the case where i'm done with a game before it had cards or before it dropped all its cards for me. would love to not have to reinstall a game i'm done with because they've gone back and added cards to it.

I know cards will never be removed from the market for reasons.You want to fix this problem the easy solution is to get rid of the market for cards.They will never do that though because it cuts into profits so profits come first.

This is not a fix this is a bandage to try and fix a bigger problem that is Greenlight.I wonder how many will just vote good so they can get there cards.Most buy these games in super cheap bundles to farm cards.If they realize giving it good results gets there cards faster this could lead to bias reviews and idling games just to make it appear people like playing it to get said cards.

This is stupid. instead of banning the shitty developers who do this, the consumer has to deal with their shit. Why is it always the consumer who gets all the shit even they didnt do anything wrong`?

Root of the problem is shovelware garbage games getting on Steam in the first place so this makes no sense, the cards should drop instantly their yours anyway. They were part of the deal and they should just add quality control that developers don't get cards for their game as easily. And they should also add some quality standards to cards/emoticons/backgrounds.

konrads6
don;t like it

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The problem could be solved by getting rid of trading cards altogether.
Valve won't do that because profits.

In the near future the only way for a card to drop is by buying the game in the store and not by steam key.

I always thought this, but now I wonder even more: why not just drop cards immediately, as soon as a game is activated? No need to idle -> no fake playtime data.

Says that games that are downloaded and installed and played by an x number of people, will be able to drop cards, or misunderstand?

I do like this more honest/open side of Valve. Wherever you agree with the changes or not, the fact that they are sharing their plans for the platform is pretty good.

Valve, and why don't change it for to drop automatically all cards instanly when you buy or redeem a game? No more farmin of cards would be really great.

BUMP! Thanks for the heads up

Seems like a good move to me, but I bet the shady "devs" are going to find a workaround sooner than later, lets hope valve doesn't gets too pissed when that happens.

Eh, I'm going to be positive for once and say it sounds good. Have to see how I'll feel later if I'm not getting cards when I'm trying.

Doesn't that basically mean that cards won't start dropping unless a certain amount of people have bought this game on Steam itself (if I understand correctly, Steam key activations dont count)?

So if there is a neat indie game with neat cards as well, but it doesn't get much attention and so sales aren't high, you wouldn't be getting any cards from it regardless. Same for games which get promoted via bundles, as Steam keys don't count towards that "confidence metric" they are talking about.

Of course, it'll lower amount of bots whose only purpose is farming cards and will make people think a bit before collectings tons of garbage just to get cards from those, but still - is it such a good thing if it affects regular customers too? Most seem to like these changes, but I don't recall Valve doing anything that's actually community friendly in the end in the past few years.

Sounds good!

Wow, Steam did something that I'm actually thinking is a good idea? Never thought I'd see the day.

As others have mentioned though, the fact that it seems as though key purchases won't add to the confidence value is a little worrying. A lot of people who play indie games often wait until the game is in a bundle before picking it up. So even if the game is good, if the people playing it are people who bought it in a bundle, then it doesnt count towards the confidence metric and the cards don't drop. Seems to skew favor towards AAA games, since that's what I assume is being bought the most directly from Steam.

But other than that, I'm surprisingly okay with this.

Less shitty games is always good.

So, does it still follow the system of dropping after 2 hours Game time? >_>

Nice