If the group moves to a 3rd party site and keeps up a thread here or an email notification system for when there are new promotions, I'll follow them there. They had one of the best deal summaries and the free game promotions were fun as well :)
At least they could make some ad revenue off of their own site vs. a Steam community group.
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Erm,no there wasnt.
I was member of the group since the beginning of Battlepillars promo and there was zero thread of such, even less referral spam
Are you talking out of your asses or what? You obviously have zero knowledge about the group
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Was hookups that one that was posting Amazon ref links and the owner was taking the credit or something?
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First and foremost WGN was a group about Steam deals. If you check the Steam TOS, there's nothing about Greenlight in it. I really would like to see the reasoning behind closing WGN down other than 'We will lose sales this way'. Next up: Valve will not allow bundle sites to provide keys for Greenlit games. I agree the whole Greenlight system is a can or worms and should go, but do that first and then clean up the rest. As it is, Greenlight is still there and closing a group because devs want their game greenlit and use a platform for it is just ridiculous. Then again Valve has shown often enough that they care about sales more than their own mistakes.
tl;dr: Valve is pathetic for closing WGN because they took advantage of Greenlight and there's nothing in the TOS to justify it.
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WGN?! wasn't just about greenlight games and getting free keys! New deals, Heads up for bundles, Giveaways, Having fun with community, Streams and discovering non populiar-yet still awesome-games... I myself didnt vote for any of those greenlight games and still enjoyed the group.
Hope it'll be just a temporary thing and pass!
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I agree, I was part of the group before the whole "Greenlight Vote" promos and I enjoyed the group.
They always had nice deal summaries and were quick to point out price errors. Would be a shame to see them go.
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I'm surprised it took Valve this long. Regardless of the quality of the games they were promoting, they were completely defeating the purpose of Greenlight and devaluing other Greenlight games.
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I don't use Steam Groups very much and I know of at least five that advertise vote for (X) get a free copy. If Greenlight is devalued, it's not because of WGN. It's because the system is flawed. And besides, although some people take advantage of it and vote for any game just to get a free one, there's others of us who use discretion to determine if it deserves to go through, even though we'd get it free.
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Devaluing other Greenlight games? You do know that usually 75 games get Greenlit at once and that WGN had less than 10 free key promotions running? If you really want to point fingers, please do point it at the devs providing the keys (some even make their own Steam groups btw). Unless it's one deluded hacker/user that reported WGN and Valve having a happy nervous trigger finger day, this whole thing stinks... a lot. Valve already knows that Greenlight itself doesn't work, so why not close the whole thing now for good. I don't care about the free keys, but I do care about one of the best deal information groups on Steam.
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http://steamcommunity.com/groups/wgnchat#announcements/detail/1785985954528892384
Hello Carl,
Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
The group in question has violated the terms of the Online Conduct Rules for the Steam Community.
For more information on Valve's policies, please see the Steam Subscriber Agreement and the Rules of Steam Online Conduct.
Steam Subscriber Agreement
http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
Rules of Steam Online Conduct
http://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/
The group will not be re-enabled. Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
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Some user got kicked out and then made complaints against the Group
Link redacted due to naming and shaming rule.
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Check the link I have given ... It's a partial quote from the user that wrote the complaint.
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I have redacted my own link due to naming and shaming rule, while the information is still available on a public forum and available to everyone.
Have I gone too far ?
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I think some people need to realise that the main issue isnt with the free games promo here but the fact that Valve seems to be closing group with no explication, which in itself shouldnt be acceptable. This is not the way they should be treating customers who probably spent many cash on Steam.
To all those people cheering about how it will reduce half-assed games: This whole stupid 'Stop liking what I dont like" attitude needs to be ended and hopefully it will. There is a huge game scene outside of your everyday generic AAA shooter games ya know...
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This sucks pretty bad... Just actually checked the Steam conduct thing though, erm...
"You will not..."
"Use Steam in connection with surveys, contests, pyramid schemes, chain letters, junk email, spamming or any duplicative or unsolicited messages (commercial or otherwise)..."
"Harvest or otherwise collect information about others, including e-mail addresses..."
. . . Oh.
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Exactly which is why these freak me out a little.
"You will not..."
"Use Steam in connection with surveys, contests..."
""Harvest or otherwise collect information about others, including e-mail addresses..."
Welcome to Steamgifts, were members of Steam participate in a game of chance to win prizes for Steam.
There's also been quite a few random surveys around on the forums.
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He meant they cant shut the group down. It is more than free games including offers and community. If they did take those games down from Greenlight they may aswell remove all the Greenlight games from all the bundles.
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As you might have noticed, the other thread got closed due to the number of bitching and other posting
I think ppl need to realise that nobody needs to have a whole war over whoever is right nor wrong. All we want is to see the old group back and hopefully clearing up things for Steam Support
Now for this what we would need is that everybody puts aside prejudices they might have and such and try to do something
If you just come here to mock the group/troll then thanks for leaving it elsewhere, as it would be nice to have some meaningful discussion about the subject instead of ppl randomly spamming and screaming at each other
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Its got nothing to do with who was right and who was wrong but the fact that people dont read things, for instance, since the thread being closed im being accused of reporting the group. (when i have done nothing but try to inform/correct the situation).
It was originally posted in the intent to inform and let other decide, once word got out about what really happend, I was bombarded with a ton of emails over 100 of hateful and threatening remarks, from whom i can only guess.
I also heard about a lot of remarks in the thread, that happend while i was asleep, either way for some reason the whole thing has been turned around and pointed at me, Why i dont know?
and for which version of events is true, im really starting to doubt the validility of all involved, between requests and emails, and falsified data left right and center i cant tell who is right and thus im keeping out of it now, Its not worth the emotional pain if im honest.
as for you Zetikla, Thanks for keeping this thread updated.
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dunno whos right and whos wrong but would love to have a word or two with that certain person called bunneh or whoever he was though...
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add me on steam i can pass you his profile (i dont wanna link it here)
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http://imgur.com/1rKgFoa.png -> There is a certain don't name & shame rule on SteamGifts
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i name and shamed no one?
And in the other thread i used the bunny lover in place of his name.
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It's not that specific animal anymore, if you see what I mean.
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Steam or an admin/mod removed some of the comments in the steam forum made by a certain person.
The original poster's posts were removed.
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why it would be? Its not like devs wouldnt have control if they want to make say giveaway of their game
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If it's DRM free, then sure, go wild. But if the game is using the Steam platform, I don't think Valve will appreciate thousands of users playing for free :P They did mention free steam keys to whomever upvoted and joined the group. Imagine every game on greenlight doing this.
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actually speaking of which, many devs did so (im too lazy to make the list) but they didnt got suspended. Im still asking: why? Isnt that quite double standards a lot?
Also for the info: devs can generate as much steam keys as needed, it doesnt cost a dime for Valve. Its like telling how much Valve is losing when devs discount their games: they dont.
When a game is good, it will be sold by millions regardless, thats the keyword right here. Everything else is just pure marketing tool. Many ppl dont seem to get the bigger picture that its not much different than devs making massive giveaways on steamgift
Beside, all these promos are limited in times, so to avoid having to give more keys than needed, it also keeps number of ppl under a certain control. Its not like these promos were running for unlimited times.
One of the big thing of DD (Digital Distribution) its the fact that its more effective and cost-saving for most of the time but many devs dont seem to realise this and yet they are surprised why Steam is doing so well, apart some minor issues it might have from platform view (that certain curating many game journalist like Jim Sterling or Totalbiscuit hinted at)
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You clearly understand the market better than I do, so I'll trust your judgement. I've just never seen a greenlight dev give virtually an unlimited amount of free copies in order to get greenlit. Perhaps this upset Valve, despite their marketing schemes of profiting off popularity, as you so clearly stated lol.
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Theoretically speaking I would say thy have some idea in mind about how many people they can expect to participe, and they set up the number of keys in accordance to that. Valve in all is having a huge monopoly on the market . Just notice how many people refuse to buy games outside of any other platform than steam (or games that cannot be activated on steam).
Big problem however when a company gets on the high end of the market: they can afford to be lazy and literally abuse of their power. As where people would got buying their games off? To EA? No way, certainly not with Origin and their whole data-collectin scandal. To Ubisoft? They have nowhere near the power of attracting people, especially with their quite hostile attitude toward PC gaming.
Its not a problem that valve is doing well, just the danger that it could turn the table around and screw off paying customers like you or me. They are too lazy to manage their store, thats why Gabe wants to make an open market platform and basically saying: let the crowd in, let them decide what we should sell.
And this is something really not healthy from quality view. This is what should be a bigger concern to everyone other than some generic games getting passed on GL
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It's very true, having that monopoly I'm sure has made them complacent. I don't mind seeing Valve take over the world, but this business with them being lazy has got me worried. An open market could be a good step for both Valve and their customers but definitely quality wise things will drop. Lately there have been SO MANY games released on Steam that just don't meet the standard of what games were like a few years ago. Valve are slowly opening their doors and I'm willing to bet there won't be a need for Greenlight in the years to come.
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Vote for ... to get the key once its Greenlite. Well I voted the most worst games I ever seen, I dont mind seeing them disolved.
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There were many good games too, apart some bad (for instance most of the games WGN promoted were quite awesome and much more convincing than the current ones we have
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updated the post, for now it will be the last edit to it until we have some relevant info/update
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indeed it is, thankfully the group is still up, just stealthy
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So basically when trying to open the WGN group, I got "greeted" with this "lovely" page
I have literally no idea whats going on, apparently Carl didnt got informed by Valve in any way about the reasons or such.
I hope they will find some way to continue the group activity, as right now it doesnt look all bright there..
Edit: There is a temporary other group meanwhile for people to use : http://steamcommunity.com/groups/wgnchat
As what comes about GL promo keys: since these were done on a third party site other than the currently closed group, technically speaking they were not affected in all. Now what comes about possible promos in the upcomiong futur, its really up for the admins to see. Right now, they should be really really careful though so that Valve doesnt close their second group
UPDATE 3: Its becoming pretty clear that the group in all will move to http://whosgamingnow.com/ . At least Valve cannot do anything there, since its not part of their service. There might be a slight hope for the community after all...
If there is anything new, I will of course update the post
EDIT 4: Since the other thread got closed, I think it would be easier to merge all these subjects in this topic as one standalone. Please try and keep things civilised as much as possible, thank you. Instead of jumping on the old thread, maybe try to come up with some constructive comments. Its not a flame war that we want to achieve as it would make certainly more harm than good. If you want to help us out, please do join WGN website and wgnchat if you want to support CarlMundo and all the other ones working hard to keep this community alive as much as its makable, but please, DO NOT make your own "vendetta" against whoever you consider the culprit. If we want to get our voice taken seriously, we need to act like such and think cool-headed
UPDATE 5: So it seems we have more info about the details of the group closing. To quote from Carl: "Today I finally found out from Steam support why the group was disabled. It's because we were running contests on the forum (contests hosted elsewhere were fine). It wasn't because of our greenlight promotions or certain individuals. "
Im pretty sure that all those GL promo haters are now biting their nails hard
UPDATE 6: WGN is back on the website!! Goood news everybofy
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