Quake 2 has zero contributor value since it was probably given away somewhere for free around May 2024. Thus you will not get any levels unfortunately.
When you make a giveaway, if it has 2 red stars next to the name of the giveaway like Quake 2, it will not contribute to your level. One star has reduced contribution value as its most likely a bundled game and zero stars give full value as SG considers it an unbundled title at the time of the giveaway when it was made.
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to add to this, this was only a 500 copy giveaway from the known streamer that I codename CVhitsquad. Normally it requires 1k copies to hit the 0 category.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/about/faq Contributor Value and Levels - section
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It's instant, but as mentioned above, Quake 2 has no CV. Sometimes it's reduced after you list the game, but Quake 2 was listed as zero CV at the time you listed it.
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You can also see the actual CV Value you have when you hover over the sent value. As you can see it shows 9.99 there, but if you hover over it shows "contributor value : 0.00". This is the final contributor value after the value has been adjusted to free and bundled games.
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Got it. Thanks everybody. This experience was quite disappointing.
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Not to worry. Had you posted it prior to the contributor value (CV) going down you would still have the CV value that it had when you posted it. So a valued game today will retain its value in your history even if the game itself goes down for future giveaways (GAs)
The uptick to posting games with no CV is that you accumulate more potential giveaways in the future. For every 3 games you give away (Regardless of their CV) you earn 1 more slot in your ability to post more. The more slots you have available means the more GAs you can do at once and that comes in handy for things like event trains and other community activities you might take part in here in the future.
You're one step in the right direction just now. Bundles are good places to find games you want at a good price coupled with some you don't want as a package. Give away the ones you don't want and you'll have points in no time :)
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Are you sure about this? I have had giveaways reduced to 0 CV months and years after I gave them away, once they were given for free.
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Here's my CV graph and you can view the games I've given away (And when):
There might be outliers which don't hold up but I've made a point of choosing a variety of different games with different ideas as to why I've chosen them for exactly this sort of research.
I'm all up for being corrected. But with evidence based facts or at least well considered opinions.
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Example for example. Here’s a game that was marked ’No CV value’ in January 2025, but in effect back from September 2024. There are more such games, someone didn’t like its discounted price in pauper regions compared to its full price in rich regions of the world. Do i have to letter down what happened to contribution levels of users who made GAs of it between Sep24 and Jan25 ? Some users won GAs recently with entry margin way above their today’s CV level.
It’s funny how devs and Steam, who sell games for living, have understanding why prices need to be lower for poor regions, only the SG does not.
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The mods don't act when only a few copies are gifted.
They act when it is clear that some people ABUSE/EXPLOIT the regional prices to give multiple copies away, often 5, often the same "few" users that you see each time when a game give a lot cv and costs only cents.
So, in the end, say thanks to this "few" people (i would call them with a other name).
It would be much better to perma suspend such people but the rules don't allow it and i don't expect that the rules ever change in this point.
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The main trouble we have here in this country, is not even everyone being poor, it’s everyone having to struggle their way through more and more limitations. Much less opportunities can be easily accessed by our average joe, to the point a foreign average joe won’t imagine. World’s key discount sites and their free giveaways are darn hard to get into or provide an acceptable payment method.
Recent years, we always pay the 10%–15% extra fee to transfer money to our Steam wallet, so the SteamDB price is lower than the factual price we have to pay. Does any SG mod even know that to consider during their ‘abuse’ calculations?
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graphs don't reflect lost stuff, it gets lost too
when you enter 500 giveaways total, then leave one, your graph will show you having entered 499 giveaways
when you get whitelisted 100 times, then everyone removes you from the whitelist a year later, your graph will become flat 0 for whole year
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When a game is set to 0 CV, the mods enter a date when the free key givewaway happened; all giveaways on SG after that date are retroactively set to 0.
(Obviously this happens regardless of whether your key came from the free key giveaway or not, because nobody has any way of knowing that.)
So in your case what probably happened was that there was some free key giveaway in the distant past that someone eventually noticed and put into the system, which would cause your own later giveaway to go to 0. But if a free key giveaway had happened after your own giveaway ended, the CV you got from it wouldn't have been affected.
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I did not know that. I guess I must have missed some free giveaway from some unknown streamer. I'll try and be careful for the next giveaways I do. Thanks for the information!
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this isn't true, I've had multiple giveaways retroactively reduced to 0 CV ages after I had given them away
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That can happen but it usually means the giveaway you created was after a certain time it was given away for free somewhere, aside from some edge cases.
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Lots of edge cases. Too cheap Steam regional price can trigger an rCV or zero CV decision. Same for games that become too cheap on the grey market. (Which happens to the bottom 2-3 games of the Humble Choice pretty much every month.)
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"For every 3 games you give away (Regardless of their CV) you earn 1 more slot in your ability to post more."
Oh, that's interesting to know! Is that information written down somewhere? I just went through the FAQ and Guidelines again, but they are rather vague about this - they mention that more Giveaway slots become available when giving away games, but not that it happens for every three GAs.
On that note, I just did the math, and (if I remember correctly and we start with three GA slots) I should have one more slot available than I do. Is it possible that certain GAs not get counted (like if they are group-exclusive and have less than five entries)? Or are GAs that had to be deleted still counted against my slots?
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I think when you delete a giveaway you lose a slot.
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Oof, that would be sad. I understand having some sort of punishment to discourage people somehow trying to cheat the system or troll the community, but I feel like there should be some leniency for a one-time infraction.
I'm trying to slowly build up Giveaway slots for a large-ish train I'm planning at some point, and losing an entire slot because I forgot to set region restrictions once (and deleted it minutes later)... :\
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I don't know the ins and outs of it Codric. I just had a mod mention to me in one of those conversations that you don't join SG to have that even 0 CV GAs add to the amount of GAs you can create on a 3 to 1 basis (Back around Halloween of last year when I asked for an extra slot due to mismanaging my Lego giveaway spree).
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"one of those conversations that you don't join SG to have"
Sounds intriguing. I'm imagining a longer-than-planned evening over one too many beers in a shady bar with behind-locked-door business that you don't want to know about if you value your dining experience there...
Anyways, thanks for your reply. Perhaps I'll make a Suggestions thread about this.
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I like your imagings of that conversation better than what happened Codric :)
Needless to say I believe the idea is that for every 3 games a members gives away they receive an extra GA slot.
Reading further down it seems that an extra slot might be taken away for a deleted GA but I wouldn't know about any of that.
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Keep at it and if you buy games for giveaway check if it has 1 stars or no stars to get CV and level points
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It was someone’s first win and you made them happy. Shouldn’t be as disappointing as if you gave your first GA to a leecher with hundreds of wins.
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It was giveaway. If you want something for it, then is better a trade option, but on different sites.
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for those who don't get the reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk&t=25s&ab_channel=SineadOConnorVEVO
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thx now I fell down the rabbit hole of listening to depressing old songs :)
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Hello,
I gave a game away and the winner marked it as received. I can see that the value of the game is reflected in the winners Gifts Won and my Gifts Sent section. However, that value has not applied to my level yet. How long does that usually take? Thanks
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