Like every f*cking time something too heavily discounted or price bugged gets on bundle list tons of ppl start QQing about how they lost hundreds of CV, how it's unfair, how everything in Steam Store should be bundled and so on and on.

First of all - if you lost hundreds of dollars then you clearly abused system and deserved it (see those ppl giving away tens of copies of the same game accidentally the time it's price-buged somewhere...). If you lost just CV from 1-2 GAs - probably just a bad luck for you - you got punished in the process of dealing with these high-CV abusers. BUT! You can protect yourself in the future. and you don't need to do heavy reserch, tracking all currencies, making massive spreadsheets etc as some QQers imply.

  1. See a nice discount on game XYZ on steam store.

  2. Go to Bundle List and Ctrl+F to search for the title.

  3. It's not there? Go to Bundle Wiki and serch for the game. It may have been in bundle that was not yet added to the list.

  4. Go to steamprices.

  5. Set up regions however you want, but remember to include comparison with Russia and Ukraine at least, as most heavy discounts occur in these regions. Set main region as USA. Example

  6. Search for your game. Example

  7. Divide lowest price by full US price. In this example 0.24/1.99.

  8. If the number you get is lower than 0.05 then there is a high risk that game end up being in bundle list retroactively in a future and you lose your CV. If it's higher you're safe to go. In our example it's 0.12 so if this DLC weren't on Bundle List already you'd be safe to give it away.

  9. Give away games that fullfill above rules.

  10. ...

  11. PROFIT!

FAQ:

Q: But I'm not living in russia. I live in EU so I have to overpay, why should I be punished?
A: There's a lot of traders that will buy you whatever game you want form RU store for PayPal or Steam tradeable items. So even if you live outside of Russia you can easily access all games you want in cheaper prices. As SG cannot check where you actually bought your game it must assume you got it from cheapest place possible. Otherwise it would be exploited and everyone would claim theys bought if for full price in most expensive region just to get max CV.

Q: Then we should bundle every game that was discounted for more than 75%! There's only 20% difference between 75% and 95%!
A: You're wrong. Numerical difference is 20% but actual purchase differences are MASSIVE! Let's assume game XYZ costs 10$ and you have 10$ at your PayPal. at 100% you can buy 1 copy, at 75% off (2.5$) you can buy 4 copies, at 80% 5 copies, at 90% 10 copies and at 95% 20 copies! That is 500% more that you could buy on 75% sale!

Q: I disagree! My CV is Sacred! I will start posting QQing threads and posts until they give me my CV back! It will surely help!
A: No it won't. Your CV is lost, deal with it. Only thing you can achieve by doing this is looking like a total dick, ending on bunch of ppl BlackLists, get yourself bad rep in community (GL finding a nice GA group then) or even get suspended if you go overboard like some ppl in the past have done.

10 years ago*

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+1

Request Sticky!!!!

10 years ago
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+1

10 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

10 years ago
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+1

10 years ago
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bump for PROFIF!

10 years ago
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Revise:

4) Get Enhanced steam or Steam price comparison

5) Check Converted Price and compare it to full price in US region (Lowest region Price/Normal price in US)

6) If it is over 95% sale

6.a) Forget about it
6.b) Giveaway that game and hope it doesn't have a price glitch in the future

10 years ago
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I prefer SteamPrices, as I can also easily check item IDs clicking on links to regional shops, to make sure game is not region locked or even if not if there isn't a possibility of it's regional locks changing in a future. They cannot add region lock if ItemID in US and RU is the same, as it's the same item. They can for items with different IDs (see some of cheap preorders from last few months :> that got locked at or after release :>)

10 years ago
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Didn't see you mentioning "locks" anywhere in your above post. And second, that is not true anymore

10 years ago
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Because I was talking about prices. Noone will buy locked game from Russian anyway, yeah? ;p I just answered to you why I prefer SP over Enhanced steam in GA buying process :>

10 years ago
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And teaching them to use steamdb is the best way to ensure that you are not buying a region locked game. In which enhanced steam offers.

10 years ago
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My only problem with the current CV system, is that many publisher bundles don't link properly any more. For example, I gave away this. And it links to nothing. Where as the actual publisher bundle is here with a value of $140. Valve has largely ditched the publisher bundles of a couple years ago, so the CV value for all of these is borked.

10 years ago
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It means the new bundle doesn't have the same ID as the old one. SG retains the original bundle's ID and the last price it had before it got replaced.

10 years ago
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well, as SG takes titles directly from steam it's not really SG fault that some packs and bundles changed on Steam. Blame Valve! xD They could Easilly call it Dawn of War Xmas Franchise Pack, Dawn of War 2011 Franchise Pack, Dawn of 2012 War Franchise Pack etc and there would be no problem nor confusion.

10 years ago
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True, I just don't know why the change? It includes all the same games and DLC, it is just that Deep Silver took over.

And Zomby, it'd just be a simple find/replace in the database to change old giveaway ID to the new one. Or a simple, if link ID = X, then link to Y.

10 years ago
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replacement is not a good option eitherway. Let's assume you buy a big Developer pack, costing you A LOT and want to give it away later on on some big occassion (big event? your bday? whatever :>). In the meantime the pack is changed on Steam, replaced on SG because they added one 99cents DLC to it. And now you can no longer give it away :/

10 years ago
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Well, if all they added was a 99 cents DLC then you can just buy that one too and give them both together as the new version of the bundle. Of course this will not always work. Perhaps it would be best if S.Gifts had an internal bundle database?

10 years ago
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sadly it's not possible - cg stated it already talking about other topic (storing current game prices in DB, so your CV don't drop while price of game drops months after you gave it away). It would increase db overload too much for site to handle it.

10 years ago
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It may not be doable for individual games but what about bundles only? There's fewer of them and they often change/disappear.

10 years ago
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like servers aren't overloaded and ultra-laggy already ;)

10 years ago
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+1 Easy to understand, good to know.

10 years ago
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"If you lost just CV from 1-2 GAs - probably just a bad luck for you - you got punished in the process of dealing with these high-CV abusers."

We should kill every poor people because they commit crimes, wait you didn't? Too bad, you got punished in the process of dealing with those criminals.

10 years ago
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yeah, really great argument - making a 1:1 comparison between criminals and losing some virtual numbers on your account.

Plus actual police has manpower and resources to find actual criminals. SG has nearly 500000 users and just what? 5 active staff members? There is no way they would be able to check all accounts for actual abusers. Only way to deal with them is automation process and yes - it will hurt innocent ppl as well but for much less than actual abusers. I lost 60$ as well and I don't cry over it. Actual abusers lost hundreds of dollars of abused CV.

If you want to blame someone blame the CV abusers.

10 years ago
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I just say it's not really democratic, also if you buy from someone from Russia then you still pay a fee for the trader meaning its less than 96% off, you lost 60$ and you don't cry over it because you've lost less % of your total CV than anyone else.

10 years ago
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I am more annoyed by price drops than this, since it imo makes more sence to leave the price as it was when I bought the game (even if discounted). But maybe SG has no work arounds around this, since everything is connected with Steam databases.

About bundling, well, I lost 120 CV from my SS complete which I bought for 7 euros, it is a shame, but I can live with that. As long as it deals with exploiters, I can deal with it.

10 years ago
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I think cg commented once that it would increase database load too much to do that.

10 years ago
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Here's cg's answer to that.

Direct quote for those who don't want to check the thread:
"Steam doesn't provide the most reliable pricing data. Prices bounce all over the place, and it's not unusual to see inaccurate data at times. For example, let's say a game is listed as $9.99. For one reason or another, Steam decides to start displaying the price of a bundle that contains the game, rather than the individual game. The price jumps to $19.99. A week later, Steam returns to the individual price, and it's lowered to $4.99. This means we have users receiving values of $9.99, $19.99, and $4.99 for the same game. The $19.99 is incorrect, so we'd have to catch that error, and readjust the values for all those giveaways. However, we don't know what hour or day the price changed from $9.99 to $4.99, so we wouldn't know which value to assign. Imagine this, multiplied by 2,000 games, and 400,000 giveaways. Also, prices need to be accurate to the minute, otherwise we'll be hearing about it in support. For example, we'll have users catching price drops, posting giveaways within minutes before our data updates, and receiving a higher value. At the moment, it's nice when we can fix a pricing error, and know it's corrected site wide. It's not perfect, but it's consistent for everyone. With individual values, I can't say with confidence our pricing data would be at the level of accuracy we need, and I think we'd have more headaches than what we have now."

10 years ago
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Yeah, I imagined as much, thank you for reply.

10 years ago
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I don't mind the games being marked as abused, just the timing of it. Take Serious Sam Complete Pack as an example. It was marked as abused today, but its effective abuse date goes back to July 17, 2013. That's a six month window where it would increase your CV, only to have it all taken away. Use Fowl Space as another example. It was 90% off during Christmas 2013. If it becomes abused in Summer 2015, will they backdate the abuse to December 2013? It might have been 90% off Summer 2013, or even Christmas 2012. Where does the line get drawn?

I lost 190 CV, and I understand why, but the timing of it is what I take issue with.

10 years ago
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The backdating corresponds to the first time the "abuse" was possible. Now that the '95% Rule' has become well-known, I don't think it will take so long for it to be noticed and added.

10 years ago
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well the problem is that SG Staff is lacking on manpower. It's like what? 5 total even a little active members managing half a million users community? Not to mention the fact that whole bundle system is managed by one single person. And they do it for free in their spare time, having actual jobs, real life, families and hobbies of their own. I can understand that they may miss something and then have to act retroactively.

10 years ago
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I get that as well, but what constitutes abuse? A game having 500 giveaways in a month? 800 giveaways in six months? 1,500 giveaways in two years? When is the line crossed? Why does it have to be abused at the first time it saw a major discount instead of, say, today? I'm just looking for clarity because the precedent that's being set can, in theory, make any game suspect. One guy is giving away 14 copies of Batman Arkham Origins. By what measure will they say this is fine, but 700 giveaways of a significantly cheaper game in six months is abuse?

10 years ago
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the measure is not a number of games but price. Anything with sale of 95% or more compared to US price may be abused and may end up on this list. See this. It had only 12 GAs, but got bundled anyway. Other thing is that it was givind 200$ CV for 1$ price.

10 years ago
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looking like a total dick.. check
ending on bunch of ppl BlackLists.. check
get yourself bad rep in community.. check
and I didn't even have to complain about losing tons of CV value to achieve this ;)

10 years ago
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Thanks bro, you made my day. :D

10 years ago
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  1. Do not give games away.

There, found an easier way.

10 years ago
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Genius!

10 years ago
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+100

Good job.

10 years ago
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<3 you zel.

10 years ago
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I lost $162 of CV, and I'm going to blame you. Blah blah blah!

Nah, I still love you. And you aren't to blame, $48 was Iron Sky base price dropping to $20, and I still only paid $4 a copy. As for SS, I spent $14 to make someone extremely happy. Its all good.

10 years ago
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I lost 60$ CV, but only 20$ due to Payday. I gave away 2x Iron Sky Invasion :>

10 years ago
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You made your statement in a way that if I slightly differ on your opinion would make me a douche. So, I guess is better if I don't say anything because I like solving puzzles, especially yours, and I don't want to be in anyone's blacklist. Have a nice day.

10 years ago
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Thanks for the guide , you come 2 years later.
The problem is bundling it 1-6+ moths later.
And if the rules was set for US prices to be fair with US users, then the site should have been ip banned for the rest of the world since the beginning.

10 years ago
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why should it be banned? Point system, then CV system well always set in US Dollars since the beggining. So by joining and being on this site you simply agree with US pricing system. Not to mention it would be impossible to implement anything else.

You don't like it? Don't let the door kick you on your way out.

10 years ago
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Holy crap, im not the only guy who came to this conclusion.

10 years ago
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holy crap, you finally leared how to read!

10 years ago
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Seriously, what is wrong with you?

10 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

10 years ago
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Enhanced Steam is a great add-on. It has a ton of nice little additions.

10 years ago
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Oh thanks for illumination I was curious why people asking that about(My CV didn't change btw),since they always telling the game was 90% and needed the be over 95% to be count as bundled. Never think of the russians as usual.

Thanks for another magic guide zel very helpful indeed.

10 years ago
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too much work, continue QQing :P

10 years ago
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QQ moar?

10 years ago
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yes, we need more QQ!

10 years ago
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quality > quantity. we need better not more. And since bigger = better...

QQ

10 years ago
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hahaha

10 years ago
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B-but muh CV ;_; like dis sistem totaly shuold cater 4 my needs fu** dem others i no care

10 years ago
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;(

10 years ago
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I heartily endorse this product and/or service.

10 years ago
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Abridged version: just don't QQ on the forums. It's annoying, it solves nothing and yours is not a special situation.

10 years ago
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what is CV, and why that should matter?

10 years ago
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obvious troll is obvious ;p

And idk why it matters so much for ppl but it seems to do as proven with all the QQ topics and posts today and many times before :>

10 years ago
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bump for solved !

10 years ago
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1) Learn to use photoshop

2) Set cv to desired amount

3) ???

4) Profit !

10 years ago
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there are easier ways to modify those values :P

10 years ago
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yeah, plus i dont have PS, i can pirate it ofc, oh, again everything comes to piracy, yarr...

10 years ago
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+1 nicely written and clear threat

10 years ago
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Wait, there's blacklists on this site?

10 years ago
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Yes. (only in private giveaways with mods' approval)

10 years ago
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not only in privates - it can be applied also to most of group GAs (well except big several thousand users ones like official SG group)

10 years ago
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ofc there is, you just can't use BL on public GAs and need mod approval before you use it.

10 years ago
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Closed 10 years ago by zelghadis.