Not listed games should give 0 points instead
This has been suggested dozens of times already.
It would create too much of an unnecessary load on the site.
Not only that, you'd end up with a bunch of unnecessary support tickets: "Hay y u no gib me CV?"
There are key drop threads for dropping keys for free games.
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I couldn't find any other open suggestion like this, so I created one. I don't know about the load, but isn't it similar to creating GA threads? That could be the only real disadvantage, but I can't see it as significant. Now people can create tickets with "Why there is not my game??". As I said, if there would be warning, things would get much clearer right away.
Yes, but fastest people / possibly bots? get those.. Instead of random ppl.
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Can you imagine the number of GAs that would be created every time a game is given away in quantities of 500, 1000, 5000, or even 15,000 (there's a thread right now with two such free game giveaways in it)?
Everybody and their brother would be creating GAs for them if they weren't immediately removed from the GA list. There are plenty of them that get made in the few minutes before they get removed. Just keey an eye out -- people still try to make GAs with them despite the site's rules. When you see a particular game being spammed on your GA list, you'll know it's been free. ;)
It'd be 100x more spam if they were allowed to create GAs for them.
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As I wrote, people could filter those out.. Except for the possible unnecessary overwhelming I can't see any disadvantage.
The current state might be "damaging" to games being given in small numbers or under certain rules, like the Microids games - where you were not guaranteed to win the desired game and had to collect points first.. And now those are forever unavailable here?
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As I wrote, people could filter those out.. Except for the possible unnecessary overwhelming I can't see any disadvantage.
That doesn't change the load they would create on the server, nor the number of support tickets from people complaining they get no CV for a game. Then there's the forum posts that would be created complaining about not getting CV for them.
I addressed the first two items in my initial reply. Your suggestion to simply hide them from your GA list does nothing to alleviate any of the problems I've listed, which is why free games are removed from the GA list.
EDIT: They remove all games that have been given for free to be fair and avoid the latter two problems I listed.
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Sorry, but I can just give mirror arguments about current state (with tickets and posts, this sole is the example). You are just repeating what you said. Probably only devs know if the load would be significant. Before they make a statement, it's dubious.
And it does - once you can hide them, it wouldn't be a bothering spam for people like you.
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Like I also said in my first reply, this has all been addressed before in previous suggestion threads. I merely listed the reasons why they're not allowed. Server load and additional support tickets were the reasons given for not allowing them. Farming CV with hoarded keys was the reason given for not taking them back off the "free games" list once the free period has passed.
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CG, the site admin, has made statements about it being due to server load in the past.
Also: http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/vwJSW/suggestion-make-free-games-give-0-points-instead-of-being-uncreatable#iSW9Ej2
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If it's so, the only solution I see then is enabling after some time. That would also be helpful and acceptable deal. Like few months or even a year long disabling, but not forever.
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I saw that one, and I agree that "flood" situations should be minimized, so a temporary disabling is correct. But doesn't this optimization now basically allow many more GAs to happen with less impact on server load, thus actually weakening the argument.
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temporary disabling
I meant the game, not the feature
check how many giveaways for that game are being created instantly,
I did, around 0-10 for some of the last big IG give-outs. People heavily over exaggerate the amount.
not giving any CV at all would help reduce it,
It would, by a very big amount.
put a warning regarding it
exactly that would limit too
a lot of topics in the forums .. get rid easily of keys
way easier and less hassle than creating a giveaway for it, and then checking ...
why use SG at all then if it's such a hassle..
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complaining they get no CV for a game.
easy solution: have a note on the GA in the list simply stating: "game was free, gives no cv" problem solved ;-)
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... or they could just drop them in the key drop threads like they do now. ;)
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No, they wouldn't if it gave 0 CV.
People who would be creating those GAs in large quantities would most likely be the ones who just want to boos their CV. No CV, no appeal to them.
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OK as I've said above - these are reasons the mods have given in multiple other threads about this topic.
I'm not here to debate it, just passing along the information.
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Not to be rude but this gets suggested about once a week, if you'd bothered to do a search with a few varied keywords I'm sure you would have come across one variation or other of this in the results.
One reason things don't get implemented is that people keep suggesting the same things instead of keeping one thread per issue :P
though things on SG usually don't get implemented either way, so no worries :)
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So you don't just paste the key, you tell people what it is and ask them to contact you. Then you can make sure it goes to someone who wants it.
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There could be clear statement that this game won't give you any CV. Look that there are many ppl which dropping free keys around the forum
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If SG wrote in very big letters "You won't be getting any CV for this giveaway" that would reduce the support tickets as well as the number of giveaways.
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Please read the comments by support on this thread. Thanks :)
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I agree, but there should be a difference between games that have been given away MASSIVELY and are still being given away, like Woodle Tree Adventures or Overcast: Walden and the Werewolf and games that have only been free once or twice/in small numbers, like, idk, Deponia.
I think the second category should be accepted on the site.
An ability to hide all these games for people who don't want to see them should also do the trick :)
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They don't allow that due to people hoarding keys in hopes of being able to get CV for them later.
Using your example -- people would hoard Deponia keys waiting for it to be removed from the "free games" list so they can farm CV with them.
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I guess... but it could be made so that games that were once free don't add to CV. But it's probably too much trouble :P
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The 'other' gifting site has a way more relaxed approach, where once free (in limited quantities) games apparently get re-enabled after some months and those do not get spammed over there at all.
The "flooding" only happens while the promotion is running, but that also happens every time a new bundle from Humble gets released (and I don't see anybody worrying about server load in these cases).
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This site also has a LOT more users than that "other site." ;)
And yes, SG gets spammed every time a big bundle is given away. And those games are bought and paid for, and cannot be removed despite the extra load they create. Just look at all the optimizations CG has had to do to make the site run smoothly even now (along with hardware upgrades and purchases) without 0p free GAs being allowed. Before he did any of that, it would slow down or crash constantly.
I'm sure you remember those days ...
Then there's the extra support tickets ....
Like I said, I am just repeating what I was told in the other threads like this one. They're not my reasons. ;)
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Well and I'm also only saying those reasons have been disproven by empirical evidence. I can guarantee that there won't be a server crushing flood of GAs when a game gets silently re-enabled after 6-12 months.
And in general the load issues are due to the constantly increasing user amount. A few GAs more or less have a by far lower impact than people imagine them to.
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when a game gets silently re-enabled after 6-12 months.
Metro 2033 was silently re-enabled and disabled again shortly thereafter because people tried to farm CV with their hoarded "free" keys. ;)
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Do you have any data/links/threads about it? That game was free multiple times in huge amounts. I'm talking about those given out once with at most a few k .
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The Metro 2033 deal was mentioned on another one of these threads by Tempete. I don't have a link handy for it, I just remember him using that as an example.
Also -- how does one determine what "limited quantity" means? Let's say they set it to mean "500 copies or less."
Now -- what happens when lotsogg.com is giving away 500 copies today? OK cool. We're under the limit, right?
BUT what happens when giveaways4ever gives away another 500 copies tomorrow ...?
And then there's a facebook app for 1000 more later that same day ...?
And then a gleam.io giveaway the next for another 500 keys?
Now we're up to 2500 keys and who knows when and where those keys were received? :O
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The closest I could find is this, but it's not actually Tempete mentioning it but a normal user replying above him.
However, seems the re-activation of Metro actually wasn't an issue itself at all. Just the "bad luck" that a years (or so) later it went into another mass giveaway by Humble. (Which obviously can happen to any game at any time.
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It was definitely Tempete who mentioned it. I remember that much.
He mentioned tons of GAs being created for it the day it was re-enabled, a year after keys were given away.
EDIT: I'll ask him later when I see him online and try to get the link.
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I looked through the archive, tons of GAs were made the day it got free again.
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No offense to you, Tristar, but I am getting tons of unwanted notifications from other people commenting on my posts without bothering to read the rest of the thread.
I'm only repeating what I was told. So I'm pretty much done with this thread lmao.
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people would hoard games and wait 10 years to get cv, it doesn't take a detective to know that. it's basic human-greedy nature.
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You worry too much about cv. XCOM, Civ5 and also Metro were free and allowed. First two are actually still allowed and seems both, people being fine with that and no server overload to happen due to those.
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i worry too much about exploiters, yes.
besides, support already posted the best reason this won't ever work: reroll tickets.
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For "flood" situations yes. But I'm actually not arguing in the direction to make them happen.
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creators will reroll.
they won't be able to.
they will be angry.
they won't deliver the game.
giveaways won't be random.
winner will complain.
winner will send tickets.
support won't answer.
they will spam the forums.
so it's easier to leave things as they are now, and have people gift those games outside sg or in threads. :3
not even mentioning people don't read the rules, so they will expect cv for free or beta games.
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Why would people hoard keys if they don't get any CV for them?
If they do it just because they try to be nice and give people a chance later, I don't see that as a problem.
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Ask the people that hoarded Metro 2033 keys when it was removed from the GA list.
Ask the people that drop dozens of "free keys" on the key drop threads at one time.
Why do they hang onto those forever?
Also, you've completely neglected all of the other reasons given as to why this "feature" isn't implemented (including several comments by support), including support tickets, rerolls, site load, non-activations, multiple wins, etc to focus on one thing.
As I've stated several times in this thread -- these aren't my reasons -- they were all reasons given by support at one time or another on the dozen or more threads about this topic.
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Yeah, I guess that since SG is designed to suffer badly from flooding that would would be a problem.
So yeah, probably just one of those "make perfect sense" suggestions that won't be implemented.
(Not that it really matters. SG's "random trading game" is kind of shitty anyway. It's not like the site will get nicer if such suggestions are implemented.)
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Sorry for my harsh tone. I re-read what I wrote and it comes off a bit rude I think.
I only posted the first reply to this thread to pass along what I knew/read from other threads like this to the OP, and my notifications started blowing up right afterwards (to the point that I just had to ignore them). So, if I did come off as rude, my apologies. :)
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That was an unexpected and really nice reply. I salute you.
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Personally, I think all games should be allowed and can't find a reason to ban some. But indeed, if there was a time/copy limited or somehow restricted promo then those games are now completely unavailable even though it might have been in small numbers as you say. Those could even give some points, but that might be tought to implement, so at least allowing them with no reward should do the trick.
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"Make free games give 0 points instead of being uncreatable"
Your IQ is barely above one of a plant, isn't it?
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Hey, plants are the smartest things in the world. Don't count them out like that!
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I haven't said I want people to be able to create giveaways for free games, actually I said I disagree with this suggestion in my comment below. In my reply to you I was simply making fun of you for either not reading properly or for not being able to understand what you've read.
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It's a nice idea. Especially for people that bought a game and had it in their inventory, but then it became free at some point and now they don't know what to do with it. xD Maybe, to avoid the load in steamgifts, it could be done only for gifts, not keys.
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I could be some solution. But it would need some huge works on site and in the end I don't know if making something like this is even possible.
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Nobody's in a rush. xD They could make it in a year and yes, it is possible. Why do you think it isn't possible?
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I said I don't know if this is possible, because I don't know how programms or systems or whatevs of this site work. Or maybe it is possible but the site would have to be closed down for a while? Only admins know that.
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Maybe it would need to be closed for 1 day, as you said. It's not the first time that this happens. Well, 1 day without steamgifts isn't that scary. xD
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Unfortunately, I don't think that's a solution. People would just start listing them as gifts, but would add you and hand you the key, I think.
I agree there should be a way, I was one of the guys that suggested this same thing, but I agree with the support response they gave me: it would slow down the site way too much. SG is not a huge-company-backed site, but a professional private community that has to keep the costs down.
I agree with your idea, but a lot of people would find a way to exploit it, unfortunately leading to the same ending.
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Haven't thought of that. o.O Then yes, that's true. :/
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I have CIS deponia and I don't know what to do with that ;$
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How do you dare saying that you don't know what to do with Deponia? xD A lot of CIS people would love to play a game of Daedalic Entertainment. <3
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Yeah, I know, that's ab awesome game. But quite a few of my friends own it, others won't appreciate ;/
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They won't appreciate a Daedalic Entertainment masterpiece? :O I'll bring the tar, you'll bring the feathers. Let's hunt them! 3:)
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I bet this much more efficient and fun >;D
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You can drop keys on forum. Allowing creating GAs for free games woud mean a heck load of massive-spam-garbage on site and maybe could even slow site down at some point (I'm not an expert so correct me if I'm wrong).
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I did miss some free games that I'm interested in, I'm sure a lot of people do. So if people were able to create giveaways for them, that would indeed be good for us. Those who are not interested in those games, can just like with any game add them to their blacklist.
If free game giveaways wouldn't give CV and they wouldn't generate points for people that would be good. However they would still count as sent games, which would improve someone's win/sent ratio for free. And because of that, I will have to disagree with your suggestion.
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Yep, not to mention undelivered gifts when a giveaway site gives duplicated or invalid keys on accident (which happens way too often), support tickets for undelivered, unmarked, or un-activated win ... and the list goes on. ;)
I hadn't even considered that there would be people looking to farm their number of gifts sent. -_-
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Well, then they shouldn't be counted as sent or even dissapear from profile after a while.. Sorry, I'm not fully familiar with this site's features. But whatever would make them be creatable.. Also, bundled and $1 games improve that already, but you are probably right that they shouldn't count..
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When Lilly and Sasha went on sale and became super cheap last year, we've got approximately 750 reroll tickets from that game alone. Now picture the amount of games that end up in mass giveaways on sites like Orlygifts almost every day and multiply that number by 750 to get a rough approximation of the extra rerolls we're going to get if we allow giveaways for those. We've managed to keep the amount of open reroll tickets in single digits for the past few months. Let's not make it worse.
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Either multiple wins or winners already owning the game, having purchased it hours before the giveaway ended.
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OK, that doesn't seem nice. Maybe restricting the ticket creation for those games as well? But if it would be too much for the site in terms of entries & visits, I understand that (then again, it could be limited by time as someone pointed). Still, people are gonna find alternative ways of distribution if this site doesn't allow that, but right now the solution doesn't seem "complete".
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If we disallow ticket creation for those giveaways, how do we resolve the inevitable issue of multiple wins?
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We wouldn't? Or in other words, those games wouldn't be tracked by the "you can't give away the key you already won" thing if there is one. Therefore, people would just make a new GA.. Or post it to forum for ninjas to take. Or it would allow for immediate reroll without the need of review.. Just one click and confirm of the winner, and somebody else would get it..
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Allowing regifting on top of allowing free games giveaways is going to be a nail in the coffin for our server.
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Can't see why but k. Is the choice of a random winner such complicated process? Like I mean with the second suggestion. Or just don't allow tickets at all. If somebody obtains multiple keys on the forums, nobody will care.
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It's not just picking the winner. Every new giveaway comes with comments, pictures, user avatars, and the resulting page views and database queries. I'm not the expert, of course, and maybe the recent server improvements would make the difference negligible. So it would be up to cg to decide if he wants to rework the site rules to allow free games giveaways and/or regifting on top of that.
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In case of too much data, dissapearing after a while could help.
In case of too much server power, games could be banned only temporary.
But I don't know either. Would just like to see this so the site is more "open".
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mass giveaways on sites like Orlygifts
That site seems to be quite a special case and apparently gets handled inconsistently.
They give keys in ridiculous small doses of few dozens per hour, which however basically eliminates all dangers of creating a "flood" or "GA-spam" here.
It also is an enormous hassle of needing like 50 tries to get just 1 key from there (a time waste I don't consider even remotely worth the trouble and thus hardly counts as actually being "free" in my view). Still it seems to sometimes get the game removed from the list, but not immediately, instead in can take up to some weeks(!) for that to happen. Seems the issue isn't that bad with this site in particular, when it doesn't get noticed for so long?
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Sure, Orlygifts is just one example. There are other similar sites with promotional offers that are much easier to exploit to get multiple keys.
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Things like gleam where it takes just a few seconds to get keys are obvious, but I actually wanted to make a point of Orlygifts being rather a borderline case of being counted as free at all.
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I agree that orlygifts is a rather special case. But even seeing how difficult it is to obtain a key, we've seen several people creating multiple 5x-10x-copy giveaways for orlygifts games, so some are persistent and have a lot of free time on their hands :)
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That can just look that way as those games were bundled before, some just closely together in IndieGala bundles which give lots of copies due to HappyHour. One example is Among the Heavens, which got on orly just a week after being in IG's Friday Special Bundle #26 which was still running then.
I'm sure 90% of those GAs were bundle copies, especially those with multiple ones.
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If the giveaway creator (of 0 CV games) doesn't have anything to gain (CV or GA count) then I wouldn't exactly refer to this as "exploit".
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Lilly and Sasha reroll tickets.
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I daresay there won't be very many giveaways for free games if they don't give CV, and that fact is made clear by a special warning every time such a giveaway is created. Also, since someone's mentioned that people might want to use them to improve their sent/received ratio, free games can simply be counted separately. Voila! No motivation to exploit => no giveaway flood => no ticket flood.
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Also, since someone's mentioned that people might want to use them to improve their sent/received ratio, free games can simply be counted separately.
I wouldn't even mind if they don't get counted at all. Pure giving for the sake of giving. Does this sound so wrong? :-)
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It's been suggested before, but unfortunately that would slow down the site too much.
SG has had slowdown issues before and so many GAs would not help enough, that's the whole problem.
They would probably do this if they could afford it!
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Would it really?
I added it to the post.
But once they can afford it, this overly repeated and somehow vanishing idea is free to go! Right? :D
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Yeah, here it is!
As you can see I also suggested to make them completely worthless, not even showing in the GA count and such, but still I agree with what Joachim said me!
It's never so easy to balance the load of a site, I think, and probably they are constantly on the edge of the cliff, especially during Winter and Summer Steam sales. :(
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I'd like to see them as ungiviable for only so long. Sure, it's free now, so ban it, stop a flood of em. But in a year or so, You're back to having lots of people that missed that original deal, and lots of others who are getting the game via bundles and such. But thats just my 2c.
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I would wish for a safe and clean way to give away free keys. I don't think making GA out of it would be a good idea, but if it would have to be a whol enew area of the page, where you can enter those and I don't know maybe people can apply for a key and you as the owner can chose whom you give it to or something like that. (And if the key doesn't work, you can apply to another of those FGA (free give aways). I wish there was some sort of funvtion like this, but I totally see why nobody wants to put the effort into it programming it. :)
The problem of the keydrop-thread is that there are way too many ninja-scripts out there and you don't know whether your key went to a person actually wanting the game or just to someone automatically collecting it.
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Yep, exactly. It wouldn't have to be anything special, just disable those options. I'd guess minor changes.
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And how is that so different from simple making key drops on forum? And imagine that in 10 "GAs" like that for the same game someone wins for example 3 times. And there's no reroll option. Is that fair?
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The reason might be that I obtained the key somehow, maybe before it was free. And want to give it away. It is the same as reason to create a giveaway for every other game you got a spare key of.
But as I suggested, the reroll would be just instant. So admins wouldn't have to bother with it.
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Fastest/bot vs. random person. Inability to choose certain groups and so on.
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And than watch "site is scam, peops sux, fake ga :<<<" spam arise! :v
NO!!! Anarchy in the SG!!! (I got it, relax :P)
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Just drop them in the forums, there has been a couple of times the site got flooded by "free giveaways" or extremelly cheap giveaways, which caused alot of issues for users in the end. Like loading issues or stability issues.
Temporarly banning said items could be a way to cut down on the spam, once a game gets tagged free, it remains like that and gets locked away for, lets say 6 months. After that it will get unlocked and giveaways can be made for those previously locked items. Of course, these giveaways would count as nothing in the end. So people don't get any ideas from this.
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Boyo, allowing a free game back on the list after x amount of time would not help. Hoarding keys is extremely common and peeps would just wait it out for easy cv (especially if the game is not on the bundle list).
One question j do have for you is why do you want to make gibs for them in the first place? If you were to add all these supposed restrictions on these types of gibs, why would it be better to make a gib for it rather than dropping the keys on the forums? What are the supposed benefits of doing so?
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Isn't that accomplished with dropping a key on the forums though? The person who claims it will be random as well, where the only difference would be that the 'winner' was just lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time.
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Not really, cause your chances differ by how often you watch the topic. Somebody might be refreshing the page and getting keys, and others visiting once a day would get nothing at all.
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So use rafflecopter or randomorg or something after creating topic with "I have 5 copies of free game, you can sign in and get it for free if you hadn't picked up your own copy bc I grabbed few extra keys".
There is no reason to give ability to create GAs for free games which gives 0 CV, server load, tons of reroll tickets, people complaining "I have won 3 copies of this game where we had flood of it, now I can't do nothing about it, it'\s not my fault" and so on is not worth it.
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Server load is something many people talk about but no one knows since only cg can know and AFAIK he hasn't said anything definitive.
0 CV and not counted as sent => no motivation to exploit => no giveaway flood => no ticket flood. EDIT: Also, rerolls can be granted automatically.
People complaining = drama as usual, ignore.
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CG in one of the announcements showed server load. Site was terribly slow at some point, and load during peak hours was literally at 100% of server performance. After removing "last" page button from public section of GAs it dropped to around 20%.
So yeah, introducing anything that would add useless server load (seriously, GAs which doesn't count toward CV, wound't give feedback <that'd most probably require additional coding because if you mark GA as received creator will get +1 on their profile, there is no other way of handling it right now>, extra images, comments, reroll tickets, drama in the forum "I have won 2 copies of game when it was free, now I can't enter into SGtools GAs") is pointless.
Edit: I have found graph with server load before and after removing last page from public GAs and few other improvements.
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If the green portion on the graph refers to the new CPU load, that means there's plenty of capacity.
Giving away games for 0 CV is useless? And here I thought this website was about giving away games, not showing off your e-peen.
Also, coding new features isn't a problem (I'm a programmer, I can even volunteer if necessary), and the other comments you've simply repeated have already been addressed.
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Well then, I guess this site is useless. ;) Reason is that those games might no longer be free (I'm not talking about free forever - those shouldn't have keys available in the first place) and somebody wants to give it out just like any other game.
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I know this thread looks easy to maintain and search, but it really isn't. CV 0 giveaways would be a much better solution.
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Another benefit is avoiding bots and the hassle of encoding keys in order to avoid bots.
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Great idea!
Typical concerns raised by naysayers and my rebuttal:
- "Many additional giveaways will be created, spam!". This isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's great for people who want those games and missed the freebie. These are still games, and they are not less worthy than much of the bundle fodder that ends up in giveaways. I'd be happy to join such giveaways instead of signing up to Facebook to like someone's page or do some other meaningless task. Also, for those who only want to see games they care about, add them to you Steam wishlist and user the wishlist filter of SteamGifts.
- "More support tickets". Solution: (1) Make it clear during giveaway creation that this giveaway gives no CV and isn't counted in any way. (2) Prevent creation of any support tickets related to these giveaways.(3) Going around this and creating a ticket that doesn't fit the complaint should be treated the same way as any "fake ticket" (I'm sure it's a suspension-worthy offense around here). If a user ends up with multiple copies of the same 0 CV giveaway it should not be counted as a multiple win. SGTools already whitelists many types of exceptions, I'd be surprised if knsys isn't willing to whitelist those games. Regifting these games shouldn't be an issue either, because there can be no "evil" motive to do it (no CV gain, remember?)
- "Server load". People prefer to give games which help them level up. Since these don't, the load won't be so significant. If it is, it can always be disabled.
- "Key drop threads are available." Indeed they are, great for the ninjas and bots, bad for regular users. I created this thread to help find worthy users for ungiftable games, but it's difficult to maintain and use compared to the regular giveaway feed.
There's really nothing about games that were given for free (like Deponia and Euro Truck Simulator 2) that makes them any less attractive than 80% of the giveaways on this site. There should be a proper way to find these games worthy users.
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Finally a word of reason here, thank you.
As a way to reduce both spam/flood & tickets there could be an over-all limit of GAs per game of e.g. around 50/day.
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If free games are to be listed among the regular ones on users' profiles, we face an issue of checking for non-activations. The Ship may be considered free today, but it was not free some time ago. So every win before a certain date should be checked for non-activation, and should be ignored after a certain date. This means we'd need to create a second "free games" bundle list, rewrite every activation checking script to track the "free game" date and track this new list along with the regular one.
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I don't understand what you're saying. How is gifting free games related to non-activations?
A game is a game, a win is a win, an activation is an activation, no matter if the game has been given for free or not, no?
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But if we allow multiple wins for free games (which is being proposed, to reduce the burden on support for rerolls), then that runs against the " all won gifts must be activated on your steam account" rule
Say The Ship was given away for free on Jan 1st, 2016. That means that after Jan 1st it's alright for winners to win multiple copies. However, you still need to suspend people for multiwins of The Ship prior to 2016 because it wasn't free then. This just sounds like a pain in the butt.
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Alright, agreed. Allowing multiple wins and regifting sounds like a total pain in the butt in the first place. But thanks for explaining!
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The list of free-game giveaways that a user has won can be separate from the regular won list. That way, you just keep checking the regular won list like you did before. No extra work.
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enter free ga
win
don't activate it
keep entering
leech without limits
no support, no rerolls, no tickets, no cv, no ratio.
any volunteers willing to waste time policing this?
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"Many additional giveaways will be created, spam!". This isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's great for people who want those games and missed the freebie. These are still games, and they are not less worthy than much of the bundle fodder that ends up in giveaways.
Fair point.
"More support tickets".
Rebuttals
(1) There's already a popup when you first create a giveaway saying that You are giving away a Steam redeemable game. I bet support still has tickets asking if they can give Origin games, why haven't they gotten the game yet, etc. Support will just be spammed with "why is my CV 0"
(2)-(3) Even if cg codes it so that you can't generate free game reroll tickets, it doesn't prevent people from spamming "other" I bet since it's a free form category. I don't think support will want to suspend people for contacting them. It would put off users, and get people who genuinely don't know it's not allowed to make those tickets. Not everyone reads the forums.
Additionally, support might be inundated with tickets to ask to increase giveaway limits.
This also leads to more questions: What happens if I create a giveaway for a free game but I don't deliver? Would there be any punishment if I refuse to deliver to someone who has already won 10 copies of such a game? This would be punished by "fake giveaway" suspension but that would still lead to more support work...
Regifting these games shouldn't be an issue either, because there can be no "evil" motive to do it (no CV gain, remember?)
It would seriously confuse a new user to see why some games are allowed multiple wins and regifts, but others are not. There was a bundle list thread where cg stated that he wanted the rules for bundling (and site rules, it can be inferred) to be simple. Having at least a consistent set of rules (no multiple wins, no regifting) for all of the games is the least that can be done to ensure simplicity. Additionally, would non activation of those free games still count as a suspend-able offence?
"Server load"
Can't comment, but I think cg wants to implement more features like the ability to report giveaways (I remember I was sad when expected wins and the comment graphs were disabled). However, implementing this feature (if ever) would take some effort..maybe we have to wait for SGv3
Also, don't you think that grabbing multiple keys for free games is abusive? Some ToS of those websites ask you to redeem the key on your account (but they don't check, unlike SG).
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Is this picture actually showing up the first time someone creates a giveaway?
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Yes, and it blacks out the background so you have to pay attention to it. Of course, people will just click through and then get confused why they don't get the game once the giveaway ends.
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so true...
like everything on internet, people don't read.
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There is a common technique that is used when a user has to confirm something very important (like deleting a character in an MMO): instead of providing a Continue button that a lot of people will click automatically, you use a textbox where you have to type in "I agree" or whatever the text says to proceed. That forces you to read the text and takes the auto-clicking reflex out of the picture.
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I see your point about support tickets, but surely something could be done about this. Make the popup red and ominous looking with the word "warning" in it, for instance. Make sure the user had to confirm, perhaps even forcing them to fill in a blank for how much CV they'd get for the GA in which they'd need to type '0' to do it. Etc.
If this was done, I don't think there'd be an inundation. There'd be the same problems with people being confused and not reading site documentation that there are now. But I see no reason to think there'd be a large increase. In fact, it might reduce the number of confused people asking why they can't give certain games away. Possibly it would come out to a net gain. Under the new system you'd be told what was going on, under the current one there's no indication and you're apt to mistake it for a database error (as I did early on).
It would seriously confuse a new user to see why some games are allowed multiple wins and regifts, but others are not.
I don't see why it should confuse them any more than the current system. There are already three categories of game, this would just change how one of those categories is handled.
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Not everyone has a perfect grasp of English on this site.
Make sure the user had to confirm, perhaps even forcing them to fill in a blank for how much CV they'd get for the GA in which they'd need to type '0' to do it. Etc.
Then they would just complain that they were getting 0 CV, and ask why they are getting 0 CV. Also, it would probably piss people off if they actually bought the game with "real money".
In fact, it might reduce the number of confused people asking why they can't give certain games away. Under the new system you'd be told what was going on, under the current one there's no indication.
I think a better solution would be a list in Announcements of games that cannot be given away for free. This would solve a lot instead of grossly contorting the system to allow these giveaways.
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Well, this may just come down to a different assessment of likely behavior, but it seems that either under the new policy or the current one a person who doesn't understand what's going on is likely to make a support ticket (and also post in the forums) when they first try to give away a previously free game. There's no reason for them to make more than one under either system, and I think they usually don't.
The only real question is would the new system make them MORE LIKELY to make that one ticket. And I don't yet see how it would, especially if measures like those I describe were taken.
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I think a better solution would be a list in Announcements of games that cannot be given away for free. This would solve a lot instead of grossly contorting the system to allow these giveaways.
it would be good to make things clearer. I certainly agree with you there. Actually, I think I could make the core FAQ page clearer on some points pretty easily. (I'm a teacher, so perhaps that's just my vanity. But I actually think I could use simple diagrams and a condensed explanation to cut down on the confusion among new users at least partially.)
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Perhaps even forcing them to fill in a blank for how much CV they'd get for the GA in which they'd need to type '0' to do it
Great idea! Maybe in a parallel universe... :-)
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Also, don't you think that grabbing multiple keys for free games is abusive? Some ToS of those websites ask you to redeem the key on your account (but they don't check, unlike SG).
I have about a dozen keys for free games. Not because I grabbed more than one key when they were given away, but because I got the extra keys from bundle purchases after the respective giveaways.
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But on list of giveaways should be marked that this game was free and will not give any cv
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I think there's merit to this. There are games that have been given away free which are now worth something. They are not longer plentiful in the wild. Providing a way to give them away makes sense.
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It wouldn't work here, because it would create a lot of extra load to the servers and the site can barely support the current one.
What would be cool is if someone created a different website for that. :)
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I don't use the trading side of the site, so I am wondering if we can trade them with others for rep or any other trades?
If we can, in that case I would agree with others and say free games should not be implemented in the system because it would cause unnecessary workload for the website and a waste of resources. It would be nice if you could trade them though.
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Fake GA description now:
"Its not GA for AAA, there is some error on site that not allows me to create GA for (enter free game here)"
If gifting free games were possible for 0 points this would lokk like:
"Its not GA for AAA, there is some error on site that gives me 0 points for (enter free game here)"
Sorry to dissappoint you but this will not reduce ammount of fake GAs.
:)
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That second example is almost like giving no game at all. I meant it would reduce GAs created because users have the key for a game that is not listed. Therefore if they want to give it out on SG and possibly don't care at all about points, they might still consider listing it as something else.
But then again, it is not that much of a problem if users state it and create something preferably of the same cost. Because who of the participants would really care..
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Lets make reward for a bot, that takes new thread title and uses it to search of other such exists and suggest user not to create another one....
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That bot would find exactly one topic, including mine (considering it wouldn't alter the title). And this one at least gained some attention.. I thought that this issue would be amongst the top ones.
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I completely agree with the idea. IF not filtering those free games for people who wouldn't like to see them, we may as well have some separate giveaway tab with "previously-free" games, where all those games with 0 points as an entry fee and 0 CV would be located.
I have missed many freebies including Outland (apparently this is still in the giveaway list though...) and I'd love to be able to have a chance to win them... I might as well give some as well.
I also do know there are keydrops threads and such and everyone is free to drop keys wherever he/she wants but I still like the idea of being able to win games that were free in the past.
I am OK with that since it's just up to SG staff but I also still have no idea why some games that used to be free can still be given away even as for today and some that were free in just couple of copies aren't. That is even another reason that possibility to give games that used to be free would be nice.
PS. I still miss the feature where all bundle titles had asterisks (*) next to them while choosing a game to giveaway. Is there perhaps some addon or something that add it again? Perhaps SG+ addon or something? I used to have it but then after formatting my PC I somehow didn't install the plugin and I still have no plugin like this - I have no idea which one was the best one or one I used to have (which was very nice).
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I agree with the idea, if you can filter free games giveaways and if there's a clear warning that you won't get no CV for giving such games it shouldn't be a problem.
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It would be best IMO if we could create GA even for games that were once free and they would, for example, just give 0 points. Just like bundled games having "reduced price", these would have 100% price reduction. If there is a restriction, people will try to pass it. And it is still legit to give away a key for game that was once free, right? What else would you do with it? So I think those games should just have some warning that they don't give you points (as well as bundled games possibly having info about points reduced), and maybe add an ability to options to hide all these games for people afraid of being flooded.. That way, I can't see any disadvantage and it would help reducing fake giveaways. Once you have a spare key for a game that was once free, you could either trade it, sell it, give it away or let it collect dust. And apart from reasonable trading deals, giving away is indeed the best one.
THIS "IDEA" WAS APPARENTLY (AND RIGHTFULLY SO) SUGGESTED MANY TIMES BEFORE, SO I'M NOT HERE TO TAKE ANY CREDIT.
Edit: As somebody pointed, they shouldn't probably be counted towards "gifts send" to reduce the motivation further. Although bundled games are with their "not discounted" value AFAIK. Also, restricting ticket creation for "rerolls" or whatever could help.
The only real problem I encountered so far is the unnecessary load. But considering there would be no rewards = little to no motivation of milking the keys, every user would probably give a maximum of 1 spare key after some giveaway.
AT THE VERY LEAST, THESE BANS COULD BE TIME-LIMITED and after a few months, games would be listed again.
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