Change to Joining Criteria

Reserved for future use.

I agree that it would be beneficial to at least modify the current system a bit. I also know people that would be interested in joining, and based on the current criteria, a lot of casual players are gatekept because most games on Steam do end up on the reduced/no CV list quite quickly.

Considering the low quality of a lot of games as of late, the only feasible way to reach the requirement these days is to go for some really expensive titles that are actually worth their price when they're on sale and knowing that they won't be bundled for a while (since otherwise you are basically wasting your money on games you know are going to be a lot cheaper very soon). This means that you're likely going to be locked into some specific genres or mainstream publishers. A lot of casual players will not be interested in that much extra work when their regular library will most likely never pass the conditions unless they go out of their way purchasing games they might otherwise not have.

It's sustainable, still very much bots come through. Really with a bit of effort it really isn't that hard, just stop giving free shit and get someone a humble choice, humble bundle, or fanatical, if you so much care for your brother, heck get something on a summer sale or let it do himself, problem solved.
Just unlikely new bundles put their games free so quickly, then you waited too long or try to pass free keys you still had.

Also if you are in the same household, write a ticket to support.

I don't think this would correct any plateau in users. Not with real users anyway.

I doubt that its that difficult to pass the requirements, I got onto the site with a bunch of games I got from Tremor. But making them any looser would make creating multiple accounts even easier.

What are the current join criteria?

I agree that bundled games not being considered at all is questionable, it wouldn't hurt too much if those games would contribute something drastically low, like 1% or even less of their value.
But it really shouldn't be a problem to reach $100 in unbundled games, so the rules mustn't necessarily change.

Edit: After checking the current sales I admit that reaching $100 might be a greater challenge than I expected, for younger people.
If someone would buy A Plague Tale: Innocence now, for example, they'd have 45% of the required value. But with some bad luck that might end up in a bundle before they can afford to get the remaining 55%.

i like current way, maybe we could even increase it to, let's say $500? :)
And if you spend $60 for a game, you should really like the game. If you do it just to get in here, it's just plain stupid

I have a friend that want to join the site since 1-2 months. She got games me and is a casual gamer. From her 15 games sky rocket up to 180 games but still not enough to enter the site (in that case because of 3,17$).
It is hard to reach the 100$ if you don't spend a lot of money at a new game that give full cv and if you are honest and don't try to exploit the calculating system.

Did it need a change ?
Maybe because the setting with all the freebies and reduced games increased.

Did it will make it better ?
I don't think so because the ones with bad intentions will find anyway the way (in)to the site.

If bots did not represent a cost, I would be in favor of free - without any restrictions - access. But logically and logistically speaking, it makes little sense to keep maintenance costs skyrocketing for a percentage of real and active users that is tiny. Reaching 3-4 million puppet users (we all have siblings, parents, cousins, with the same IP, right?) is an economically unsustainable model.
The current criteria are fine and should be retroactive ( if they are not already).

I've clearly been misunderstanding the joining criteria this whole time. I think a relatively simple change could help, if I correctly understand how SG determines the value of your steam account. If I understand what other users have said, if a game in your library has ever been bundled, SG values it at $0. This is regardless to when you purchased the game (e.g. before it became bundled, given away for free, etc). Proceeding with that understanding here is my suggestion:

The formula used to asses the value of your account could take into consideration the purchase date of your games and note whether you purchased a particular game prior to it being bundled somewhere. That game would only be devalued if you purchased it after it was included in a widely available bundle. For example, if you bought Game X on April 1st and it was bundled on April 15th, it would still count as full value for you. This is actually how I originally thought SG valued a steam account. It wouldn't completely solve your brother's issue given that he mostly buys from bundles, but would give a static goal.

All that being said, I have no idea how you would go about implementing something like this. Steam does share when you purchase a new game on your activity feed, but I don't know how accessible that info is to secondary sites like SG. Making bundled games simply count for less but still count for some amount of money would obviously be much easier to implement.

Preventing people from creating multiple steam accounts to scam this site is a legitimate goal for the site to have, but it does suck for people like your brother who are either casual gamers or new to gaming. I hope that he manages to join our community soon, however he manages it!

There is no perfect way, it might already be a good enough compromise.

It's $25 worth of 75% off titles you actually want, around 3-6 indies/smaller games, or $10 of 90% off games that you don't want( this makes it sound like a very low hurdle!). Not that hard if you really wanted to enter SG. Sure bundles have "the cheapest" price but they always contain games you don't want, so instead of the "I'll buy this bundle for the two games I want and the rest are 'free extras'!" mentality, go buy the few full CV games you want on sale and have its contribution towards SG's entry requirements be your 'free extras'. There are still many older big games that count as unbundled according to the GA creation list, for example, Skyrim, Doom 2016, Dishonored series, Far Cry series, Saints Row IV, etc. I'm sure everyone can find something on sale that interests them. Make a wishlist and check it all at once during sales would be my advice.

Why not gift your brother some games during the upcoming summer sales from various stores?

I had forgotten all about the join restriction. Speaking of which, does sg give credit for ownership of steam limited / learning status games? Because, it can't seem to detect them to exclude owned in giveaways.

I wouldn't mind at all if it was $100 of unbundled or say $500 of bundled (rating bundled at the standard CV percent). So that when they are bundled $100 of games become worth $15 (if I did the math right), and needing to reach a threshold of say $500 CV of bundled games. This would translate to (if I'm doing the math right) $3300 of bundled games, which is maybe too high. Maybe some sort of sliding mix of

X-unbundled + Y-bundled = $100 unbundled CV?

TLDR: I think bundled games can be included in the formula at a greatly-reduced rate, but am unsure of how low that rate ought to be.

+1, this criterion is ridiculous. I have a friend who only buys games in bundles, he's got like 1k games, and you guessed it, he still can't join.
It would really make sense to use the CV calculation, or maybe something different (like, even more reduced CV for bundled games - only not 0% like it is now). Maybe to compensate the threshold could be made higher (like $200 instead of $100).

I agree that the limited should be relaxed somewhat. Like suggested, using the current realCV calculator would be one way, or reducing the % for bundled even further. Not real harm in trialling it and monitoring, making tweaks until a good balance is found.

I agree. I have more than one friend who's gotten most of their games from bundles and can't find their way in, which sucks, because those are also the people who'd probably benefit most from a giveaway site. (One friend, for instance, would likely play a much wider variety of games if he could actually afford to.)

Judging from a quantity of complaints about multi-accounts and bots - joining threshold is actually too low.

It took me 5+ years before asking to join here : maybe adding a limitation on the account age would discourage bot owners...
Something like : $5 less for each year, so 5-years-old account can join with $75... and so on...
Bot or multi-account owners would still be able to join, but it would need planning years ahead, which is discouraging. And the threshold can be raised for the first 1 to 3 years without harming older accounts !
I think it may allow your brother to join, and can satisfies people wanting a higher joining threshold... a sort of mitigation.

I think that if someone wants to qualify they are able to. My secondary account for LAN play whatnot has 144 games in its library and is several years old, but doesn't qualify for SteamGifts, that's okay I think.

1. The people will complain the requirements are too strict.
2. The requirements will be relaxed to include bundled games.
3. People will complain there are more bots than ever on Steamgifts.

I feel bad for your brother and all, but since bots are currently an issue on Steamgifts, and it's proven difficult to fight them, I'd prefer the requirements remain as they are.