I think everything valve has been doing recently is stupid. when they say they are trying to protect people from scammers and having games locked 30 days for gifting, or not being able to cross region trade is dumb. I know its hurting valve in the long run cause people arnt buying games full price, they wait for a sale to come and then bulk up on games till the next sale. This means valve gets cut out on what goes on when the trading happens. They are not interested in helping people from scammers, they could care a less. they want your money and your money only from that region. not some americans that have buddies over in Russia or somewhere else that can pick up a game cheap and then make a profit off it. Thats what valve is concerned about they dont care who does what so long as you flip the bill for their games. If they would have wanted people to cut down on scammers they would have blatantly told you to be smarter in your trading practices. Idk if anyone else agrees with me but thats how i see whats been going on recently.
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:) thats awesome. It isnt for our own good and people know it. Its to put more money in their pocket. More like for Valves own good. :P
I have a feeling things are gonna get lots worse than they are (knock on wood) before things go back to normal. My friend had read somwhere that eventually they may faze out TF2 keys and TOD tickets and stuff of that sort because of all this trading just as they did dota 2 keys. If (and i mean a big IF)it goes that way things are gonna hit the fan and people are probably gonna lose it. NO keys or Things to trade = trading would be completely gone Maybe this is what valve is slowly making their way towards to end it all once and for all. If that happens though im sure Valve will be labled the next EA or companies along those lines. This is what i hate about DRM companies like this. they get so hot headed with the money they begin taking more from the people.
EDIT: please dont ask for a source. I will try to see if this is true but im not sure. just throwing it out there cause thats what they did for the Dota 2 keys as well
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Honestly? I'd be ok with no game-trading going on as long as they do something to make games cost based on that country's currency. Wish I knew how the new currencies affected or will affect the steam store prices for countries that have been selected so far.
An example would be Romania. The exchange rate is 1€ = 4.4. Give me games at a quarter (ridiculous right?) or at least half the price and I'd be ok with it. As it stands I can't afford crappy AAA titles that are simply bad, broken, not worth the price, have no demos and are not verified AT ALL by Valve before put on sale but cost 59.99€ at launch and come with a 29.99€ season pass that's 'optional'. Optional? It's like going to the cinema and watching the movie with a quarter of the mid-movie scenes removed unless you pay 50% more for the entry.
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i know. the only way i can see trading or even the currency issue solved partially is restricting buying, gifting or trading to either none at all, or within your own country, I know that different currencies have different values so thats the part valve's losing money on. when a person buys a game in lets say country A and its more expensive in country B then that person in country B is gonna want in on that part of the deal over in country A. In the end it comes down to what is fair and whats not. and i guess people are gonna have to realize that they gotta live with some of their crappy AAA titles that are coming out badly with no demo. On situations like that i wait a few months for a game to come on sale to where i can afford it and by that time id know if its ok or not because people have posted their views on it. NEVER AGAIN WILL I BUY ON THE DAY OF THE RELEASE. too many potential what if's
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Do you know that if sony read your post....
In next year we'll have to pay the dlc scene when we go to the cinema ? edit pl0z :C
Btw dlc\season pass is our fault, when we buy them we say "Ok, you are free to take our money 2 times for 1 game ;D !"
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Completely agree with this: "They are not interested in helping people from scammers, they could care a less."
In fact I'm wondering about this, from what I understand, I can still gift the game? So instead of trading for a game, I have to gift people a game, and they have to gift me a game instead. This means that if one of us is a scammer, its impossible to get the trade reversed as it was gifted not traded.
Honestly it seems like steam is making it easier for scammers, and easier for themselves because it means less reversing of trades for them, while worse for actual users.
Then again, the only reason I like steam is the prices, I hate the client, and I'm not a huge fan of the company so I could be pretty bias here.
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exactly. i think someone at valve was having a Happy hour decision and decided to take it out on us
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it all comes down to whos good at telling a scammer from a good trader at that point. you have to be willing to accept a loss from time to time because the world is full of Leaching A**holes and thieves. sometimes you get good trades and sometimes you get bad. I learned that lesson after ive had people lie or run off with games. Its the risk. And who can cover their butt most when it comes down to risky trades.
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Because simple trading that was necessary to actually afford games before was turned into a gamble with the flick of a switch? Valve doesn't realize or doesn't care that I DO NOT CARE if the traders make a proffit as long as I can actually afford games through trading. Also. Does Jamaica have the same pricing rules as Brazil? Cause if that 's the case I could understand why you can't see the issue here.
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I don't believe its possible to say a business does something which is a "privilege". Part of Steams business is due to the service they offer, which includes selling games, having a market, and TRADING. This is not a privilege but part of Steams business model. For example removing trading means removing a part of the service that they offer which affects the customers they have.
I think its important to critique practices of businesses which isn't in the best interest of the customers. For example, expensive crappy DLC's is a service, micro transactions are a service, always online is part of a service, which are all legal, and all for making money. Yet they are all typically used for dogging out their customers, and I believe this policy change is the same thing.
As a business can they legally do it? Yes, should they? No.
Also
"are you alright with how people are running shady deals all the time right in your casino lobby"
Note that people are doing even MORE shady deals in the "Steam casino" the only difference now is Steam doesn't have to care if you get screwed over by it.
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Because there was a safe way to do it. Now, Valve are making changes that benefit scammers and penalise traders. With the change to the trade wait, a lot of trades will be unsafe unless you have a trusted trader. The good raders get banned because of trading, while scammers aren't because they don't trade.
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Which is totally wrong. It basically rewards the scammer, and hurts the trader.like come on there's something really messed up there. now all these good people who are good traders have to worry about bans and suspensions on their accounts and who knows what would show up on steam rep after all this while the scammer just walks away clean. its just not right
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the trade system as it was, made it convenient scammers, traders, and gullible traders.
scammer using stolen cc info, buy gifts, trade for keys. cycle those keys between accounts and then convert it into paypal. Scammer gets cold hard cash. CC holder filed a complaint. games get revoked, buyer complained to valve, demand everything traded in the trade windows be returned. Valve have to oblige. Buyer suffer no loss. CC holder suffer no loss. Game developer suffer no loss. Guess who's the one left holding the sack of sh*t.
i look at the 30-days-tradewindow to combat the stolen cc abuse if nothing else. yes people pointed out that people can revoke payment way after 30 days, but if they do it with their own cc info, that means they'll get their account flagged for not honoring payments. For people with dummy steam accounts and stolen cc info though, i doubt it will get revoked 30 days after.
The region-trading sudden lock admittedly is a sneaky move, valve shoulda made some kind of an announcement. if not an announcement to alert the casuals steam geeks of possibility to circumvent regional pricings, then at least do an updated tos, which they didnt.
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Given that any transaction made within the trade window can be (and frequently were) reversed/unpicked by Valve in the case of a dispute, offering buyers a degree of protection, I hardly think that forcing trades outside of the safe format of two-sided transactions within the trade window has made things "safer" in any way, shape or form.
It allows Valve to wash their hands of any disputes, and frees them from any obligation to do anything about them.
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it allows valve to stop themselves from eating the loss.
the safety net allows buyers to be reckless, trading with complete abandon with anyone as long as it is in trade windows. people never stop to think for a second that by the time that happens the scammer have already made the profit. and in a world of zero sum, there can be no profit without another party suffer a loss.
it doesnt take a genious to know who suffer the loss everytime a revoke happened.
no matter how profitable valve is, to let yourselves bleed like that is never a good business decision. left unchecked, when it grows to exponential scale, it could hurt a company's future.
people say that it will make scammers more rampant. on the contrary, scammers will be made harder to make a sale. before, with safety net, you can easily find any buyers to trade with and then cycle those keys into cash. now, people will think a bit more before "trading" with scammers. they must do their due dilligence. people who don't, well they deserve to get some experience in life.
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Apologies but I am having trouble understanding what you mean exactly. I didn't say Steam was at fault, but the things that they are doing is helping facilitate as opposed to stop scammers. What I'm trying to say is Steam had a policy which slightly helped protect users who traded, by reversing trades of scammers.
They then changed the policy, to make it easier for scammers and easier for themselves at the cost of the safety of their customers by essentially making most people have to gift for gift, as opposed to the safety of trading. Or else wait 30 days which is huge, and likely means any sale is probably gone by this time.
Was it within their right to do so? Yes. Is it a gamble when you go to trade something? Yes. Did Steam slightly screw over their customers for themselves? I would also say Yes.
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Yeah, I used to buy games from Russians because I live in Serbia and salary here is 42 000 RSD or that is around 350 euros on average, people simply don't have money to pay for games on Europe prices, we are poor country but yet they expect us to pay like every other Europe country just because we are geographically in Eu..
Idk, it will be really hard to buy game, I guess I will need to wait 80% off to buy game if I can't trade with other region for cheaper game..
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I always wait until the AAA games (regardless of how good they are) are like 10% or less of their release price regardless of how long it takes. I have such a backlog of games it doesn't matter to me when I play it. Winter sale comes around every year. And lets face it; almost every game will end up in a bundle eventually.
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Well if they want to people continue to buy games, without trading with other regions, then those countries needs to get their region and their currency, and just region lock games from our region, even now those poor countries have big problem with piracy, luckily there is also a lot of us who continue to find ways and money to buy legit games and not pirate them, and because I'm against pirating I won't be able to play many new games...
Valve needs to help us, support for local currency is needed, not just for Serbia (I used Serbia as example because I'm from Serbia) there is a lot other countries that are poor but when it comes to steam pricing we are in expensive region.
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when games on steam in your region are expensive than all games are expensive anyway
its not valves fault and valve cant do anything about cause they have to pay the vat when give you the game
and when you buy it in russia or whereever and dont pay the vat than valve lose moeny cause they have to pay it for you
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When Valve adds new region and local currency then they and publishers adjust price for that region, it usually starts to be cheaper, look at php, sea region, they got support and now they have cheaper games, not russia cheap but better than before, that is what I'm hoping that Valve will do for my country one day.
This is their way of countering piracy and it is good way, offer fair price and people will buy game and as soon as they do this for more countries more people will be able to buy games.
They can't expect to sell game for 60$ in country where people live from 350$, they can do that where people live from 1000$, when people can't buy or trade for game then they pirate it, I'm against pirating so I won't play it , I will wait 80% off to buy it, but I'm minority, majority of people will pirate it and that is not good, not good for anyone in gaming industry..
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"valve lose moeny cause they have to pay it for you"... wtf you are talking about? vat is % based. If the game cost 50€ and vat is 20%, thats 10€ vat, you have to pay 60€ (50+10), but if the price is 10€ the vat is 2€ and not 10€, so valve have to pay NOTHING for YOU. The region price currently applied now are just ridiculous, europe is not one country and life standards are very diferent.
"sounds maby a bit hard but its not valve´s fault when your country has bad economy" I really don't understand your point. Russia also have "bad economy", but valve have different pricing for russia. I think you just dont know how the vat is applied.
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let's all just give power of attorney to Gaben and get it over with :)
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Ooook then.
I'm translating for Steam. Woke up this morning to see new strings to translate and they're all pointing to new rules regarding trading. I'm seeing strings like:
You must have a Steam purchase that is between %1$s days and a year old with no recent chargebacks or payment disputes. Steam Support cannot remove this restriction.
Your account has been banned from trading. To see when this trade ban expires, please click the red bar shown in the upper right hand corner while logged into the Steam client.
You have recently refunded a transaction into your Steam Wallet. You will be unable to use The Market for %1$s days after your most recent self refund.
Trade ban length can range from temporary to permanent. To see when this trade ban expires, please click the red bar shown in the upper right hand corner while logged into the Steam client.
I'm sort of glad they're adding new rules to improve the new system. Don't get me wrong. This effectivelly kills trading and I hate it. I actually hate Valve for multiple reasons and they're all from the past 2 months.
The new CS:GO Operation and the way it works. I mean ok, buy the pass, but then buy basically another 2 passes? Really?
Then you have your CS:GO Dreamhack. Which went from being able to get cool or just usefull stickers from capsules based on luck to buying each individual sticker or a 3.99 capsule that wasn't that much based on luck but on the money you could spend.
And now the infamous trading. I trade for my games. Valve considers I get paid in euros and have the same salary as everyone in the EU. I've seen euros in hand so few times that I can't even remember the colors they use. If I were to buy only from Steam I'd get a game every 2-3 months and I'm not kidding. WHat I don't understand is, why don't they just stop trading of games all together. I hate half measures. Either jump in with both feet or don't do it at all. Testing the water is lame and unproductive.
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