They haven't removed it as far as I know. Just stopped people sending gifts to places that the game is banned or where the price is real cheap.
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won't happen unless people stop buying games from steam, and people won't stop :)
Just remember that companies listen to customers when they talk with their wallet not silly petitions or valve no this is bad for us (but good for valve)
rip g2a gifts x)
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I mean, they listened to the backlash when they tried to introduce paid mods. We just have to make enough noise for them to notice
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People talked with their wallet there, nobody paid for the mods, and backlash, steam needed to go back.. in this case people will still buy games, maybe no more stacking, but overall steam will make more money if you think about it
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paid mods was an experiment, one that IS coming back when valve reworks it. THIS on the other hand, was part of a long term strategy. They are not backing down. Theyve been very clever by making incremental changes, and where necessary, adding far lesser alternatives to mitigate some of the damage by retaining lower levels of functionality (ie, you can still gift, just not hold items in your inventory) so that people cant complain that theres no alternatives or that something has been COMPLETELY lost.
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Valve will notice a decrease in sales because people will no longer be buying multiple copies of games to store in their inventory for a rainy day.
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Count the copies of g2a that steam loses everyday :p, if you buy 10x 5$ game (that goes for 10$) and then sell on g2a or trade it do you know how much money steam wins? 0 (that 5$x10)
If there's no more 5$, people will have to buy it on steam.. this is just the beggining.. next there will be keys restriction.. only then something can happen, until then its still profitable to steam, only traders/gifters/g2a got fucked :b
Myself don't like the idea but i know they'll not make anything to make up for it
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Valve still gets their cut from 5$ when you buy that gift from steam in first place. However, Valve gets 0 from steam keys' sales and keys can be generated in unlimited amounts without any fees. If I want to have a copy of game to trade or giveaway it later, I will be forced to buy key instead of gift. Considering amount of resellers and bundle sites, I'm doubt there will be much profit for Valve from that idea, if not loss.
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Exacly, but steam will get a bigger cut if the costumer doesn't buy on sale, so instead of 5$ they'll get 10$.. And yep keys will be next probably, it will take some $ to devs to generate keys.. so bundles will increase.. and you go to for example humble bundle buying the key/gift but nearly 1-5% of steam users will or do that (unfortunaly)
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You're misunderstanding your own scenario. A $10 game goes on sale for $5, so I decide to buy 10 copies and store them in my inventory. Valve is making $50 from those purchases, as opposed to now, when I could only buy 1 copy for myself and valve gets $5. Even if I resell those copies elsewhere, valve still made $50 off of me and I'm doing the work to sell them somewhere else. Plenty of people buy extra copies of games and store them in their inventory and never end up sending them or using them, which is more money for valve.
The inventory has another advantage to valve, because with the inventory system, it is possible for the copies of a game to exceed the number of steam accounts. So as an example, pretend everybody on steam decides to buy Half Life 2.
In the New inventory system - Valve has made the maximum amount that can be made off of Half Life 2, because nobody can buy another copy for their account, and nobody can buy a copy for somebody else because you cannot gift a game to an account that already has that game.
In the Old gift system - Valve can continue to make money on Half Life 2 because people can still buy additional copies, even though they can not immediately activate or send them to anyone else on steam.
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Yes valve makes 50$, but valve makes more if people pay 10$ instead.. If nobody can sell for 5$ a game you will have to buy it full price if you can't find people to trade with, its just theory in general, steam wins money..
Let me try an example using candy:
I sell candy at 1$, one day (i have many candy on the stock) so I sold them at 0.5$ .. you buy me 100 of them I win, and then you re-sell it at 0.75$ for example, well in theory you will be competition to me, because the following days i'll be selling at 1$, and i'll have competition, that bought my own product? What I can do to control it? Maybe put a expire date of 1 day, so if you buy them at 0.5$ you'll need to sell at 0.5 while myself im selling at that price.. when I go back at selling at 1$ I will not have any type of competition, I will not have people selling lower than myself, got my idea?
Don't want to sound like a douche, really, im just trying to be honest, and valve is controlling is own market, I mean I would be pissed if people buy me candy for 0.5$ and then sold them cheaper than me and win money because of me.. did I won money? Yes, but i could won more, this is the head of a company, it's not how much you win but controlling the market..
Maybe off topic, but let me tell you briefly the strategy of "Fnac" - A French company that sells books, technology etc
When they came to Portugal, nobody knew them, so nobody would buy at them.. Until they lower the prices at the point they are barely making profit, did they won money? Barely or next to 0.. But what happened? All Small business closed due to the competition, people would only buy it at the lower price of Fnac.. A few years after in Portugal, Fnac is probably the most expensive store, and yet probably control the majority of the market.. I know this isn't much related to the topic but you can understand that steam/valve wants to control their own market, controlling it they can set up their own price, and nobody can't do anything about it (Keys are the alternative - but I will not give them too much time)
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All under the assumption that people who used to buy games for $5 are now going to pay them $10, rather than paying $10 or maybe $8 to someone else...
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If they pay 10/8$ to someone else, that someone else will have to buy it on steam, unless there's keys for it, and like I said, I predict that keys will be next on the agenda
Even then I don't see people doing it, like I said the majority of the people this doesn't really affect, considering that all the people will make that, it won't cut too much profit of steam.. If you want to buy Slime Rancher you just go and buy it, or go to g2a to find it cheaper, ask for a person to buy you the game while you pay him with other non-pratical way, it's way too much work for most people, for buying at the same price.. I get that people will look for a reseller/trader when it comes to a good discount, but if the discount is minimal and the amount of work you have to do surpasses the discount, people won't make that trouble..
Atleast its my opinion, I can be wrong and you can be right, only the future will tell :) My thought was based on basic economics of Supply/Demand, while demand stay the same-ish (less the mass buyers), supply will be only on steam..
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No. When I say someone else, I mean other retailers(Humble, GoG, Origin, Bundle Stars, OnePlay, etc.), not individuals. You are saying the sale on steam goes down to $5, I'm saying that when steam is selling it for $10, other sites may sell it for $8, so people who were trading for it will still price-hunt and look for cheaper alternatives.
Regarding the keys thing I hope they don't, but that looks like their final agenda, further squash what little competition is left. And if Steam further locks in on the monopoly people are hopefully going to move to DRM-free and they should have considerable legal trouble from the anti-monopoly laws.
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Like store retails? Long time no see those in my region :/ In my city, that's the 2nd biggest city in my country the shelves have only FM/Fifa/COD, If you're talking about others like HB, that could work, atleast at the moment.. still steam will control the majority of the market, 3rd Party re-sellers (g2a,kinguin) and traders are out of the game when it comes to steam gifts, so that's a win for valve I think :/
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Digital ones mostly, in any case a win for Valve is simply a loss for everyone else, we need more competition, not less.
Right now their market share means they can do whatever they want and devs and users will just have to take it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This, to me, is just an excuse to move to GoG.
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Exacly, I agree with you, I was just saying that this is a good move for valve, but pretty bad for us.. GoG's been growing at a decent pace, and offering games if you have them on steam too, probably will join someday :b
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When they removed FLASH SALES, did they say lower sales? No. They have the data, they can forecast it already.
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Nice, a change.org petition about that BAD movement , but people be serious in your comments here please -.-
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A petition like this must be written with proper grammar and talk about cross-region trading as well as gifting in order to gain popularity and for Valve to treat it seriously.
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+1, grammar nazi would have had a stroke.
But on topic, yeah, Valve needs to either revert the system or at least be transparent about their changes.
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Yeah, why is it people with the worst English skills are always the ones who write the petitions?
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Trading likely counts for such a small amount of steam revenue that the drop from it will probably be balanced out in the reduction of steam support from scams/etc.
Steam has a pretty good handle on financial matters so I expect they have weighed the pros and cons for some time.
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I've had nothing but problems every time I've ever had to use that system. I've had three occasions of people giving me things they wanted to play with them that it just said I accepted it, lagged out, and didn't give me the gift. Same happened to two of my friends when I sent them ones.
The new system sucks for what we do on here, but for general steam users, it's honestly just good news. We'll still be able to get keys from the usual places. I'd assume games that come with a free copy of another game that would normally be gifted will just disappear if you have it, or maybe they'll realize that giving a key would work better in general.
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a petition doesnt bring the gift system back
it would be maybe possible if a lot of person would boycot Steam until they bring back the gift system back
that means to dont do steamstore purchases, steam wallet cards purchases or filling steam wallet
also during Summer Sale, when a lot of people will avoid steam purchases for 3 months or so, than they will bring gift system back
because no money hurts
but this is not really possible because you will not find all those users that would do that boycott
actually are mostly the europeans the victims, like last week where Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands was on sale
normal price 60€, german sale price 48€, i bought it region free for 37€ from a on demand steamtrades trader
people in cheap regions doesnt care mostly about this, because they arent buying the expensive ones from outside, they are already cheap
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Has anyone ever heard of a Change.org petition actually working? If so, I'd love to see it.
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From the top of my head, the Mass effect 3 ending one, and Obama going to Bill Maher's show, though they could have been tangentially responsible, in any case you have google, might as well give it a shot.
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It's 2017 and people still think, that petition on change.org can make a difference.
And 500 supporters? That's nearly nothing.
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It's a good choice, limit scam on Steam
Thank Valve :)
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how would it be a limit scam?
before they traded in one trade window game against csgo/tf2 keys, when game get revoked, you are getting your keys back
now it will be more scams, they will be more cdkey trades where you have to pay first
and others who say they will buy on demand can scam too, they say give me cash and i sent you game via email
nothing changed, they will be more scams than before
sry for saying that, but people who think that this step is against scammer is a stupid child
its just that for more profit for valve
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Limit scam you say? you said f... the traders with that basically. They just keep and keep giving everything to the developers, and this will end with like NO ONE buying the game in that platform.
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As much as I agree with the sentiments and I won't sign this because:
a) Fix your fucking grammar. And I'm not trying to be a grammar nazi or a hardness on non-native English speakers here. Hell, not even trying to make it worthy of your High School English teacher's approval; I don't give a shit that much on forums and the like, but if you are trying to make any kind of serious attempt to sway a major company like Valve at least fix the basics and try to come off as semi-professional.
b) Even if (a) is fixed, I doubt it will work unless less people are willing to go elsewhere, they'll keep raking in the money and just ignore it.
To the point in (b), I think you would have much more success if you created a poll here and tried to convince/beg/bribe cg into officially supporting GOG giveaways here or opening a sister site (something for which I would lend my vote and even be willing to donate to cg for and/or assist with coding)
Edit: grammar fixes. See: I'm not above following my own advice ;-)
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Is it even fixable (editable) without replacing it altogether? I have never made change.org petition.
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No clue. But there is usually the delete it and start over method if all else fails. If it were me, I would risk the hit on votes just to be taken seriously if nothing else.
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Good god. I will edit this for you, give me a minute.
Okay, here you go:
"On May 4, 2017, Valve made changes to the gifting system on Steam.
- Users are no longer allowed to gift games via email addresses.
- Gifts are no longer able to be stored in user inventories for later gifting.
- If a recipient of a gift declines it, the buyer will be automatically refunded.
(Announcement url : Click)
We want Valve to bring back the previous, superior gifting system. Valve claims these changes were to "make it easier to share the games you love," but sending by email was the easiest way to gift.
It is suspected that this move was made by Valve to combat 3rd party game stores (like G2A.com), but it also hurts recreational traders. Traders are not criminals.
By removing the ability to store gifts in inventories, all Steam users are being punished for the actions of a few.
Sometimes, the recipient declines a gift accidentally. In these cases, it should be up to the buyer to refund or not.
This is a reprehensible move by a company we have patronized faithfully. Valve, please return to the previous gifting system."
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I'm not going to take too many liberties with OP's content, simply making it readable.
Also, I think you misunderstand the term "Engrish."
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Sometimes, the recipient declines a gift accidentally.
More than that, a fair amount of the time it bugs out and it has to be resent.
('cause, y'know- Steam does so love being quirky.)
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Steam is still unique in that it even has marketplace that let traders operate in at all. Sadly that comes with the drawback of inevitable loss of features when they either can't handle the abuses, or it financially becomes self-sabotaging. As much as I liked the ability to grab gifts to offer up later on, that is only really useful in the context of trade. The trade economy we're used to was a happy side-effect that was allowed to exist because it was mutually beneficial, but I would understand why a company would dial it back. When dealing with a platform as huge in scope as steam is, dealing with abuses and loopholes would be a management nightmare.
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if people don't/can't/won't/wouldn't boycott, anyting they want will never happen.
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https://www.change.org/p/valve-corporation-valve-please-bring-back-previous-gift-system-on-steam
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