i have only read to the Point "I starter to Wonder if and why I should be part of one of those groups"
the answer is: "no!!!!!!!!!" because as you mentioned you have no benefits from that. only the Group-founder will benefit from this because a common rule is "who is new have to give some games"....the Group-creator hasn´t to do this...
Comment has been collapsed.
" I will ask a friend to do it and give him back the money so they can create private giveaway just for me. I will get a game I want, he will increase his CV. Everybody wins."
except if a giveaway only has one entry, you get no CV.
I still have no idea what this thread is about, though.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, I have acctualy put a warning at the beggining ... but if someone will read this, then I hope that "make public seprate from groups" is not the only thing that they will take out of my topic. Althoug I think I didn't make myself clear again. Oh well ...
Comment has been collapsed.
I love this response. It should be required reading for all new SG members.
Comment has been collapsed.
About gaining CVs by a group contributor, yes, that sounds not fair. Also your whole idea has potentials, i liked it.
Comment has been collapsed.
and now for the best idea, get rid of CV completely!
also it's trivial, but group and private giveaways came before CV, not the other way around, (if you were actually trying to order them chronologically and not just introduce the three ideas into your post (in any arbitrary manner))
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, that's my point. Word "leachers" suggest that when You give away You expect something in return ... and that's against the policy ... i think. What I ment by my so very long topic is to bring back the giving away spirit not just trading with randomizer in background.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, and I get that. I hope I made it clear that the whole CV idea is good thing. It should be up to Giver to whom he is giving away their games. As long as it servers its purpose. I feel like more often than not this is abused by groups rules. I made examples in other comments and topic itself.
Comment has been collapsed.
My suggestion of splitting CV comes from realizations that this site turns into into giveaway industry. How is groups with 1:1 ratio different from making a group and just trading games?
The way I see it, getting back to basics might bring back the spirit of just giving away. So yeah, I'm all for that too.
Comment has been collapsed.
I dont really like Christmas. Separate CV though it might be a good idea, but its another "complication" in the already "complicated" CV thing and some people here cant figure it out.
Comment has been collapsed.
To summarize, you want CV to mean only users that have given you the opportunity to win $x worth of games are allowed to enter? For example, I create a $10 public giveaway, a $15 giveaway for Group B, and a $30 giveaway for Group C. You're only in Group B. Therefore, I've given you the chance to win the $10 public giveaway, and $15 group giveaway, so I can enter your CV giveaways up to $25 CV. Since you didn't have the opportunity to enter the $30 Group C giveaway, it's discarded when calculating the CV between the two of us. Is this right?
How does this work for private giveaways? With groups, as you said, there's a list of members. For private giveaways, that doesn't exist. You could base it on users that enter the private giveaway, but then in one case you're counting users with access to the giveaway, and the other, only users that have entered the giveaway.
How does this work for prior public giveaways? If I've given away $1,000 worth of public giveaways, and someone registers tomorrow, do I have $1,000 CV, or $0 CV according to them? If you say I have $1,000 CV, then why do I receive CV for public giveaways they couldn't enter, but no CV for group giveaways they couldn't enter?
If someone decides to give away $1,000 in private giveaways, and groups I don't belong to, how can I give back to them for taking part in the community? Since I'm not a part of those groups, they'd have $0 CV, meaning I'm unable to target them.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's exactly what I had in mind in my suggestion.
You made excelent points here. I didn't think about those much but I do know that there is no perfect system. I gave suggestion to battle specific problem I noticed here. It is only to be expected that it will create another issue elsewhere, especial when implemented to living organizm.
But hey, lets have some fun :) I will try to address those issues. Lets say in all those examples I start with 0 CV.
There is no win here. The way I see it it would have to be based on "if You can enter it should count for You" ... it means that If I create private giveaway for $10 CV I'll have $10 CV only between me and those who entered. On the other hand, if I create giveaway for my group for $15 CV, I will have $15 CV between me and all members of that group from the moment my giveaway lasted. This might be tricky one and I will address this in Your second issue since its related.
Since I already stated in first issue that You have contributed only for those who could actually enter in this case You would have $0 according to new arrivals. This would be similar when new guys joins Your group.
Yeah, that's a tricky one. Even though its related to previous issues. According to my said statement You would not able to target those guys.
My suggestion is not perfect it is designed to battle, what I call "giveaway industry". Lets just assume that this way of doing things went live and lets assume we start from scratch. Just for sake of argument.
If You would like to have CV You would be forced ... well, thats not good word ... You would have to consider to contributing to whole community, not only to selected ones. I don't say that contrubuting to only selected group of ppl is a bad thing but one should realize that it comes with it's drawbacks. Its like in real world, when I made an invention that can be utilized by boys only then I can expect any thanks from girls (well ... theoreticly, subsequently my boys invention could affect girl's way of life one way or another so girls might want to thank me anyway, but thats different story).
Here is another example. I have $109.94 CV. I could easly stop makeing giveaways and just live off that. I assume You have been here from the start so I could enter all of Yours giveaweys up to that amount but I would be tabula rasa for all new users. Not fair? Maybe so but that way I would have to contribute more to keep up with those guys if I'm interested in that ofcourse. The flow of giveaways would problably not change dramaticaly but instead there would be less groups of self adornment (I'm sorry If I offend anyone here, I did not intended to, that here just server as making a point) that states they contribute to the community.
Comment has been collapsed.
You're not asking people to contribute to the community though, you're asking people to contribute to yourself. This can be seen as a positive or negative depending on your viewpoint, but that's what it is. This is especially apparent in your second point of having $0 CV as the default relationship with new users. This might cause some confusion and frustration when long term contributors are unable to enter some giveaways for $0.01 CV, when they've been registered for years with thousands of contributions.
Also, the system discourages itself from ever being used. For example:
You create a $10 public giveaway for $2,000 CV. Let's say only 100 users meet the requirement to join. As a result, you can enter $10 CV giveaways from those 100 people.
You create that same giveaway with $0 CV, and 400,000 users are able to enter. Now you can enter $10 CV giveaways from 400,000 people.
Users now face a dilemma; give back to contributors, or get access to a greater number of giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have to admit that Your first sentence is suprisingly true. Well, suprisingly for me because I didn't expect this point of view ... but I can't deny that. I guess I see giveaway idea little differently. While making suggestion I had in mind selfless idea of giving away games. I think we all are stuck with current idea of CV being Your ticket to better (meaning: bigger chance) giveaways.
My idea encourages creating more giveaways with lower CV so more users could enter. You see that as a bad thing ... I see that as a good thing. But You might have found another flaw in my system (not the first one and not the last one). Maybe public giveaways should be treated as contribution to whole community regardless if its new user or not, the way it works now. Maybe each group should be treated as different, smaller community and whatever happens, it happens on the level of that group only. In that case any GA crated for group would generate CV for use only in that group. If You have left the group Your CV would not venture with You. Contributing to group only would have to be understood as contributing to group only.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hey cg looks like more and more ppl complain about CV, and no better system comes up front. It's only going so get worse as more new users join. So here is an ideea you might think on, each 12 months halve the CV, just make anyone know about it in advance and you'll make CV farming much less of an issue. Since that would apply to all users I doubt too many ppl would complain, some do no matter what you do though.
Comment has been collapsed.
Firstly, people who like playing games, don't usually like reading walls of text like this, I'm gonna write another wall, which is dedicated to you as a response, I don't expect anyone else to read it. Secondly, I know that this "realization" came after you saw my recruitment thread.
"I see this site as selfless idea for giving away excess game to those who can't get them any other way or just happen to like saving others from the burden of having extra copies."
That's a wrong statement. There are no people, who can't get games on their own (excluding several people). If you like playing games legally, you're usually old enough so you can afford it. If you can't afford it, then you shouldn't play games and work instead. If you like playing games and don't wanna pay for them, then you download them illegally, OR win them on a site like SG. Even when I wasn't working and was low on money, I could afford a game now and then. Some people don't have credit cards/paypal you say? Well, there're other ways - Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, CS:GO (trading). Tremorgames. And so on...
That's what a leecher is.
So we create private groups for people, who contributed, want to keep contributing and, eventually be rewarded.
I'm also not sure, if you understood the purpose of gifting - making someone happy. The giving away and winning itself makes people happy. So why not to make it just a little bit more fair by creating groups for people who care about the community?
As for your idea, it's way too complicated and pointless. And as for the rest of the text... it has been talked over many times.
Comment has been collapsed.
About the walls of text :) You are right, it was long but gamers are as inteligent bunch of ppl as any other group. There are some who never read a book and there are some who use games as a brake between books :) So some of us likes reading others dont. I'm guess You don't and that's fine. I gave fair warning at start cause I know that not all are interested in my opinions.
Yeah, Your topic inspired me but as You can see I didn't mention You or Your group anywhere. It wasn't personal assault against You, I hope You didn't have that impresion. If You had, I'm sorry, it wasn't intended.
My opion on group giveaways formulated some time ago, You just made me think more intense about it and eventualy made me want to share with community. When I said how I percieve this site I ment giveaway network. Since for me giving away is when You are not asking for anything in return. If I would like to trade game there is another network in here for that. And that is awesome that both of those networks are here. Everybody have what suits him/her best.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think whoever owns/runs this site knows better than you what he/she is doing, after all its been around a while now and seems to me to be pretty successful. Why people keep wasting their time coming up with masterplans to change things is beyond me tbh. What right has anybody who hasn't given his/her blood sweat and tears to getting this place up and running and keeping it going got to suggest they know better? Here's an idea, if you don't like the way things are run create your own site and run that your way?
Comment has been collapsed.
Why so hostile? It's only suggestions, and opinion. Its not like I said "ist my way or the highway". Besides how do You know I havn't given my blood, swaet and tears. I might contributed as little as 100 bucks but how do You know how big of a fortune it is for me? How hard I had to work for that and how it feels to me giving away that much?
Anyway, I understand that You do not agree with my opinion and I totaly respect that. That's why I asked a question at the end of my topic instead of asking for implementing it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I vote blunt. If he called him a cocksucker and told him to fuck off, that might be hostile.
Comment has been collapsed.
Poor analogy. This isn't the government. cg is doing the best he can. There is no perfect solution. If anyone is going to question the system, then come up with a viable solution. Every idea I read is one that is more complex and difficult to implement. It's easy and also rude to ask cg to do more work than he already does.
Comment has been collapsed.
I coudn't agree more! That's why as a part of this community we should help admin with his job. Part of it may be supporting the forum, inventing new way of doing things, casting Your vote for suggestions and in gereral: taking part in community life.
I felt like its my turn to do my part. I did the home worked and asked You guys for an opinion. And I've got more then expected :)
You guys are great :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Coming up with idea (especially flawed one, as you still do not adress major issues pointed out by me and many others) is not "helping" admin in any way. Think about it this way. I have a great idea for a book! Write about a hobbit (a little creature" carrying a magic ring via war-torn fantasy world in order to destroy it and all the evil as well. I helped! I came up wih an idea. Now you go and write 2k pages long story about it!
Uou're proposing overly-complicated and flawed idea - but someone (cg) has to implement it. Write shitload of code to do so. If you came up with simplified idea that would work better - it I may have called helping. You come up with flawed idea that unnecesary complicates things, make them even harder to understand for newbies, have major issues which you just adress with "I will think about it later, or maybe cg or someone else do it for me" and call it helping. It's not helping - as kao already adressed it would not only (in current form) make things worse, but also put a lot of work for one person who is volountary managing the whole SG.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think you suggestion could be combined with a suggestion I made a while ago: clicky
But instead of my "upvote system", it should be a number based on the users that could potentially enter (as you suggested).
However, as zel and cg pointed out, this would be counter-productivee to puzzle giveaways or any other form of private giveaways, because those usually have a very small aount of users that enter.
Of course nothing is keeping people from creating giveaways for the sake of sharing instead of creating giveaways for the sake of increasing their CV.
Cheers =)
Comment has been collapsed.
I never understood what those giveaway groups with 1:1 rules are for. There are only two motivations I can think of to join such a group.
A strange kind of gambling addiction. You know that statistically you won't gain anything, but the luck factor is addictive. It's like playing roulette, winning 100$ feels great, even if you lost the same amount of money before you won.
Farming cv. Because basically it's like Steamtrades, only random. You give a random game and receive a random game in return that is worth roughly the same amount of money. Nothing lost and in reality you didn't 'gift' anything at all, but you still get full cv. Makes you look like a very generous person when in reality you are not.
Not that it bothers me much, but I agree with the op that this is a bit weird.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's true. But will add being member of little and friendly community. Having "online friends" with a common hobby and communities with ones you want to share life or time. Steam has good social features:-)
Gift them games you enjoyed and want them to play those games. Gift them games to play coop or multi with them.
Comment has been collapsed.
True, but why do you need Steamgifts to do that? If you just want to exchange games with friends you can do it without using a 3rd party site. It's easier and faster, you can gift and receive exactly the games you want and no one will accuse you of farming cv. Because that's what it is - you exchange games (and you do not gift them) with the nice side effect of getting more cv, which gives you higher chances to win regular ga's and, last but not least, gives your epeen monstrous proportions.
The way these groups work is as if I went to, say, EB games, picked up a game and the shop owner told me 'Hey, this game is a gift! Aren't you happy now that you won a gift? Since we don't want leechers in our shops though you'll have to give me 50 bucks in return. We are all one happy family!'. Yeah, totally makes sense.
Comment has been collapsed.
No, you give the games you want the group have, and you receive the games other want that the group have. And as said, probably to have people you already know and like to play with you.
And I said share hobbies and communities. I met some groups here, I entered and they are cool people so I like to be on those groups and I'm on chat when I have time which lately has been very few :( I could leave and search other groups but nope I like those. I also gift games directly, but rarely. But that's my case and I can't generalize. Anyway everyone is free to do what he/she wants.
With most of my real life friends we only gift games for birthdays. Somehow you also gift them expecting gifts back on your Birthday, if you think that way, you should not have friends or leave the city when a Birthday approaches :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks :)
We also have to remember about how long it took for someone to gather their CV.
I'm here for 3 month. $109 CV makes approx $36 per month.
A random person in here for 20 month and contributed $5000. That makes approx $250 per month. Well ... for some $250 per month is a lot to buy games for him/herself not mentioning to give away.
You can judge me all You want, I say $36 per month does not ruin my budget and yet, still high enough to acctualy contribute to this community. This is my way to say "thank You" to all of You. Not everybody earn small fortune or had this luck to born at the right time and right place.
Comment has been collapsed.
You actually paid attention to the least important part of my comment :) I just wanted to make a point here. Pure CV does not reflect Your commitment to this community.
Count what You want, its Your right to do so ... but actualy I havn't got anything from a boundle on my giveaways. I often buy some games as a gift cause I like the idea of playing it some day but I'm playing something different right now. When that day comes I ask myself if I still want to play it. If not than I set a giveaway (if not giving it to my friend). It's not my fault that it became a boundle in a meantime. I still have 3 games in my inventory which I bought on steam outside of a boundle but all 3 became part of a boundle. I also have bought 2 boundles so far. I have 1 game to spare from first boundle and bought another today so I will know soon what I have to give away :)
I don't mind those gifts become part of a boundle. I bought many of my games on sales or in local shop (which is cheaper then Steam). I don't care about CV that much. It's a mechanic that's here. If there are user who will enter my giveaway than it was worth it to create one. That's my philosophy.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's been discussed over and over , and I used the same argument over and over so nI'll use it again.
You're forgetting about whole lot of GAs that are designed to reward active community members. Entering a Public GA is lazy and easy, while solving a puzzle or participating in some kind of forum event requires SG activity. Yet your system punishes such activity as you assume that all priv GAs are created only to boost CV in unfair way. And you're wrong. A lot of people invest their time into making awesome puzzles orall king of different events on forum or public chat (like Trivia Knights by Chronic) - and your system would kill this all awesome activities just to preserve your precious CV.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, that wasn't my point at all. I was just trying to suggest something that will work with current setup. Dividing CV in a way I have originaly stated had it's flaws. I then proposed another way to admin of this site. Still, I see it as free discussion and not as a request per se.
I don't care about my precious CV, in fact if admins would decide to get rid of it entirely I would be fine with that as well. I started this thread to point out industry that generates CV for small group of peaple not the system itself. I have also corrected my system for more simplier version and for (in my opinion) better effect.
Acctualy my system (in both version) do not punish such activities. If You want to reward active members You can still do it with my system. Just the reward it self would not make You big contributor and I think that is fair since You contribute to selected group of users. Those user would percive You as contributor but nobody else. How is that unfair?
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not talking about group GAs here - I'm talking about private GAs that are used for puzzles and community events. These GAs are accessible to anyone on the site in same way that public GAs are, but you have to be active and invest time to join them (complete event, solve puzzle etc). In your system one would profit much less from such a GA than from making a lazy public that can be lazy joined, so yes - in reality by comparison between public puzzles and public GAs you're punishing the active part of the community - ppl who invest time to make/solve puzzle - because they're gaining less that the lazy part of the community.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok, I'll give You that. I didn't took puzzles and special events into equesion. My second system didn't approach private GA at all. It was about public and groups. Since private is different kind of GA there might be special treatment for those. I'm realtivly new user and my knowladge about private GAs lacks some intel. But I bet some could come up with an idea for that that will benefit both sides :)
Comment has been collapsed.
well you said
Giving a lot of Private giveaways would not count as total community contribution. On the other hand, giving a lot to whole community would count towards group and private giveaways since those groups and user could enter them.
At many times Private GAs are exactly doing it, giving a lot to whole community. Some people even make puzzle events with games worth hundreds of dollars to be won at the same time.
Another thing - about treating Group GAs differently. If we were to treat Priv ones normaly and Group ones differently, ppl in groups would just make Priv GAs instead of Group GAs and share a link wit all group members. And how do you tell then which priv GA is puzzle and which is actually group GA?
Comment has been collapsed.
You have quated part of my first system. I have already told You that I've presented second system that does not touch private GAs.
I see You are very interested in potential idea for those special events. Tell You what, I can pay more attention to them and will try to work something out. Give me some time and I will eventualy come up with something, with flaws natuarly but that's what forum is for :) We can dissccuss this and come up with even better idea.
Comment has been collapsed.
its gonna take some time to climb that wall of text
Comment has been collapsed.
761 Comments - Last post 15 minutes ago by BlazeHaze
295 Comments - Last post 53 minutes ago by Vincer
14 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by funnyduck99
580 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by MeguminShiro
46,890 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by MeguminShiro
7 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by Fluffster
42 Comments - Last post 7 hours ago by M0J
111 Comments - Last post 8 minutes ago by FAAY
2 Comments - Last post 14 minutes ago by Thexder
12 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by ThatDave
55 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by ThatDave
5,796 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by MasterJunior
162 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by Peiperissimus
2,796 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by yugimax
Hello guys,
I am aware that this topic might not be well received by some but I've got inspired by another topic from this forum to think about this site in general. As a result of my little brain-storm I came to some realizations and suggestion idea.
-- THE BASICS --
First lets start with how I perceive the idea of this site. If I'm mistaken here then there is no point of reading the rest of this topic. So that way You might actually save some time by not reading crap :)
I see this site as selfless idea for giving away excess game to those who can't get them any other way or just happen to like saving others from the burden of having extra copies :) Either way, both sides win. Givers can sleep well knowing their steam inventory is not as crowded as just moments ago and Takers cannot sleep well while playing those new and awesome games.
(If that description is bull...t for You then I strongly discourage You from keep reading. You have been warned ...)
With that being said I see that admins doing their best to give most flexible and most fair tools for both sides.
The way I see it is that at the beginning there was an idea for just what I wrote above. Then second idea popped up to give Givers more options for their giveaways. Contribution Value was born. That way Givers could say "thank You" to other Givers by setting entry level to their giveaways based on CV. That seems great idea because it gives more option for Givers without taking anything away. If a Giver wants he/she can still create giveaways without CV entry level.
Then another idea came to existence. Groups and private giveaways. This is great way to add a social aspect to the whole giveaway idea. When Giver have some friends on steam, he/she may choose to limit the giveaway to his/hers friends. Again, this is great idea to add another tool for Givers without taking away anything from the spirit of giving away.
-- REALISATION --
I saw many groups been created that came up with some rules. Rules that should help the community to keep giveaways coming. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, no one forces any one to join groups. If one is joining then one is accepting its rules.
This, however, presented new idea to the site: Giveaway Industry. Currently most common rule is ratio of some sort or monthly giveaways. Still, this idea is harmless. No one forces anyone to create giveaways or joining those groups. Finally I starter to Wonder if and why I should be part of one of those groups. In example if there were 1:1 ratio than it would require me to create $100 worth giveaways so I could win $100 worth giveaways. Idea itself is strange for me. Instead of buying $100 worth of games I want, I would spend $100 and just hope someone will have something I would be happy to get with risk I won’t be getting it at all. Of course no money is lost here. I have donated $100 to community with hope of getting that $100 back in form of games. This idea is similar to buying vouchers. Exchanging money that works everywhere for money substitute that works only in selected places.
The answer to this was: social aspect. Having a group with for example 1:1 ratio is more of game itself where everybody gives game to community and the ratio just makes sure it’s fair to all participants. This giving game is not about getting game per se. It's more like the Christmas whole year long :) Eeeeevery body loves Christmas.
Of course, there might be some abuses. And again, admins did their best to battle that problem.
Same ideology goes for Private giveaways. It’s more of a game itself with the giveaway than actually giving the game to someone who desires it. This whole social aspect is neat and cool. Some ppl have a lot of fun at Christmas so why not create something similar and give them fun every day :)
This creates giveaway industry just like Christmas does. No harm in that. No one forces any one create giveaways. Steam is happy, Givers are happy and finally Takers have sleep scheduled ruined but obviously very happy about it :)
-- SUGGESTION --
This whole giveaway industry is making CV idea less useful. For example I could agree with couple of friends that whenever I want to buy a game I will ask a friend to do it and give him back the money so they can create private giveaway just for me. I will get a game I want, he will increase his CV. Everybody wins. Just like with groups. If a group has rules that require of You to create giveaway if You want to take part in their giveaways we are artificially increasing CV of each other’s without contributing to whole community. CV works the same for all giveaways. So when someone is creating a private or group giveaway this person contribute to this particular group not the whole community.
And here comes my idea how this can be improved:
Every giveaway creates CV but that particular CV should be attached to:
a) whole community
b) particular group
c) particular user who participated in private giveaway
That way every contribution would count only when it was created. Giving a lot of Private giveaways would not count as total community contribution. On the other hand, giving a lot to whole community would count towards group and private giveaways since those groups and user could enter them.
There is one drawback or maybe a flaw I see here. Whenever someone leaves a group his/hers contribution in that group might be considered lost. This could be fixed if CV would be attached not to just a group but to group members from that moment. That way on exiting the group Your contribution would still count for those users.
-- TECHNICALS --
I bet all groups here have their copy in local (meaning: not Steam) database. This way we know who can enter the giveaway when a group giveaway is created. Since groups are in database they should have an ID for easier queries. I bet every user have their ID as well.
I don’t know how CV is being stored. If its store as a 1 number, just being increased after successful giveaway then this would need to be changed. There would also have to be created additional connection between users and CVs.
For example: if I would have 0 CV and I would create GA for whole community and gained 50 CV I could participate in all 50CV giveaways. But if I would create Group GA and gained 50 CV for that I would only participate in 50CV giveaways created only by members of that group, even if that person would no longer been part of that group, since its attached to users from that group, not group itself.
Well ... maybe that example wasn't very descriptive and did not show my idea properly but I have it all planned down to database structure and sql syntax so I know it can be done.
The question is: is that a good idea to implement or worst thing ever :)
Well, I will leave it up to You dear reader. If You survived up to this point I salute You, You are very patient person :)
PS. Sorry for grammar mistakes every here and there, English is my second language. Thanks for Your understanding.
Comment has been collapsed.