Thanks for taking the time to share your point of view about this issue.
Personally, I would simply ignore the first issue; the second issue would probably bring some headaches, that's true. It would be a trade-off with the fairness of keeping the original CV value, and ideally fairness should always come first. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, the current system is pretty consistent and apart from people being annoyed sometimes at their CV dropping, I don't find any particular issue with it. Personally, I'm fine with that sort of CV depreciation over time, since it's slow enough to not be a real problem. Actually, it may serve as a small incentive to continue giving away games, although I don't think one is required for most contributors anyway.
Comment has been collapsed.
Were there really THAT many people bitching about it that it required a thread from cg himself? Sigh. People are so greedy (says the guy who was too greedy to trade a useless TF2 item for another useless TF2 item that some guy wanted, because I wasn't gaining anything from it, lol). -.-
I mean, really. Support does not NEED to give reasons for this.
If people are feeling so entitled as to bitch about anything that inconveniences them, then why don't they bitch at publishers who are dicking them over rather than at the site based around charity? WHY?!
Comment has been collapsed.
Don't know if anyone asked this, but what happens if a game is removed from the Steam store?
Regarding consistency I think it's for the better that it works this way.
Maybe a better solution can be found if CV is here to stay, maybe not...
Comment has been collapsed.
Then it's removed from the dropdown list as well. All previous giveaways regarding that game is counted based on the last valid price for that game.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's not always true. Saint's Row the Third: Franchise Pack was removed from the Steam store at $105, but it was revised down to 50p a couple of months later even though it was not in the Steam store.
Comment has been collapsed.
All good points but all worthless until some consistency is applied.
Galastore bundles aren't bundles unless its Crazy Machines.
Humble Weekly was initially noted ad also not being bundled and then that was changed too. I can accept them being changed but it shouldn't gave applied retroactively when we'd already been told they weren't considered bundles.
Comment has been collapsed.
Looks like one of those cases where you can say both sides have valid points.
Still it feels wrong suddenly say "hey your contribution is woth half now", specially with new titles.
Do what you think it is best.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gifting, it is a serious business. Somebody's gonna get hurt real bad.
Comment has been collapsed.
Most were bought for $5 on Amazon offer where the base game price was already $20. Check it out for yourself.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'll try to avoid repeating myself and others. CV is just an indication of a user's contribution to the site. It doesn't need to be "cool" or "fair", just consistent. Since it's not arbitrary, and everyone is affected the same way by price drops, I'm ok with the current system.
If you want to avoid any potential depreciation of your CV, you may just stop giving away games, but you won't be doing yourself any favors.
Edit: Personally, if I had $2 worth of games given away with a $30 CV I wouldn't be worried about price drops.
Comment has been collapsed.
thats exactly what this system encourages *if you care about CV
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree with your point totally..
But then everyone should stop putting those 0.01 CV required on the 60% of created giveaways... and the CV should become purely decorative, not as it is now.
Ppl somehow feel forced to give, to be able entering more giveaways...
Comment has been collapsed.
Question:
What happens if a game is sold for a very low price somewhere else and then given away here? Because you mentioned unstability of prices in the Steam store only...
I ask this because many ppl claim the current Alan Wake offer as a bundle (which is only at the moment of the sale), and so not being worth of any CV...
But you actually get TWO different codes, same as you bought them separately... and indeed when you make the giveaway no "bundle version" exists, and you give them same way you would if you'd got them in the Steam store. In the Steam store the games are still worth their full price.
You can only guess that I bought it out of Steam...
Comment has been collapsed.
How can you actually know I bought Alan Wake bundled and not alone? The code it self only activate 1 Alan Wake, not many games at the time...
I can even buy the bundle, but since I have already 1 of them I give the other away...
You can't just verify it...
This is because the games are sold bundled, but they AREN'T a bundle...
Comment has been collapsed.
you don't, and can't tell so they assume because most did.
asterisks are only backdated to the bundle's start point(and only then to prevent rewarding people for being faster than the mods) so if you gifted it at any point before the bundle began you get full credit. if you bought earlier and waited til now to gift you were just unlucky, if you bought fullprice while the bundle was ongoing this is strange and unlikely.
and they stay listed forever from that point on because if an end date was known people would just hoard the cheap bundle keys.
other than sales that match that sort of devaluation, if its cheaper off steam they just treat it like a sale.
Comment has been collapsed.
err...case in point(re: "I do it too"), I just did lol. sorry about that. totally wasn't on purpose just worked out funny that way
basically unless its such a significant price drop it becomes a cv exploit with an efficiency and abuse level comparable to crazymachines and the like they'll tend to just consider it a sale because they can't track prices everywhere. they list the big obvious bundle names, the others that manage to become a problem enough to require a response and thats about it(manpower and an attempt to not bundle everything)
Comment has been collapsed.
Quoting myself
"But cg mentioned prices on Steam, not out of Steam.. So I still don't get the point... Humble doesn't claim to sell it as a bundle, but as "weekly sale"..."
Wouldn't be the same if gamersgate had put such a offer? or GoG? or greenman gaming? If we start verifying every website making sales, then cg missed to specify something in his explaination..
Please don't misunderstand me, I don't think I would even make such giveaway, but trying to understand 1-2 things...
Comment has been collapsed.
But the game is sold in so many ways, in so many places, that when you put 1 game from a bundle of 10, you aren't able to know you got it bundled...
If I put a giveaway of RIP for example, because I don't like it and had to get it anyway together with the others: you find it in at least 2-3 bundles (past and active) but on Steam is still worth around 5$...
Comment has been collapsed.
But it doesnt matter for anything if you bought it bundled or not. The value of the game is still $5,no matter if you bought it from a bundle or from steam store. SG always uses the value of Steam store. The only reason many people wont get the $5 added to their CV is the bundle rule.
Comment has been collapsed.
Doesn't matter where or when you bought the game. If it's been in a bundle it gets on the bundle list. If you gave it prior to it being in a bundle, then it doesn't count as a bundle game. Simple as that and any system that would keep a track of purchase possibilities would be too complicated and a hassle but would not improve user experience much. If you give away RIP you can still get $5 contributor value (details below).
With only bundle games (marked with * in game list when creating a giveaway) you can get max $30 CV. From there on bundle games give you value only if they are below 1/5th of your total giveaway value (with non bundle games).
F.e. you have $30 from Double Fine Bundle and you want to give away RIP which is $5. To get that $5 you would need to give another $25 in non bundle games.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok...longer answer from me.
The value of a game here on SG is always tied to the US steam store. Thats simply because of technical reasons. (I think there are other benefits from it,but those arent official ones). If a game gets a price drop on steam then the value of the game here on SG sinks too. So far so good.
Now bundles and other websites get thrown in.
Unless it isnt a ridiculously high sale that isnt very limited (Bethesda games are not bundled because the GG error was an error and fixed,only a few people could profit here) it doesnt matter what price other sites want. If you buy a game 75% off on GG or 75% off on steam,doesnt matter. You get the value Steam has when the game is not on sale. However...exploited keys (recent example Precipice of darkness 3 before it got removed from the list), bundle keys and very high discount sales with no limit are added to the bundle list. That means for them the CV bundle rule applies.
SG cannot check nor wants to check if you really have your key from a bundle or steam store. That would be too much effort. It also doesnt matter if a bundle has a key for all or a key for each item. Current AW is a 98% discount (dont nail me to it,i didnt check the current US prices) and you get different items + drm free (not sure about that on the alan wake actually) for that $1. Thats why its on the bundle list. If other sites would do such discounts,too,the game they would sell like that would end on the bundle list as well.
TL;DR
Discounts,bundles and exploits and such are a matter for the bundle list. CV is only tied to the steam store,nothing else is important here.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok now I think to get it..
So it depends mainly if the game you want to give is marked or not as bundled and applying the bundle rules... That way some of the games, even bundled, might still give the whole value, while some other listed as bundle won't...
The system doesn't check if you actually buy or not the game in a bundle, but directly marks that game as bundled, changing the CV rules for it.. Someone only has to check the list before making a give away...
Thanks now it's clear :)
Comment has been collapsed.
"The system doesn't check if you actually buy or not the game in a bundle, but directly marks that game as bundled, changing the CV rules for it.. Someone only has to check the list before making a give away... "
correct here. Once bundled it always counts as bundled here.
"Ok now I think to get it.. So it depends mainly if the game you want to give is marked or not as bundled and applying the bundle rules... That way some of the games, even bundled, might still give the whole value, while some other listed as bundle won't... "
The amount of CV you get for gifting a bundled game depends on the amount of NON-bundle games you gave away.
Non bundled games always give full credit
$25 of your bundled games you give away get whitelisted and count as non bundle
after that bundled games only can make 20% of your Non bundled CV.
That means: Given away only bundled games, $30 or above: You get $25 (whitelisted) + 20% of nonbundleCV (20% of $25 = $5). So your total value then is $30.
Example B: $75 non bundle games, $75 bundled games. 75 + 25 + (1/5 * 100) = $120 total CV
In Example B you get $45 of the $75 from the bundle value. That means $30 are still locked as non CV. If you give away more NON bundled games those $30 get unlocked,too. (for each $5 of nonbundle CV $1 from the bundle CV gets added to the total CV).
I hope that was clear enough.
Comment has been collapsed.
387 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by PsyKo
1,388 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by CalamityUP
18 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by Sardaukar
1 Comments - Last post 6 hours ago by devotee
53 Comments - Last post 8 hours ago by AwesomePossum50
37 Comments - Last post 9 hours ago by Ezel
111 Comments - Last post 11 hours ago by CRAZY463708
412 Comments - Last post 3 minutes ago by Boson
0 Comments - Created 4 minutes ago by FullMetalZ
36 Comments - Last post 12 minutes ago by Fitz10024
129 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Prosac
29 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Lubiii
100 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by Kappaking
196 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by ProV1
With all the recent topics, I'll try to summarize why the current system is in place.
First off, as many have noticed, Hitman Absolution lowered in price earlier today on SG. Why? The game wasn't automatically updating correctly, Lina pointed it out this morning, and it was corrected.
Aside from bundles, games and contributor values on SG are meant to reflect current Steam prices. It's understandable people get upset if they spend $20 on a giveaway, and the price lowers to $10 shortly after. The obvious solution is to save the price of the game at the time of the giveaway. It's simple enough, but there are a few main reasons why this hasn't been done. Let's take a look.
Issues with consistency. Points are tied to the value of games. If prices differ per giveaway, you might see multiple Hitman Absolution giveaways, some for 50P, others for 25P. This means, every time you enter a giveaway, you'll need to check across the site to see if others are available at a lower number of points. Also, if you've entered into a Hitman Absolution giveaway for 50P, and the price drops, well, now you might want to revisit the site, remove your entry, and enter two giveaways for 25P instead.
Steam doesn't provide the most reliable pricing data. Prices bounce all over the place, and it's not unusual to see inaccurate data at times. For example, let's say a game is listed as $9.99. For one reason or another, Steam decides to start displaying the price of a bundle that contains the game, rather than the individual game. The price jumps to $19.99. A week later, Steam returns to the individual price, and it's lowered to $4.99. This means we have users receiving values of $9.99, $19.99, and $4.99 for the same game. The $19.99 is incorrect, so we'd have to catch that error, and readjust the values for all those giveaways. However, we don't know what hour or day the price changed from $9.99 to $4.99, so we wouldn't know which value to assign. Imagine this, multiplied by 2,000 games, and 400,000 giveaways. Also, prices need to be accurate to the minute, otherwise we'll be hearing about it in support. For example, we'll have users catching price drops, posting giveaways within minutes before our data updates, and receiving a higher value. At the moment, it's nice when we can fix a pricing error, and know it's corrected site wide. It's not perfect, but it's consistent for everyone. With individual values, I can't say with confidence our pricing data would be at the level of accuracy we need, and I think we'd have more headaches than what we have now.
Comment has been collapsed.