Hello community!

As you may have already heard, SGv2 (Steamgifts Version 2, a new version of Steamgifts that cg is currently working on) will no longer feature a CV system - at least not in the current form.

In a thread on SGv2 cg suggested a new system:

I'm definitely open to alternative ideas for the contributor system. However, it can't rely on pricing, because it's a poor indicator of the quality of the contribution. It can't leave anything up to debate, for example, whether or not a game qualifies because it was in a bundle, free for an hour, or 90% off. Ideally, we don't care about any of these factors but rely on something else. Lastly, it needs to be simple and easy to understand.

I'll toss out an idea...

Your contributor score is the number of users that have entered your giveaways. However, each game only counts once, and we take the one with the highest entry count. For example, you give away BioShock with 1,000 entries, SpaceChem with 300 entries, and another copy of SpaceChem, with 250 entries. We take the unique games with the highest entry count, and you get a score of 1,300.

and already collected some pros and cons:

Pros:

• It's based on entries, so it prevents small groups of friends from exploiting the system.
• Users can't take advantage of free games by giving away 10 copies.
• It encourages people to gift popular games to everyone, because they'll likely receive a higher entry count.
• It handles bundles automatically, since once a game is bundled, it's going to start receiving less entries. If you gifted BioShock Infinite at launch, it might have received 5,000 entries, but now you'll have a difficult time getting that number after it's in the Humble Bundle.
• Value doesn't decrease over time similar to prices. If you gift a highly wanted game today, you'll receive a high score, and keep that in the future, even if the price falls, it's bundled, or it's no longer wanted.
• Backwards compatible with all previous giveaways, so we could recalculate scores.
• Brings developer and featured giveaways down to a more realistic value. For example, if someone receives 100 keys from a developer and runs a featured giveaway, they get 100x the game value at the moment. With this system they would receive around 20,000 entries, which might be 10-20x the score of a single 1,000 - 2,000 entry giveaway. Developers would be in the same boat, and receive 10-20x a standard giveaway, instead of the 50-25,000x they see now.
• No more discussions if a game that's discounted 95% on the Steam store will be treated as a bundle game.
• Easy to understand.

Cons:

• Pressures people to gift at least one copy of a game publicly. If you have 3 copies of BioShock, you'll likely want to gift one copy to everyone to receive a high entry score. The other 2 copies could then be gifted in group or private giveaways. This may, or may not be a problem.
• Similar to the above, you receive little to no benefit for gifting a game multiple times. You may receive a higher entry count than your previous giveaway and receive a slightly higher score, but that's a small advantage.
• Encourages people to run longer giveaways, since a 24 hour giveaway would receive more entries than a 1 hour giveaway. Once again, might be a pro depending on your viewpoint.
• Might encourage people to only give away cheaper games, because a 5P games is more likely to receive a lot of entries than a 50P game.

Other possible CV-alternatives (suggested by SleepyCat):

• CV system based on the site wishlist. The amount of CV gained depends on the game's position in the global wishlist at the time the giveaway ended.
• User-driven CV system. This is kinda similar to your "entries-based" system. Giveaways have reddit-like upvote/downvote buttons. Users can upvote or downvote giveaways, entering the giveaway counts as an automatic upvote. CV = all your upvotes - all your downvotes.

I'd like to hear your feedback

So before SGv2 opens its gates for another beta weekend, I'd like to hear your input on the matter.
Chances are, cg might implement a CV-alterative on SGv2 before the next beta, so we can all test and improve it.

Keep in mind, that this "score system" does not neccesarily reward user who invest a lot of money in the games they give away. Instead it rewards users who give away games that the community wants. (Though "reward" might be the wrong word, after all this site is about giving games, not about getting rewarded for sharing.)

Please make use of the poll in this thread and leave your (constructive) comments below.

It's your chance to help shape the future of Steamgifts =)

Poll:

• I like the suggestion, let's give it a try
• I don't want to see any form of CV system on SGv2
• I would prefer a upvote/downvote system
• I would prefer a system where the score is based on the game's position in the SG wishlist
• I would wat to see a totally different system (please elaborate in your comment)