What do you think of the second edition awards and the removal of the Jester?
Only thing I am happy with is the Jester point farmers will be gone... honestly they could have just removed the point transfer from the few awards that pushed towards certain kinds of posts(mostly jesters),
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I doubt all the attention-grabbing morons will disappear from Steam. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube unfortunately. The toxic behavior will remain but they probably will be less prolific without the point rewards.
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The new award looks horrible and they could just replace the jester with that laughing one.
Plus, i hate that they dont allow you get any points now. I'll eventually stop sending them since i have no more points to give in that case.
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Pretty much this. The new awards need a redesign.
I'm glad there will be no more jester farming, it will separate the wheat from the chaff; trolling will be done for the love of the game. Should really clean up a lot of community content from useless reviews to iS tHiS WoKE? discussion posts.
Not a fan of them costing points but not awarding them. Make them free? Or maybe limit rewards/payouts to guides or something. Probably just make them free.
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+1 about the new award design, they look like the new W11 emoji design
... and similarly i quickly went back from new W11 emojis to Windows 10 design.
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Well, I have 3,141,592,653,590 points, and that FAQ has nothing to help me figure out what to do with them.
:P
Now, seriously, good changes, it was irritating to see point farming among reviews. But they do need some source of points to compensate for the drain... maybe they should give 500 points to each user every month?
Cheers!
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I'm hoping the next step is a rebalancing of points shop item costs. A user in the Steam community commented on the post, making a good point.
For example, if you wanted to purchase all of the Points Shop items for Hades because you like the game, you would be required to spend $290 USD for those 28,500 points. What?!
With this change in effect, the only source of points is spending money.
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With this change in effect, the only source of points is spending money.
This might be in preparation to introduce new things - such as when Steam Deck introduced keyboards - related to Steam Machine, Steam controller, etc
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Never got around to using the originals and now they're gone, I wonder how long it'll be until they have to revamp these again because of who knows what reason.
And when it comes to the designs themselves I think the older ones looked a bit better, the old heart one definitely was better. Also, I still don't get what the "100" emoji is supposed to mean and in this context I have less of a clue.
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Also, I still don't get what the "100" emoji is supposed to mean and in this context I have less of a clue.
It's meant to look like a score of 100 on a school test. Basically used to mean something is 100% correct, or you completely agree.
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Ah, so that's what it means, I had occasionally seen it before and not understood what it meant.
Thanks for explaining it :)
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Never got around to using the originals and now they're gone, I wonder how long it'll be until they have to revamp these again because of who knows what reason.
They were around since 2020 summer sale, a good five and a half years.
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Yeah, but I never paid much attention to them and kept forgetting about them, it was one of those features that Steam has but I never felt too inclined to engage with like those big animated stickers or writing a guide myself.
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The stickers are useless if you generally don't use Steam chat, yeah. Awards were nice to drop for nice reviews, for guides one used, maybe sending to friends so they can collect some more points. But I also had way more points to really know what to do with.
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Got curious since I never check and apparently I have 27k points, I think I used points to buy a pfp border once and then forgot about their existence. I should probably do what you say and start spending them on guides, friends, and the like.
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Or a badge where you get a bit XP to raise the level of your steam account.
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Also FYI: Since there's no cost hierarchy between awards anymore, if you enable the "Community Awards displayed on profile", they'll be ordered by the # of awards received, not cost(as it used to be)
Before: Your profile would show below the "online" status 4 awards which had the greater price(in points)
Now: Your profile will show the 4 awards which you received most times.
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Wow they made them worse in every conceivable way. Incredible.
"they don't award points anymore because people were baiting for jesters too much!!"
I don't buy that for a second lmao
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This is actually true. People were baiting for clown emojis in multiple game forums spamming many threads by saying something outrageous.
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Make the jester specifically not award any points and/or deal with routine clown baiters through moderation (ban them from receiving points from awards, for example). There are ways to address this issue without making it garbage for everybody.
But the goal here is obviously forcing people to buy more shit from the store for points and not making the community better.
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Lets be honest here, steam does not want to moderate, they want us to just behave and be sunflowers for them and give them money, it's just another company. That's why they removed any awards that can be used in a negative way. They want to unmoderate even more than the little they already do.
Also it makes no sense to make the jester specifically not give points but the others do. Like there has to be consistency to this system. People will just replace jester with something else they can attribute some jester like meaning to.
The thing is people will maybe in the first week spend points on this, then who the hell is going to spend $100 to get enough points for 1 award? Like you know it's no one around here for instance. So what just a few oil inheritance basement dwellers who don't know what to spend $1 mil on will now buy the entire steam library 60 times so they can spend it on awards? Like that number can't be that big of losers who will do that. People wont buy games with the intention of getting spendable awards.
I've said this before but gaben is busy spending $500 million on a stupid ass yacht instead of focusing on steam.
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The thing is people will maybe in the first week spend points on this, then who the hell is going to spend $100 to get enough points for 1 award?
I don't know about your region, but the eurozone get enough points for an award by spending less than 5€.
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I meant to type $10 there mistype, but yeah cheapest award was $3 before and most expensive was $48. $24 for the unicorn. Now they're all $5 you're right.
I wanted to point out people will buy games to buy games for owning not to get awards as a result. I highly doubt a higher concentration of users will now buy the $50 asset flips so they have 10 awards, just so they can immediately wipe them out in the forums that will vanish from existence soon. IMO the people who intentionally would buy games to earn points likely want something from the point shop for their profile.
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Or posting meme guides instead of actual useful ones
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Yes hopefully this will reduce some of the waste and useless clutter on steam.
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I don't buy that for a second lmao
I would say in at least half the game community hubs there were posts obviously baiting for the clown awards... especially in anything remotely popular.
not to mention the joke reviews trying to get them as well.
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Joke reviews have existed before and will exist regardless of the awards system. This doesn't really address that "issue". Hell, there is a dedicated "funny" category just for them.
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^^^ the amount of games that had the same pancake recipe
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Outside of points farming and people selling points being effectively squashed, I'd say the other motivation is to simply tie points to Steam purchases exclusively and (maybe) make points feel a bit more special if you have to be selective in how you use them.
Personally, I'm ambivalent. I've got plenty of points to last for a while, but I do like buying frames and emotes with them, and so the hoard will slowly dwindle. :)
And I'd guess they'll start adding more digital keyboards and profile showcases to the points store soon.
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soo if you cant earn them, you can only buy them. people with the most money, have the most say.
steam awards ruined steam on every level
reviews
forums
everything
this isnt gonna fix that, but it will cut down
as a a person who almost never uses the steam store and hasnt put a single $$$ into it in a think 4+ years outside of buying a steam deck. games are always cheaper other places.
im not going to be getting any more points and thus cant give them away....fuckk that shit
the few games ive purchased on steam were all with money from selling of cards
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If you're willingly not participating in purchasing on steam I don't see why you think you should participate in the point system that's reliant on money spent on steam. Like why should others pay for you? If you want features you also gotta spend on them. You can't expect everything in life to be free and for others to pay for you. You also have to contribute in some fashion.
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steam doing this out of greed, another incentive to buy from the steam store page vs others
just like awards were in the 1st place
every other site did paid awards first
just following the shitty treads
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This is a lie. If they were doing this out of greed we'd still have clown emoji, and we could still transfer points as they'd benefit from people being obsessed about them and adding value to points. This is actually in the opposite direction of greed as they are sacrificing that and try to create meaning to awards.
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just like how they added meaning to all the last steam sale and events.
no events
no games
no free badges
no free cards
no fucks given
i was team purple and team corgi
i also broke my mouse playing the alien clicker game
ive got a ton of stuff from the old events, i dont have shit from the new ones
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Because:
users exploited events
users exploited any glitch sale they see and post it everywhere, obviously that's not the normal, and someone takes the loss or they revert it. Heck we exploit any glitch sale here, we post every bundle that has a broken price. We buy hoping they wont revert it. Someone pays for that.
I get you about the free badge I too find it weird they don't do that but I guess they introduced the point system and removed that with the intention to reward those who are using their platform by purchasing products.
users exploited the free cards and they were stashing thousands with bot accounts to sell on bot accounts, at the same time I also feel like for a game you buy you should be able to collect the entire set without having to trade to others, so I think they should've not been tradeable but they wanted to monetize these.
I agree it sucks we don't have events the way they did before but if they added a paid way for system I still don't understand why u think you should get it for free. Definitely advocate for free events like before but I don't think it makes sense to advocate for free when others are paying.
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I agree there should be activities around events. Unfortunately I didn't use Steam when there were games
It seems that all Points Shop freebies during events are gone too
Hopefully Valve has something in the works
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You are not wrong!
Having an award now makes it questionable as to how or why it was given/received.
What was once inclusively silly is now an exclusivity merit to those with real world money to burn.
On one hand it gives the awards more worth, but on the other in could be considered bought opinion.
Silly was fun, serious is "Papers please".
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It is a good thing they do not allow point transfers anymore. It was inviting toxic people into trying to sell their points, spamming forums with rage bait to get clown emoji's and begging for them, as well as faking reviews on workshop items for a pretty cheap price since you could earn some points back. Now it should be more costly to appeal to some of these services.
However, why do they have to be positive only? So many weak people online nowadays.
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However, why do they have to be positive only? So many weak people online nowadays.
"they took away my way of bullying people, waaah"
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If you post something stupid af I don't think you're deserving of the +1 but a clown instead. I wouldn't say it's bullying to call a clown out. Individuals deserve the right to know when they are wrong and given opportunity to grow. If you don't tell someone how they are wrong they'll never learn and adopt a lie as their truth simply because others were afraid to offend them by informing them or because they had no way of receiving criticism. Only losers choose ignorance and are afraid of criticism, some do want to find a better self. People should be able to disagree. Like we didn't even get a thumbs down award.
Even you disagreed with me here for instance. Instead, if you were supportive of steam's way of doing things and wanted to follow that moto into your life then you shouldn't even reply to things you disagree with like here because if you did you'd be "bullying" which stands against your views, right? So it's a little hypocritical of you to make that comment in the first place lol.
I hope you see how you just played your own mentality here. This is why I said there's a lot of weak people online. You can't take any negative criticism because your butterfly skin gets torn but you yourself attempt to dish it out when you find it convenient. There's sometimes things to learn and improve on from by learning from opposition.
Thank you for providing an example.
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Individuals deserve the right to know when they are wrong and given opportunity to grow.
Writing comments still works if you want to tell someone they are "wrong"?
Giving someone "jester" award or "slow clap"(the other "negative" award sometimes) does not really make people think "Wow I just got clowned. This tells me im in the wrong and I should grow as person".
Quite the opposite actually specially in Jesters case. You know the old "haters gonna hate" mentality. Or ragebait trolling.
Also I'm bit confused as to why you said this
If you post something stupid af I don't think you're deserving of the +1 but a clown instead. I wouldn't say it's bullying to call a clown out. Individuals deserve the right to know when they are wrong and given opportunity to grow.
But on other comment below you say
these awards never truly meant anything anytime for anyone since from day one
Maybe its my flu that makes me confused. Arent those contradicting each other? "posting something weird deserves clown and it tells people they are wrong" ... "these awards mean nothing".
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"Writing comments still works if you want to tell someone they are "wrong"?"True but there is no reason why at the top of the post we have flair that only shows "positive awards", similar to how the poster can choose the top answer. Neutral take on what is the best would be to let the users show both type of awards at the top positive and negative like a like/dislike ratio, and the top comment should be chosen by multiple users. If the OP just picks their favorite best comment it's only reassurance they are in the right. Someone could post that x game is shit and then top comment the only response that agrees vs 50 that don't. What will you see when you open the page? The post with an award for being so cool and then the first comment which suggests this take is good. Sure you can scroll down and start digging to see whether it's a big fat lie, but you shouldn't have to.
"Giving someone "jester" award or "slow clap"(the other "negative" award sometimes) does not really make people think "Wow I just got clowned. This tells me im in the wrong and I should grow as person".
Quite the opposite actually specially in Jesters case. You know the old "haters gonna hate" mentality. Or ragebait trolling."No one online wants to evaluate themselves based on someone elses take, but the award was used to show dislikeness to something. I was pointing out how now you have no clown replacement. So if you dislike a thread you only have positive things to give it other than a comment. I disagree that commenting should be the only way you should be able to disagree when there are multiple other ways to only show the positive side of it.
"Also I'm bit confused as to why you said this ----
"these awards mean nothing"."I kinda see how I've made a paradox here, it's because even if you gave a npc a clown award they likely chose ignorance over reflection, but the meaning is there, yet if it's getting ignored anyways it's pointless, and for those who wanted to show these on their profiles like "what a cool person I am" it was pretty irrelevant because users caught on pretty fast they are bought and gotten by reviews spamming, guide farming and post trolling or to idolize lets say a streamer or something like that. Like the significance of these went straight into the ground.
But if you're going to have positive awards imo you should also have somewhat negative awards, as for some it's a way to learn about someone and their profile on steam.
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The new graphics on the awards is clearly a downgrade, though at least some are useful. But they are also moderated to be samey along with the same point cost - I'll miss the option to surprise a friend with a higher point award, like the golden unicorn one. It had the style and the point cost to show someone really means it.
I'm not sure what exactly behind the redesign, IMO adding the "+1" carries any value to it in the communication, the others were available in some way - they could have just swapped the jester for it, people were only using it for fishing for points, or in a weak-ass attempt to try to mock people (which was made even more sad from the mocking people's part, as it gave people to the awarded).
(I personally really dislike the new funny award, but the whole selection's art style is a massive step down)
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Lies, these awards never truly meant anything anytime for anyone since from day one the overwhelming implication of these was to flex in an attempt for some to try and demonstrate their "worth" to nobodies on the internet. You couldn't even trace them back to the people that gave them you.
Someone on steam writing you a comment on your profile always had exponentially more personal value because you could trace it to a specific profile and trigger a memory. Comparatively, what did jester award 23 mean to you? What, you got these written in a notepad? Do your friends write you messages like "because you're so funny I'm giving you the clown award, it is your 23rd one please keep record of this message to remember of it"?
Not saying plenty of comments like of john dog aren't trash, but at least even those have a trace.
Who are we joking ,awards have been trash and they will continue to be trash.
Steam is just trying to make something of them like with their point shop but I'm pretty sure it's not working as they expected as people will still only spend what they can to buy games and earn points, and people who can't get more wont just magically poop bazillions of dollars to be able to acquire even more points for pointless spending on things they'll never use anyways. Steam is just engaging in capitalism which is cute but it eventually leads to the same place where it turns out this product was not needed.
They just got the capital to keep it going for 1000 years if they want to from successes like their games and steam market, similar to how epic has the capital to give free games every week for the last 5 years now with money coming from fab and fortnite.
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Comparatively, what did award jester award 23 meant to you
To attention starved individuals its all they need. They had 23 people "validate" them.
Same as "likes" on instagram or facebook. As if it means anything. But there are always people who are so starved for attention they validate their whole life around meaningless number. So much they are ready to buy fake likes.
Which again leads to the issue at hand - these attention starved sad individuals spamming useless reviews, forum posts and comments just to farm some fake validation.
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This is exactly what I said tho. It was a statement to point out these awards have always and will always be pointless irrelevant trash.
If steam really wanted opinions they could've provided a free version of a thumbs up and thumbs down or expressive awards so people can award their opinion of the content, but unfortunately in this new period of time everything we say towards something has to be positive as to not offend some weak person.
Like imagine you make a dumb take and you wake up and you got 2 people who liked it but can't see the 69 that believe the take is trash. Similar to youtube removing dislikes from videos, because "we need to only see positivity". You're sent to believe you're on the right track and people like your stuff except the ratio is like 1 like for 34 dislikes. You just can't tell your opinion is 3% liked, instead you're spoon fed that it's 100% right. Morally it is wrong to lead one on this path, and it's immoral for such a system to even exist, yet things are changing this way more and more every day.
What I would like to know is whether these frail people are suing platforms because their opinion got invalidated online and somehow win the lawsuits and platforms chose to deal with this by not allowing disagreements anymore or is it just a stupid corpo mentality? It's probably both.
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you got 2 people who liked it but can't see the 69 that believe the take is trash
Agreed. Thumbs up/down is the simplest and most efficient way to give feedback. Also goes with simply asking for help.... If someone outright gives wrong suggestion, it is hard to really see how many people it helped and how many it didnt help. I just have to blindly trust most of the "fixes". No need for some awards or point gathering (old or current approach).
Who knows where this stems from though. For youtube it was quite straightforward though - they made so much trash content, they didnt want people to see that generally it is disliked. I think it started with their rewind which was simply trash and had mainly dislikes. Yet they simply removed dislikes and acted as everythings fine.
I dont even think its anyone suing someone or anything like that. We are generally adopting a frail culture where everyone is a winner, everyone is correct in their own way and purest form of aggression is being honest.
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Things are slightly getting worse all around every day. I guess I am a pessimist or I'm probably just failing to see how the good things that happen outweigh the bad things that happen. I honestly think we peaked around 2000-2010-ish and now we're on a down slope.
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Which part of my personal opinion/ experience offends you so much that you call it a lie? Who do you think you are, that you know my opinion better than myself lol?
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Do not misunderstand I'm not offended by what you said. I ain't no snowflake. I just believe you're wrong.
You say those higher point awards signified someone is more special, instead what they really meant were more points sent faster, saving time or flexing you got the points and you trying to get someone to like you more. The golden unicorn doesn't signify anything more of importance than lesser point awards. It wouldn't be unrealistic to say it's meaning has much less importance than the treasure award and more than the take my points award. It was just a point pit.
I looked it up and AI has this take on the "meaning of a golden unicorn":
"A Golden Unicorn symbolizes rarity, ultimate achievement, good fortune, and peak potential, often representing an elusive, perfect person or opportunity in business (a top hire) or life (a perfect partner). In folklore, it's a powerful, pure, magical being, while in modern usage, it signifies something extraordinary, like a flawless business candidate, a successful rare startup, or a unique find, embodying hope and magic. "Urban Dictionary has some interesting takes about what a golden unicorn means, some regarding hot women, some regarding urinating and doing some pretty kinky stuff with it and some additional things that I should probably not type here I'll let you look it up because you might not want to associate your golden unicorn award with some of those regarding your friends, or at least I'd like to believe so.
Of course this is just AI and Urban Dictionary but you could find plenty of meanings for a "golden unicorn" that at some point it's meaning is equivalent to a slice of bread with mustard on it.
To add to this, here's some random's take on this that tried to give meaning to each award so you could technically say they at least ahead of us put more effort into the meaning and worth of this specific award than we did:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2834430412 from 2022:
"Golden Unicorn
Cost: 2400 points. Gives recipient 800 points.
Tagline: “Shine on Golden Unicorn, shine on.”
Real Meaning: A Golden Unicorn award is actually a Russian movie award. So, I've no idea what bright spark thought this is a good award for Steam. I mean really - what is the point in this? Oh well, let's see...
Give This Award: Seeing as this is such a valuable award points-wise, but has no inherent meaning, it's given when you just want to give a valuable award for the sake of giving a valuable award."You just associated meaning to something you believed a golden unicorn is but did the person who received it know your specific meaning of a golden unicorn? Or was it just you're worth 2400 golden unicorn points just not 4800 take my points but a bit more than 300 treasure points or 600 wholesome points? Wouldn't this mean that the person you sent it to is slightly above mid tier but I believe this isn't what you wanted it to signify?
You might not like to admit to it being meaningless and just a point flex, and if that's your take on it, we can agree to disagree.
PS: I stay by my stance that a friend making a personal comment on your profile, funny, stupid, commending you, whatever etc. will always have much more significance than all awards together. These awards were insignificant and so are the new ones. But we earn points by spending on steam and might as well drop some on a few pointless awards, stupid emotes, and whatever else. Even I got an animated background from the points shop. I would've bought it for $ if I could have, although I would have preferred to earn it by playing dota 2 instead(it's a dota 2 background).
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"I disagree with you therefore you're a liar"
Fuck you and your wall of text of akshually, you said nore than enough.
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"I disagree with you therefore you're a liar"I was just saying your interpretation of it is a lie you fabricated yourself and is truth to you specifically as the award receiver had their own meaning of what that award is. Doesn't make it more right it's still wrong, that award is meaningless. Instead of attempting to question for yourself whether it is right or not you use ignorance as your shield. It is your right but I'm not gonna defend it for you.
"Fuck you and your wall of text of akshually, you said nore than enough."Akshually your attempt at an insult here is weak and just proves my point. I'm ok and will pass on this offer thank you. If you are that desperate I'm sure you can find someone else to fuck or at least give a blowie to.
The akshually meme is a blessing in this scenario. Its literally your admittance of not being as smart and having a tantrum because you can't handle it. I never sought to be liked by you.
Plus, I hope you see the positive of this, now you can appreciate your friends more significantly by leaving them a comment. Of course until valve removes profile comments too.
Glad we had this conversation. See ya next time :)
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This is stupid. Who cares if people jester farm? Oh no, a guy trolled a bunch of people and now he can... give more awards! The horror!
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I'm sure the people who are trying to use the forums to discuss the game care when genuine threads keep getting pushed off by an endless trickling stream of ragebait topics begging for attention / points
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That's what the forums are for, though. Those trolling threads are hilarious. I visit every once in a while for a good laugh. Sometimes I even participate.
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Its not what forums are for. Forums are for discussions. Not shitposting , rageposting and trolling. For a reason contreversial topics were banned on SG. I go to discussions and forums to see if others have similar issues or challenges. Read what devs have to say etc. Not read some smart ass who has overvalued their sense of humor copy/pasting some useless thread just to farm some attention she/he didnt get from daddy growing up.
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So you are part of the problem and expect what? Sympathy for not getting rewarded with Steam points anymore? Or sympathy because others will feel less motivated to join and contribute to your 'entertainment'?
Awh, such a sad day.
I hope you appreciate the little trolling. Please send me a reward.
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If the forums were for spamming the same handful of subjects purely to get a negative response, they wouldn't be separated by game. The forums are for actually talking about the related game.
Having the same small handful of troll threads repeatedly submitted several times a day with slightly different wording just so each poster can get maximum personal exposure and chance at jester rewards is a far cry from like, having a single troll thread on whatever bait subject they're playing pretend around, and having people actually reply to it.
None of the changes stops people from trolling and shitposting, but the lack of negative awards simply removes the main reason a good number of them were effectively sabotaging forum usefulness for.
Nothing of value was lost, and if you feel differently? Oh well, its misuse was what got it removed. A self-made problem.
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Yeah, I meant trolling that's specifically related to a certain game. From what I've seen, there's a pretty good balance between "normal" threads and trolling, and I don't think either really get in the way of the other.
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No more Jesters when posting giveaways in LGBTQ+ thread? Oh no. :(
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Right? Or disagreeing randomly with somebody on SG, then 5+ of your negative reviews getting jester'd. Totally just an accident, nothing organized or a weak-ass attempt to bully people, just some people happened to be around, just at that time.
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I know! So sad! Where are the trolls going to go for entertainment now?
Oh I know... the rest of the internet I guess.
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The amount of trolls who posted in the CS forums asking valve to add trans agents wearing pink and rainbow military gear and sexual toys for weapons was ridiculous.
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The Point Award spec change is just too messed up, seriously disappointing (´･Θ･`)
Might as well use the points to expand the profile section instead of for awards
It's not promoting communication at all
It's obvious it'll just become a tool for rich folks to advertise themselves, which is a real turn-off
(To top it off, someone commented in English saying the old version was better)
So how would I implement it? Simple.
Just let people who feel uncomfortable with awards opt out of receiving them. (´･Θ･`)
Just state upfront: “This article/post does not accept award evaluations.” That's all it takes.
If they'd implemented it that way, no one would have been unhappy...
Why bring something like this—“just a temporary fix where we made an icon”—to the table...? Did ChatAI become a staff member handling main duties or something...?
🤖Valve🖥️Steam🤖<Hello Human & Alien ok Game user Accept
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Ahem, my issue about these "awards" never was that some enjoyed spamming jesters at my reviews. The annoying part was that the awards motivated people to spam Steam with bs reviews, guides, comments and more.
How would your option to opt out of receiving awards improve the situation if the actual problem was the people desiring awards?
I'm satisfied that they ended this motivational aspect. But Steam should come up with some new options for us to spend our points. Buying all the Steam startup videos isn't really that satisfying.
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The new spec is out, but the “guide prompts” and “review” spam people are concerned about hasn’t actually disappeared.
Since this kind of behavior already falls under “spam” and violates board guidelines, it makes sense to handle it separately through reporting and moderation, rather than expanding the scope of this new specification. Clearer transparency around moderation—such as what kinds of patterns or keywords are being flagged—could help address the structural causes of spam without affecting normal communication.
I’m also curious how recurring posts like “my game/account was banned,” which appear in almost every thread, will be handled going forward. So far, the changes don’t seem to have produced clear positive effects in that area.
What does concern me is the potential negative impact on threads meant for casual or lightweight communication. In my experience, many in-game friendships start from those small interactions. If activity in those spaces declines over time, that would be an unfortunate side effect.
From my own experience answering questions over the past few months, guides and FAQs already exist for many common issues, yet a large portion of users don’t read them even when they’re linked. As a result, replies often have to restate the same information repeatedly. In that sense, guides function more as reference material for responders than as a true replacement for discussion.
Especially since December, many threads have been dominated by region-specific technical issues, which has made discussion spaces feel more repetitive and less conversational. That’s why I’m cautious about changes that may further discourage casual participation.
By the way...
I'll also briefly mention how people who actively dislike seeing awards and have a rejection reaction might protect themselves.
Adding this to ad blockers like Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin should make it disappear from their browser.
store.steampowered.com##.review_award_ctnI do want things to get better, but I'm worried that things seem to be getting worse right now.
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The new spec is out, but the “guide prompts” and “review” spam people are concerned about hasn’t actually disappeared.
...
I’m also curious how recurring posts like “my game/account was banned,” which appear in almost every thread, will be handled going forward. So far, the changes don’t seem to have produced clear positive effects in that area.
As this change was just announced I'd suggest that it's pretty much impossible to judge if it has a positive effect. Heck, most spammers won't even be aware yet of this news.
What does concern me is the potential negative impact on threads meant for casual or lightweight communication. In my experience, many in-game friendships start from those small interactions. If activity in those spaces declines over time, that would be an unfortunate side effect.
An imaginary problem. Such communication and developing friendships happened before there even were Steam Awards. And there is no data suggesting that awards had a beneficial effect, they just as well could have been responsible for many people avoiding to participate and engage on Steam, with all the bs that resulted from them.
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I have no idea how "game/account banned" is related to this topic?
And as this change was just announced I'd suggest that it's pretty much impossible to judge if it has a positive effect. Heck, most spammers won't even be aware yet of this news.
I understand why the connection may not be obvious at first.
In some regions, especially those affected by Russia-related restrictions and neighboring censorship issues, there has been an increase in cases where anti-cheat systems prevent players from accessing games. As a result, we’ve seen more “banned / can’t play” threads appear.
At the same time, fake workaround apps and phishing sites have also increased, and responding to those has become a recurring issue. That’s why these topics tend to surface repeatedly in discussions like this.
An imaginary problem. Such communication and developing friendships happened before there even were Steam Awards. And there is no data suggesting that awards had a beneficial effect.
Valve hasn’t released any data showing whether spam related to Steam Points Awards has increased or decreased, so I agree that there’s no solid evidence either way.
That said, the fact that this change was implemented so abruptly could be interpreted as Valve acknowledging that there were issues with the system. Ideally, this would have been communicated in advance as an experiment or a concern under review.
In any case, problems that are difficult to quantify usually become clearer over time. I think it will take at least a couple of weeks before we can reasonably judge whether this change has a positive or negative effect. Hopefully, things improve.
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we found that this encouraged and rewarded a narrow set of attention-grabbing content
For me this was what absolutely ruined reviews and forum content. Bunch of clowns copy/pasting same content everywhere just to get awards and points. I get that many wanted to retain sending points, but this is perfect example of few ruining it for everyone.
And those saying "whats the big deal?" - the deal is in the fact that neither reviews, nor forum posts, nor discussions are serious and valuable anymore. Everything is clickbait, overused jokes, useless content. It all turned pretty much into shitposting just to earn some points with jester awards.
Good thing that they removed it.
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The Jester needed to go a long time ago, but I think they overcorrected here with the complete removal of points earned by getting awards.
The new awards look bland and uninspired. Like they didn't even try.
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So spending almost 5€ to get give one ugly picture? Yeah, in the first place this thing was broken. And it is no better now.
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I guess it was more like an incentive to make use of the points you get from buying something, rather than to buy something to send an award. It was ~3€ to send a not so ugly picture beforehand, but it got more "expensive" and uglier, with no point transfer it's not much better than sending someone a reaction gif.
I still think it's semi-useful at least for sending on guides, as useful as an "expensive" ugly animated picture can be.
From another viewpoint: even fewer useful ways to spend my points, I'm not happy about it.
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It's a bad change. Just another way to force people to spend money on the Store since now that is the only way you can get Point Shop points if you need them for some reason, for example for a seasonal badge or special profile.
If it really had been because people were baiting for awards/points (which is something that really did happen, a lot of people seemed to be posting just for that) then they could've updated it so that some awards don't give points while others would. For example jester award could've given no points, but if you gave extra helpful it would've still given points. Or let the user sending the award decide if they'd also want to give points, sort of like a "do you wish to leave a tip?" type of deal.
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Steam store made me suffer from sticker shock and consumer hesitation. Now they're even crippling the points shop to earn and tip pointless(!) rewards. What catastrophic rework will come next?
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^^^^^ ive regiven away Total Given: 9,454 steam awards all from points ive been given. since i get can any more outside of spending money, im done. gonna give away 1 of each of the new ones just to add them to the pile and be done.
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Aww, to end such an impressive feat on such a sour note is more than unfortunate :(
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cant afford to keep going
66th place globally ¯_(ツ)_/¯
bypassed by the accounts with names like i sell steam awards. those were often the jester farmers
https://steamladder.com/ladder/badges/49/
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Yes, I saw offers for Steam points only yesterday (on a gray market site). Some people have Ferengi DNA in their cells. It's a shame that everything is made into a business in our society.
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Aww, to end such an impressive feat on such a sour note is more than unfortunate :(
Sarcasm?
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Far from it, I knew already through an older thread how much it meant for him and it saddens me that such a run is ended by money hungry vultures. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do but how you do it.
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never really used them, but the new ones are so damn ugly
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valve enshitification, not more cards, no more points, no more free point shop items, no more cool events, no good art, no nothing
also shit frontend that is broken half the time
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I do like the removal of Jester and point transfer (although I'm also glad that I've made it in time and gifted my niece a bit of points to customize her profile), but they should have left other awards as they were. The new ones are bland and uninspired.
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Pretty heavy "This is why we cant have nice things" here.
Problems:
- Ragebait discussions cause developers headaches because steam dumbs moderation to devs instead of themselves.
- Useless guides, such as "how to open the game", being promoted on top instead of left to die as memes like before
- Every popular games news post had "please add woke" and "please no woke" by literally same person sometimes, being rewarded and successfully ragebaiting people not actually caring about what they posted.
All this potentially leading into one bigger issue:
- 3rd party sellers selling points potentially by having bots copy paste stuff to popular games news or some type of chargeback abuse. But thats speculation.
Good parts:
- Dont need to spend money to get nice profile stuff
- Such as rewarding great, wholesome, artistic content could give you/user points to spend
Considering some animated wallpapers are 3 000 points thats essentially 30€ which is pretty insane to think. But I suppose static wallpapers are now better to be bought from market for few cents instead.
At least we can still upload our own avatars so meh
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We used to have a whole range of coins of different values with original designs each, but now there are just a bunch of 50-cents with crappy emojis
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Today's Steam update launches an entirely new set of 12 Community Awards you can choose from to show your appreciation for the reviews, guides, forum posts, and other community content posted by folks in the community. This update also makes a few changes to how Community Awards work and how many Steam Points they cost.
New: Awards no longer transfer points
When we originally created Steam Community Awards, the idea was for them to not only look cool but to also grant a small number of Steam Points to the recipient, meaning they could be used as a tip of sorts for people who create and share amazing content with the Steam Community. However, we found that this encouraged and rewarded a narrow set of attention-grabbing content and didn't allow the focus to be as much on a broader pool of thoughtful, well-considered creative content.
Because of this, we're refocusing the system: The Second Edition of Steam Community Awards won't transfer points. Instead, the goals of the system will be solely about conveying the appreciation of the viewer to the content creator, and as a signal to others that someone appreciated the piece of content.
Any pending point transfers will complete like normal, but new award applications will not convey points.
Awards now all cost the same number of Steam Points
We've also made Community Awards all cost the same number of Steam Points, making it less confusing to choose an appropriate reaction. Now each Community Award costs 500 Steam Points.
Profile Showcase counts up your awards
The new Second Edition Community Awards will be included in the Awards Showcase that you can add to your Steam Profile.
If you want to show off the fact that you are generous in your giving of awards, or how much appreciation you've received for the cool stuff you've created, the Community Awards showcase features both of those numbers. This number will include all awards given and received, whether they were First Edition or Second Edition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. I've got 3,141,592,653,589 Steam Points. What do I do with them all?
A. Show your appreciation for the fine content shared in the Steam Community by giving Community Awards. Each time you see a user review, forum post, guide, screenshot, artwork or other Steam community post, click the little AWARD icon and select a thematically-appropriate award to grant that content.
Or visit the Steam Points Shop and get cool items to deck out your Steam Community profile, get cool stickers and emoticons to spiff up your conversations, unlock new profile showcases, or level up the Seasonal Badge.
Q. Do Community Awards impact the sort order of content?
A. Nope. User generated content posted to Steam is typically ordered by how recent it is or by the number of helpful votes it has received. The number or type of Steam Community Awards applied to a piece of content does not cause that content to appear higher or lower on lists. Though we expect that a piece of content with a bunch of awards may be more likely to catch your eye, and thus may get more helpful ratings indirectly.
Q. What happened to my favorite Community Award?
A. The Second Edition set of Community Awards is intentionally a smaller set of awards, each one meaning something distinct from the others. This set is designed to make it quicker and easier to choose and keep the vibes positive.
The First Edition awards cannot be granted anymore.
Q. Is there a Second Edition badge?
A. First Edition series of Community Awards had two associated badges, the Community Contributor and Community Patron badges, which leveled up with each award given or received. These badges will remain on profiles that had granted or received First Edition Community Awards, but will not include Second Edition awards. If you are looking to count up the number of awards that you have given or received, you can find that count by visiting your Awards Summary page.
Resource: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/507340830949770620?l=english
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