Usually you get 0 points while the game is not released and the full point value after the game's release.
Edit: Or reduced value if the game was in a bundle.
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To easier understand the system it's perhaps better to not think of it as "getting CV". You don't get a set amount of points added to your stash when giving away a game. Instead they simply list the date of the giveaway and the game in their database, as well as the current CV value of the game.
The CV is continually updated based on the current price of the games you've given away at any given time, and when they are added to the bundled list this CV is adjusted by a multiplier for all giveaways of the game that was made after the date they listed it as being bundled from. This means if you give away a game and they raise the price in the future you suddenly have a higher CV than you did before, and if they lower the price a lot you may have lower CV than you did before. If they bundle it after you gave it away you're safe though, since the giveaway date was before the listed bundle date.
If on the other hand you give the game away after it was bundled you may see the full CV on your account until the list has been updated, at which point it will suddenly be calculated with the bundled CV modifier since bundled dates count from the day it was determined as bundled and not the day it is added to the list.
So yeah, think of CV not as a currency you get but rather as a measurement of the current value of all the games you've given away.
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Thanks for the detailed explanation, but there is one thing I´ve never understood, what/when is a game considered "bundled"? Does it refer to Humble bundles or other game packages or is it something else? Is it better for a game to be bundled or not?
I was aware that they update games CV retroactively and I´ve had my CV drop quite a few times, quite a few in the last month or two.
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A game is "bundled" when it was in any bundle (Humble, Indiegala, Fanatical, ...) or had a high discount (~95%+).
The date the game is in a bundle or has a high discount is the "bundle date" and all GAs created on this day or afterwards will only receive 15% CV. Giveaways created before receive 100% CV. Keep in mind the date of the bundle/discount counts, not the date the "bundled" status is in the database.
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"Bundled" is a bit of a misnomer, since it simply refers to any game that had a high enough discount (95% in USD, meaning it may be a lower discount in other currencies. Checking the SteamDB entry for any particular game can give you comparative pricing in other currencies) to attain a sort of "especially deeply discounted" status. The term is applied without actual consideration to whether the sale involves a bundle or not, with actual bundles being evaluated for addition to the "Bundled" list by tier, meaning that it's possible for Tier 1 and 2 of a bundle to get bundled status, while Tier 3 remains unbundled.
CV drops most typically occur due to retail price changes, though since games are added manually to the Bundled list, there are plenty of instances where a discounted game can't be added in a timely manner. Once the game is added to the list, it'll be added to the effective start of the sale, meaning the point where people were aware the discount existed (even if that preceded the actual launch date of the sale) [thus preventing users from preloading giveaway listings once a sale is announced].
Finally, keep in mind that Steam's API always sends out the lowest price data for any store page, meaning pages where packages go on sale cheaper than base games may temporarily boost CV value during the duration of that sale (Daedelic games are the best known examples of this). Similarly, Free Weekends and similar sales will temporarily give 0 CV for games, also correcting itself once that promotion ends.
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For the game to be marked as bundled it has to have been 95% (in a bundle or solo). That is why most of the time humble monthly games are not marked as bundled.
Now secondly for you to get your CV redused it means that the game was added to the bundled list and you b4 your GA ended. The easiest example is Conan from monthly, this time this monthly had games that made their total price over 200$ and 5% of that price was 11$ so under 95% bundle range. This means that all of these games are marked as bundled from the time they are made available in monthly but were previously non-bundled. So anyone who has given away these games has had his CV reduced.
But lets say someone gave away Conan 1 day before it was reviled in monthly, he will not get CV reduced. Hope you understood all :)
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Your CV at any point is based off the most recent retail price of the game, adjusted to the status (Unbundled, Bundled, Free) of the game at the time you created your giveaway. Eg, a $30 retail bundled game would give you 30 CV, if you created it unbundled at $40 retail (because the retail price changed to the most recent value, but the unbundled status did not).
For unreleased games, they send out a retail value of $0. This updates to the proper CV value within 24 hours of the game's launch (I presume this occurs during the next day's daily Steam update. but I never confirmed whether that was in fact the basis for it).
For Steam pricing glitches due to unusual listing configurations, these seem to pretty reliably get taken care of on SG's end, though it can take notably lengthy periods for SG's staff to be able to process the reconfiguration. (I had 3 or 4 games that took over a year to get updated from 0, but I believe each one of them now properly gives CV.) There is however also the risk that SG staff may be unable to properly configure things on this end, meaning the game will perpetually list an incorrect value (unless the publisher reconfigures it on Steam's end).
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I was wondering if you get CV when giving away games that have no price listed on Steam yet (usually because the release date is upcoming) so that the price to enter the giveaway is zero points.
Thanks in advance.
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