These numbers show true loyalty :)
Comment has been collapsed.
That's not the point. Do you purposely not enter giveaways for games you want that have 9 times the odds of winning? That's what I am talking about.
Comment has been collapsed.
I've had cases where I automatically first start browsing through "group" giveaways, knowing that they generally have fewer entries, and then later browsing all giveaways ending soon find better odds. I imagine that's what's the cause here. Still an interesting phenomenon, though :)
Comment has been collapsed.
So you think 87% of the people that are entering for this game all just happened to only search through their group giveaway list? That is highly unlikely.
Comment has been collapsed.
Normally I go to wishlist giveaways first, then go to group giveaways, then I've often used all my points before I even get to the complete list of giveaways. I don't imagine it's so unusual - and therefore, not particularly unlikely...
Comment has been collapsed.
so you believe it is more likely that those 87% of users are all bots rather then they simply clicked the groups button?
Comment has been collapsed.
There is an add-on that shows it has over 16,000 users. I'm sure there are people using other scripts as well.
Comment has been collapsed.
16k? really? that's insane. i saw one with 500installs, but 16k is insanity. i still would only assume maybe 5% of the entries are using it though.. not 87%.
edit: i also see one with 1,500.. but 16k?
edit2: most i could find was that 1,500 one.. and the one that had 500installs had 2k users in the steam group associated with that, but even 2k is still only 1/8th of 16k.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't want to add a link, but there is one on the chrome web store that says 16,362 users. It's my first google result.
The more I look at the numbers, I am starting to think that it probably is mostly from people using the group filter. I didn't really think people would enter like that without looking at the numbers, but I guess they do. It makes sense because in most situations the group giveaways will have less entries because of smaller groups, but when you add large groups they end up with more entries.
I originally was thinking they had the bots setup to give priority to whitelist and group giveaways and that was causing it, but I think they would probably enter based off odds instead.
Comment has been collapsed.
my bad, the one i was talking about with 500 was 500reviews not users. ^^ same one. damn that is a crazy amount of people though. even if only 10% of those that have it installed are using it, it's still crazy.
i agree though that most are still probably going off the groups page instead, but i wouldn't of thought those types of scripts/tools were even that popular to begin with. but even if it's 5% of the current entries were using it that's still ~30-35 people easily atm that wouldn't of joined without a tool.
Comment has been collapsed.
I often notice this in giveaways of South American groups. So it might also be a factor that the users who enter these want to be sure that there's no region restriction.
Comment has been collapsed.
This giveaway is open to major groups like the steamgifts group and why wouldn't those people just create giveaways and check the box for the south america region restriction?
Comment has been collapsed.
There was no relation to your example. It was just another one (for further research ;-)).
And while you and I know that there's an option for region restrictions in the GA creation menu, there are probably thousands of users who don't know it, because they're new or never gave away sth. Look at the rule breakers, the topics which were created though the FAQ answers the user's questions and so on.
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess they could miss it, even though it's right in their face when they create a giveaway and they have to click "none" in the region restrictions category when they create the giveaway.
Comment has been collapsed.
Your theory proves right, already 5 times as many entries in the group gib. Funny :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I wouldn't say it is conclusive proof, but it does look that way.
Comment has been collapsed.
I thought there was something going on, was noticing similar things happening, like a giveaway 3 weeks out, made an hour ago having over 1k entries, but the giveaway made 3 hours ago with 10 minutes left had under 100
Comment has been collapsed.
I think most people don't look at odds that much, just do simple "nearly-blindly enter wishlist giveaways, check group giveaways, if there's points left check public giveaways if they have anything interesting".
This could bring more interesting results if you'd put something like GTA5 in both group and public giveaways (but then, it would be on wishlist giveaways anyway, so not really that helpful...).
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess that could be what it is. It's still pretty funny if that's the case though. There's so many people that enter group giveaways thinking they get better odds and they don't realize that all the public giveaways, even level 0 have better odds.
I never really use those searches because I don't use my wishlist and I have over 6000 games blocked on SG, so my main list is pretty short and easy to look through.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't use my wishlist and I have over 6000 games blocked on SG
Hello Me :P
Comment has been collapsed.
I think that observation is only partially correct. First both pair of your GAs still have hours to go, from a SG user's perspective, they are usually more easily find on Group category rather on All category. Secondly, odds of public GAs tend to deteriorate rapidly approaching the end (even for Lv4 GAs). I think people are just overwhelmed by the amount of information here and therefore cannot make rational choices, and the shortcut for them is to enter the easily visible ones. And if choosing a public GA is better than group GA, even the odd is 9:1, is still hard to determine unless you enter the GA at the very last second.
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess it could be people just entering group giveaways thinking they will get better odds and not looking through the public ones. Here's a public, level 0 giveaway that was up for 25 hours and ended with only 639 entries, while a group giveaway with around 20 hours remaining has over 900 entries.
I just find it funny that the worst case scenario, a public level 0, giveaway is getting less entries than group giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think this phenomenon also occurs on private GAs. Recently I found that the odds of private GAs often fall under 0.3% soon after they are posted, especially those unprotected ones (direct linked, no toohardpuzzle, jigidi... etc). Although unlike public GAs, they rarely fall under 0.1 at the end, but I had the feeling that farming for private GAs become harder and harder now.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow, that is really weird. I guess it's just people blindly assuming they have better odds without looking at the number of entries, which are right there, next to each other...
Fun experiment!
Edit: I never ever clicked any of the Browse links on the left side of the main page but I guess lots of people do?
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't have much use for the sorting links since I have over 6000 games blocked. My main list is pretty short and tidy :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Well.
I can say that I browse "wishlist" (and forum^^) for 90% of the time, then maybe 9% on group and only 1% in public if I find something interesting.
Most likely this are just people entering everything from the group tab, since this has (often) better chances. ;->
Comment has been collapsed.
I originally thought it may have been bots giving priority to whitelist and group giveaways, but the more I think about it and look at how the ratio of public to group is gradually increasing, I think you may be right. I didn't think that many people entered giveaways with those filters without looking at the public giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
I usually just skip any group giveaway with 1000 entries and chose something with better chances.
But i am smart.
Comment has been collapsed.
How is that smart? Why not enter all ga's for the few games you want. Better odds or not there is still one lucky winner.
Comment has been collapsed.
I am a gamer in that i enjoy any game, and will try all from my library eventually (even the bad ones) i don't specifically need AAA games like Fallout 4, so less need for putting all eggs in one basket, sometimes a game does come by like Project Cars that i would focus alot more entries on, even a few with 500 entries, but it's just very rare that i enter anything >1000 entries (unless there are more copies).
It's true that even with low odds you still don't always win, i had two events with 1 gifter giving away 20 ganes with 10-20 entries and just yesterday 10 giveaways with 50 entries on average, and i didn't win once. But on the long run if you do focus alot more on lower entries you will win more, hence why mostly people opening topics asking if this site is fake? etc are the ones going for games like Fallout 4 and enter giveaways with thousands of entries and thus never or barely win.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think I was talking a bit too much from my own perspective. Most of the time I have 300 points waiting to be used. Like you I only enter for games I intend to play some day. With thousands of games hidden not so many ga's left, usually half a page. So if I see something I like I will enter if it has 2 or 10.000 entries. I prefer the first option ofc :)
Comment has been collapsed.
This is some really interesting research. I don't usually pay too much attention to the odds when I enter a giveaway, but I am more likely to browse the group giveaways because I believed that there would be a better chance of winning when there are restrictions. Never thought that the bots would have the exact same idea. Guess I should start browsing the public category more often!
Comment has been collapsed.
The more I thought about it and looked at the numbers, I think it may actually be people entering by using the group filter rather than bots. I would think people using bots would leave their computer on so it can enter while they are away and the number of entries would have went up quicker, but the entries are going up slowly which leads me to believe that as people are getting on SG they are just using the group filter thinking they will get better odds and not looking at they entry numbers on the public giveaways.
I didn't think that many people entered giveaways like that, but I guess they do. Also, I would think bots would enter based off odds rather than just giving group priority considering it is such an easy calculation.
Comment has been collapsed.
A half-legit explanation could be that if they don't have tons of games hidden / already owned, they don't even see the public giveaways yet on the 5th or such page of ongoing public giveaways. But it easily could use scripts.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I'm starting to think that is what's going on. I didn't give that too much thought originally because I have over 6000 games blocked and I don't use those filters, but I guess a lot of people do.
Comment has been collapsed.
If you plan to track the entry numbers until they ran out, the last 2 hours would be interesting to see
Comment has been collapsed.
I might if I am around and I remember. They can always be counted at any time from the entry list as well.
Comment has been collapsed.
The numbers are up. I think there would have been slightly less entries in the public giveaway if I didn't post it here in the forums where people look for giveaways. I'm thinking about doing it again without posting about it until it is done.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, though it's still a 2.6 multiplier, which is pretty insane, considering more people see the puclic giveaway than the group one :|
Comment has been collapsed.
O boy. I can't help it but this will hunt me. This is so, so strange. I hate it when things make absolutely no sense at all.
Comment has been collapsed.
It is most likely from people entering by using the group filter on the main giveaway page thinking they are getting better odds and not looking through the rest of the public giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
still interesting data collected either way, and i wouldn't doubt it's a combination of both. too bad there isn't a way to full distinguish the diff really :(
it makes sense though really. my priorities when checking is public first but only public page1 ending in the next 1-2hours since i do frequently check it manually thruout every day, then group to see if any shorter/quickies have been added that i'm interested in, then i head over to the whitelist since i have so few in there to see if any of those are worth joining (most my whitelists tend to be lvl0 with super high entries, so that's why it's last with leftover points)
so even in cases like mine where i check public over everything else, it's only the ones ending very soon.
Comment has been collapsed.
Are you talking into account that points are adding up reasonably fast right now?
I seldom look at "all" or "groups". I look at the wishlist search. When points are slow I will only enter GAs that are under 500 entries. Right now however I can enter everything thats showing up on the wishlist. If I have the points to burn I will enter that wishlisted GA that has 5000 entries because, hey why not, I might win. But if I don't have the points to use I try to save them for the wishlisted games that have less then 500. Of course all bets are off if its a AAA title or something I seldom see.
Available points also determines when I enter them. I enter ones with less then a day left before entering ones with a few days left. So that may further shift your numbers.
No bots here. hmmm. I see I way overthink this stuff.... lol and spend to much time here as well. On the plus side. I no longer feel compelled to use up every last point before going to bed like I used to when I first started using this site. I just enter what I want and leave it. I've even left it at 300 a few nights because nothing was popping up on my wishlist search.
Comment has been collapsed.
Points regenerating faster should not cause people to enter the group giveaway instead of the giveaway with much better odds.
The giveaway that is ending 10 hours earlier is the one with only 1/5 the number of entries (previously 1/9). Also, I created 2 giveaways with the exact same start and end time and the group giveaway has over 6 times as many entries.
Comment has been collapsed.
Your comparing stuff running at the same time. My entire thought on the regeneration of polnts is not valid in your case. You don't need to take it into account. Thats me overthinking it :)
A group GA being higher then a public one mean people are definitely looking at group GAs and entering that way. I looked at your number a bit more. Hmm.. I have no idea. OK. Guess I'm not much help this time.
Comment has been collapsed.
I originally thought they might be using bots and it is prioritizing the group giveaways over public, but I think it is just people that have too many games to sort through on the main giveaway list so they are just filtering them by group giveaways because they think they will have better odds. There are so many people that figure the group giveaways will have less entries so they skip over the public ones and they end up having less because everyone is skipping them.
Comment has been collapsed.
on mobile, I usually filter first for the wishlist, then at certain levels, and then if I still have points I'll list everything.
on the unofficial app, there's an option to list whitelist and group giveaways regardless of level.
so I end up seeing group giveaways before I'm out of points.
for me, it's as simple as that.
usually I'll check the odds and groups, but sometimes I just want to use up the P and go to sleep. and I'd rarely compare to GAs with lesser levels in any case.
nice experiment though! :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Here's what you came for, although most of you probably have it already.
I just thought these numbers were kind of funny. It seems that there are over 700 people that know nothing about odds or just automatically enter every group giveaway because they think they will have better odds of winning. The funny thing is that this game usually only gets like 4-600 entries in public level 0 giveaways and this group giveaway already has 900 entries (giveaways were at 105 and 900 entries when I started this thread).
It's like the people that entered were programmed to think group giveaways automatically mean better odds, but they don't bother to enter the giveaway with almost 9 times the chance of winning :)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/B6mzZ/precursors
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/8S2yk/precursors
Edit:
I just started 2 giveaways of my own that start and end at the same time with no restrictions other than one has a bunch of major groups, lets see what happens. Here they are:
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/f1Bsp/to-the-home
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/fmlfk/to-the-home
I don't know what to think. I find it hard to believe that so many people would just enter the group giveaway while not entering the other with better odds, but I also find it hard to believe that a bot wouldn't do such a simple calculation and enter the giveaway with better odds. This certainly doesn't prove anything and I am not saying that these people are using bots, it just looks suspicious and I think it is funny that people enter giveaways with worse odds than all the other giveaways for the same game simply because it is a group giveaway. I see this with group giveaways all the time (when large public groups are added).
I also find it odd that when I noticed these giveaways yesterday and when I started this thread, there was a huge entry gap of about 9 to 1. They were at 105 and 900 when I started the thread, now they are at 171 and 963, only 5 1/2 to 1 instead of 9. I know giveaways get more entries as they get closer to ending, but it has only been 2 hours and it still has 18 hours remaining.
Here are some numbers I have been collecting on the two giveaways I started (yeah, I have too much free time). Doesn't mean much, but I thought it was interesting. I think the gradual increase in the ratio may be an indication that people are manually entering the giveaways as they come on SG by using the group filter rather than using bots like I initially thought.
I think I should of done my test without posting the links here. If the numbers really are because many people use the group filter and don't bother checking the entries on the public giveaways, I am inflating the public giveaway numbers here, but not the group numbers. This is because many of the people that only enter the group giveaway thinking they get better odds will also check the forums for giveaways and when they see the numbers here, they will now enter the public GA that I linked.
I think that is what happened with the giveaway for Precursors. I was not tracking the numbers on that, but it is possible to do at any time through the entry list (that is how I got the entry numbers for my GAs while I was sleeping). I noticed the group giveaway had over 9 times as many entries and it was that way for a while. Then after I posted the link here showing the better odds in the public GA, it shot up to almost double the entries in just 2 hours while it had barely been moving for the past day. This is not because the giveaway was ending because it still had another 18 hours remaining at that time.
Feb 19th
I was just looking through some giveaways and thought this one was pretty funny. This game usually gets around 400-800 entries in level 0 public giveaways and yet this one with whitelist and group currently has over 2700, Shu
And here's another. Level 0, public giveaways open for 24 hours only get around 800 entries while shorter ones get around 350-400 and yet this giveaway with whitelist and group gets 3276. Age of Steel: Recharge
Comment has been collapsed.