Taken from the FAQ.
Why did my level decrease?
There are two reasons why a decrease could occur.
Values are calculated based on the current USD prices of games in the Steam store. If a game lowers in price, the value of previously created giveaways will adjust accordingly, and this will be reflected on profiles and levels.
Certain games on our site are flagged as "No Value" or "Reduced Value". This is done manually by our volunteers, and therefore there might be a delay before these values are assigned. For example, a game might be included in a bundle on January 10, 2018. If on January 13, 2018 we flag that game as "Reduced Value", with an effective date starting January 10, 2018 (the day the bundle started), then giveaways created between January 10-13, 2018 would have their value reduced accordingly.
Its working as intended and both reasons apply to you.
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Ah ok, I read this section and thought "previously created giveaways" meant only giveaways that haven't ended yet.
Why does the second reason apply to my case though? Could you elaborate?
I thought the "effective date" of a value reduction applies to every game regardless if bundled or not, but apparently I was wrong there (Ark example)
But the Steel Rats example I don't understand yet, bc I gifted it long before it was free, but it was bundled at the time I gave it away and I was fully aware of that.
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The second reason isnt applied in your case. Its the first reason thats applied in your case.
Values are calculated based on the current USD prices of games in the Steam store. If a game lowers in price, the value of previously created giveaways will adjust accordingly, and this will be reflected on profiles and levels.
The steam price has changed so your value has therefore decreased. The second reason is for "no value"=free games. And "Reduced value"=In bundles or over 95% sale.
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For Steel Rats, i thought the second rule applied to you as you mentionned it went free. Looking into it a bit more, are you sure the cv reduction wasn't similar to ARK Evolved as Steel rats when you gave it away was a 15P game but is now a 10P game so you will lose some cv. I doubt you would get no CV for a reduced CV game but it might be a glitch that SG are not aware of.
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Yes indeed, that's what it was. Thank you!
I had that in mind and I calculated my CV manually before making this discussion and I remembered doing that calculation back when the Steel Rats thing happened - and somehow I managed to do something wrong both times because my calculated CV was always just a bit too high. I think I calculated with points and not the $US values, that's why it misaligned and so I thought it had to be something with Steel Rats 🤦♂️
Now I did it again and it aligns perfectly - with Steel Rats at 85% reduced value.
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If a game lowers in price, the value of previously created giveaways will adjust accordingly, and this will be reflected on profiles and levels
Huh, I always thought that the CV for previous giveaways was "locked". Maybe I should read FAQ more often lmao.
But on a serious note, it is interesting how my CV is always around 8,23. I do make a giveaway every month or so but I would have expected it by now to get some sort of CV drop, if anything. Oh well, can't complain
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You create GAs for games that increase in base price, so you get free boosts :D
Factorio and Shovel Knight for example
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It's locked only in terms of its bundled or unbundled status.
Keeping the status quo is good. Increasing it to get to level 9 or 10 is a grind.
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This does not have anything to do with retroactive pricing, the ARK price itself dropped on Steam. SG takes the prices from Steam constantly, it doesn't store the data that when you gifted it that it was $50. The reverse would be true if you gifted a $10 game on steam whose base price was then increased to $20 that you would suddenly get $20 worth of cv for it.
The Steel rats example is different, yes that one was retroactive.
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Thank you for your answer, that cleared the Ark example up for me - I was a bit surprised though, but I guess it makes sense as I "benefited" from the 50P CV as long as Ark was valued 50$. Now that it decreased, my benefit also decreased, but that doesn't change my previous benefits from the giveaway until now.
The Steel Rats example I still don't quite understand. Was its retroactive CV reduction just an anomaly?
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For what it's worth, I think it's wrong, but that's the way it works.
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I wanted to chime in about Steel Rats. If a developer/publisher on Steam makes there game free for a limited time, the CV is not reduced. From my understanding it only will happen when it's has to do with keys. If it was reduced to 0 CV it more than likely was due to a giveaway with Steam keys.
EDIT: After looking into things on our support discussion board, there's no listing that shows it was ever reduced to 0 CV. From what I can tell the game has only been reduced to bundled CV as it was in the HB Monthly before.
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First of all, thank you for your comment!
It's no big issue for me really, if I want to get back to Level 4 I have no problem whatsoever with gifting more games to this great community.
I was just curious how the system works and make sure it works as intended.
The Steel Rats example definitely happened just when it was free on Steam for a short while, I can pinpoint that down.
If there were given free Steam keys at the same time I don't know though.
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I'm not showing any listing in our support discussion boards of it ever being reduced to 0 CV. It is reduced to bundled CV as it was in the HB Monthly before.
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Yeah me too. Its suck. I feel that too with my Syberia II - Deluxe Ed. Losing 2 levels... Hurt so much :O
Giveaway it before it bundled also...
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The only way a game’s CV can be “locked,” is if the title gets removed from the steam store.
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I now see it that way: We benefited from Ark's 50$ CV the whole time it was at 50P.
Now that Ark decreased our CV decreased as well, but that doesn't take away the benefits we had with our higher CV for the time Ark was at 50P.
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From my understanding: The CV is always based on the price RIGHT NOW, not the price you bought it for, not the price it was at the moment you posted the giveaway, not the price it was when the giveaway ended, not the lowest price it's ever been sold for, the current price. If the price goes down, the CV for the giveaway goes down (yes, that's technically retroactive), but the reverse also applies, if the price goes UP, so does your CV. This appears be intended to prevent people "gaming the system" by buying a game on sale for $2, waiting for it to go up to $20, and getting a huge benefit. By having the CV linked to current price at all times, everybody gets the same amount of CV (not counting reduced CV for giving away the same game many times) no matter when they posted it.
If an item is ever severely reduced in price (I believe it's a 95% sale), or given away in a bundle (such as Humble or Fanatical), then it becomes "Reduced Value" and you only get 15% CV for any giveaways ... but that only applies to any (all) giveaways posted after that date. It's possible for a game to be posted saying it's full value, only for the mods to discover it was in a bundle before that date, in which case that giveaway will "retroactively" become Reduced Value. If the game key was given away for free, then it becomes No Value instead.
As for the Steel Rats thing, if you got 0 CV while it was free, then got it back when it was no longer free, then it's working as intended. If it went to 0 CV and stayed there permanently, that is only supposed to happen if you gave the game away after the point it became free (even if at the time it was marked as full value, which can make it appear to be retroactive when it is discovered and added to the system). Unfortunately, if the key is ever given away for free, that makes the game have no value for everybody forever after that point (but those given away before the effective date should still get credit, from my understanding).
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Thank you very much for this detailed comment!
Summarized: The thing I wasn't aware of was that the CV is always calculated from the base prices right now and not from the giveaway creation date. I thought it was similar to bundled games as f.e. a game that has been given away before it was bundled remains at 100% CV.
That this doesn't apply to the base price was what I didn't know.
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i lost like 100 off my CV lol was so close to lvl 6 too
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SOLVED
Summary:
If a game drops it's base price on Steam the CV from all previous giveaways drops accordingly.
This is regardless of:
Therefore, if f.e. a giveaway was created for a 20$ game which was already bundled it would be worth 3$ CV (all normal here).
If a year later the base price of the game on Steam is lowered from 20$ to 10$ the CV for all SteamGifts users who gave this game away will also lower by 1,50$ to 1,50$ CV (10 * 15%).
This is because the CV is always calculated live, so to speek. The only dates that SteamGifts saves behind the scenes are the starting dates of 1. bundles and 2. sales over 95%.
If one makes a giveaway for a game which is unbundled and "worth" 50$ the only information of this sentence which will be saved for the future is that it was unbundled at that time, not that it was priced at 50$.
If the price later drops to 30$ (as did Ark Survival Evolved) the CV for all the users who gave that game away drops by 20$. In a way that seems retroactive, but again, it's really just because base prices or price histories aren't saved and the CV get's calculated live.
However, it works both ways. Price increases also increase the CV. Most Early Access games come to mind here.
Original post:
Today I noticed that my Contributer Value went down 20$ and therefore my Level dropped from 4 to 3.
I found the culprit to be the recent price and therefore points drop of Ark Survival Evolved from 50P to 30P.
I checked the rules and FAQ of SteamGifts and as I understand it this retroactive reduction shouldn't happen - which I find quite logical, bc the value at the time of gifting should count.
The same thing actually happened a few months ago when the game Steel Rats was free for a limited time on Steam and its value also decreased retroactively for me from reduced CV to no CV.Does this happen to anyone else? Is this how it's supposed to be?
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