I doubt it will change much. The users that just collect games for the +1 already know they are taking games from people that may actually want to play them and they don't care. If they did care, they wouldn't do it. If there is no repercussion, if it is just a notice, most users will ignore it.
Same thing with the CV. Stores and devs most likely are just here to give their games and they probably don't care about gaining CV or even entering for other giveaways, so they will check the box, but other users that get keys from devs to give here and gain CV will simply not check the box, they will just learn to hide it better. They are putting an effort into getting these games for a reason and that reason is to gain CV, they are not simply going to click a box to forfeit the CV.
I personally think the best option it to reduce the number of points users get. This will make it so that users will not be able to enter as many giveaways and will have to think about where they actually want to spend their points instead of just entering everything for the +1.
Edit: I wrote what I thought about changing the points system here back before it was changed and also probably a few other places after it was changed.
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I can't say I have much faith in humanity and largely agree to your points, but there are few things:
This feature is relatively light-weight. One simple database migration, and it can be plugged in and out with no impact on past and future. It couldn't hurt to see if it changes anything or not in real life, without having to make solid based predictions in theory.
Cultural changes are slow anyways. If new users will see this feature and it will make them think more, it would already do a lot.
"Promo" option isn't important. I offered this as extra example. If SG devs like their CV system, they may integrate it with new option.
A lot of things work on honesty and own conscience. Yes, people may enter GA "intended for playing" while not planning to touch the game. But, at this point they will be explicitly reminded again and again that they are keeping doing it, in every particular GA.
Without reminding, some people are able to think "I have no idea if gifter cares, most possibly they don't if they are creating GA for this in the first place" and I have encountered and heard a lot more different "reasons" on SG. Now they will know for sure and for every GA separately, so no such "self-comforting" excuses.
Reducing points will make collectors and bots enter the most expensive games first. I don't believe this solves much. Yes, playing people may have better chances to win a variety of broken and otherwise not appealing even for collectors games. Meh. Reducing points will create an artificial deficit which will make everyone miserable and maybe even backfire people who are playing their wins in days when e.g. Humble Monthly is published.
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I don't have a problem with implementing the feature on the site, I was just saying that I didn't think it would make much of a difference. I guess it couldn't hurt and might actually help a little.
I don't see why reducing the points would make collectors or bots enter expensive giveaways, they will always be entering the giveaways that have the highest odds of winning. If they are using a bot, it will probably be programmed to calculate the odds and enter the giveaways with the best chance of winning.
I think people are getting way too many points, especially now that the site is becoming less popular and less giveaways are being created, but we are getting the same number of points. The points just stack up and I can almost never find anything to spend them on throughout most of the month. Then if there is something you want from a major bundle like the Humble Monthly, there are tons of giveaways all at once and you immediately run out of points. This forces people to bank points. Anytime you are not gaining points while sitting at the 400 points cap and the collectors or bots are still spending all their points, they are gaining an advantage on their chances of winning because they are getting more points to spend.
I guess the points system wasn't the point of this thread though. I probably shouldn't have sidetracked it into that since it just turns into a debate that never ends and there are already a few very long threads with tons of opinions in them from when the point system got changed.
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About collectors and bots, my mistake, I was thinking only of these ones who are interested in gaining more "value-wise" from SG community, not more arbitrary wins per se.
Yes, point system isn't related to suggestion. Moreover it doesn't contradict or add to current suggestion. Current suggestion is purely for signifying what the person who paid for the gift wanted, as much this information can be insignificant to some users.
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I would bet you only a small percentage of users on here will play the games, so they would fall into the "collectors" category.
Even someone like myself, who has given away a shitload, and won very few games, I have yet to play all my wins.
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If you want to make sure users play your giveaways then there is special groups for that.
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This is SG suggestion thread not suggestion for me personally.
Yes there are groups. E.g. this group. I will consider joining it, thanks for invaluable advice.
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Edit: Never mind, my english wasnt as good as I thougt.
Took it as "Invaluable advice" ment that my advice was ment as nothing good :)
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English is the only language I speak and I think the same thing when I hear invaluable. Infamous is also confusing. I think it is natural to think of these words this way because normally when "in" is added to the beginning of a word, it means the opposite of the original word (actually, it's not the opposite, but just "not"original-word).
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I do support the sentiment and if it is not much work it is something which should be done. But honestly, I think you are overestimating the general usership of Steamgifts. Personally, I would say it is better than two or three years ago, especially in the forum giveaways. But the majority will enter without even looking if there is "to be played" sign anywhere. Programs to circumvent the actual giveaway page and entering from the main page do no exist without reason.
I tried it multiple times with stating that people should not enter if they don't intend to play the game. In public giveaways it is like stopping a flood barehanded, no chance. Then you have the users who "totally intend to play" but "don't have time" because they win games faster than their whole family could play them for a lifetime.
I really would wish to be able to do it the way you described so that people can do the moral choice and it is the way it should be approached in "real life". Here I do fear, though, that in order to get a percetible change in user behaviour you have to introduce ways which "forces" them to think through their choice a bit more. Which is again not possible without making all of this more complicated. We also have to regard that their may be a non-ignorable usership which doesnt even understand what is written everywhere because of language barriers. All they know is where to click the magic button.
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First step is to add these flags.
These can be extended with crawling from Steam data what people did to their past wins, correlated to past choices (scripts already exist which check win list).
Either way, this extra info can be used/useful as it is and can be extended for more insight.
Winning a game marked "to play" is in a sort a promise/guarantee, a word given to the gifter and community. It will more explicitly divide users who wish to give at least some effort to follow own word from users who has given up own credibility and just try to get whatever they can and state this outright with recorded data.
Winning the games explicitly marked "for playing" and consistently not playing these for months and years can have an implicit repercussion on community level, like getting more exclusion from other people's giveaways, etc. Being known to act in ill manner against will of a number of particular gifters who have names, not in uncertain total where some games were tried and some weren't, is sightly different.
I can see positive impact like people paying more attention to playing, and getting on a good note with other users.
And in the end this can simply give more facts for people who are interested to know what happens on SG and to maybe decide what to do on SG.
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Am just going to respond to a small part of what you just said and no idea how to quote!
Winning the games explicitly marked "for playing" and consistently not playing these for months and years can have an implicit repercussion on community level, like getting more exclusion from other people's giveaways, etc. <-- uhm, I do intent to play all my wins for sure (besides my 1st which is an abandoned game) BUT it can take years before I actually will play it, that doesn't make me a collector or anything because I do want to play them, one day!! If you are only allowed to take a few months, even more if you win a 50+ hour game for example, that would suck because not everyone always has time/energy to game even though they 100% intent to play them.
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It sounds nice in theory but in reality too many people would see that this giveaway flagged as "play it please" has fewer entries. The more effective the distinction would be, the greater the temptation to ignore it.
It might have some minor effect but imho it's really a better option to use the existing group for that purpose.
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Exactly this. I knew one douchebag in particular who went out of his way to enter those types of giveaways, with no intent of playing anything ever (not against the very real and documented SG rules!^^), simply because he knew honest people who didn't intend to play the game wouldn't enter.
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BUT it can have a big impact on community.
I really don't think it will. Most people don't even bother to read giveaway descriptions, and some have actually gone so far as to call people who post them "entitled" (lmao).
As was suggested elsewhere, if you want something played, you'll have to join a group where that is its primary purpose.
Having said that, I have nothing against your suggestion; I just view it as wasted effort when there are other more pressing issues that could be addressed.
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I think the same, especially if we're talking the "playing appreciated" example as one of the "radio buttons" option - this is the most correct answer to follow in my view
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I really don't think it will. Most people don't even bother to read giveaway descriptions
That's part of the point. Even people who do not pay attention to descriptions may see these colored badges, or need to go lengths to disable these for themselves (but they would not be removed e.g. from their wins list for others to see).
Users who would see these badges would get more awareness about what kind of choice they make every time they join a giveaway. This is entirely moral thing for every person to process.
This is in no way related to playing groups or any GA access restriction mechanics, I do not understand why people keep suggesting entering the groups. Marking a radio button does not create a rule which must be followed, obviously. Colored badge would be seen in any public, group or wl giveaway as an extra information bit given by GA creator, bringing extra flavor to it without need of words.
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you will only get frustrated when people keep entering your giveaways and idle $60 games because "it's not against the documented rules by sg admin cg ^^".
don't waste your time with suggestions to make people play their games, most have a super selfish mindset impossible to change so they will do whatever they want once they have their win. 🤷
share games you don't care about with randoms, and make whitelist giveaways for people you trust.
you can also try this with a group, but personally i wouldn't spend time organizing and policing one. too much time invested/wasted in something that should be simple as "i give you this, you play it, you enjoy it". instead, you usually find the classic idler cheating his achievements, or speedrunning a 50h game in 10h using guides. 🤦♀️
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Suggestion: Include Radio Buttons in GA creation form with options of GA purpose such as:
Would be nice if default would be saved in cookies from a previous GA made by the user, in case someone wants to have other options defaulted.
Also SG could add extra options for this radio buttons if it makes sense such as:
+ This is a promo giveaway
for stores, devs and so called "influencers" etc. E.g. this would not increase the account's CV given or whatever sounds reasonable for you guys.
But extra options should not overlap with the first two radio buttons. If needed these can be check boxes empty by default.
Then, next to GA info both inside GA and from GA listing pages, there could be visible a colorful badge with text, for example
(green or orange)"Play and enjoy!" or (gray)"Collect" or (light blue)"Promotional"
This suggestion does not make GA creation more complex if default is set automatically, neither it makes more complex GA entering mechanics.
This would be a cosmetic thing, simply and explicitly marking is the idea of the person who actually pays for the gift to share a gift with someone with purpose to play and enjoy it, or they don't mind if gift is just added to collection with no further interaction, etc.
I believe this is not very high effort change in development.
BUT it can have a big impact on community.
Every person when choosing to enter a GA or not will see is the gift intended to be played or not. They will be pointed to and know this piece of information.
So people may just think twice when entering something which is intended for the lucky winner to play it. If user does not plan to play the gift, they have a moral choice to make, and a lot of people are not that bad to always do greedy, inconsiderate decisions in situations when pointed out explicitly.
Again, it will be easier for people to concentrate on "Collect" giveaways if they are not sure whether they will have time or mood to try the gift, since the gifter didn't expect that much.
This also creates many new high-context options for GA making. People can explicitly set which gifts they consider must-play e.g. because these games mean a lot for them. Or which other GAs they want to create maybe just to make a social conversation inside, or gifted game's name is a pun related to something and game itself is not intended for playing, or GA is contributed to some celebration but the gift itself isn't considered significant in the case, etc.
Groups of collectors, if they want, will have an option to explicitly state that their gifts were never expected to be played.
I don't include poll. Please leave comments if this suggestion seems interesting or if there are some underlying problems which were not considered.
added
This is not about actual control of what happens to wins. This is not about making any new rules for SG. Yes, there are playing groups and this suggestion is not related to them. It is not related to any GA access restriction mechanics such as public / groups / whitelists etc. but adds extra information to any giveaway.
This is about healing community culture, making remark of things which should be considered.
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