I'm curious how this will work for games that automatically gave you an additional gift copy when you got them. I guess they won't be able to do that anymore?
Comment has been collapsed.
I think those would still work, just that you can't keep a gift to send later anymore from the buying page.
Edit: They say the changes are now available, but my old inventory gifts are still with me, which is why I assume those would still work.
Comment has been collapsed.
"Note: Pre-existing gifts will be unaffected by this change".
Comment has been collapsed.
Buying one of those games after the change tough means the gift won't be "pre-existing".
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, that was added after the first time I saw the post.
Comment has been collapsed.
They 12 games I ave are still gift-able then and only new ones have to be sold. I thought Steam did not want use users selling for cash?
Comment has been collapsed.
You don't get the gift at all is what it means, the refund would be to your steam wallet.
Basically if I wanted to give you a gift, I have to buy it, set it as gift, then immediately send it to you through the purchase system, then if you declined it, or already have the game, it will refund the money automatically, and not become a gift as they are now.
Comment has been collapsed.
What a way to ruin holidays and my easy shopping for them. Steam will lose a lot of money from me in this move.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, while I never use it, alot of people seem to, so it's something they may end up backpedaling on
Comment has been collapsed.
There are still 2-packs, 3-packs and 4-packs of games (Rocket League, for example) that give you when bought additional copies as gifts. These gifts works as fine as the old ones - they can be transferred (in 30 days) or gived away to an email.
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting. I'm guessing those will stop being available for purchase soon though.
Comment has been collapsed.
No, I don't think so. These are not really gifts, they're parts of pack - so they should be treated differently.
Comment has been collapsed.
Sorry for "waking up" one month later, but i'm curious.
This whole "Multi-Pack" thing is quite interesting, and since quite some time has passed since your reply, i wanted to know:
Are "Multi-Packs" (3 or 4 copies of the same game) still treated "like before", or has the new system categorized them as simple "buy it as a gift, set a date and a person and that's it" as well?
As in, if i buy a 3-pack containing 3 copies of the same game, and am left with 2 copies after one is added to my Library, will the other 2 copies remain in my Library to send when and to whomever i want?
Thank you in advance.
Comment has been collapsed.
At this exact moment it's the second option - you're buying the pack as "for yourself", get game for yourself and additional gifts in the inventory. You can send them to whomever you want and whenever you want, and even trade them with other people in 1 month after the purchase.
Comment has been collapsed.
That sounds awesome. Thank you very much for the answer.
However, i still have two remaining questions, if you don't mind:
-
How do you know this? (was it a user who pointed it out, or did Valve say something?)
-
Since the new "Steam Gift Policy", has anyone actually bought a 2, 3 or 4-pack to see if what i ask is true?
(a user has already pointed out that yes, "multi-packs" like the ones i'm asking about were indeed tested and discussed about here, but i would still appreciate a "second opinion")
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, it's quite simple:
- I've checked it myself - I've bought Merry Payday Christmas DLC 4-pack and now I have 3 more gifts in my inventory (you might be able to see them for yourself). I wasn't sure, nobody wasn't sure, so it was the easiest and cheapest way to check it.
- Of course, I did it after new Steam Gifting Policy applied.
Comment has been collapsed.
Super. Thanks a lot for the clarification and for your time.
You're awesome.
Comment has been collapsed.
Not a fan. Really liked how we could keep games in our inventory for possible future trades and gifting,
Comment has been collapsed.
That's true. While market items aren't affected, there's presumably no longer any way to trade CS:GO/TF2 items for games, directly within the trade window. Thus, no more Valve protections for game trading scams. Really seems like they're shooting themselves in both feet, regardless of whatever benefits this change may offer them.
Comment has been collapsed.
they bleed money so really don't care as this saves more from cc scames than they would make from the trade community. though i wish we could still buy game for our invontory even if we could not trade them for 30-60 days. the issue before was you could allways gift untradable games.
Comment has been collapsed.
rip buying gifts on sale at the last minute to give away?
the GA and the sending of the gift will now have to be within the timeframe of the gift/game's sale
and thats assuming theres no re-roll problems
Comment has been collapsed.
This will almost certainly decrease the amount of purchases on Steam.
Edit: And it's already live? It's mind boggling how stupid this is.
Comment has been collapsed.
Edit: And it's already live? It's mind boggling how stupid this is.
As we all know, Valve is known for their excellent communication, careful consideration of matters they engage in, concern for their user base, reliable service, and all-around quality offerings. /s
Surely we can afford them a single mind-bogglingly stupid mistake!
Or two. Or three. Or three dozen. Or fifteen thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three..
..hang on..
Comment has been collapsed.
Brought to you by the same company who thought (and probably still do) that Paid Mods are a good thing.
Comment has been collapsed.
too bad steam pretty much has a monopoly on games. Valve is a shitty company all in all
Comment has been collapsed.
If people would leave in mass for GOG, I'm pretty sure Valve would change things quick to get back on the good side of the consumer.
Comment has been collapsed.
I started doing that a long time ago. I only get games on Steam now from bundles or if they are Steam exclusive, and I only buy direct from Steam during their sales.
Comment has been collapsed.
How do you keep track of which games you have on each platform? Don't mistakenly purchase games you already own?
Comment has been collapsed.
I have 600+ games on Steam and 200+ on GOG. A lot games I own on both platforms. I either I bought it on GOG first and acquired a Steam copy in a bundle, or I got it on Steam first, either in a bundle, on sale or just when it was Steam exclusive, then acquired it on GOG via. the GOG Connect program.
I have a good memory when it comes to individual games I've bought. It gets a bit fuzzy with games that came in bundles. Sometimes I see a giveaway for a game in a train and I'm surprised to see that I already own it, but there's little chance of me re-buying one of those because if I don't know I have it, it's probably pretty low on my priority list to be played. You could use (I don't thought) something like ITAD's Collection and sync your games to it.
If all else fails, you can always just search your library for either platform using the web site or the client.
Comment has been collapsed.
Simple flat folder containing one sub-folder per game (thousands of them), where I drag in a link to the store page or other source I got it from, along with a text file with installation/compatibility notes, etc.
(It's actually slightly more complicated, since I have separate per-store areas for installer downloads, with a link to that in this folder; patches generally also get stored here, though. One day I'll get around to writing my own software to manage and automate it better, but it works well enough - I can even tell at a glance what bundle the game came from, if any.)
Comment has been collapsed.
People already potentially have thousands of games on Steam, if they aren't already using GOG for their exclusives theres little chance of them switching now.
For everyone else/newer users either GOGs library or its functionality doesn't hold up. Even with their rebranding and distribution deals for some newer titles they're still extremely lacking in certain areas (AAA and multiplayer in particular).
So unless there's some significant and rapid changes at GOG this is unlikely to change and said changes would likely not impress the existing userbase.
Comment has been collapsed.
GOG is for SP game players. And they are still the majority in numbers, even if they pale in played hours.
For MP, there will be Origin or UPlay. Well, UPlay only if UbiSoft can evade the Vivendi takeover (otherwise we may see the first paid multiplayer service on PC).
But even if the platform exclusivity stays, at least some good can come out of this: more publishers selling keys at stores other than Steam. Humble grew into a pretty impressive force in this regard in the past year and a half.
Comment has been collapsed.
(otherwise we may see the first paid multiplayer service on PC).
*cough* GFWL, 1st gen
Comment has been collapsed.
How to force me to move to GoG:
- It has Dota 2
- It has latest AAAs I want like Nier
- Regional pricing
Now all are missing from GoG, so yeah no dice.
Comment has been collapsed.
Regional pricing
They have that, Ukrainian prices are around -60%
Comment has been collapsed.
CD Projekt Red have already said they have no plans on selling.
Comment has been collapsed.
What Cd project red says means nothing? They are publicly traded so they are susceptible to hostile takeovers
Comment has been collapsed.
If they get take over by let's say vivendi than they won't
Comment has been collapsed.
For a hostile takeover to happen someone with a large percentage of shares would have to sell them to someone who owns another large portion of shares.
As far as I can make out, GoG is not floated on the stock market, so it is not a public company. Therefore no one has shares in the company to begin with.
Comment has been collapsed.
Limited company has shares by definition. In case of GoG, all shares are owned by CDP. CDP is public company, what more, free float exceeds 60%, making it susceptible to hostile takeover if someone would be willing to risk the losses in case of failure
Comment has been collapsed.
like prus666 said - GOG is just a "product" of a company which is publicly available on a polish stock market. Noone would be able to hostile takeover GOG alone, but whole CDP (including CDP Red - devs of Witcher, GOG, CDP publishing etc) could be a target of hostile takeover.
Comment has been collapsed.
GOG needs to get it's act together with library matching.
They have had time limited periods where they will add selected games from my Steam library to my GOG library. What happens if I miss this window? Tough luck. So I'm left with a patchy library and the option to either re-buy games I already own on Steam or wait for them to have another round of random additions.
Hell, they don't even notify when these periods begin, I find out from threads here or on the /r/gamedealsmeta subreddit.
If they want me as a customer they need to match my entire Steam library, not bits and pieces of it at their leisure and if I'm lucky enough to find out about it.
Failing that, there's no way I'm going to split my purchasing across multiple platforms, I'll be staying where my existing library of games are.
Comment has been collapsed.
You should be notified in an email. You might want to set up a filter that sends any emails mentioning GOG Connect to a specific folder.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I get their marketing emails just fine but no GOG connect notifications. Even so, once the window is closed I can't add games and that's a real dis-incentive for me to use their platform.
Comment has been collapsed.
The GOG Connect stuff is normally attached to their newsletters or store promos.
"ALL SAINTS ROW GAMES NOW AVAILABLE ON GOG CONNECT"
was in the "Limited Offer: FREE Saints Row 2" email.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ah, ok. Thanks :) I usually skim read those emails.
Comment has been collapsed.
at their leisure
to be fair, publishers demand drm
I'll be staying where my existing library of games are.
How much of GabeN ongoing trolling will it take to change that? I.e. not others get (much) better but Steam constantly worse.
Comment has been collapsed.
GOG is a DRM-free platform, that's their shtick. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
As for the quality of service I get from Steam, it's the same as it's ever been. The most annoying thing they've done is require trading and market sales to be verified via their app, and that's not enough for me to switch to GOG where they don't even have trading or a market place to begin with.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
"match my entire Steam library"
It's the reason they miss new games. Not their but publisher's fault/demand.
quality of service I get from Steam, it's the same as it's ever been.
What if they kill key activation and all other stores/bundles with it, and force you to solely rely on their ever degrading store & sales.
Comment has been collapsed.
So publishers see GOG's DRM free service as a piracy risk and don't put new release up there, that makes sense. There's still no reason why I should have a one time 7 day window to transfer across my 2 year+ old games though. There's just no incentive for me to split my library, it needs to be all or nothing for me to use their service.
Are Steam going to get rid of key activations? As you say, that would kill off many online game retailers and pretty much all bundles. I can't see them doing that. Even if they did I'd make my decision then when it's an actual fact, not now while it's a hypothetical fear.
Do GOG do key activations? I remember manually transferring my Witcher games from Steam to GOG but I've never activated a game from a store or bundle on GOG.
Comment has been collapsed.
Are Steam going to get rid of key activations?
It is the next logical step to gain full control. They can return the account based activation that HB&IG had for a year first to soften the blow and keep stores alive.. for awhile.
make my decision then when it's an actual fact, not now while it's a hypothetical fear.
when it will be too late
Do GOG do key activations?
Some form yes but don't know exact details.
Comment has been collapsed.
Too late for what?
I buy from Steam when the price is right otherwise I get games in bundles or trade for them. If they do away with keys they'll be like every other digital distribution system and I'll still have no reason to change. Unless and until another provider will match my existing library why would I ever switch?
The only other feature a platform can compete on is price and thus far GOG has failed to blow my socks off.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's hard. Vast majority of games don't show up outside of the Steamworks system...
Comment has been collapsed.
The problem is that Valve is not only a monopoly, but that it's pretty much unaccountable to anybody beyond a few uninterested politicians.
There are no investors / shareholder to placate.
There are no accounts to be filed publicly.
So Valve, now they have such a monopoly, can afford to tell us all to go and f* ourselves.
Comment has been collapsed.
(and probably still do)
Not "probably", in one of the interviews/AMA/something Gaben confirmed Valve tries to figure you how to get money from modders work.
Because, they don't really want modders to be paid, that will be just an side effect to main reason why Valve wants to bring paid mods - 30% they'll take from every sale (and they'll be sad it's only 30%, not 100%).
Otherwise they would slap "donate" buttons in workshop already.
Comment has been collapsed.
The publishers were as much to blame there - if not more. They're the ones wanting the control. Seeing as they were getting a cut why wouldn't Valve agree.
Comment has been collapsed.
Actually they do still think that. Same with Bethesda. They've said that they're working on trying to charge for mods again.
Comment has been collapsed.
It will certainly decrease the number of sold units. The question is if it will also decrease revenue. I'd really like to see their calculations behind that decision.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'd really like to see their calculations behind that decision.
Comment has been collapsed.
This is similar to the gambling incident in that Steam is trying to cut down on 3rd party websites doing business from their platform. People buy lots of games to inventory while on heavy sales then trade them for items to sell for money. It's a problem of worth and controlling things that are on sale. There are still a lot of consumers that buy games at full price, rather than wait months to a year for a sale. If everyone is able to pick up the games at a fraction of the price at any time, they've lost money in a limited market size.
Additionally, this will further crash the community markets for items and cards. making Steam profit more from the community market by increasing the number of transactions since it's more buyer-friendly and Steam makes the same cut off penny items. So, card and item farmers should also be in arms against this.
Comment has been collapsed.
Additionally, this will further crash the community markets for items and cards.
Can you explain why/more?
Comment has been collapsed.
Probably cuz a lot of that economy relies on Steam gifts to uphold the value.
Comment has been collapsed.
People will continue to farm. Not all, but some. Without gifts to trade with for some value, the only option are for item-item trades or directly selling to the community marketplace. Supply stays relatively constant with less paths to flow out to. They go to the community market and the value of items plummet.
Comment has been collapsed.
People can still buy games for themselves with that money though
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm also trying to understand why this is a good move. From a consumer perspective having inventory was nice, especially for those of us who know we'll probably never play 75% of what we buy anyway. The option to give it away (usually years later when the game is at lower price) is a nice benefit to have.
In the end, it makes me hesitate more when buying from Steam.
Comment has been collapsed.
Taking your example, I don't see why it's bad; you will be buying fewer games you wont play.
Sure developers will be a little worse off because they wont be getting those sales at launch and you wont have games to give away. But as you said, by the time you choose to give them away those games are usually selling for less than you would have paid initially.
You're saving money, this can only be a good thing, right?
Comment has been collapsed.
You're assuming I don't get a kick out the optionality of having the games in the library... and I really don't know which of the games I get that I'll end up playing. Often I just scroll through the list and say - lets try this >
And to be fair, it's kindof cool to give away games here too. Everybody likes winning a game, right?
That will all be gone, like tears in rain ;-)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I see what your saying but the games aren't going anywhere whether they're in your inventory or on your wishlist. You could equally browse the wishlist and buy a game when you feel like playing it. I guess I'm more of an /r/patientgamer type.
I wholeheartedly agree that it will put a stop to your style of spontaneous giving which sucks. I can see short length giveaways during sales still working, getting a winners details and making a gift purchase while the sale is still on. But I agree it's not the same as giving a game away whenever you feel like it.
Nice reference, it's one of my favourite movies. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
New here and starting with a rassist comment? Way to go to make sure you end up on as many blacklists as possible
Comment has been collapsed.
you want to take a one word ridiculous comment as something serious? why... this is the internet for multiple decades
it's also a religion, not race
Comment has been collapsed.
Welcome to the list that isn't white, you'll be there in the company of some kindred spirits.
Comment has been collapsed.
Uhm.
Given how short most steam sales are, and that I usually only manage to catch them at the tail end, this means I'm pretty much never ever going to be able to give away unbundled games on SG again [barring notable Humble Store sales/etc].
Which, of course, as doc mentioned, means I'm going to be buying a whole lot less from Valve..
[Given that I only ever really buy unbundled games for myself when they're deeply discounted (ie, discounted to $2 or less, 85% or more off), so most of my unbundled purchases have always been for SG..]
Comment has been collapsed.
Vavle does anything to make Steam more unattractive, don't they? I've already started to lose interest
That also means that itll becoming harder getting games from other regions cheaper. (propably the reason for the change)
Comment has been collapsed.
Vavle does anything to make Steam more unattractive, don't they?
You just gotta read between the lines.
"Steam Gifting will now be a system of direct exchange from Steam usage to GOG Galaxy usage [Pending Galaxy finally becoming reasonably functional], and we will be retiring our role as the industry leader of digital gaming platforms."
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah, I really started buying there more, though no new titles yet
Comment has been collapsed.
I love to buy stuff on sale to giveaway later. Terrible news. T_T
Comment has been collapsed.
Looks like Valve finally has enough money and doesn't seem to want any more.
I like being able to store gifts in my inventory for use at a later date.
Comment has been collapsed.
Very well said.
This change sucks big time. Oh well, if they don't want my business...
I wish there was a serious alternative for Steam! Have had 0 luck with GOG connect this far, and don't love the client either.
Comment has been collapsed.
that sounds like the worst possible move to me... "hey guys, you can no longer store stuff for later use.... in order to do that you need to start utilizing grey market sites..." is pretty much how i read that.
Comment has been collapsed.
Or Humble Bundle (if available in your country)
As far as I know you can store the keys forever and it's not grey market.
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah, not all of them are difficult to find in key form.. but it still will push a lot of people towards actual grey market sites for a few titles, rather then worrying about being able to afford at the appropriate sale time.
Comment has been collapsed.
This is a pretty stupid move, all they'll accomplish with this is reducing the number of people willing to buy through the steam store.
I know they want to end cross-region trading but this is excesive, time to grab those pitchforks like when payed mods became a thing.
Comment has been collapsed.
" Please let us know if you see any issues or have any feedback."
I suggest making us hear the only way they understand ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
At this point it's kind of astonishing Valve is still a profitable business when there are lots of alternatives.75% of my "Steam" games came from other sources, but I'm still the fool for using Steam as my online valet for gaming.
Comment has been collapsed.
Valve is undoubtedly massively profitable.
Their overheads are minimal, and they have a cash cow business model in which they take 30% of game sales (plus varying %ages of other items sold there).
It's really a dream business model, for remarkably little effort they're taking 30% of the value of games sold there.
No dev costs, no marketing costs, nothing beyond the costs of running and maintaining their services and the occasional legal issue.
Even when it comes to buying steam games elsewhere, to Steam, whilst they might be directly profiting from THAT sale, they are still tethering you ever deeper into their eco-system.
Comment has been collapsed.
Which is why they are not developing any more games.
It's hard to get them to act while they have a monopoly and have to put in so little work to cash in on the games sold on their platform.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indeed.
Why put themselves through the hassle and risk of developing games?
Comment has been collapsed.
Read everything you wrote
I know, my statement was slightly tongue-in-cheek ;)
Companies always fuck over the consumer, and people continue to let it happen.I just wish they wouldn't. I really only buy games directly through steam/valve when someone else has given me wallet funds (holiday ca$h).
Comment has been collapsed.
Not really. Keys are completely free for developers right now (to create and distribute). That could change of course, I don't know Valve's plans.
Comment has been collapsed.
Last I heard, they were getting a cut. At least, that's what a guy from the industry told me some years ago. Since you're a dev, you probably know more than me, so you are probably right.
Comment has been collapsed.
When "we will combat review fraud" really meant "to fraud, buy with 30% cut from our store now, and keep going"... that definitely is in the league of possibilities.
Comment has been collapsed.
The pessimistic predictions usually put their net profits after all taxes at the 100 million USD range.
Considering they are not actually producing anything and their staff may be like 30 people and 28 of those are just making skins and hats, it is quite a nice sum of money.
Comment has been collapsed.
hehe,
more accurate numbers: 700mio profitz, 150+ employees
Comment has been collapsed.
So their profit rates most likely rival or maybe even surpass Apple's? Cute.
Comment has been collapsed.
????
Apple make way more than 700 million dollars.
They make more than that a week.
For Q1 2017 they made nearly 18 billion dollars.
Comment has been collapsed.
Profit rate, not profits. Percentage of money they spend on stuff and what they get in advance. Apple has to develop, design, manufacture, market, ship, and maintain physical products, plus upkeep a store chain globally, and also spend a few billion of vanity projects like their new headquarters and maybe sometime a 40-meter high Steve Jobs statue for even more dick-waggling.
Steam has to maintain a server park, create a few texture files every now and then, and pretend to have a support when their scripts that automatically send one of the pre-defined answers fails. Of these, the server park is the actual large cost.
Comment has been collapsed.
Profit rates would be impossible to know.
Clearly it's possible, even probable (I missed the rates part, sorry), but Valve don't publish accounts, so for all we know Valve could spend all their revenues on 'business expenses' like solid gold toilets ahttps://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/J7RLb/steam-removes-inventory-giftingnd strip clubs.
Comment has been collapsed.
I know, that was the "most likely" part. :D
Still, 700 million for a company like that who is not involved in actual industrial processes or any kind of service that has a flexible and unpredictable operation cost, this is a huge sum of money.
Comment has been collapsed.
the server park is the actual large cost.
Comment has been collapsed.
This is ridiculous... And in their usual way, without a warning.
Well, looks like Humble Store will be getting more of my money
Comment has been collapsed.
rip my message being deleted...tldr steam is dead long live steam
Comment has been collapsed.
This may actually result in an increase of revenue from people that will buy games directly from Steam, at full price or sale price in their country, rather than buying them for other items or real money when only the cheapest sale price (or some times, a price error) at the cheapest ROW country was paid to Steam.
This is not necessarily a bad move from the business perspective, and people saying that this will surely decrease revenue are not seeing the full picture.
Comment has been collapsed.
Agreed, I expressed similar thoughts above. And it would certainly increase revenue, if Steam had no competitors. But as that isn't the case, we have pretty much no way to tell how the results will look for them.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think if Steam would've explained it as this I'd maybe understand: "Organized arbitrage trade between low regional pricing and high regional pricing is causing us to not be able to maintain steam inventories as they are."
I actually thought many steam gifts were region restricted.
Instead they announced it as a positive, which no consumer who isn't arbitraging games is going to understand.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree that they were trying to sugar coat it as much as possible, confusing the end user.
Anyway, there are more reasons than cross-region trading, such as farming copies from price errors or sale prices that are then resold to users that are willing to pay more. Those users could be buying directly on Steam for a higher price instead, and that's what a good percentage of them will do from now on.
Comment has been collapsed.
I fail to follow this logic to be honest, unless you by good percentage mean minuscule percentage. Why would anyone enticed to by a game at sale, or price error, price suddenly start buying it at full price?
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam sugarcoating, there's something new...
"This is for your own protection!" - SGMA to undercut their horrible support even more.
"This is to keep out fraudulent reviews!" - Steam forcing devs to pay them 30% to continue their fraudulent review practices - also prevents them from having to kick said devs and loose potential money.
"This is totally beneficial to you!" - Removing inventory gifts
Did I miss something?
Comment has been collapsed.
I actually thought many steam gifts were region restricted.
They are, all continents basically locked to themselves.
Comment has been collapsed.
This is precisely what I mean by failing to see the full picture. Remember that most Steam users will not purchase outside of Steam and that you cannot use Steam wallet outside of Steam.
Comment has been collapsed.
And you now have a $2000 dollar Steam wallet that you cannot use to stash gifts.
Honestly, I'm kind of surprised Valve didn't give us a couple months between quadrupling wallet and this new change to give people a chance to max out their new $2000 wallets before realizing they couldn't spend them on inventory gifts. Seems like a greed opportunity wasted.
Comment has been collapsed.
Might happen in some countries (USA and UK mostly). But in countries where you can buy food for 2 weeks with $20 people will still wait for discounts or use 3rd party key sellers.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for sharing the news.
This is the worst thing they could implement, not just for customers but for their business as well. If enough people complain maybe they'll change their minds like with the paid mods fiasco.
Comment has been collapsed.
Not buying anything there will speak FAR louder than complaining though.
If everyone just resisted the temptation to buy anything for a week or so they'd snap to ASAP.
Comment has been collapsed.
To be honest I switched to the Humble store long time ago. I only added steam wallet funds before the major sales and mostly for gifts. Wouldn't it be great if Humble made their own gaming platform?
Comment has been collapsed.
They should. Steam needs some real competition, and Humble is one of the most trusted brands in PC gaming atm. Right now the only alternatives are GOG, UPlay, and Origin, all of which have pitiful market share compared to Steam (for a variety of reasons).
Comment has been collapsed.
I think I have a "mighty" $1.71 in my steam wallet. I pretty much hate putting any money in there as it's considered spent and non refundable.
I find I almost always can beat Steam prices too elsewhere (Humble, Bundlestars, GMG, wingamestore, etc) without even using the grayer market stores.
Comment has been collapsed.
Stopped buying there since SGMA, just tearing on my ever decreasing Steam wallet (from selling cards, their pure profit from me now lost).
I'll miss Nekopara vol 3 though, hopefully it ends up on Humble to buy. For the rest, no regrets at all. Poor devs having me wait on say, Humble bundles though.
Comment has been collapsed.
The worst was region lock. This is just one more of their "to be continued" changes to bury completely trading system and seems it will be big success (for them, of course)... ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Why would they do this? The improvements are overshadowed by the things they removed, like no more safe trading for gift copies of games now through steam... If it is an attempt to prevent certain cheaters stacking up on copies of games (ie csgo), then a implementation of this to VAC enabled games instead of a blanket rule would have been MUCH better.
I don't get it
Comment has been collapsed.
Helps prevent people from reselling steam gifts on places like G2A. They probably want more people to buy directly from steam, but their profits are going to take a dive after this change
Comment has been collapsed.
Because, as usual, the "this is for your benefit" masks the real reason - THEIR benefit. And you loosing more priviledges.
In this case, they want people to buy from their store rather than trade, going through the community market instead, netting them double ka-ching.
Comment has been collapsed.
Guess now this site will be renamed "SteamKeyGifts"
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you to all those who will only buy on Steam and give the middle finger to other clients.
This is Valves thank you for your loyalty.
Since they really have no real threat or competition because of reasons listed above they can do stupid stuff like this.So no more buying on Steam for me it will be key sellers from here on out or Amazon.
Fuck Gaben and his greed.I do not make a lot of gift purchases but it is nice to buy gifts and add them to my inventory as sometimes I am unsure If I really want a game but want more time to decide without missing the sale price.Yes I am aware of refunds but it was far easier to do it this way.
Comment has been collapsed.
but before... we need a complete GOG connect of our libraries...
Comment has been collapsed.
I never did care much for Steam anyhow this does not help it at all.The biggest reason is no real competition so they can pretty much do what they want.They also despite making more then most publishers have the worse support out of all the clients.They have one of the most toxic community and shit developers that ban for complaints and bad reviews with no punishment for abusing power..They also sell games that barely work or will not work on newer OS with no proper warning..There refund policy is crap and the only reason they did it was because they where forced not because they wanted to otherwise they would have done it a long time ago.The EA is a joke since they have no accountability at all.They admit it could be improved but have done nothing since it was put in to do anything about it.
So steam has been dead to me for a long time,it just thanks to most games only being on Steam platform I am forced to use it more then I would care.Well not forced but I love gaming and will not let one shitty client ruin my gaming.
I so wish GOG had gifts and keys to use and well had more games.Sadly this will not happen for most newer games because publishers still think Piracy is the main reason game sales suck on the PC.It could not be the bad ports and the way they treat us like idiots and second class peasant at times nah that has nothing to do with it.It is all piracy.
Okay I am done with my little rant I feel better :)
Comment has been collapsed.
II know they have gifts and key optionsWhen it came to GOG I meant more GOG outside of GOG and better gifting for such things.That being said GOG still is no decent full replacement for Steam.I would be cutting off a lot of games I would like to play just to spite Steam.
Also there is the issue of it being DRM FREE and let's face it to many still want to blame Piracy on why games do not sell on the PC not the fact there game or track record might just be garbage.So not anytime soon will we see Tittles such as Prey,Doom,Dawn Of War III,ect on that site.
They are great for a lot of older tittles and indie games and the rare big game like Dying Light.
Comment has been collapsed.
GOG does support gifting. They also support keys (keys basically being a gift redemption code anyway).
Comment has been collapsed.
Why would a user be able to generate keys?
This is a GOG gift link - https://www.gog.com/redeem/B3E2B-39A12-12E35-7B97C
This is a GOG key - B3E2B-39A12-12E35-7B97C
The few times GOG games have been included in bundles they've either included the gift link or the key which is entered on the gift redemption page. So whilst the system is primarily used for people to buy gifts to send to others the fact that games have been bundled indicates that devs/publishers can generate codes for sale elsewhere.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's mostly that my main source of new games (bundlesites) all give Steam keys only. If Humble Bundle started giving GOG keys instead, it would be bye bye Steam pretty fast I think.
Alas, just a dream.
Comment has been collapsed.
Damn, I was hoping the title was a joke, then the message, but unfortunately it's not... Damn.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks Valve. There goes my hope of joining Sim Gives this time around.
Time to get that PS4 I've been wanting.
Comment has been collapsed.
At least you can use that $75 to get games you want, even if it wasn't the intended purpose, or buy a Steam Controller.
Comment has been collapsed.
Not really what I wanted to do with it, I got plenty of games. And Steam controller? Ha, they don't even offer it to us. Have to buy their hardware elsewhere.
Comment has been collapsed.
Now I can't have you enter for a removed game again :(
Comment has been collapsed.
Shit. I didn't think about this....
Well, I think Simgives can still work. He just has to end it the day before the sale ends or week of the sale or something.. So it can still work, but it won't be the same.
On the upside, at least we can buy games we didn't win maybe?
Comment has been collapsed.
I can't gift to more expensive regions now. Europe and North America for example.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh. So pretty much Simgives will be exclusive to North America, Europe, and... idk where else.
I guess everyone will start using the region section for giveaways a lot more...
Comment has been collapsed.
Then you have Aus. I'm not sure if there will be any gifts they can accept.
Comment has been collapsed.
Do sites like humble bundle have holiday sales that are similar to Steam? If so, couldn't people gift keys during SimGive? At least, while keys still exist xD
Comment has been collapsed.
Do sites like humble bundle have holiday sales that are similar to Steam?
Yep and even more often.
Comment has been collapsed.
Two issues. Lower selection of games, and it requires real money, not just what stuff like cards pay for.
Comment has been collapsed.
As I said on the comment page:
Wouldn't surprise me if the real reason for this change is games that have been removed from the store.
People tend to stock up on these games in their inventory and resell them for a much higher price at a later date.
Comment has been collapsed.
No it doesn't, but Publishers are probably bitching about their licensing agreements and users still being able to acquire removed games.
Comment has been collapsed.
I see. But only few developers revoked keys after their games were removed from the store (mostly when there were other issues than licensing).
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't think they mind, as those games are giving them revenue they wouldn't otherwise have...
Comment has been collapsed.
They don't care about licensing. It's more revenue to them circumventing their contract. They would like to sell those titles for longer.
What they really care about is theoretical lost revenue between sales at times they haven't decided to put games on sale. They simply want to increase average price point of their games.
Comment has been collapsed.
they care about money, once a game can't be sold, the publisher/developer no longer gets money, which is why they normally give a massive discount on licensed products before they are removed..
Cutting the price by 90% in some cases, this way they rake in last minute sales while they can still legally sell the game..
It's why anytime a licensed Activision product is on sale for anything over 80% you know to buy it now because it's about to get removed..
Comment has been collapsed.
There's such a tiny and insignificant trade for those removed games for Steam to take such drastic measures that affect everybody. It has to be the grey market.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, they did also do drastic actions for the small offset of hacked people or review abusers (the second which they could easily squeel manually seeing they actually knew the offenders).
Comment has been collapsed.
you mean less money because pp will stop buying gift right ?
Comment has been collapsed.
People will stop buying gift at sales for reselling.
And those who bought from resellers will buy Steam for full price.
Comment has been collapsed.
Stolen keys are last time trend. Early resellers (at least russian resellers) used bundle keys and gifts that was buying on Steam sales.
Comment has been collapsed.
That was like... 3 years ago? Until Valve started to restrict gifts by regions (Jan 2015).
All devs receive tons of mails from people claiming to be youtubers/streamers with thousands of followers
Comment has been collapsed.
I usually thought most resellers buy (for cheap) or trade other games from people who buy bundles (mostly HB, I guess) actually.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well maybe. I am not very rational tonight.
But with respect to new releases with absurd low prices, you can guess from where they get the keys.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's not correct. Their keys are mostly from cheaper regions. I'm not defending them in any way and surely a few sell stolen keys, but the bulk of it is from byuing from regions like Russia, Brazil, India, etc and reselling them in EU/NA
Comment has been collapsed.
Well maybe. I am not very rational tonight.
But with respect to new releases with absurd low prices, you can guess from where they get the keys.
54 minutes ago
Reply
Edit
Delete
Permalink
Comment has been collapsed.
And those who bought from resellers will buy Steam for full price.
Comment has been collapsed.
https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791457287600/announcements/detail/1301948399254001159
You can now only buy something directly for another steam user and if they decline, your money gets refunded.
"Steam Gifting will now be a system of direct exchange from gift buyer to gift receiver, and we will be retiring the Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory options."
"Note: Pre-existing gifts will be unaffected by this change."
here's a change.org petition created by another user in the thread,
https://www.change.org/p/valve-corporation-valve-please-bring-back-previous-gift-system-on-steam
Comment has been collapsed.