I'm not bothered it just seems really weird. People actually do this?
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I like to think that it's at least good for siphoning points away from bots who enter those giveaways (so that they don't have points to enter GAs for actual games). :D
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That's a good way to look at it. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure they can choose to ignore certain items in the script. Honestly I don't know because it just seems cheap to automate the process so I don't look into it. If nothing else they seem to just enter the first thing they see that they have points for and as such would blow all their points on the lowest entries not the 50p ones.
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There were a number of articles and videos made on the subject 2-3 years ago, of questionable transactions in the Steam Marketplace and obscenely priced media being used for money laundering purposes. My guess would be they're probably being rotated out and sold for cheap on some shady website. Seems to be all the rage in the last year around here though. I'm hiding multiple of these every week.
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They're usually sold for pennies on shady Russian outlets or given away for free. I've also read that Kinguin gives these as free "positively rated" mystery games with other purchases. There's speculation that the devs jack the prices up to prevent genuine reviews from tarnishing the fake initial positive ratings so that Kinguin can pass them off as quality.
The money laundering theory is plausible too. Devs buying their own games at inflated prices to launder dirty money.
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Makes sense. I figured they were being sold cheap but haven't bothered looking into the where or why.
It seems the most reasonable assumption considering some of these are going for $200 a pop. Wouldn't make much sense to create high valued games for something as inconsequential as CV, unless these devs really enjoy watching numbers go up. Considering Valve has busted more than a few schemes over the years it wouldn't surprise me if this type of thing is just the next step in the process though.
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China and Russia seem to be the origin of most of these games. The most common reasons they're made would be to either use fraudulently obtained Steam gift cards to make money, or to move money out of the country. Probably not laundering, since even the most cursory audit would flag this as a scam.
As for creating them to farm CV, no. Anyone giving them away here is likely doing it because they got them in a bundle and they have no trade value, so giving them away is an alternative to throwing them away. They'd be better off doing it at Indiegala though, since they can get XP there to level up, in a similar system to the CV leveling here.
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Except not everyone is getting them and giving them away. I was serious it's just a few accounts. And not 1 or 2 at a time either but 4 or 5, there's no way these are padding bundles that heavily. And the accounts all seem to be low level asian/russian accounts.
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Have you ever seen those mystery bundle Steam games for sale on eBay or key reseller sites? Those are the kinds of bundles I'm talking about. This is what they get filled with. There's also hundreds of games worth a few cents that don't give +1 or cards.
They're not getting anything by giving them away here. When you list, you can see they give no CV. In my case, the first games I had were junk games that no one had any interest in trading. I threw a lot of them away before I joined SG, but some sites had records of the keys, so I gave them away here.
I later learned from here, in the descriptions of other people's GAs, that Indiegala has a similar system, where users give out keys. They also have 10 levels. I don't bother giving away 0 CV here games anymore, because all it got me was 9 blacklists in my first few days of giving them away. While on Indiegala, I get XP and level up.
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Not all of them are 0VC though, that's why this thread and this list exist and are being maintained by users and every now and then worked on by a mod to catch up. Sometimes it takes weeks or months. In the meantime, said accounts potentially profit off of an inflated level and can enter giveaways they shouldn't be able to enter.
Oh and IndieGala has blacklists as well, allbeit ridiculously small. These games aren't welcome there by most of the users as well. It's just that IndieGala staff somehow manages to do even less about stuff like this than the SG admin.
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Sure, there will always be new ones that need to be manually added. In this case though, all the ones I saw were already set to 0. I also wouldn't expect to list some obvious asset flip/trash game for hundreds of dollars and have the CV last very long at all.
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Yeah, I thought so too a while ago. But sometimes expectations and reality deviate from each other.
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You can buy them in bulk for cents. And they can up your lvl quite high untill added to 0cv list. But that's just side effect.
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What's even crazier, is when you start wondering who it is that is commenting positively and joining these giveaways.
Not all, but you will find a chain of cross linked accounts in that they have canned responses, very small steam library's, and join alot of garbage game giveaways.
Used to spend time to check garbage giveaways, and blacklist anyone who only makes shovelware giveaways. But it kinda gets overwhelming the more you look into it. So better to just use sgtools, and higher level giveaways.
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Probably bots that only join these GAs to inflate their collection
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I'd guess their often account resellers in places like Russia.
One man's trash is another man's treasure. So best to look for those who have low standards comparatively.
If i knew nothing about free games, and indie bundles, i would be happy to spend a couple hundred dollars to buy an account with a few games i'm interested in, and a bunch of misc padding it out.
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They are bot accounts and someone get paid for, number X, positive reviews.
I seen different discord servers that offered, and sold, such services for round about 1€ - 2€/each positive review.
And up to 500 were possible on one discord, so min. 500 bot accounts involved from alone one bot service offerer.
All trash games that have 10 - 20 reviews use the fake review services that their games are listed as "very positive" etc..
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huh that's actually interesting, learn new stuff every day
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I want to say something to this, because I think lot of people get blacklisted just for pure prejudice.
Can you please define a "small Steam library"? I mean, how much games a person should be able to buy for not being in danger of being called a bot?
I'm curious about it.
Also, I know people with +4k games who actually own alter accounts, that they slowly raise to have in case they need to sell them, they are members of this site and also relatively well-known members of the Steam community.
Frankly, I don't think a person should be judged by the giveaways they decide to enter. I also don't think a game collector is a potential enemy of the site, unless they participate in giveaways for games they already own.
This comment is not intended to offend anyone. The thing is that I've only been on the site for 3 weeks and I still don't fully understand the way this community thinks, nor the way many things work 100%.
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It's not about game collectors, or those makiing alts for friends/family.
Generally the 1st red flag is triggered by shovelware of one form or another that is flooding SG.
2nd red flag is they only give away games from community giveaways, and groups like hitsquadgodfather and givee club giveawys. If they've given away at least one decent game in the past couple years, i usually ignore this, as i figure they're like me and dont have any disposable income.
3rd red flag there isnt anything personal about from them in giveaways they win, enter, community or on their steam profile. Their library will have less than a dozen games, mainly free ones, and most often a copy of counterstrike so they can farm skins.
It's kinda hard to put into words but I started finding it easier to blacklist a few dozen accounts that met this description, than constantly play whack-a-mole with all the shovelware, asset flips, and adult puzzle games.
But i too am paranoid a few innocent people got on my bot-blacklist, so i've been thinking about putting together a little Blacklist Forgiveness Day type event. Maybe for something like Valentines day, and call it BFD Day.
I have the accounts for everyone i've Blacklisted bookmarked. So when i remove them, it'll be easy to keep an eye on those that are super obvious bots and add them again.
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First of all, thanks for explaining. Now I understand better what you are saying.
I honestly admire you, I don't think many people are willing to give a second chance to those who are on their blacklist.
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They might if there was a tool to let them manage their blacklist better.
Something like remove everyone from the list who has made a giveaway in the past year, that is at least 5 CV.
Maybe there is already something out there that does this. Gonna check ESGST and go from there.
I think if people had an excuse, and only needed to expend a small bit of effort, they'd be happy to shrink their blacklist. But maybe not, as some people blacklist for commenting on their giveaways, and some do so for not commenting enough. Or there are also those that black list, just because you talk about blacklists, and they start thinking to include you on their list.
In the end, i just want more positive vibes, than negative ones.
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You're right. I've been wondering lately if I should continue commenting on giveaways. I make it a personal rule to say thank you every time I join a giveaway. But I've been hesitating, because if you don't comment you're a bot, and now it turns out that if you comment you're also a programmed bot. 😖
Although I understand the paranoia to a certain extent. That is, if I had enough budget to hold raffles, I would like the prizes to go to people who really want to play them.
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I'll comment on a giveaway after a puzzle, or on a thread with a link. But normally i just enter for games on my wishlist with less than 1,000 entries, as i've never one a giveaway with more than 1200 entries.
Unless there is something interesting they posted with the giveaway, i only comment if i win, or just really hyped at getting good odds for a game i am aching for.
Overall i've given up trying to guess what will keep me off peoples blacklists, so just avoid using the word, and too much overt commenting.
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I'd suggest not writing generic "thank you" comments, those usually are taken as a sign of being a bot.
Double that if the GA maker writes something along "don't leave comments unless you win" or "if you comment, write your favourite animal".
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From now on I will keep in mind what you two have said. I'm slowly starting to learn about those site rules that are implicit.
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Yeah, unfortunately it's sometimes done for the purpose to farm CV from SG, and sometimes it's done for money laundering. We normally nix the CV when we become aware of it removing CV from past and future giveaways.
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easiest way is to hide them - meanwhile I have around 1,8k hidden games including nsfw and those overpriced games
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I have noticed there are a loooooot of cheapo "hentai" games on steam these days :o
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That's a lot in below 2 years.
I am at 17,885 but in , round about, 4 years that i use the hide function.
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My strategy is to try to win them all, then I won't have to see them. The only things I block are DLC I own, and delisted games I own.
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It's working. I just won Sex Simulator - Office Promotion. One cheap NSFW game won, only a few thousand to go.
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I saw a post at one point saying something about people creating overpriced games on steam just to boost their rating on here and at the time I didn't give it much thought but I have been paying closer attention to the giveaways and there are tons of absolute rubbish games that someone in grade school could have done a better job at with 50p entry. And here's the kick they all come from just a few accounts. Say like this guy has 5 giveaways and all of them are different games but they are all garbage and all 50p or some are 45 but whatever. Can we post links? I don't want to break some obscure rule.
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