Point Distribution

Just wanted to mention another issue for those out there who care about CV. If people have to be more picky with their points, then this might also increase the number of giveaways with fewer than 5 entries, possibly resulting in more rerolls and more work for support.

I would really appreciate a change so that you can make use of all your points while visiting the site 1-2 times per day.

Another great update! This should help changing some people's behavior towards games being given away here. With too many points, they simply couldn't care less about the games because they know they can spend a lot of points and still have some left for GAs they really want. All in all, by having fewer points, user may be forced induced to enter only GAs they actually wanna play, which is great imo! xD

I basically agree with what Lugum said on page 1.
And with a fixed rate of 20P per hour you'll force users to store points even more. What do you do with 20P when the next popular (and expensive) bundle like Humble Telltale bundle hits? Everybody is constantly at max now because of the Luxor and Sakura bundles. Before those dropped it was pretty slow going (relatively) if I remember correctly.
Maybe keep the dynamic recovery rate and just lower the amount of points you get for every GA made.

I'm fine with this.

Anything that lowers the point accumulation is a great change, means better chances to win.

i think the number of points shouldnt be changed, just the cap should be raised to 500 or 600 so people who enter site less could still avoid limit

I don't like this idea. First of all, thinking you "need" to spend all your points is wrong. I understand some people think like that, but with some time here, most people learn to only enter giveaways for games they want. Who gives a crap if you maxed out your points. Secondly, as another person mentioned above, people give away "bad" games here all the time. And they do this because people participate in those giveaways. And most of the time, participants of these giveaways are those people who are still "entering all" giveaways. Thirdly, sometimes a new bundle comes out with a game that I really want, resulting in a lot of giveaways for said bundle (and game). I then enter all giveaways for this game, and I can only do that because my points keep going up quickly (because of the bundle). I'm sure this happens to a lot of people as well. Reducing the amount of points would reduce the amount of giveaways, the amount of users, the amount of time spent on this site, and overall activity. A big no no for me.

I could be okay with the change, but from my perspective of why I log onto the community more than a few times a day: is to check for "Flash" giveaways of games I'd be interested in (most things > 4 hours). Especially when a bundle comes out which has a game or two I want, but not enough to justify getting the entire thing. So the demand for logging in several times a day could still remain despite that change.

i would absolutely appreciate if users could enter less GAs. i am a fan of giving people high odds. if i can do that even on lower levels from now on, that's great.

I don't like this idea, this will send the amount of giveaways with less than 5 entries soaring. Group, whitelist, and certain region restricted giveaways will become very difficult for some people. I don't disagree with lowering point regeneration however 430 points a day some people spend quickly just going through wishlist giveaways. For example when I wake up each morning I enter all the available wishlist games available as well as interesting looking whitelist/group giveaways and then I am out of 300 points within an hour. So many giveaways are posted over night that setting it that low could make people lose chances on games they actually want and would discourage me from future giveaway spams in which I post tons of group/whitelist giveaways at once. I don't know. I am mixed on this. I mean for example I just spent 105 points entering 2 wishlist giveaways.

I like the idea. I am just a bit afraid of group giveaways. Sometimes it is hard to reach the five entries to get CV even now. We will see what this restriction will do. I hope it won't hurt it too much.

cg, on one hand you write:

I see this as an issue, because users should not need to invest this much time into entering giveaways. People should also not need to wake up in the middle of the night to avoid hitting the point cap

But then you added (in a comment) the following:

The point cap controls how often users need to visit the site. If we remove the cap, then users could visit the site once every few weeks, enter a few thousand giveaways, and leave. The cap encourages them to check the site daily, and be a part of the community.

You can't have your cake and eat it. If you want people to come here frequently, at some point it can become a chore to them. Hitting the perfect balance between the two is not something I believe you can achieve, as users have different personalities.

If encouraging people to be an active part of the community is a goal, the way to do it would probably be to reward them for this (e.g. by finding ways to increase the number of forum-linked GAs vs public/group/WL ones).

One issue with the system you're planning is that it might sometimes prevent users from entering GAs for games they are interested in when there's a spike of high quality GAs / trains. A way to mitigate this would be to allow them to spend, say, 50% of their monthly 14,400 points at any time during the month, but trickle the other 50% over the entire month.

In 2013 and 2014, users received an average of 7,500 points per month

Is that really accurate considering the rate was lowered from 10% to 5% at some point?

I propose a fixed rate of 700p per day and a cap at 700p to make one daily visit enough to spend all (automatically eliminating bot advantage with it).
At 21k per month it would still be far below the average of the past 2 years. In fact it would be as low as in "drought" months, which weren't too fun either actually.
While currently there are indeed too many points, special events like trains with several hundred GAs can still 'legitimately' require higher point amounts, so setting it too low isn't the best option either.

I think you should do what we've been saying since you let people start giving away free games.
Giving away games that were free at one point shouldn't give out points, cv, or add to the sent or won stats.

We're earning massive amounts of points just because the free games still give out points for being given away when they should not.

I think this will affect the fun of flash GA because increases the chance to not get 5 entries :/
If people cares about their CV maybe an "autodelete GA with less than 5 entries" will reduce the work for support .

I'm mostly on 300 points and I like things concerning the giveaways like they are now but that's maybe because of 3 years of getting used to something and liking it. I find it's a good and positive thing that users come back multiple times on the site per day. It's an incentive to participate and join in SG giveaways, SG discussions and the SG community. I'm certainly not getting up at night because I need to spend points.

In the past, points would increase out of control when there was a bundle for a high point game, such as Clickteam Fusion (100P).

Concerning the Clickteam Fusion Fest, when there are other such situations, like the recent Viewpoints DLC , let SG support immediately place them on the no value list.

This would not impact how often a user wins (gifts are not disappearing). Users would have less points and enter less giveaways, but those giveaways would have higher odds of winning. In short, users would win the same number of games, but need to invest less time into joining giveaways.

This is not true though, some giveaways are far more desirable than others. It would mean less desirable giveaways would be entered less and the most desirable giveaways would stay the same.

I like this idea way way way better then then one that was suggested Patreon. No complaints here.

I agree with this change. Only downside here might be larger number of private/group GAs with less than 5 entries => people lose CV => people start making less private GAs. Including long trains which is always fun to see among discussions.

I like this idea. It encourages people to enter giveaways that they want, not just everything they see.

Quality over quantity? Sounds good to me👍🏼

Hi, the idea is a reasonable one but as someone who is constantly just on the site, this is the personal opinion but it just makes me happy seeing the points go up after a refresh and then being able to find giveaways to join to make it down to zero again and rinse and repeat. I know some people are against this but just personally that's the fun of this site for me and it'll surely be a shame if the points are greatly reduced. The reason the point distribution is so high now I believe is after the recent sudden spikes in huge dollar bundles from bundlestars but if those were to run out, will the point distri return to normal and then we'll be left with greatly reduced points? Just a thought, but overall what you do here cg is still greatt keep it up and thank youu

Well I do visit the site over twenty times a day to use the points efficiently, So lowering point distribution would affect us guys with no life as well.. wow the copy past cough anyway..

The points cap is solving the excessive amount of points, Who ever wants the all gotta visit the site more frequently, If he doesn't want to he still have both options without affecting any of them.

So normal users would have more freedom with using the points.. Putting aside the script users problem which can be solved without changing the points distribution.

encourage users to focus their points on games they would like to play, which hopefully means users are more happy with the gifts they win in the community.

We are gamers, We do try anything besides that, I usually tend to check the games before entering.. That's why you do have the game's steam page up there in each and every giveaway.