I did this, it requires quite a bit of time though.
12,382 games hidden and counting.
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Next to each giveaways name on SG there is a little eyeball icon, press and and you can hide all giveaways for that game. You have to do that one game at a time. Maybe someone will automate it some day, but for now it just requires a lot of patience.
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Ok thanks :)
I'll pass for now, it'll take a lot of time
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Each time you don't do what to do (so in the Bermuda triangle of SG, imgur and youtube, or something like that :P ) just start checking the games and do it until the available giveaways' list is shorter by some pages. If you're lazy clever you can go for the obvious bundle-trash - easy to pinpoint them, and as usually multiple giveaways run for those, you can get a lot of work done in short time. It really works in the long run, I think I spent ... not even sure if I spent 2 hours with it altogether when I started. And after a while it becomes so much easier to do, because on a shorter list you can notice new giveaways/games easier.
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Is there no limit on hidden games? I heard 150 and after that the old games are removed from the filter.
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There's no limit, you can hide every game on steam if you want. No idea why someone would say otherwise.
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I've been trying, it's sooooo time consuming though. I'm trying to think of a way to make it easier for others.
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You could also just ignore all giveaways other then those in your wishlist (shown in the left hand side of the giveaways page; Browse > Wishlist), a lot of people do that.
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Well, at the very least, cg could listen to our longstanding request to allow us to directly import our "Not Interested" list from Steam, much like sites like Barter.vg have already allowed for, to great convenience. Past that, short of Valve getting management that actually cares about its consumers (or about self-pride), it's unlikely we'll find a way to effectively change the current paradigm.
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The eye is already on the main page though? I don't have ESGST installed (just reformatted my PC the other day) and it's there.
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Eye icon is there since admin added option to hide giveaways (at least since April 2016). It's not ESGST feature, as it was created in Dec 2016 :P
ESGST only allows to hide games without having extra confirmation box.
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^agree. "Eye" is visible on the main giveaway game listing page for me. I have no plugins and use it regularly.
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Just add the games you want onto your wishlist. Instead of having to go through 15000 or so games, you just go through a few hundred or so. There's a filter for it.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/c1xhr/userscript-improved-game-filter
Drops down hiding to mere seconds per page.
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It's worth it - after filteing out near 10k games, all i can see now is only 1-2 pages of giveaways.
And it saves me hella lot of time.
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Makes me wonder, do they even check games before allowing them on steam?
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No. It costs $100 to put a game on Steam and that's basically it.
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Obviously not. They try to automate the process with this "Steam is learning about this game"-Tag.
The lack of quality management is so annoying and will harm Steam in the long run.
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Valve has openly clarified they don't check games until they get reported (ie, after they hit Steam), and they recently officially clarified that (content-wise) they'll allow literally anything onto Steam, so long as it isn't trolling Steam as a system [presumably, meaning games without executables and the like].
At this point, being able to say that you've got your game on Steam, is like saying you've got a bit of grass in your front yard- not everyone is in a position where that's possible for them, but it's still so overwhelmingly common that people are more likely to blink if you say you don't have it there, than if you say you do. To finish the metaphor, we're in dire need of some weed killer. :P
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No, and the fact that there's now been two high profile cases of cryptominers would indicate that Valve really does not care. Wonder if there are any more, there's just been two that got media attention, but seeing the volume of games getting released on steam, there might well be plenty more.
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Just like most companies and whatnot, Valve does care about one thing and that's money. As long as they get money out of something, they can't be bothered. I've reported a whole bunch of games already for being asset flips and being the same "game" being released multiple times under a different name with little to no changes but so far, they have not done anything to prevent those "developers" from continuing to play Valve's system.
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I feel you. Adding games to hidden definitely helps, but only if you are willing to spend time on sifting through all of this crap. When I see a new game in the feed I either hide it or add an ESGST game tag to it informing me that I've seen the game in the past and want to enter GAs for it. Now that I have almost 11k games in hidden I need to categorize like 20 games I've never seen before on average daily basis
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That aspect hasnt changed, Ever since bundles have been accepted, people have disposed their unwanted keys. But Steam accepting any kind of game, only increases the number of trash titles included in bundles
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The problem isn't really people giving away cheap games trying to contribute or even -as you described- "malicious giveaways".
The issue is the number of "developers" who release asset flips/card farm games in an effort to get transaction fees off the steam market and "achievement hunters". I think at one point Steam said they'd be cracking down on it in the future but that seems to have just been lip service. Isn't Goocublets on game #7?
You can only truly redefine a term so many times before it doesn't mean anything and I think, at this point, when you can call ten minutes of text with some pictures* a "video game" the term has no meaning anymore.
*Yes, I know VNs are a thing but that was hyperbole and everybody knows what I'm referring to.
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*Yes, I know VNs are a thing but that was hyperbole and everybody knows what I'm referring to.
Visual Novels typically have extensive amounts of high-quality artwork, and a word count typically comparable to, or even vastly exceeding, the average novel. Pretty sure that, as a genre, they already safely bypass your 10 minute asset flip considerations, through one factor or another. :P
Edit: Naturally, I'm treating trashware as its own exclusive and dominant genre, since trashware does overlap with every genre out there (and thus, the Visual Novel genre can't be held responsible for occasionally having such an overlap within it).
Isn't Goocublets on game #7
All the games from that developer should actually have been removed from Steam, but they've apparently got an endless supply of keys saved up, along with IndieGala's dedicated distribution support. :P
That said, as I understand it, the games were (as usual) removed due to the developer's exploitation of Steam, not due to lack of content or quality thereof. Given Valve's recent affirmation that they have no intentions of ever evaluating games based off their content (despite long-standing, but never enforced content guidelines), it's unlikely we'll see any efforts taken against games with at least rudimentary levels of content.
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Visual Novels typically have extensive amounts of high-quality artwork, and a word count typically comparable to, or even vastly exceeding, the average novel. Pretty sure that, as a genre, they already safely bypass your 10 minute asset flip considerations, through one factor or another. :P
That wasn't a negative comment towards VN, I am aware of and enjoy many decent quality VNs.
I added that caveat to try to get ahead of the people who use the "games=art" argument to claim their fever dream stories with $0.01 tumblr art are video games. They may be an expression of creativity but few of them meet the standard of "art".
That said, without getting too into what is and isn't a "game", I would say that most VNs technically fall into the software category more than the video game category unless they include some sort of actual player interaction, not including branching dialogue, but there are many games that include VN elements.
Beyond that, I don't have an issue with Steam selling VNs for the same reason I don't get mad that Steam sells Game Engines. Steam isn't a video game store. They're a digital distribution platform.
Given Valve's recent affirmation that they have no intentions of ever evaluating games based off their content [...], it's unlikely we'll see any efforts taken against games with at least rudimentary levels of content.
I think they can, and most likely will, police games for low effort/low quality. They specifically included language that said games that appear to be "trolling" could be denied/removed which I think safely covers them in the event they deny a low quality/asset flip game.
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games that appear to be "trolling"
Now define trolling.
I think it safely covers them in the event they
denydo nothing with a low quality/asset flip game.
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Now define trolling.
Congratulations on understanding the purpose of how the rule is worded. Vague terminology is used to give them as much leeway in enforcement of the rules as they need and allows them ignore things they don't care about.
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Visual Novels typically have extensive amounts of high-quality artwork, and a word count typically comparable to, or even vastly exceeding, the average novel. Pretty sure that, as a genre, they already safely bypass your 10 minute asset flip considerations, through one factor or another. :P
Oof, I'd disagree. The good ones have a lot of art, but most don't. Low effort, pre-drawn assets or just the reusing of simple backgrounds while using the outcut of a character. Again, it takes effort... but so does making Bad Rats. It's minimal effort in the end.
Again, there are good ones, but like with any genre, the bad outweighs the good these days.
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Dunno, I think it actually takes quite some effort to make a physics engine that fails to reproduce the outcome of the previous try. Bad Rats games are what peak development looks like, we're just not worthy of seeing and accepting it. ( I actually enjoyed Bad Rats Show a lot, the full 3D MAPS were quite fun, and some tools rats were ridiculously effective, almost to a game-breaking level :D )
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Steam has done some work on making asset flips/achievement hunters type games not count towards any part of your profile while they are being reviewed. If the don't hit a certain sales mark and play time, achievements in the game don't count towards your total and can't be shown on your profile and cards cannot be added either.
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That's wonderful but I wish they'd also create some policy for unused keys from games that have been removed for exploitation/low quality.
It's a bit pointless to remove the game from Steam but still have new copies in the wild that can be activated on Steam. All that does is give the unused keys value to specific crowds that just want them to have another game you can't find on Steam anymore.
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaways/search?type=wishlist
Had to. Sorry :3.
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Yes, I always start with wishlist games, then scroll through recommended and group. Something I loved about SG of old (3-5 years ago) was the chance to learn about new games that are shared and recommended by the community. So I guess I just wish I could still do that without sifting.
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Yeah, I pretty much gave up on doing that right when I started here and even on Steam itself it has become a futile and pointless endeavor for a while now. Pretty much the only places I find out about new games nowadays are forums like this one here or when I'm relaxing after work with some 'no brain activity needed'-YT 'zapping'.
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same here. used to just browse the main category and used to learn about new games and hide/whitelist games from there. then it became a sisyphean task and i went for the wishlist category instead and just check the steam front store page, new releases and soon to be released games from time to time
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Well, you know what they say. One person's trash is another person's treas...
...no wait, it's still trash 😅
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Garbage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1nnOXkPMho
Poor your misery down, poor your misery down on me.
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"bad games" are one thing, I have no problem with that. I sometimes think of making games, knowing they wouldn't be great, just for fun. It's those which are CLEARLY made only in the interest of making money, and are literally just reskins of premade unity templates, that really bother me.
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The topic is shovelware. Your strawman arguments are (as one'd expect from such) just you avoiding addressing the actual topic.
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I've worked in games and military simulation, but I wont say more then that because it's stupid to try and prove I'm 'qualified' to argue a point by throwing my resume at it. You're free to believe asset flips should be treated the same as high quality indie games like Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Terraria, etc.
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Not all games are actually games though are they, some even aren't intended to be played.
You're seemingly purposefully confusing the fake games with the just-not-very-professionally-produced-but-still-games games 🙄
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It's really absurd how Bad Rats is "just" a bad game, and still leagues better than some of the stuff that got into the store. Or Space Trader: Merchant Marine is almost like someone trying their wings in a game with trading system, Quake 3-type of arena combat with broken mechanics and AI and everything is... not so well done or polished, but still resulting in a charming little game.
And today, people are trying to defend and support "developers" who make assetflips, releasing engine-demo levels or games that are sub-par compared to flash games from a decade ago, with no intention of originality or improvement. Some people are still stuck in the mindset that indie is good, indie is wonderful, indie is genuine, while trying really hard to ignore the people making a living out of the card system, not even caring about the "games" they create.
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OK so, does anyone know if there's a good tool to quickly add all of these to my "not interested" category?
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The best solution to this would be if their was a script that could hide all games based on rating, as well as a built in list of all known asset flips. Maybe somone familiar with coding for the web will take up the challenge one day, but it hasn't happened yet.
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Definitely. Big project, not many people with the skills and time to do it. Cost/Benefit analysis lol.
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Actually, one thing that can make it easier is this script which shows the ratings next to the game name on SG: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/ZH7th/userscript-steamgifts-steam-ratings
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After hiding 2500+ garbage and unwanted games, there are around 150 games left on SG.
(I usually check the first page on my "all" list everyday and hide all the asset flipping games, together with RPGmaker, bullet-hell, yet another similar platformer, VN, hidden object games (maybe they are not asset flip, I just don't like the genres). When you do this for a week, you will notice some devs will repeatedly show up on these game. Then it is safe to hide all their games next time the name show up
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaways/search?type=wishlist
problem solved!
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That has literally been one of the main reasons why I add any game that interests me to my wishlist, so I can easily find them on here in case someone is giving any of them away. The only downside is that it can lead to a huge wishlist depending on how diverse someone's interests are. =D
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Started hiding everything (almost) below 5p cost about a month ago - already at 2500 and counting.
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Not sure if you know about the search parameters, but have you tried this?
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaways/search?point_min=5
The obvious drawback is that it would everything cheap, including the odd cheap hidden gem...
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I'm using ESGST, so the search with parameters 4 and below is pretty easy. As for hidden gems - I do try to look at the name and logo before clicking the icon, there is for example Postal, which is 2 points I think. But most of the trash games really do have recognizably dumb names and logos. xD
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Hide unwanted/unliked games.
Don't look at level 0 Games (Wishlist shows all of the ones you will from level 0) and you didn't see a lot of the biggest trash maybe avoid level 1 too.
The "bad" thing is that you miss sometimes a few nice games and a bigger ammount of DLCs.
I prefer to avoid at least Level 0 GA's. Saves time and the sg experience is more relaxed.
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Use the wishlist tab, only see games you want.
Problem solved.
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It's weird. I haven't seen a single garbage giveaway on here in 10 months...
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If you don't mind, how many games do you have hidden?
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It's much easier to have a white list instead of a black list for such amounts. ESGST can dramatically improve SG experience in this aspect.
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GARBAGE is a good band, and Shirley Manson is one hell of an inspiring and charismatic vocalist.
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i blacklisted the games i was sure i wouldn't played back in the days, but with the implementation of the whitelist / recommended i stopped. This way its way harder to "discover" new games with steam gifts like i did before, so i started to look at recommend games by steam too
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I think is not steamgift users fault. I blame steam for allowing non-games to be on the store, I blame the lack of any quality control, I blame the anti gifting/ anti trading new policies on steam, the ever Increasing regional restrictions and the fall of Humble Bundle.
People is still generous, and they are walking the extra mile to maintain SG alive and kicking. I still think this is a great community, that is facing all of this problems with their continuous effort. Chapeau
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I am so, so sick of the achievement spam, asset flipping, etc in the video games listed on SG. It's not the fault of SG, in the slightest, and I would argue that some people making the GAs are also not malicious - they see cheap games and want to "give back to SG". It's to the point where my standards for entering a giveaway are literally "is this a real game".
I just really needed to rant about this, thanks for letting me. <3
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