Around Christmas time I created a giveaway for the game STAR WARS™: Squadrons. At the time the Steam version had never been bundled and I was awarded full CV for the game. Now I see that I dropped a level because it was put as reduced value. The thing is, I cannot find any Steam bundle with the game. It was also not given away for free, except during play for free weekends. I cannot find when the game was added to the bundles list, nor a reason for it. SGTools confirms the game as bundled, but doesn't explain when or where it was sold that way. I know that the Epic version was free for a time, and the EA Origins was also given away at some point. But as far as I know, not the Steam version.

Can anyone help me find out why the game is now reduced value?

1 month ago

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1 month ago
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If a game gets a high enough discount, it will be marked as bundled, even if it has never been in a bundle.

1 month ago
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Do we know if this is done if the absolute value gets too low (e.g. below $2) or if the discount percentage reaches a certain threshold (e.g. more than 90% off) or a combination of both? It would be helpful to avoid paying more for games that are later marked as bundled.

1 month ago
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-95% are commonly the cut and a game get set to reduced (= 15%) cv.
In a few cases the decissions pick a lower -9X% but always above -90%. So in general is all safe till, at least, -92%.

[Cases excluded where some region prices are lower AND a lot of GAs get created to exploit this situation (mostly with accounts that abuse a very cheap region store but the owners of that accounts live in more expensive countries).]

Of course are the prices not only checked on steam and grey market offers are, very often, much cheaper and the reason for the reduced cv.

1 month ago
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Thanks for your explanation! Since I don't know the exact percentage that will trigger reduced value, I think I will stop giving away games from the Steam Store and focus on bundled games only.

1 month ago
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1 month ago
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Yes, that was an EA key though, not the Steam one.

1 month ago
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Yes...probably moderators don't always look at which keys are included in the bundle.

1 month ago
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Then the game would have been set to reduced for June 2022 and not 21st November 2023: https://www.steamgifts.com/game/OFw5N/star-wars-squadrons

1 month ago
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Yes, thanks, I know, I didn't look into the bundle and I didn't see that the EA key

1 month ago
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A small tip: If you go to Create a New Giveaway and enter game's name, hovering mouse over the red stars will tell you from when GA's for this gave are reduced or have no value.

1 month ago
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Yes, when I created my giveaway, it was then identified as full value. It must have been retroactively marked as bundled. I just wasn't aware that some games will be put in the reduced CV bin even when they've never been bundled. I'm just trying to understand the rules.

1 month ago
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"Games typically receive no value or reduced value when they're featured in bundles, heavily discounted, or available for free in online promotions."

1 month ago
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Thank you for your quick replies and for your help!

1 month ago
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Thank you for the interesting topic, I learned a lot of new things!
Unfortunately, I don't speak English language, I studied German at school...which I also don't know )))

1 month ago
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Yeah, I don't know the exact rules on it, but basically, if the price of the game is discounted so much that it's roughly the price per game of a bundle, it will get flagged as reduced CV. I've only seen it happen with games that have a high base price, so I'm pretty sure it's percentage-based (Squadrons was 95% off at one point). The idea is to prevent people from buying a game for $1 but getting CV as if it's a $60 game that's never been bundled

1 month ago
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Thanks for the details. I think that just to be on the safe side, I will not giveaway games from the Steam Store anymore and focus exclusively on games bought in bundles.

1 month ago
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That's really cool. You learn something every day.

1 month ago
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