I did some experiments on the user base… [No GA]

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Edit: And if you want to know a little more about some other stuff I did alongside this one, you can see the results here: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/EWTuj/so-about-this-whole-reading-descriptions-thing-another-experiment

Last year I did some experiment by posting 12 copies of the same game, going form level 0 to level 10 in the process, to see how entry numbers will fare.
This year, I did it again, but this time I spiced things up a bit by mixing in quite a few other games into those HOGs. These included games from OtakuMaker or directly from the DIG point store.

Some of these games were not on the bundle list when I posted the giveaways. Some were, but never went into any bundle, it was just the usual Russian prices pushed it over 95% case. All of them, including some of the HOGs, are borderline or flat-out shovelware at worst, cheapo indie games at best. And this is how they went:
(Sorry about the formatting, the site doesn't support table column width in markdown.)

Title	Bundled	Rating (*=cards)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crystal Cosmos	3	100%*	2305	-	854	-	909	-	562	-	182	-	56
Green Ranch	4	87%*	1900	1082	678	741	730	572	447	295	134	101	-
Sixtieth Kilometer	7	78%*	1074	-	438	-	408	-	160	-	39	-	6
Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek	6	84%*	1524	909	485	413	344	196	139	73	37	19	15
Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood	10	97%*	1272	803	406	330	259	119	63	22	8	6	3
Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala	2	93%*	1804	1428	926	865	790	609	463	316	178	111	56
Bold New World	0	23%*	1881	1546	814	785	751	573	432	320	190	120	64
Pester	15	60%*	1332	1093	304	368	348	241	166	108	69	41	16
[ＤｒｅａｍＤｅａｌｅｒ △](ＤｒｅａｍＤｅａｌｅｒ △)	0	85%*	1988	1769	932	900	840	664	507	357	206	147	73
Blaite	1	77%*	1447	1296	742	732	732	585	460	341	208	140	68
POLYWAR	0	79%	1468	1109	526	518	511	414	313	235	137	97	51
Joana's Life	1	35%	1580	1241	582	511	496	427	325	241	144	102	49
City of Chains	4	86%*	1178	1003	437	374	334	230	149	71	36	20	10
Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride	11	95%*	1054	919	314	210	123	45	14	2	0	0	0
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan	8	91%*	1288	1041	421	314	223	103	45	16	2	4	2
Grim Legends 3: The Dark City	2	92%*	1816	1575	837	739	642	490	373	261	148	-	45
Demon Hunter: Chronicles from Beyond	7	64%*	1066	680	397	322	283	187	109	63	23	17	6
Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter	2	67%*	1224	889	576	513	504	406	327	242	148	98	50
Control Craft 3	2	60%*	1300	745	465	426	424	358	299	226	142	101	51
Finnish Roller	3	75%	1347	830	486	449	449	402	345	269	171	118	-
Infinitum	2	25%*	1527	751	452	416	413	364	330	244	157	111	56
Trashville	0	88%*	931	757	429	451	456	342	292	214	129	82	40
The Secret Order 2: Masked Intent	5	79%*	860	814	421	378	332	217	172	127	73	50	18
The Secret Order 3: Ancient Times	3	90%*	910	887	484	490	412	295	247	189	114	75	36
The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time	1	82%*	1019	903	532	521	485	381	319	237	145	100	48
Oldschool tennis	1	50%	1080	805	397	396	388	311	270	182	121	89	41
The Lords of the Earth Flame	2	65%*	1025	827	415	432	421	343	275	189	108	72	32
9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek	8	90%*	744	710	259	246	217	130	81	40	19	11	5
9 Clues 2: The Ward	5	93%*	1149	892	423	377	301	206	149	102	67	41	16
Purple Hills	1	40%	2067	1346	594	508	481	367	287	191	111	80	40
Agent Walker: Secret Journey	1	69%*	2145	1611	880	799	758	597	461	335	206	148	69
Naval Warfare	12	53%	1226	843	369	350	342	222	174	117	66	37	15
Endless Fables: The Minotaur's Curse	1	96%*	1911	1328	834	851	805	610	497	342	205	141	68
Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily	3	67%	1883	1325	573	417	391	333	267	194	113	72	31
Turn Around	1	45%*	1443	1070	531	540	526	436	384	286	173	119	–
Sarab: The Dark Tower	1	100%	1803	1268	490	463	421	315	277	198	129	87	42

Note: The table is not complete, I still have games left to add more data.

There are a few things to point out:

Low levels are completely chaotic. Sometimes there is a giant gap between level 1 and level 2 (look at Pester), sometimes the curve is almost ideal, sometimes there are more entries on level 3–4 than on level 1–2.
Game rating is almost irrelevant on public giveaways. Be it great or a pile of shit, there is not enough difference to draw a direct cause and effect conclusion between game rating and entry popularity.
Bundled status obviously has an effect, but only a small one on level 0 and level 1. This mostly indicates that those levels have most of the users who enter anything for a win or who use some automated methods to constantly spend their points.
On the other hand, considering the not-so-great quality of many of the games, we can safely say that people who don't really care about anything but a +1 in the library are common enough on all levels. Almost one-third of the level 10 users entered for Bold New World, one of the universally lowest-rated games on the list.
Additionally, bundled status won't automatically mean or predict anything. A similar amount (or, on some levels, more) people entered for Pester, a game bundled fifteen times, as for City of Chains, which was bundled about a quarter as often.
Level 6 and on seems to be the point where users start to actually consider what to enter for or have enough games in their library to not see many giveaways. Still, the allure of a +1 is obviously strong.
Level 8–10 seems to exist in its own world. Sometimes it follows the lower levels in patterns, sometimes it essentially forms its own little block, oblivious to the trends on lower levels.
Trading cards only seem to have a mild effect. Polywar and Blaite have similar backgrounds in most aspects, yet their numbers are similar. Same goes for Finnish Roller and Control Craft 3. There is some bump in entry numbers, but not too significant.
Artifex Mundi HOGs are pretty popular in the user base. Those that were available the cheapest and in the most convenient ways have clearly lower numbers even on level 0, including the only game that managed to flatline after level 7 with zero entries over almost a working week.

I also did another experiment, this time by posting 120+90 keys, mostly on level 0 and level 1, where we suspect most of the auto-entry script users and bots converge. This experiment used delayed starts on giveaways: most went live on the site 12-36 hours after creation. I cross-referenced the numbers to another set of fully open ones where the timing was more traditional, meaning it started within a few minutes to an hour after creation.
The result is that I can safely say that script users and bots mostly prowl the new giveaways page. On the "instant" ones, it took only a few hours to get 2-500 entries, with another 600–1000 entries arriving within the last three hours. The entry number difference between instant and delayed was sometimes close to double in the instant's favour.
So, if you wanted to avoid at least a good portion of the bots, you just had to delay your giveaway by at least a day or more. But this is going to be apparently fixed with the next site update, according to the admin, cg.

Additionally, this large amount of public ones confirmed what I always thought, that those who use Easy SteamGifts or other one-click entry methods mostly enter things that are on the first few pages, meaning the ones that are about to end. Some of these methods offer a pre-defined message along with the entry, and I have received up to a hundred messages from a handful of people in the last two hours before the giveaways ended, but never before.

7 years ago*

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104 Comments

Pilda

Thanks for the data. You could also add an info if the games have cards or not.

7 years ago

I did some experiments on the user base… [No GA]

April 15, 2016