Ever since I found out about Steamgifts by reading a post by someone here about how that person found out about this place through Steamgifts, I noticed that there are a surprising number of Slayaway Camp and Dropsy giveaways appearing on that site every so often. After jumping to a conclusion based on this minimal circumstantial evidence, I decided to post the following message to the regifters on this site:
If all you’re going to do with the game key is give it away, please refrain from spending your Chrono Coins on it and let those of us who actually WANT the game have a chance at getting it. Besides, the store is having enough problems staying stocked as it is.
Key farming by bot / bunch of alt accounts is already a well known thing, there’s always gonna be some people who think they’re smarter than the rest…
One thing that makes it quite more painful is the fact that chrono has this small, but very cool and united community.
The people doing that are sorta stealing from this community, wich provides the games in the first place…
Hopefully admins will have a rigid hand for those caught farming / resseling keys.
Edit for clarity
Edit 2:
Fun fact: If you go on a site like reddit for example, you are strongly advised by mods / automods that bots will snatch keys if you outright post them plainly. Usually people mask the keys like xxx-xxx-??x - ?? = xx.
Two good examples are r/freegamesonsteam and r/freegamefindings
Oh well…
I noticed that too. My only issue with this is that it means that, as you said, it doesn’t give the chance for people on this site who want the game to get it. On the other hand it does still mean that the game could be gifted to someone who does, so the issue for the most part solves itself.
Either way, unless unlocked games are automatically added to your Steam library instead of given to you by keys, we can’t stop people from doing this. I haven’t checked any of the giveaways for the Dropsy and Slayaway Camp so I have no clue if it’s done or not, but the most decent thing to do is to at least include a link to Chrono.gg when you give the game away. Say what you want about Steamgifts, but it’s a good way to advertise or promote something.
Is there actually anything that prevents bots or multiple accounts? I’ve seen no captcha or the need to link your steam account or something. I mean if someone wants to give his key to a friend or someone I don’t think that’s a problem and shouldn’t be prohibited, but key farming with bots or reselling the key definitely should be.
Regifting? That’s a more debatable topic. Of course on steamgifts, you get benefits, so it’s not like they’re doing it from the goodness of their hearts.
I have a bunch of extra keys. I bought that Freedom Bundle and I probably have 10 or more extra keys like VVVVVV, World of Goo. Day of the Tentacle, Octodad Dadliest Catch, Wickland, Thomas Was Alone, Eets Munchies, Limbo and StarDew Valley. That’s what happens when I buy bundles…sometimes I already have the keys. So I usually give them to people who are helpful or nice to other people etc.Or sometimes I do trades.
I am slightly surprised that there is not a minimum floor for redeeming games… maybe requiring three purchases of daily deals? It’s not unfair because it’s a small number, but would still curb troublemakers. Somebody obstinate will always game the system, but making it slightly harder goes a long way.
We considered that, but really didn’t like locking people out just because they haven’t purchased from us. Guess we’re just gluttons for punishment.
Seriously though, we’re working on a feature that will do a better job of shutting down the exploiters while not impacting people who just haven’t found a game they like on our daily deal yet.
That’s not the best idea. It will turn off most people, even those who eventually would have bought those 3 games. The point of the free games is to get people’s attention so that the site will grow and hopefully more people will buy some of the games. If it stops being free from the start, most people won’t care enough.
The games often for sale here aren’t exactly something that most people would play. A lot of niche titles pop up that a very small amount of people would be interested in. People who only want free stuff won’t pay for things in the first place. People who are willing to buy games to get free stuff later will either have to waste money on games they don’t want or will have to wait (potentially a long time) for enough games that they actually want to be sold here.
Those are good reasons that make sense. I just wonder about the economy of the system in general, because I think it’s incredibly well-designed and a very effective tool for promoting engagement and bringing new people into the website. It might eventually have to be balanced against inflation/hoarding, though, and other such things.
My thoughts exactly markdarkness. I love the loyalty program they have with the shop. I just can’t figure out how it can remain sustainable (including exploiters) and that gives me some concern. But I trust in whatever feature Chrono.gg’s working on.
Its just going to be tough because people never learn from another country they basically disregard any warning signs. Honestly if caught they should be removed from both sites as well we should have a system connecting to account back to the site.
Can’t really avoid that behaviour, especially on Steamgifts. This place gave me so many headaches over the time I’ve been on there that I just stopped doing giveaways for the sake of my sanity. I mean, just when a website gives away freebies you see a flood of giveaways, although people should know that they are risking a suspension and the value will be set to 0. It was kind of obvious the same thing would happen with this and I share your opinion, because the whole concept is really an added bonus for the community of this site and people gonna try to use it for their personal gain anyway.
However, buying games for giveaways is fine (with money, not coins). Did that once and pitched Chrono as well. I was suprised how many people were still unaware of its existence.
You mentioned balancing against hoarding. Why is hoarding really such a problem? If you put a cap on the amount of coins that can be gotten, people who reach the cap will feel like they’ll be missing out if they don’t spend their coins. They’ll end up buying games that they don’t want just so they don’t feel cheated. I don’t think hoarding is something anyone should be concerned about.
The problem issued here is that there is no prevention against bots or multiple accounts. So you could actually just run multiple accounts that get their daily coins, eventually without even human inputs.
recaptcha is generally used for such cases.
But it is generally annoyance for normal users too, though necessary.
The greater the number of coins on the market, the higher the price of goods needs to be in order for supply and demand to meet, this is called inflation. Not accounting for inflation can generate two scenarios: 1) The number of coins needed to make a purchase will need to be higher to account for the fact that at any given point there will be enough users with coins available to empty the store in one fell swoop or 2) The number of coins given out daily will need to be higher to even the system out, but this also fattens the top of the pyramid.
So yeah. The website managers are clearly intelligent people and this is certainly not news to them, but I am making a reminder anyway.
