Free and given away games

[ellipsism]

I've received several messages about offers with free or given away games. For example, The Desolate Hope, which is free on Steam, and the recent Indiegala giveaway of Bloop, where anyone that wanted a copy could get one.

Should these game be against the rules and banned from offers? I don't think they should. While the trade value is obviously much lower a big give away and next to nothing for a free game, that shouldn't disqualify a game from the site. It's up to the accepting side of an offer to decide. Should the offering side disclose that the game was given away or is now free? That would be polite, but I don't think there's an obligation to notify. I think this is a responsibility of the site.

Like the previous Decommissioned games thread, I'll go through given away tags and post them here. Unlike decommissioned games, where it's easy to verify by going to the store page, "given away" isn't as easy to verify nor is there a clear threshold (should a giveaway of 100 games be flagged?).

The goal is to display this information on the offer page so that the information is disclosed to both sides. I'd like to hear any suggestions. Also, anyone can post games that were given away or switched to free below.

[ellipsism]

Tagged as given away:

Canyon Capers
Woodle Tree Adventures
Battlepaths
Frozen Hearth
iBomber Defense Pacific
Ionball 2: Ionstorm
Mechanic Escape
Afterfall Insanity Extended Edition
Commando Jack
KnightShift
Racer 8
RADical ROACH Deluxe Edition
Realms of the Haunting
Space Hack
Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection
Brawlhalla
Bloop

[ellipsism]

Primal Carnage: Extinction (Alienware giveaway)

[Locke]

Enclave (Currently free on dlh.net)

Knights & Merchants (currently free on dlh.net)

Two Worlds 2 (Was free on dlh.net for a long time)


Energy Balance (WGN?! mass giveaway)

Tiestru (WGN?! mass giveaway)

Make it indie! (WGN?! mass giveaway)

Seven Kingdoms 2 HD (WGN?! mass giveaway)

Into The War. (WGN?! limited giveaway)

(Note: People should keep in mind that it's against WGN?!'s rules to trade their freebies. They'll ban you from future giveaways and give you a Scumbag Steve badge if they catch you.)


The Culling of the Cows (Bundlestars giveaway)

Cubetractor (IndieGala giveaway)

QuestRun (IndieGala giveaway)

Chip (IndieGala giveaway)

Memories of a Vagabond (IndieGala giveaway)

Shadows on the Vatican Act I: Greed (IndieGala giveaway)

Marine Sharpshooter II: Jungle Warfare (IndieGala giveaway)

Litil Divil (IndieGala giveaway)

That's all I can think of for the moment. I know there were a lot more BundleStars freebies, but I don't remember what they were now. Many of them were repeats of IndieGala giveaways anyway.

[ellipsism]

Originally posted by Locke:

(Note: People should keep in mind that it's against WGN?!'s rules to trade their freebies. They'll ban you from future giveaways and give you a Scumbag Steve badge if they catch you.)

That's a good point to make. While it might be a mass giveaway, WGN giveaways shouldn't show up in trades, or if they do, it's their last WGN giveaway.

[The5hark]

If I see a game offered by a large number of users, I assume the game has been bundled quite a bit or has been given away for free at one point. Either way, the game naturally becomes a little devalued due to supply and demand. Barter.vg users can also click the game to see how many people have it for trade as well as have it in their library.

In other words, I don't think anything should be changed on the site for games that had mass give-aways. The data can be inferred on Barter.vg.

Also, admin, why would you want to do more manual maintenance for the site?

If you wanted something less maintenance oriented, you could program a "trending" feature that tracked if a tradeable was hot/warm/cold by how frequently that item was proposed for in the past 30 days. There are other flavors of this idea that could serve as a simple warning to a user. The Commando Jack in my tradeables would be flagged as ice cold. Oh yeah, you know you want it.

[ellipsism]

Originally posted by The5hark:

The data can be inferred on Barter.vg.

Also, admin, why would you want to do more manual maintenance for the site?

I agree, for most of the given away games, the imbalance between tradable and wishlisted is clear. However, I received complaints from users that had received given away games in offers. The implication being that this was underhanded or even scamming. I don't think it is, but I thought that disclosure on the offers page would make that clear.

You're also correct that I don't want more maintenance. I started with this thread and we'll see how much more is needed.

[ellipsism]

Tagged as given away:

Primal Carnage: Extinction
Fearless Fantasy
Knights and Merchants (noted by Locke previously)
Enclave (noted by Locke previously)

[Milouze]

At least half of those games I don't own. When searching for them, I don't care about them being given away once, on the 4th of July 1987 for example.

If the complaining users are not happy with the way Barter.vg trading works, they can join those extremists, who believe they are smart enough to elaborate and force down some sort of "trading code of conduct":
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/TradersGuild/discussions/3/810921273888153574/

The decomissioned/Beta/Revocation risk/Region lock do make a lot of sense.
This one does not.

[ellipsism]

Originally posted by Milouze:

The decomissioned/Beta/Revocation risk/Region lock do make a lot of sense.
This one does not.

I'm trying to provide options and disclosures. I don't think it's that different than having a list of where games were previously bundled.

[Tecfan]

Jet Gunner and Dead Bits are currently free at WGN. Fearless Fantasy from Indiegala.

[FoxFire]

It would definitely be good if there was a notice about a game being free or given away at some place.

I did complete a trade where I received a Steam key for a game that had gone free to play (and the trader did inform me of this), however I confirmed in advance that having a key (for an originally paid for game) did confer some bonuses and benefits despite the game now being free to play (with microtransactions).

[ellipsism]

Race the Sun store.steampowered.com/app/253030/ is free on Steam today only.

[Tecfan]

ty

[FoxFire]

Indeed. I was able to grab this as well. And should have thanked you for notifying us of it. Sorry for the delayed gratitude. :-)

[devotee]

I usually add tags whenever I can. I added tags to Burstfire and Gunnheim today (one was given away, the other might be revoked).

(should a giveaway of 100 games be flagged?)

Yes, if the user is trading more than a copy of the game. If one user has traded 5 copies of the same game that was given away for free, he "stole" the chance of 5 individuals to obtain a legit (and free copy).

If one user trades one copy of a game that was given away for free, you can't really know if it's his own key, or a second key he got on the giveaway (if he has the game in his library, it could be a hint but not a proof). In my opinion, mass-stocking keys from giveaways to trade, sell or give them away on Steamgifts should not be tolerated.