Badges like the summer sale? Wheres my **** coal!

[Anhydrus]

Why no coal steam :( .. was it just too much fun last year?

[indio68]

yes this is a pity!! with coal you have a way to win something, or have special disount...to bad this isn't now..and the beginning of this chrsist sale is so...MEH!

[Sloppy Seconds]

Escrito originalmente por Happygamer:

You do realize it is only the first day of the sale? They could be cooking something up and just need to correct a few issues before release.

This is what people thought during the summer sale. They advertised 'activities', but those activities, rather activity, was voting on flash sales. I will admit though, the fact that there has been no word (to my knowledge) from valve regarding the sale and that there is no group for this sale has me wondering. Yet, I can only assume that valve is going to do a give-away like they have in previous years: giving a lucky, random few their wishlist and a lucky person every game on steam (or something, purely speculation.)

Though I refuse to get wrapped up in things which may exist and will only acknowledge things that do exist, and what exists right now is incredibly disappointing.

[Hoofing Along]

I'm adding my voice of understanding and disconcent. Understanding that yeah, they probably aren't doing it because of the (fill in the blank here) exploters who ruined it for us honest folks. Discontent because I'm seriously bummed.

[Happygamer]

The reason for no coal is Steam is going green!

[Sloppy Seconds]

Escrito originalmente por Happygamer:

The reason for no coal is Steam is going green!

Give us solar cells then please. Or perhaps some wind mills, or maybe some methane, or ethanol (it is the holidays, who can't use some holiday cheer), there are options, steam is just being lazy

[koolchiefs]

Escrito originalmente por MaxX:

Escrito originalmente por FrazerJC:

People exploited the coal system last year, by making plenty of Steam accounts and shoving a ton of $1 Humble Bundles on each. People farmed the coal like there was no tomorrow. THAT'S why there's no coal this year.

So....just stop giving coal out to cheeves on $1 titles?

Coal achievements should come from a game with a $4.99 min price (discount included) and have two per game.

I'm sure Steam would be ok with people farming $2.50+ coals.

Well, actually, the Humble Bundle games were not where the achievements were from.

The problem is that in order to use an account for the coal and other promotions, your account had to be an "active" account. In other words, you had to have at least one paid title on an account to use it. So people would buy dozens of Humble Bundles, as this was the cheapest route, and add those to duplicate accounts they had created.

They would then go through and get all achievements for each account, which would get them more coal, which gave them more trading power and more chances to win free stuff. People would end up with 100 accounts, with all achievements on every account, and therefore have 100 times as much of a chance of winning as those who played by the rules.

Humble Bundle at that time changed the amount to get a Steam key to $1 DURING THE SALE. But still, you could buy 10 Humble Bundles and do the same thing on a smaller scale.

I'm guessing that Valve didn't want to deal with the headache.

I do wish they did the big giveaways and coal and achievements this year, but it looks like we might be out of luck.

Brent

[Unknownpony]

My god they could just make require for event like your account have to be at least half or even year old..... it's not a big deal to do
If (account < 1 year old )
no event.
They are just lazy

[koolchiefs]

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

My god they could just make require for event like your account have to be at least half or even year old..... it's not a big deal to do
If (account < 1 year old )
no event.
They are just lazy

Yes, but then what about those who just signed up for Steam, have bought some games, and want to get involved in the community that Steam is based around? Is that fair to legitimate users who just want to participate?

Maybe they are lazy. But maybe there is no good way for them to run a sale without somebody getting screwed over or complaining. You can't please everyone.

Hey, I was hoping for all the special things too. But it's not like they owed us anything, did they? I mean, is anyone actually LOSING anything here? I'm not. So it's kind of hard for me to complain about not getting something.

Brent

[Pod]

Gutted about this, been looking forward to it and was even bragging about last years one to my console mates.

[Unknownpony]

Escrito originalmente por koolchiefs:

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

My god they could just make require for event like your account have to be at least half or even year old..... it's not a big deal to do
If (account < 1 year old )
no event.
They are just lazy

Yes, but then what about those who just signed up for Steam, have bought some games, and want to get involved in the community that Steam is based around? Is that fair to legitimate users who just want to participate?

Maybe they are lazy. But maybe there is no good way for them to run a sale without somebody getting screwed over or complaining. You can't please everyone.

Hey, I was hoping for all the special things too. But it's not like they owed us anything, did they? I mean, is anyone actually LOSING anything here? I'm not. So it's kind of hard for me to complain about not getting something.

Brent

It's tought love for them then. They would have to wait for next christmas sales.
Beside it's always about regular customers. Cell phones company give promotion and better phones for regular customers the same goes for almsot every company. I don't see why steam couldn't make events for regular customers

[koolchiefs]

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

Escrito originalmente por koolchiefs:

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

My god they could just make require for event like your account have to be at least half or even year old..... it's not a big deal to do
If (account < 1 year old )
no event.
They are just lazy

Yes, but then what about those who just signed up for Steam, have bought some games, and want to get involved in the community that Steam is based around? Is that fair to legitimate users who just want to participate?

Maybe they are lazy. But maybe there is no good way for them to run a sale without somebody getting screwed over or complaining. You can't please everyone.

Hey, I was hoping for all the special things too. But it's not like they owed us anything, did they? I mean, is anyone actually LOSING anything here? I'm not. So it's kind of hard for me to complain about not getting something.

Brent

It's tought love for them then. They would have to wait for next christmas sales.
Beside it's always about regular customers. Cell phones company give promotion and better phones for regular customers the same goes for almsot every company. I don't see why steam couldn't make events for regular customers

I don't know what cell phone company you use, but all of them that I know put their focus on getting new customers. Free phones and deeply discounted phones are more commonly offered to new customers. Same with TV service. "Regular" customers have to wait a certain amount of time to get the deals.

Heck, DirecTV offers NEW subscribers the NFL Sunday Ticket FREE for their first year. Me? We've had DTV and Sunday Ticket for 8 years............and we have to pay every year.

And it's easy for you to say, as somebody who isn't new, that it's "tough love" for them. If I were a new user and came here wanting to spend money, or already spent lots of money on games, why should I be excluded from anything? I'm not new at all to Steam personally, but if I were, I would be pretty upset, and you would be too. That would turn off many new users, absolutely no doubt about it.

Steam has to focus on getting new customers. It would be a horrible business practice to do otherwise, and they would fail quickly. And we, as users, are probably best served by them bringing in more customers because it means more games on Steam, more people participating online, etc.

It's not that I don't get what you're saying. I do. But it's much easier said than done. Alienating legitimate new customers is bad business practice. As a non-new member, that sucks. But I can't expect that Steam will take their largest events of the year and cater them only to long-time customers. It just wouldn't work, no matter how much it makes sense for some silly coal giveaway.

Brent

[Unknownpony]

Escrito originalmente por koolchiefs:

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

Escrito originalmente por koolchiefs:

Escrito originalmente por Unknownpony:

My god they could just make require for event like your account have to be at least half or even year old..... it's not a big deal to do
If (account < 1 year old )
no event.
They are just lazy

Yes, but then what about those who just signed up for Steam, have bought some games, and want to get involved in the community that Steam is based around? Is that fair to legitimate users who just want to participate?

Maybe they are lazy. But maybe there is no good way for them to run a sale without somebody getting screwed over or complaining. You can't please everyone.

Hey, I was hoping for all the special things too. But it's not like they owed us anything, did they? I mean, is anyone actually LOSING anything here? I'm not. So it's kind of hard for me to complain about not getting something.

Brent

It's tought love for them then. They would have to wait for next christmas sales.
Beside it's always about regular customers. Cell phones company give promotion and better phones for regular customers the same goes for almsot every company. I don't see why steam couldn't make events for regular customers

I don't know what cell phone company you use, but all of them that I know put their focus on getting new customers. Free phones and deeply discounted phones are more commonly offered to new customers. Same with TV service. "Regular" customers have to wait a certain amount of time to get the deals.

Heck, DirecTV offers NEW subscribers the NFL Sunday Ticket FREE for their first year. Me? We've had DTV and Sunday Ticket for 8 years............and we have to pay every year.

And it's easy for you to say, as somebody who isn't new, that it's "tough love" for them. If I were a new user and came here wanting to spend money, or already spent lots of money on games, why should I be excluded from anything? I'm not new at all to Steam personally, but if I were, I would be pretty upset, and you would be too. That would turn off many new users, absolutely no doubt about it.

Steam has to focus on getting new customers. It would be a horrible business practice to do otherwise, and they would fail quickly. And we, as users, are probably best served by them bringing in more customers because it means more games on Steam, more people participating online, etc.

It's not that I don't get what you're saying. I do. But it's much easier said than done. Alienating legitimate new customers is bad business practice. As a non-new member, that sucks. But I can't expect that Steam will take their largest events of the year and cater them only to long-time customers. It just wouldn't work, no matter how much it makes sense for some silly coal giveaway.

Brent

I agree that you have to wait till your contract will be near end with cell phone company but then they give you SUCH promotion that new coustemrs could never dream about such :S at least my company did such the same with TV service. This month the contract was near end and they gave us SUCH promotion that the other offerts from other companies for new coustemers wasn't even close for being so good.
But yeah you are right companies want always new custemers and I just said half year as example =P They could do other way around like account that got games worth 50 euro+ can participate in event. It's working on steamgifts.com hehe =P and I doubt people would cheat that much ♥♥♥ they would have to spent 50 euro first =P
My point is they could think of many ways to prevent cheating but more easy is not make any event :S

[crusay]

Yeah we should we complain about not having coal. I mean crap, its not the idea of buying a couple games for 10 bucks was the whole point of a christmas sale. It was about getting achievements and exploiting whatever system they create for coal and coupons.

[nemer]

no coal = no holiday sale, steam badges = summer sale

[PentaPenta]

What I still don't get is why everyone's complaining that they didn't add something they did ONE YEAR!
I mean really, I'd understand if it was like a tradition or something, but is it wrong for them to only do something one year?