"Steam Referral Code" Earn money when someone purchases a game through your link.

[GingerBeardMan]

If this is already a thing please direct me to it and I apologize. I searched though the discussions but could not find anything that was on the same page. I currently list all of the games I stream as direct links to the stream store page for that game. I think it would be cool if we could earn like even 10 Cents when someone purchases the game from one of our links. This of course could be paid out monthly or even quarterly to combat fraud.

[Komrade]

No. This is just going to open up a whole new avenue of spam and scams.

[cinedine]

This was planned for curators once. That it didn't take off with them should be enough to tell you that it probably doesn't worked out as they thought.

(A six month time window for chargebacks on fraudulent charges is just one of the reasons I can think of from the top of my head.)

[IQØ]

Soon it wont be worth anybody taking the time to write a game. Tax man, steam man and now gingerbread man, whats it all coming too, aye :)

[VaLiuM]

Originally posted by christmaS:

No. This is just going to open up a whole new avenue of spam and scams.

Yeah, i can imagine, same with the flood of CS:GO ref links.

[GingerBeardMan]

Originally posted by christmaS:

No. This is just going to open up a whole new avenue of spam and scams.

I mean you can say that about anything and have it be valid but I see your point. I could agree more to the spam then the scams. I mean... I would need a example of how to scam someone with a Steam Link.

Originally posted by cinedine:

This was planned for curators once. That it didn't take off with them should be enough to tell you that it probably doesn't worked out as they thought.

(A six month time window for chargebacks on fraudulent charges is just one of the reasons I can think of from the top of my head.)

Good to know, thanks for the information. I appreciate it.

Originally posted by IQØ:

Soon it wont be worth anybody taking the time to write a game. Tax man, steam man and now gingerbread man, whats it all coming too, aye :)

*cough* and the Ginger Beard Man even lol.

Originally posted by VaLiuM:

Originally posted by christmaS:

No. This is just going to open up a whole new avenue of spam and scams.

Yeah, i can imagine, same with the flood of CS:GO ref links.

See literally anything lol.

[Komrade]

Originally posted by GingerBeardMan:

Originally posted by christmaS:

No. This is just going to open up a whole new avenue of spam and scams.

I mean you can say that about anything and have it be valid but I see your point. I could agree more to the spam then the scams. I mean... I would need a example of how to scam someone with a Steam Link.

Originally posted by cinedine:

This was planned for curators once. That it didn't take off with them should be enough to tell you that it probably doesn't worked out as they thought.

(A six month time window for chargebacks on fraudulent charges is just one of the reasons I can think of from the top of my head.)

Good to know, thanks for the information. I appreciate it.

Originally posted by IQØ:

Soon it wont be worth anybody taking the time to write a game. Tax man, steam man and now gingerbread man, whats it all coming too, aye :)

*cough* and the Ginger Beard Man even lol.

Originally posted by VaLiuM:

Yeah, i can imagine, same with the flood of CS:GO ref links.

See literally anything lol.

Lets pretend I'm a scammer. I create a website that looks very similar to the actual "referral" link. I then spam it around everywhere and steal user logins. And even non-scammers are going to be pasting their referral links everywhere if this is added.

[Brujeira]

A variation of that has been done already - it was a fake community link if I remember correctly.

[IQØ]

ohh yeah, Does say gingerbeard don't it. Should have known i was having one of them days when i first read "meats referral coed" :)

[Cathulhu]

As if the referral spam wasn't bad enough already, then comes someone who wants to pour oil into the fire.

[Komrade]

And to top it off, Valve will lose money by doing this.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by cinedine:

This was planned for curators once. That it didn't take off with them should be enough to tell you that it probably doesn't worked out as they thought.

It made sense for curators. And if I'm not mistaken Epic is doing something similar for their 'curators'

However, for the general Steam userbase it makes little sense when one considers the reason why these referral schemes are made.

They're made for visibility.
The store foregoes a bit of money in exchange for someone else linking to their site. It's covert advertising, a way to bring clicks to the store.

And Steam doesn't need that visibility.

Also, given the size of Steam's userbase their utility for a given user is practically void. There's going to be at any given moment tens of millions of other users fighting for that referral.

[Satoru]

I'm not sure i really need mor ereferral spam