Provide an API to Points shop items to unlock your own assets based on game actions

[.geeK]

Many games have built in challenges and tasks that they encourage the user to do.

As a separate way from achievements (or possibly a mechanism which enhances it), I think it would be great to allow developers and publishers to have a way to use the things found in the points shop.

To avoid abuse, you should also restrict this ability to direct links to direct items that are published and locked down to the game which is calling the function.

I believe this is unique from the achievement system, because there are endless reasons or possibilities for being able to Associate one of the types of assets in the points shop, and some action in the game.

I think this will be yet another unique and competitive offering which could set yourself apart from other platforms, and provide another avenue of sales and marketing to your publishers




For the end users:

You can read about the pointshop here:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/pointsshopitems

You can read about Profile features here:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile


The ask is specifically to provide an endpoint for your game to award or otherwise associate Emoticons, profile assets, etc. directly from your game, cutting out the step of awarding points and hoping your users will eventually purchase one from the points store.




To avoid publisher spam, a prompt ASKING you if you want to receive such an item could mitigate that concern.

Likely, giving publishers an option to enable or disable on accounts that are shared a game via family sharing, instead of directly owning it, will help alleviate concerns in which publishers already have about the feature.



---

"NO DEVELOPERS ALLOWED WRONG FORUM"

Although it seems according to the rules and guidelines do not prohibit such questions, I have been told by end users that I shouldn't be asking this question here.


In light, here is my framing as a user:


"As a user, I think it would be really cool if games could award you things like emoticons, badges and other profile things beyond gamecards. that would make me want to use Steam more"

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por .geeK:

Please, if I came off as screaming, let me know, and I'd be glad to report myself!

Feel free to report literally every post where you are literally just gaslighiting everyone who responds to you and insisting you are a 'developer' then switching to 'a usre' then insisting 'well i definitely may or may not be a dev' to 'stop doxxing me'

[.geeK]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Feel free to report literally every post where you are literally just gaslighiting everyone who responds to you and insisting you are a 'developer' then switching to 'a usre' then insisting 'well i definitely may or may not be a dev' to 'stop doxxing me'

So are you replying the way because you think I'm the problem? Seriously, look through my posts, nothing I'm saying outside of a few katty replies is gaslighting nor hostile as the repeated group of you appear to do.

Gaslightling by telling someone they are gaslighting is a whole extra level of dimension I'm not ready to address today.


---

As for gaslighting -- the main complaint was that "developers should not use this forum and should not post" so I provided my ask from the perspective of a user, since apparently, according to you all, there is a rule that only users can use these forums.


As for me not telling you if I'm a dev or not -- I would prefer not to be doxxed or give you any personal information. That's not a crime at all. In fact, its in the rules and guidelines to NOT post any PII, which profession actually is.


They do this so when someone decides to do a GDPR request for deletion, they do not have to consider any PII in the forums.


Hope that helps you understand my position.


Please stop focusing on me and yet again attempt to derail and get locked another thread.

This is a cool feature that would be really cool to have expanded.

[MalikQayum]

Escrito originalmente por .geeK:

...

you need to stop respond to these people, they do not understand what you are asking for.
all you do, is giving yourself a bigger headache.

the suggestion about drops, is not something that is available, it needs to be enabled by valve.

even if you were to get it enabled, it would not be what you would want.

what you clearly want is a system similar to the achievement system but for the point shop.

which makes perfect sense.

the suggestion can be made here, however it would be better to make such a suggestion in the steamworks dev group, as you would avoid all the responses you had gotten from users that do not understand what is being asked for.

[Gambit-3k]

one major concern I think valve would have with an idea like this is similar to what already happened in the past with achievements and also card drops. It would essentially lead to devs making "games" that function solely as a way to sale emoticon and profile customization packs directly. could valve potentially prevent abuse with clever limitations? idk tbh.

[Gwarsbane]

Escrito originalmente por Gambit-3:

one major concern I think valve would have with an idea like this is similar to what already happened in the past with achievements and also card drops. It would essentially lead to devs making "games" that function solely as a way to sale emoticon and profile customization packs directly. could valve potentially prevent abuse with clever limitations? idk tbh.

Some of the items given out with the already possible way can't be sold on the market, made into gems or traded away, some can be.

All Valve would have to say is, "no items given away this way can be sold on the market, made into gems or traded away, they have to be locked to the account." If the developer does allow items to be put on the market, made into gems or traded even though Valve said no, that privilege could be taken away from the developer so that its not abused.

Or Valve could just lock it down so that anything given that way is just automatically locked to an account. Right now they are not limiting what can be given away, be it in game items, avatars, backgrounds, frames, emoticons or what ever. Just that most developers don't do stuff beyond in game items.

[The Commendatore]

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Developers can do this with stream drops. No game ownership necessary.

:qr:

This.

[Gambit-3k]

Escrito originalmente por Gwarsbane:

Escrito originalmente por Gambit-3:

one major concern I think valve would have with an idea like this is similar to what already happened in the past with achievements and also card drops. It would essentially lead to devs making "games" that function solely as a way to sale emoticon and profile customization packs directly. could valve potentially prevent abuse with clever limitations? idk tbh.

Some of the items given out with the already possible way can't be sold on the market, made into gems or traded away, some can be.

All Valve would have to say is, "no items given away this way can be sold on the market, made into gems or traded away, they have to be locked to the account." If the developer does allow items to be put on the market, made into gems or traded even though Valve said no, that privilege could be taken away from the developer so that its not abused.

Or Valve could just lock it down so that anything given that way is just automatically locked to an account. Right now they are not limiting what can be given away, be it in game items, avatars, backgrounds, frames, emoticons or what ever. Just that most developers don't do stuff beyond in game items.

I don't mean they are worried the items given could be abused, I assumed they would not be marketable in the hypothetical. My concern would be games that aren't games, that act simply as a way to redeem customization items. I think it's an interesting idea don't get me wrong. It's possible it wouldn't hurt the market economy any more than the point shop did already, however it could have the effect of making the point shop less desirable to use depending how it was implemented.

Like right now you can buy a emoticon or wallpaper for a few cents, you can't buy the other animated profile items I don't think. so you might think, why would anyone pay 100 points for an emoticon when that's like a dollar worth of points. but then you have to factor those are free bonus points that really cost nothing so it feels worth it to get something on top of your purchase.

But then the animated stuff is 1000-2000 points on the low end (I think right). so even though they are free bonus points, they are expensive enough to where people only pick the ones they like, and if they don't have enough points for all they like, it makes the ones they do choose that much more important. now if every or many games started giving you the animated stuff as rewards, people would just have so many they might stop caring about what's in the point shop, and the stuff they do have could feel somehow less important to them.

that's pretty much stream of consciousness so forgive me, the balance it would have to strike is certainly an interesting thought experiment, like would it have to be exclusive items, idk?
but what I know I don't want, is to see products that are just customization packs masquerading as games like we did with achievements.

[FOXDUDE69]

What a wonderfully detailed ask!
Thia would be great. Hopefully some Valve devs will pick this one up!

[.geeK]

Escrito originalmente por Gambit-3:

Escrito originalmente por Gwarsbane:

*snipped for brevity*

You bring up some interesting points and definitely a lot to consider there if they were to implement it.

My presumption of the ask entirely rests on faith in Valve to find that right balance between the two, which may be ill advised in the first place absolutely. You pointed out a great example of HOW something like that could be abused and has been abused in the past, so definitely warrants a concern.


I think it would be a reasonable expectation for Valve to set guidelines and rules surrounding that to avoid such issues, absolutely.

That being said, if more use and rewards of those assets provide a net positive in the sense that more companies will feel empowered to use them, then it may not all be bad. It 100% needs to be balanced and have thoughtful considerations surrounding the rules surrounding it.


Presently, here is their requirements for building profile features as it is:

Games that have achieved broad player engagement and some commercial success are eligible to create content that players can use in their Steam Community profile. These include Steam Trading Cards, Badges, Background, and Emoticons. Players on Steam can highlight content from their favorite games in various ways:

As you mentioned already, these have been abused in current iteration, so a review of the processes and engagement thresholds may be warranted before expanding it further. I concede though, since I do not have metrics or data surrounding this, I don't have any strong opinions outside of agreeing with you that it may enable higher risk of abuse, if safeguards are not in place.



Thanks for your thoughtful reply and discussion surrounding this. I personally appreciate it, and I imagine any Valve dev trying to get information would appreciate it as well.

[.geeK]

Escrito originalmente por MalikQayum:

Escrito originalmente por .geeK:

...

you need to stop respond to these people, they do not understand what you are asking for.
all you do, is giving yourself a bigger headache.

the suggestion about drops, is not something that is available, it needs to be enabled by valve.

even if you were to get it enabled, it would not be what you would want.

what you clearly want is a system similar to the achievement system but for the point shop.

which makes perfect sense.

the suggestion can be made here, however it would be better to make such a suggestion in the steamworks dev group, as you would avoid all the responses you had gotten from users that do not understand what is being asked for.

Thanks Malik. Appologies for the externalized headache. I agree it detracts from the entire discussion and that devs would be able to relate more.


I actually did try to join the steamworks dev group ( https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks ) to ask for help surrounding this on my account here, but was greeted with this error

Sorry!

An error was encountered while processing your request:

This group has reached the maximum number of pending join requests. Please contact a moderator of this group to have them respond to these requests.

I figured it would be better to get the idea down on paper before I either lose interest or context on why its important, and presumed that any feedback forum would be a valid place to put it.


It was partly lack of patience and naivity on my end not to expect user forums to react so vehemently against something they don't have full context too (which again, super understandable if you do not have knowledge -- though I am hesitant to encourage development now based on some of the responses).


---

Thank you for your thoughts surrounding the idea nonetheless. It's very much appreciated.

[Black Blade]

I think this be a really neat option overall, even that not sure need to tie it to the point shop, it and be better if its just profile items, so it could be point shop stuff, but it could also just be profile items, maybe unique to getting it this way
Could be a neat way to reword players and let them show i outside of the game, as well as encourage players to experiment and try more stuff after the player finished most to all of the game

Over all could maybe also work as kind of a cross-game item system, so you could also have developers working together on making items for each other games, or for later games in the sequel using this idea as well
At the end of the day, Steam/Profile/Point shop is just a different appID, I think so it's just like applying it to a different game and stuff, could be really neat

[Gambit-3k]

Escrito originalmente por .geeK:

Thanks for your thoughtful reply and discussion surrounding this. I personally appreciate it, and I imagine any Valve dev trying to get information would appreciate it as well.

For sure, and I tried not to suggest any absolutes. I guess it's a given that valve are pretty smart people that usually know what they are doing with this stuff and seems like they learn from their mistakes. It could be fun getting a unique item in that way

[.geeK]

Escrito originalmente por Gambit-3:

For sure, and I don't want to suggest any absolutes. I guess it's a given that valve are pretty smart people that usually know what they are doing with this stuff and seems like they learn from their mistakes. It could be fun getting a unique item in that way for sure

They're so smart! I think because they have been around so long, just like any company that has a structure similar to theirs, that feature creep becomes a real thing and it's easy to lose focus, and even the ability to address issues due to a pure capacity reason --- Even though I would like to fault them for not always doing "good things", it's normal and expected of any company, despite the value.

This idea was actually based off of a tangibly related feature or type of feature a product i'm familiar with has done just recently. I figured applying its logic to something I recently used would be smart, especially if I could show support for it.


Again, thanks for the thoughts and the discussion. Very much appreciated.

[Tito Shivan]

Escrito originalmente por Black Blade (Card Idle):

I think this be a really neat option overall, even that not sure need to tie it to the point shop, it and be better if its just profile items, so it could be point shop stuff, but it could also just be profile items, maybe unique to getting it this way

Would those 'items' be also available to be purchased with points? Wouldn't they?

If they could also be purchased IMO the items would lose some of their 'achievement status'. If they couldn't be bought, would we have a 'you can see but you can't touch' section at the points shop with these 'achievement only' items.

At the end of the day I don't see why grant all these items 'through' the points shop, when the same already can be done already through the Steam inventory, which is a feature that already exists.

I can see the items I bought at the points shop on my Steam inventory already. Non tradable and non marketable, but they're there. They're actual steam inventory items.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Escrito originalmente por Tito Shivan:

Escrito originalmente por Black Blade (Card Idle):

I think this be a really neat option overall, even that not sure need to tie it to the point shop, it and be better if its just profile items, so it could be point shop stuff, but it could also just be profile items, maybe unique to getting it this way

Would those 'items' be also available to be purchased with points? Wouldn't they?

If they could also be purchased IMO the items would lose some of their 'achievement status'. If they couldn't be bought, would we have a 'you can see but you can't touch' section at the points shop with these 'achievement only' items.

At the end of the day I don't see why grant all these items 'through' the points shop, when the same already can be done already through the Steam inventory, which is a feature that already exists.

I can see the items I bought at the points shop on my Steam inventory already. Non tradable and non marketable, but they're there. They're actual steam inventory items.

This would also be worthless considering the existence of SAM which Steam has already said they aren't going to do anything about.