A Standard Bundle Count

[Barter.vg]

There are multiple "bundle counts" on the site.

For example, City of Chains,
10+5 on /bundles/
11✽ on offer pages
16 bundles are listed on https://barter.vg/i/18071/

There there are also games like Little Nightmares, which has been in 2 bundles, but at prices that exceed its retail price.

This is confusing. Ideally, you'd see all the information and determine what's the relevant information for your purpose, but with many games on bundle and offer pages, that could be information overload.

Proposed standard
All games would be added to bundles, even if the tier is expensive. Bundle editors could toggle bundle_count to 0 and that bundle would not increment that game's bundle count.

In the case of Little Nightmares, the bundle count would be 0* and the details would appear in the title HTML, which is visible on mouseover.

For packages, it would show the combined count with a symbol to indicate that the count included bundles where the game was included in a package.

Your suggestions requested.

[luckz]

For high-priced games, I feel -as a very rough random idea- a 85% discount or something would mark them effectively bundled, while effectively selling a $20 game for $10 (example: $30 to get 3 games totalling $60 store price, or many Humble Tier 3/4 cases) does not make it what I would call a 'bundle(d) game'.

I'm definitely not asking to automate this based on discount / effective price.

[theemu]

Just to see how this is done at Steamgifts where bundled vs unbundled is taken quite seriously. Maybe something of their system could be applied here?

In general Humble tier 3+ and bundle tiers costing $10 or more do not usually count as bundled at steamgifts, but sometimes they do. It depends on the number of games in the tier, and games' current combined retail price in Steam Store against the price of the bundle at the tier level. As an example of irregular bundle, how about Humble Freedom Bundle https://barter.vg/bundle/1530/ Count as normally bundled or not? Maybe games that were exclusive to this bundle could be considered "high value bundle game"?

As another example, Humble Monthly bundles do not usually count as bundled at Steamgifts. But August 2017 was an exception: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Mxelj/did-all-the-humble-bundle-games-just-become-bundled
The reason is that if the combined Steam Store retail price (US$) of the games included in the HB monthly bundle exceed $240 (compared against regular price $12 of the bundle), it then exceeds 95% discount which is the general threshold for game getting bundled status at Steamgifts. This bundle exceeded that threshold just by $3.92. That's what happens when use explicit value and it leaves no room for other opinion really. I think here at Barter we like having having that room however :)

I agree that these should be decided case-by-case basis, not by automation, and that's how it's done at steamgifts also in the end although they have that rather explicit 95% discount threshold. Humble monthly bundles is good first candidate needing an opinion of the Barter userbase, should the games included only in humble monthlies count as bundled as normal, or should there be a new special category called for example "high value bundle games"? Are people fine tagging them "high tier" or "wishlist only" etc themselves?

[luckz]

Barter does not deal with SteamGift's CV or anything similar and thus the 95%+ discount metric used is excessively strict for our purposes.
The only notable problem with our "bundles" is that some have you pay close to the games' full prices. On SG, 'bundle' status is the exception, while on Barter it's the rule.

If you feel it warrants a poll, do we have a suitable polling system beyond mere hand-raising?

[theemu]

I just thought it's good starting point to take a look at what kind of criteria other sites have chosen to deal with bundled vs non-bundled games. That's why we are now discussing about these things. The goal is finding the threshold that works here.

I admit I went a bit offtopic earlier, but I still think Humble Monthly games are a good example of the value region where bundled vs non-bundled games meet at least for some traders. Thinking again, it's certainly not in any way damaging to the game to have 1 bundle count due to the monthly bundle, given now that bundle details are shown so well around the site.

---

I guess suggestions were more requested for how to display the bundle counts in practise? I think the current implementation on offer pages showing the bundle titles is great, but the "bundled in package" count should be shown also maybe?

I think the "not bundled" count could be displayed using superscript with separate mouseover title text:
0✽¹
The superscript would work nicely on the bundle page as well I think.

Or just a symbol like * and then in the same mouseover title show text something like
included but not considered as bundled: 'list of such bundles and tier'

[Barter.vg]

Having an objective metric like the 95% discount threshold has the benefit of reducing the number of debates on the definition of bundle games. However, at least at that level, it produces strange results.

It's difficult for me to consider Humble Monthly games as unbundled. They seem to be the definition of bundle games. Multiple games for a discounted price. All the trading and collection stats of a game like https://barter.vg/i/3445/ indicate bundle game, at least my conception of it. No trades completed prior to October 6, after that, 91 completed and 200+ tradables.

The bundle outliers may be easier to define. Little Nightmares seems the easiest. It's in a tier alone (ignoring coupons) and the price of the tier is above the retail price. Not only is the tier expensive, the difference between tier 3 and tier 2 is retail or higher. That seems like the definition of a non-bundled bundle game. The trading activity seems to support that. Despite being in 2 bundles, 3 completed trades.

Beyond the trade value aspect, I think there's a trading safety aspect. If someone receives an offer with a game that was never given away and in 0 bundles, that should be a caution sign. Having Humble Monthly games all appear as 0 bundles seems to defeat that.

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Barter.vg:

Beyond the trade value aspect, I think there's a trading safety aspect. If someone receives an offer with a game that was never given away and in 0 bundles, that should be a caution sign. Having Humble Monthly games all appear as 0 bundles seems to defeat that.

^ This.

I personally don't consider Monthly games as bundled, but more like a blind "BYOB" instead.

However, having them counted as bundled indeed provides some useful safety information.

[luckz]

Originally posted by theemu:

Humble Monthly games are a good example of the value region where bundled vs non-bundled games meet at least for some traders.

Due to the prevalence of resellers both on Barter and the rest of key trading (besides maybe Group Buys), especially HB Monthly tends to be split into one $10 game and some $0.5 games (in terms of practical trading value) rather than 6 $2 games. The Witness[barter.vg] is unbundled in the sense that you won't manage to trade for one for a bundle price ~$2 or somewhat higher (people will ask in the $10 to $20 region), and bundled in the sense that, well, it was bundled twice. At $12 and $30.

Originally posted by Barter.vg:

Beyond the trade value aspect, I think there's a trading safety aspect. If someone receives an offer with a game that was never given away and in 0 bundles, that should be a caution sign.

Which kind of caution though, that the offerer might have well gotten it for free (e.g. press promo key), or that it might be a scam or revokable beta or so? Or caution that it might have high value due to not being bundled / free?

[Barter.vg]

Originally posted by Barter.vg:

Which kind of caution though, that the offerer might have well gotten it for free (e.g. press promo key), or that it might be a scam or revokable beta or so? Or caution that it might have high value due to not being bundled / free?

Caution that the key had a less conventional journey and higher chance of surprises. For example, the possibility of these keys being revoked if they were from the IGS batch https://barter.vg/i/8902/

[theemu]

The new feature at offer pages that mouseover text shows the titles of bundles where the game is included on is really nice I think! It's little things like these that make website usage smoother and userfriendlier when don't need to open new page to see that information.

I agree humble monthlies need to appear as bundled, but I was just wondering would it considered useful if Barter could categorize "obviously high value bundle games" from "low value bundle games"? If the only bundles the game is included in are humble monthly or tier 3+ etc, then the bundled count could be shown in different color, or it could have some symbol next to the bundle count to underline it is considered "higher value". Because we usually either look for the higher value games or ignore them, such highlighting would make it easier to locate the games we are looking for.

Implementing this would require one more value for the bundled status of the game. So there would be 3 statuses: not bundled, bundled - low, and bundled - high. This feature could also allow bundling games that haven't been in actual bundles, but have otherwise been available for very low price, and if for example ITAD has it recorded then could link to that and show that because of certain sale the game is considered "bundled" for now.

Which leads to another idea: if the most recent bundle/sale event the game was in is more than 4 (or more?) years old, that could also trigger the "higher value" status? But on the other hand, maybe this is the kind of thing that should be left up to the trader to decide. The dynamic tradable/wishlist ratio is essentially the rarity indicator in itself usually. And I just researched the tag usage little bit, and it seems to me that users actually make pretty good use of the tags like "high tier" and "wishlist only" than before :)

[Barter.vg]

On the bundle pages, the count is a single number rather than 1+1. https://barter.vg/bundle/2056/ The title text is "bundled as a package N times"

[theemu]

That is great improvement:)
I think the title text could maybe have little bit more explicit info?:
-bundled M times individually
-bundled as part of package N times

[Barter.vg]

Added that to the title text

[Barter.vg]

With Humble Bundle creating different version of bundles based on regions, there is a new complication. For example, https://barter.vg/i/1630/ the "Bundle Count" is 6, but click to see the details, and there are 9 bundles listed.

The offer page should now display the same bundle count as the profiles. This includes packages and excludes bundles that were tagged as "not counted."

[theemu]

Originally posted by Barter.vg:

With Humble Bundle creating different version of bundles based on regions, there is a new complication. For example, https://barter.vg/i/1630/ the "Bundle Count" is 6, but click to see the details, and there are 9 bundles listed.

So bundle count is already ok then? The alternative version doesn't add to the "overall bundle count" when it is in the same bundle. This was fixed before.

---
Ideas what do to when same bundle gets listed more than once due to alternative version(s):

- display the title of the item (instead of just the generic "Included in bundle as a Steam package"). For example https://barter.vg/i/2042/ show it as something like:
"Included in bundle in a package: PAYDAY 2: GOTY Edition 2016 ℹ"

- If the additional bundle listing has "Regional Version" tag, show that text also for extra description, so then I think it would be very clear without having to open the bundle to see what package/version it is.

This solution would also fix the slight issue that packages that are not Steam Packages would show correctly. For example: https://barter.vg/i/10206/

(edited for clarity and improved the suggestion with examples)

[Barter.vg]

Originally posted by theemu:

So bundle count is already ok then?

It is consistent between the bundle, offer, and profile pages. There are still problems and unresolved edge cases.

For example, shouldn't Sleeping Dogs bundle count be 1 rather than 6? 3 of the 4 Get Loaded bundles are tagged "not counted" and the regional versions probably shouldn't count.

Originally posted by theemu:

- display the title of the item (instead of just the generic "Included in bundle as a Steam package"). For example https://barter.vg/i/2042/ show it as something like:
"Included in bundle in a package: PAYDAY 2: GOTY Edition 2016 ℹ"

That information isn't available on the page at this point, but that would make it more clear.

When there were multiple packages, the page repeated the "included in bundle" header. I consolidated them so it appears only once.

Originally posted by theemu:

This solution would also fix the slight issue that packages that are not Steam Packages would show correctly. For example: https://barter.vg/i/10206/

I hadn't considered that scenario. I removed "Steam" from "Steam Package" and added a tooltip to explain it. I also changed "(bundle)" in Related Items to "(package)" so the terms are consistent, although if you add items, it still says "bundle".