NamelessWraith
Member
- Messages
- 55
- Points
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The current system for giveaways incentivizes several problematic behaviors.
First, the IndieGala Giveaway Points calculator simply doesn't have a good formula for coming up with good values for games, and even if adjusted, it would still create undesirable incentives upon behaviors.
This is problematic partly because the values of games are wildly volatile to the point where a game like Deponia, for example, was worth 40 IC (4000 giveaway points) just a couple weeks ago, while its sequel was worth 1 IC (<100 giveaway points). Now, just a couple weeks later, Deponia is worth 4 IC. This is seemingly caused by a value upon "popularity" of a game as measured by keys redeemed/purchases that doesn't take into account when a game is being given away for free en masse or in popular bundles, making games instantly more valuable as a giveaway item the more saturated the market is with that game, regardless of actual demand for that game. Meanwhile, games that are older seem to default to a value of 50 giveaway points, making them virtually useless as a giveaway, even if they SHOULD be more desirable than the spammed games that are just free keys being instantly recycled into giveaways.
Second, the "giver level" system directly encourages players to giveaway as many games as possible, with an incentive given for crap games you can get for free. Why give away something valuable to gain the perceived value of a user level, when you could give away free games for more giveaway points? They are, after all, more "popular" due to key giveaways suddenly causing an influx of key redemptions, which therefore makes those free games more valuable in the giveaway system's eyes than games worth money.
Third, user levels supposedly exist as a method of encouraging users to add their own giveaways. A nice concept in theory, but there's nothing in this system to preserve a balance. If a new user sees several level 1 games they want, they might be encouraged to give some games away to reach level 1. Hypothetically, once there, they might see level 2 games they want, and give more games away to reach level 2... But what happens when you have a new user see that there's nothing but either level 0 games, and level 10 games that require they give away a million giveaway points to reach? This system creates a "Can't Catch Up" problem even before we start talking about the fact that the giveaway community is made up of an underclass of level 0, 1, and 2 users that legitimately give away games they own versus a class of users that farm free games to spam and get themselves and dozens of sockpuppets up to level 12. As months go on, the greater these disparities will grow, and the more hopeless it will seem to any new user who sees nothing but level 20 users all over the place. A level 0 user can at least see what it takes to get to level 1, but getting to level 4, much less a level 10 giveaway is hopelessly far and takes an amount of effort so great that they would almost invariably be better off just spending that time on another job to buy the games they want outright.
Finally, the entire purpose of IndieCoins is to create some sot of sense of opportunity cost, that they only have 240 IC per day to spend on games, so one shouldn't frivolously spend blindly on every game they see... Except the system has no method of auto-balancing out the value of games to the number of games a user might want to enter contest for. Currently, I blindly enter basically every contest that doesn't have a game I'd be embarassed to own, and which I don't already own, and I still frequently fail to spend all my IC. I don't even bother looking up new games, there's no point, since the IC I spend upon them is literally worthless and there is no opportunity I'm missing out on by spending blindly on anything I see with the slightest shred of novelty.
Because of these problems, I suggest a rethink in the way that IC are used, and the entire giveaway system is created:
Have users spend as many IC as they want on any given game. Each IC they spend is a "ticket" to win in that contest for that one game. This way, the "market decides" how many IC any given game is worth, rather than trying to create some algorithm to postulate the theoretical value in a manner that will almost certainly be inaccurate.
Likewise, do away with giver levels, and instead let users who give away games get "bonus indiecoins" that are a fraction of the total IC spent upon their contest. This would still reward givers with something to help them win the games they actually want, but give little incentive to spam free games nobody wants, since people would have little reason to bid on such games. Setting up a new contest/giving away a new game could also cost an arbitrary number of IC (let's say, 10 IC) so that severely unpopular or vastly oversaturated games are not worth putting on the market.
The "hourly" IC could still exist, but just be in a different pool as the "bonus" IC one gets from giving away games. This could let people save up large reserves of bonus IC they could use to outbid everyone else in those few contests they really, truly want to win. (Which would also help redistribute the bonus IC, since the giver of a really popular game that has lots of bonus IC spent on it gets more bonus IC, themselves.)
The only problem still outstanding from the current system, then, would be the problem of sockpuppets, but with giver levels gone, there would be no reason to use sockpuppets but for the hourly IC. So far as this goes, I'd suggest using other methods of weeding out sockpuppets: Users with records as users could be generally considered not a sockpuppet, but new users might be asked to do some sort of simple browser tasks (possibly just captchas, but basically anything that would be hard for a script to do for a sockpuppet account) to renew hourly IC until a certain threshold of non-giveaway activities have been accomplished. You could even make it a silly browser game where you get a number of IC per day based upon skill at a browser game. Regardless, the idea would be just enough involvement that a legit new user isn't entirely put off, but where it's too much trouble to farm out sockpuppets just for their hourly IC.
First, the IndieGala Giveaway Points calculator simply doesn't have a good formula for coming up with good values for games, and even if adjusted, it would still create undesirable incentives upon behaviors.
This is problematic partly because the values of games are wildly volatile to the point where a game like Deponia, for example, was worth 40 IC (4000 giveaway points) just a couple weeks ago, while its sequel was worth 1 IC (<100 giveaway points). Now, just a couple weeks later, Deponia is worth 4 IC. This is seemingly caused by a value upon "popularity" of a game as measured by keys redeemed/purchases that doesn't take into account when a game is being given away for free en masse or in popular bundles, making games instantly more valuable as a giveaway item the more saturated the market is with that game, regardless of actual demand for that game. Meanwhile, games that are older seem to default to a value of 50 giveaway points, making them virtually useless as a giveaway, even if they SHOULD be more desirable than the spammed games that are just free keys being instantly recycled into giveaways.
Second, the "giver level" system directly encourages players to giveaway as many games as possible, with an incentive given for crap games you can get for free. Why give away something valuable to gain the perceived value of a user level, when you could give away free games for more giveaway points? They are, after all, more "popular" due to key giveaways suddenly causing an influx of key redemptions, which therefore makes those free games more valuable in the giveaway system's eyes than games worth money.
Third, user levels supposedly exist as a method of encouraging users to add their own giveaways. A nice concept in theory, but there's nothing in this system to preserve a balance. If a new user sees several level 1 games they want, they might be encouraged to give some games away to reach level 1. Hypothetically, once there, they might see level 2 games they want, and give more games away to reach level 2... But what happens when you have a new user see that there's nothing but either level 0 games, and level 10 games that require they give away a million giveaway points to reach? This system creates a "Can't Catch Up" problem even before we start talking about the fact that the giveaway community is made up of an underclass of level 0, 1, and 2 users that legitimately give away games they own versus a class of users that farm free games to spam and get themselves and dozens of sockpuppets up to level 12. As months go on, the greater these disparities will grow, and the more hopeless it will seem to any new user who sees nothing but level 20 users all over the place. A level 0 user can at least see what it takes to get to level 1, but getting to level 4, much less a level 10 giveaway is hopelessly far and takes an amount of effort so great that they would almost invariably be better off just spending that time on another job to buy the games they want outright.
Finally, the entire purpose of IndieCoins is to create some sot of sense of opportunity cost, that they only have 240 IC per day to spend on games, so one shouldn't frivolously spend blindly on every game they see... Except the system has no method of auto-balancing out the value of games to the number of games a user might want to enter contest for. Currently, I blindly enter basically every contest that doesn't have a game I'd be embarassed to own, and which I don't already own, and I still frequently fail to spend all my IC. I don't even bother looking up new games, there's no point, since the IC I spend upon them is literally worthless and there is no opportunity I'm missing out on by spending blindly on anything I see with the slightest shred of novelty.
Because of these problems, I suggest a rethink in the way that IC are used, and the entire giveaway system is created:
Have users spend as many IC as they want on any given game. Each IC they spend is a "ticket" to win in that contest for that one game. This way, the "market decides" how many IC any given game is worth, rather than trying to create some algorithm to postulate the theoretical value in a manner that will almost certainly be inaccurate.
Likewise, do away with giver levels, and instead let users who give away games get "bonus indiecoins" that are a fraction of the total IC spent upon their contest. This would still reward givers with something to help them win the games they actually want, but give little incentive to spam free games nobody wants, since people would have little reason to bid on such games. Setting up a new contest/giving away a new game could also cost an arbitrary number of IC (let's say, 10 IC) so that severely unpopular or vastly oversaturated games are not worth putting on the market.
The "hourly" IC could still exist, but just be in a different pool as the "bonus" IC one gets from giving away games. This could let people save up large reserves of bonus IC they could use to outbid everyone else in those few contests they really, truly want to win. (Which would also help redistribute the bonus IC, since the giver of a really popular game that has lots of bonus IC spent on it gets more bonus IC, themselves.)
The only problem still outstanding from the current system, then, would be the problem of sockpuppets, but with giver levels gone, there would be no reason to use sockpuppets but for the hourly IC. So far as this goes, I'd suggest using other methods of weeding out sockpuppets: Users with records as users could be generally considered not a sockpuppet, but new users might be asked to do some sort of simple browser tasks (possibly just captchas, but basically anything that would be hard for a script to do for a sockpuppet account) to renew hourly IC until a certain threshold of non-giveaway activities have been accomplished. You could even make it a silly browser game where you get a number of IC per day based upon skill at a browser game. Regardless, the idea would be just enough involvement that a legit new user isn't entirely put off, but where it's too much trouble to farm out sockpuppets just for their hourly IC.
