2018-10-24 17:23:47

Hi

So over the last few months, there has been a huge influx of people asking people to buy them copies of games, to the point where I've seen two topics right next to each other on this very subject. It's getting out of hand, in my opinion. To be clear, I'm not refering to give aways, just people outright asking for people to buy them games.

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2018-10-24 17:26:15

I agree to a point, but then again, better that than piracy, I suppose.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
"Cause in a game of life or death, you either live, or you die."
"Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn."

2018-10-24 18:10:14

Yeah, to be honest in this case I'll take that over piracy any day. As long as people aren't an ass about it I should say it's totally fine.
On that same token I would like to discredit Paypal equally as much for flat-out not being allowed or not working in some third world countries; that they can do business like they own the place as far as e-commerce is concerned is laughable to me. And it's evident they appear to be like some higher-up federal org when here in the US they ask for your social security number to fully verify your account, which they don't even have or need in the first place, to quote verify it's you. It's why I'm hesitant to, if I ever release games, setup a paypal merchant account on the grounds that they may ask for my ssn, and the only way they're getting that would be under my dead body. There's been enough data breaches to know that no org should be handling ssn's if they don't need them. That said, it would probably be a shitty and unprofessional idea to sell stuff through a paypal.me link, but that would at least get around the god-damn ssn. Unless I either get solid proof that it's safe, or there's some unexposed loophole, I'm not doing their bidding.
Ok, that was just an unrelated tangent, but talking about paypal's lack of solid international support reminded me of their questionable practices.

2018-10-24 18:31:25

I disagree, I actually like the fact that people are now asking for things because it means that people realize that they have to support developers one way or another. It beats piracy any day.

2018-10-24 18:39:05

A bit curious.  Someone mentioned something a jimmy did that kind of stunted people's willingness to buy people games or host more give aways.  For an uninformed Beholder, mind shining some light on what happened there?



     Also I do have to support the theme of better this than people mass pirating multiple packs of games.  Granted it's a bit annoying that people's inability to pay themselves is due to stuff out of their control when they do have the funds to buy a game.

The answer to your question is forum.audiogames.net/search

2018-10-24 18:50:17

On the one hand I can see why topics where people gracelessly demand a given game can be annoying, especially when there have been a number of them in quick succession.

On the other, Jack is dead right about Paypal being arses in many parts of the world, heck I've recently found their charges for credit card transactions are actually illegal in the EU, but they're doing it anyway so they can get at people's bank accounts, plus even if your not living in a country where paypal are being annoying, there might be many other reasons you can't afford a game, and as Aaron said, better to have a game bought for you and support the developers than resort to piracy.

Back before the massive forum crash that rolled us back from August, there was discussion of directly setting up a "gifting forum room" where people could request copies of a given game, or could alternatively give away copies of a game if they wished.

Having a specific place for these sorts of transactions might be helpful, both in showing potential requesters the best way to make requests, and for clearing the rest of the board. plus then topics could be closed once a request was fulfilled.

How such a room on the forum might work, and what the rules might be I'm not sure at this point, but maybe that would be a plan worth considering?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-24 19:15:05

I'd be all for a dedocated forum on this, yeah.

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2018-10-24 20:18:05

I think a dedicated forum is a good idea. I have to admit that seeing those topics one right after the other can be a bit tiresome, especially the way some people seem to demand none too politely. I think some of that comes down to a language barrier at times, but no one is entitled to getting a game just because they want it right now. In other words, I get why this topic was started, but I also agree with everyone else in that there's a fine line to walk between letting people ask for things they might otherwise not be able to obtain for themselves, and inadvertently pushing said people away towards shadier methods of obtaining such games. That said, although it hasn't happened in a little while, there were several of those topics which resulted in someone offering a pirated version of the game that was being asked for anyway. Even though those instances were dealt with, there really is no easy solution.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-10-24 22:56:36

The hard part would be establishing the rules for such a forum and having clear guidelines down for what, when and by whom something can be  requested. For example,we wouldn't want the same person requesting game after game so nobody else got a look in.
That would be another advantage of having all of the request topics in the one place, since it'd be easy then for people who were fulfilling requests to see who had had what and when.

But whether we should also count giveaway topics, in which people want to support a specific developer's work by giving away extra copies of their games, or whether that should be yet another separate forum I don't know, in particular policing such a process could be difficult.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-25 11:57:48

Agreed. A dedicated forum would be great. it clutters up the general area and just makes the forum look like it's full of people who beg.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

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2018-10-25 15:55:29

I'm honestly tired of seeing so many "begging" topics as well so hopefully something can be done about it.

2018-10-25 17:57:24

The problem is that a lot of these people legitimately can't buy the games, you can tell who's from a third world country, or who's parents won't let them buy the game, etc. That's why, again, a system should be established, but I would please avoid saying things like i"m fed up with the begging. It's ok to talk about it in general but it may turn people away from asking for games in the future as they may get the impression we aren't receptive to that, which we are. And remember, it's a lot better than piracy.

2018-10-25 21:27:21

jack wrote:

why I'm hesitant to, if I ever release games, setup a paypal merchant account on the grounds that they may ask for my ssn...

PayPal needs your FEIN (federal employer identification number) for business accounts, not SSN. There are other ways to verify a personal account such as adding a bank account.

2018-10-25 23:03:41

I actually did add a bank account, that was first-time setup when I registered. It's when I try to add money that they surprised me with the ssn. I chose to keep my account in restricted mode for that reason, as apparently the only restriction is that you can't add money to your balance.

2018-10-26 22:47:24 (edited by defender 2018-10-27 09:21:35)

I don't see why some people are lumping all of the topics in together under the (begging) banner, it's pretty damn insulting and counter intuitive to someone who really can't get the game, but still cares enough to support the developer instead of cracking it.
Shouldn't we be encouraging that behavior? It's hard enough to put your self out their to relative strangers and ask in the first place... And most of us don't have to do that. Wait a while and save up or ask for it for Christmas or a birthday sure, but at least we have an actual chance...


I have less sympathy for those people who live in a relatively well off country with paypal, but who's parents just don't see games as important, or mistrust online banking, at worst they will have to wait until their older, otherwise they can probably convince a friend or less uptight relative or do some extra work to earn the cash.
I also get pretty annoyed when the same person asks for something else right after getting what they asked for (quite uncommon so far) or when a bunch of people highjack someone else's topic, but they usually shut up if you point it out, since most of them are just kids with bad impulse control rather than actual selfish assholes.
I over all prefer giveaways where the organizer asks people to only enter if they can't afford it, but that's only really an option for popular or cheap games.


I do however  recognize that their are allot of free games and reasonable demos out their, but if you want to keep up with things and enjoy what everyone else is enjoying without feeling so left out, or really liked a demo and want to see the rest of the game but can't for a stupid reason, than I can't really blame people for just simply asking.
Plus it feels good to support other audiogamers, for me it's more tangible than donating to an organization doing work on the other side of the world, that may or may not be handing it over to a greedy self serving government rather than the people that actually need it and could use it allot better.
And I know that games aren't as important as allot of other things in life (especially the simplistic majority of audio games) but as a small close nit community, I think it's important that we support the industry and reduce piracy when ever we can. Though I'm not gonna try and tell people what they should donate their money to...
Just my two cents. I completely understand why people would disagree, but I just ask that you show some empathy to those in a worse situation than you.

2018-10-26 23:16:28

Yeah. Not to mention that here in the US and surrounding countries we do have rewards apps that although will often waste your time, do allow you to accumulate slow side-cash overtime. Those are virtually nonexistent in developing countries, plus currency exchange is a pain-in-the-ass.

2018-10-31 10:52:31

I actually have no problems with people asking for games. I realize a lot of people from other countries aren't fluent in english, so what may seem like begging to us is just them simply not understanding the nuances of the English language. My issue is and will always be that I feel there should be a separate subforum for this. I realize we have a general forum which covers a broad range of topics, but since there seems to be interest by many users for a place to gift games then maybe we should have a games gifting exchange or something. I'm not sure.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

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2018-10-31 22:15:21

Yeah, agreed, but it still hasn't happened...

2018-11-03 19:24:45

Yeah, it probably can now though. Probably a great idea to bring this topic back after a while.

2018-11-03 19:29:57

Instead of a gifting subforum, what if the mods just made a generic requests area? I've noticed people requesting links for this or that, for this tool or that tool, and for money for this or that service/product. It'd be a nice way to subsume all these kinds of acquisition topics into one area.

Kai

Spill chuck you spots!