Green Man Gaming (Steam) Deals: 25% Off Hitman

Deuterium7 said:
That's 100 times better than using SAM. Perhaps it's still gaming the system a little, but at least the inherent risk is eliminated.

I'm still baffled as to why people risk using SAM to cheaply exploit the Playfire reward achievements. It'd be extremely counterintuitive to get a few games on GMG for free but to then get caught and possibly have your Steam account terminated. A slim chance but a chance nonetheless. Personally I don't think the risk outweighs the reward when you have large Steam libraries like most CAGs do.

Of course I'm pretty sure Playfire/GMG doesn't have that much power or influence with Vavle/Steam beyond reporting a user, but you never know. To each their own, I'm not judging those who do, it just seems like an interesting choice for a realitively small personal gain.
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I toyed with the idea of using SAM for achievements, but just personally didn't want to risk or feel like I cheated them. I know you can undo them I think, but I like to earn achievements. Probably take a little more seriously than most. I do use SAM to idle and do the Played for the First Time thing, but moving away from that now that I have my desktop and 2TB hard drive up and running. I can just install and play. I actually liked what I played of The Scourge: Outbreak.

 
I use SAM to idle for cards and that's it. 

I'd be very surprised though, if Playfire had any way whatsoever of proving anyone used SAM for unlocking achievements, short of simple logic; like, say you unlocked some things in the wrong order, or all at once.

I also doubt they really care that much to even make the effort. What's in it for them? For the life of me I can't quite figure out why/how they're paying people to play games anyway, unless they're hopeful it results in a sale at GMG. And I'd like to see the data on that, quite frankly.

And what happens when they wrongly accuse someone? Perhaps someone was playing offline, came back online and then all the achievements registered at once? Just for instance. Then people get angry, Playfire looks bad, and no one is happy.

No, I think this is much ado about nothing.  

 
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Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
I toyed with the idea of using SAM for achievements, but just personally didn't want to risk or feel like I cheated them. I know you can undo them I think, but I like to earn achievements.
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You can certainly undo them, which is what i plan to do whenever I finally start playing some of the playfire games. Achievements on steam mean even less than on consoles, but the little "pop" that comes whenever you do something is always pleasant.

 
hal said:
I use SAM to idle for cards and that's it.

I'd be very surprised though, if Playfire had any way whatsoever of proving anyone used SAM for unlocking achievements, short of simple logic; like, say you unlocked something in the wrong order, or all at once.

I also doubt they really care that much to even make the effort. What's in it for them? For the life of me I can't quite figure out why/how they're paying people to play games anyway, unless they're hopeful it results in a sale at GMG. And I'd like to see the data on that, quite frankly.

And what happens when they wrongly accuse someone? Perhaps someone was playing offline, came back online and then all the achievements registered at once? Just for instance. Then people get angry, Playfire looks bad, and no one is happy.

No, I think this is much ado about nothing.
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I agree, especially for games that don't unlock correctly like Isaac. I've had to reset it a few times, and the achievements that were stuck are suddenly unlocked all at once.

The playfire warning is, in all likelihood, an empty threat, meant to deter out of fear.

 
Thermopyle said:
There are risks in most things that all of us ignore. Are you saying that you do not sometimes go a few miles over the speed limit, that you never download media (music, movies, tv, etc.,) and that you never, every jaywalk?

I'm not trying to call you our out or say you're (probably) a hypocrite, but rather that we all have our personal hang-ups about what we think is acceptable risk. Personally I'm not too worried about what a foreign 3rd party company that can't even process Steam achievements correctly is going to do. I just don't see much risk there.
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Oh yeah, no doubt and I understand your point. We all evaluate certain risk/reward scenarios differently and some are more risk adverse than others. I'm not trying to be a white knight so to speak, but if people want to use SAM I'm fine with it however using SAM just isn't for me personally. If I see a few games on the Playfire list has rewards and I own them, I figure it's a good excuse to play if I haven't already done so.

No doubt I've been a hypocrite a few times in my life (mostly to make a point). I was just curious and interested as to why SAM users are alright with doing so. There's been some good responses thus far.

madjoki said:
Considering one of their staff said it's fine to change clock etc. as long as you don't use SAM to unlock, using that map is most likely OK.

I doubt then can even detect unless If you unlock all on same second or something stupid (unlocking complete game achievement without unlocking beat level style achievements) :D

Of course you'd be spending a lot of time researching on unlock order and relative times (remember they get play time too), making it require a lot of effort to make it look real.

That's why they had those impossible achievements on April Fools (Garry's Mod, which was bundled). (my theory)

Best reason to actually play is to clear some of your backlog. :)

Valve haven't done anything about SAMmmers so I doubt they would do in this case, but they will ban you from Playfire, that's for sure.
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That's pretty interesting in regards to the staff giving a green light on that. I suppose it's fair game if the game supports Steam Workshop and an achievement can be unlocked through an added level design.

Exactly. I've seen a few Steam users activate achievements all at once which I think is probably not the best idea. Of course you're right, it would take a fairly worthy effort to make unlocking and figuring out the unlocking order to appear convincing. I also think Playfire does put some impossible achievement rewards out there to guage the field. I wouldn't doubt it if Playfire statistically tracks achievement unlocks potentially to see how much credit they're actually giving out (a smart business practice) and what percentage of achievements are being unlocked.

The best reason is to clear through one's backlog, no doubt. Thanks to bundles it never stops growing.

Yeah, I doubt we'll see Valve do much if anything. They're in this business for the money, this became clear once I realized how much of a joke their VAC ban system had become.

 
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hal said:
I use SAM to idle for cards and that's it.

I'd be very surprised though, if Playfire had any way whatsoever of proving anyone used SAM for unlocking achievements, short of simple logic; like, say you unlocked some things in the wrong order, or all at once.
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Yeah, the offline thing was something else I considered. I'm not sure how Playfire could account for that.

 
Man, they're getting quick. I've already gotten the credit for today's 'chieve's on Playfire. Haven't transfered to GMG yet, though.

 
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I'm actually a Greenmangaming rep. I played the long game here, and was sent to CAG knowing a bunch of you hooligans would likely try to take advantage of a promotion like this by using SAM. I posted and actively participated in the community for the past year or so, so nobody would expect anything. Well, I now know who's been doing what, and can't wait to put you digital gaming perverts in your place. Soon enough, you will all be banned from GMG. I will be sending the data to Valve, who has agreed to ban your IP addresses from using Steam, as well as revoking any current accounts you have. Thanks for the memories, and congratulations on getting  fuck ed. 

 
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Waggles said:
Man, they're getting quick. I've already gotten the credit for today's 'chieve's on Playfire. Haven't transfered to GMG yet, though.
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Mines already transfered to GMG too :D

Too bad they synced in middle of gaming session so only one of three I did (The Wolf Among Us)

 
pasports31 said:
I'm actually a Greenmangaming rep. I played the long game here, and was sent to CAG knowing a bunch of you hooligans would likely try to take advantage of a promotion like this by using SAM. I posted and actively participated in the community for the past year or so, so nobody would expect anything. Well, I now know who's been doing what, and can't wait to put you digital gaming perverts in your place. Soon enough, you will all be banned from GMG. I will be sending the data to Valve, who has agreed to ban your IP addresses from using Steam, as well as revoking any current accounts you have. Thanks for the memories, and congratulations on getting fuck ed.
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Good thing you remembered to use yellow comic-sans or I might have pooped myself out of fear.

zOXXEbD.gif


 
Neuro5i5 said:
I received my last rewards on 3/28. I have 6 first plays noted on 3/30. Rewards received...zilch.
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FWIW I'm in that same situation too. Oddly enough it was working fine for me all along while others weren't getting any rewards, then suddenly the end of March it just stopped working and I haven't gotten anything since, meanwhile others who it wasn't working for are now getting their rewards.

Their system can probably only handle giving out rewards to so many people at a time so they have to rotate who gets them and who gets ignored.

 
Seriously though, why even bother cheating to get the rewards? You guys are aware of this little torrent site called -redacted-. There's a lot of games that there that you can have for free, as opposed to fumbling with a shoddy rewards system and directly stealing from a digital games seller.

There's literally no difference between pirating a game, cracking it, etc, and cheating your Playfire rewards to "buy" games there (besides putting yourself through more work to have the game on Steam). Funny too, since CAG forum rules clearly prohibit the discussion of pirating games, and that's exactly what's being done here.

 
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Pirating a game to me is pretty much akin to DRM free (or I guess paying a penny to Humble if you want to be more accurate). Do not want.

Valve was smart to add convenience features and having the ability to have all your games collected into one place to redownload as much as you want. To me I'd rather pay a modest amount or jump through a few hoops to get a game on Steam than to have it free not on Steam.

If it's a case of $60 for the Steam version or free for the non-Steam (like getting ACIV UPlay free with my video card) and it's a fairly high profile game I'll remember where I got it from then fine, but for most other stuff I don't want a bunch of downloads from all over the place, including TPB. If I wanted a bunch of downloads I'd get DRM free games.

You also can't trade a DRM free or pirated game. Well not in the same way you can semi-legitimately trade a Steam key. Not saying I use Playfire rewards to get Steam keys to sell or trade but some people might. It's an option.

Not here to start and argument so think what you want. Also not defending nor condemning people using SAM for achievements, just stating I'd rather have my games on Steam, though of course as inexpensive as possible. 

 
Motoki said:
Pirating a game to me is pretty much akin to DRM free (or I guess paying a penny to Humble if you want to be more accurate). Do not want.

Valve was smart to add convenience features and having the ability to have all your games collected into one place to redownload as much as you want. To me I'd rather pay a modest amount or jump through a few hoops to get a game on Steam than to have it free not on Steam.

If it's a case of $60 for the Steam version or free for the non-Steam (like getting ACIV UPlay free with my video card) and it's a fairly high profile game I'll remember where I got it from then fine, but for most other stuff I don't want a bunch of downloads from all over the place, including TPB. If I wanted a bunch of downloads I'd get DRM free games.

You also can't trade a DRM free or pirated game. Well not in the same way you can semi-legitimately trade a Steam key. Not saying I use Playfire rewards to get Steam keys to sell or trade but some people might. It's an option.

Not here to start and argument so think what you want. Also not defending nor condemning people using SAM for achievements, just stating I'd rather have my games on Steam, though of course as inexpensive as possible.
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Oh, I'm aware of why it's nicer to have games on Steam, I'm just saying there's no difference between pirating a game through a torrent and stealing it from GMG through cheated Playfire rewards besides your own preference.

Really, getting Steam games from GMG for free via cheating with SAM is "having your cake and eating it too". Not only are you pirating a game, you're using GMG and Steam to help you pirate the game. I'm by no means a goody-goody when it comes to relatively shady stuff (I have no problem buying from Jake or something and getting Russian/Ukrainian prices), but this is just kinda ridiculous.

I know we're CHEAP Ass Gamers here, but pirates and cheaters? That rubs me the wrong way.

 
Deuterium7 said:
That's 100 times better than using SAM. Perhaps it's still gaming the system a little, but at least the inherent risk is eliminated.

I'm still baffled as to why people risk using SAM to cheaply exploit the Playfire reward achievements. It'd be extremely counterintuitive to get a few games on GMG for free but to then get caught and possibly have your Steam account terminated. A slim chance but a chance nonetheless. Personally I don't think the risk outweighs the reward when you have large Steam libraries like most CAGs do.

Of course I'm pretty sure Playfire/GMG doesn't have that much power or influence with Vavle/Steam beyond reporting a user, but you never know. To each their own, I'm not judging those who do, it just seems like an interesting choice for a realitively small personal gain.
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Where do you come up with this stuff? I realise you're probably one of those people that just do what you're ordered to do without question but how the hell did you connect the dots to getting your steam account terminated?

 
Cheating achievements will get people banned. The playfire ToS clearly say that so I bet that they have a system in place to detect cheaters.

Most of the achievements can be done easily without cheating, I wouldn't risk my account over a few dollars.

 
dukenukem89 said:
Cheating achievements will get people banned. The playfire ToS clearly say that so I bet that they have a system in place to detect cheaters.

Most of the achievements can be done easily without cheating, I wouldn't risk my account over a few dollars.
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While they clearly state that, they obviously don't have a very good method to detect it (or they're not enforcing the rule.)

 
laney said:
Only took me, Ham and mindriot, like...... fuck number of times, but we got play it again sam :)
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I think we made that a lot harder than it actually was :oops:

dukenukem89 said:
Cheating achievements will get people banned. The playfire ToS clearly say that so I bet that they have a system in place to detect cheaters.

Most of the achievements can be done easily without cheating, I wouldn't risk my account over a few dollars.
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When I first found out about this program my first though was how are they preventing people from using Steam Achievement Manager? I'm not really sure they have much security in place yet to monitor that seeing how many people are having problems.

 
Drabelincoln said:
I think someone mentioned earlier you could have been playing in offline mode, and when you logged on they updated.
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I like how people are assuming that Playfire wouldn't start banning for that as well. At which point I'm sure they'd be really understanding and prompt in dealing with any issues.

 
Drabelincoln said:
banning for what? playing in offline mode?
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Technically, yes. If they started cracking down on SAM achievements (which we're all assuming they could ONLY identify by all of the achievements unlocked simultaneously or in the wrong order, which is just that: an assumption), as you and others have said, getting the achievements in offline mode, then signing on, would look the same.

I'm saying that they could very well ban those instances simply for looking the same as simultaneous SAM unlocks. Would that be fair? No, but that doesn't say a whole lot when we're dealing with a company who hasn't been doing things very well or correctly from day one on, and still continues to have problems.

 
Idiotekque said:
Technically, yes. If they started cracking down on SAM achievements (which we're all assuming they could ONLY identify by all of the achievements unlocked simultaneously or in the wrong order, which is just that: an assumption), as you and others have said, getting the achievements in offline mode, then signing on, would look the same.

I'm saying that they could very well ban those instances simply for looking the same as simultaneous SAM unlocks. Would that be fair? No, but that doesn't say a whole lot when we're dealing with a company who hasn't been doing things very well or correctly from day one on, and still continues to have problems.
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They should just ban the internet and give you all the rewards. You've earned them

 
Idiotekque said:
Technically, yes. If they started cracking down on SAM achievements (which we're all assuming they could ONLY identify by all of the achievements unlocked simultaneously or in the wrong order, which is just that: an assumption), as you and others have said, getting the achievements in offline mode, then signing on, would look the same.

I'm saying that they could very well ban those instances simply for looking the same as simultaneous SAM unlocks. Would that be fair? No, but that doesn't say a whole lot when we're dealing with a company who hasn't been doing things very well or correctly from day one on, and still continues to have problems.
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They gave me like $30 in credit for doing nothing meaningful. I don't care if they're quick about it, that is an excellent service and i'm grateful they're doing at all. Mind boggling to me that people are bitching about them being slow about replying to e-mails and such, but then again this is the internet.

 
vince_carter said:
They gave me like $30 in credit for doing nothing meaningful. I don't care if they're quick about it, that is an excellent service and i'm grateful they're doing at all. Mind boggling to me that people are bitching about them being slow about replying to e-mails and such, but then again this is the internet.
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Same, but closer to $60. I've no complaints about Playfire. The rewards they're giving me are for letting them link to my Steam account and monitor its usage for their own purposes. I fully expect they're going to change the service considerably as the program gets more sophisticated. I don't feel bad about using SAM because honestly Playfire is in beta and I consider SAM usage to be one of the bugs they need to work out. If they made even the slightest attempt to curtail that approach I'd quit doing it (assuming I wasn't banned immediately) and begin using legitimate approaches. So far that has not happened.

 
Well it is understandable for people to be frustrated when others are getting stuff and they're not, for no discernible reason. (Yeah, that's life, but this is computers, man.)

I don't care if people want to use SAM but I think it would be nice if they didn't. It's only a matter of time before this program starts drying up anyway, might as well enjoy it while it lasts instead of rocking the boat and giving Playfire a reason to speed up that inevitable decline.

 
vince_carter said:
They gave me like $30 in credit for doing nothing meaningful. I don't care if they're quick about it, that is an excellent service and i'm grateful they're doing at all. Mind boggling to me that people are bitching about them being slow about replying to e-mails and such, but then again this is the internet.
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Nothing meaningful = Exploiting the system

It's "mind boggling" to me why you'd be surprised that people are using the system in a legitimate way that follows the site's ToS, and are running into some issues.

"Then again, this is the internet."

Thermopyle said:
Same, but closer to $60. I've no complaints about Playfire. The rewards they're giving me are for letting them link to my Steam account and monitor its usage for their own purposes. I fully expect they're going to change the service considerably as the program gets more sophisticated. I don't feel bad about using SAM because honestly Playfire is in beta and I consider SAM usage to be one of the bugs they need to work out. If they made even the slightest attempt to curtail that approach I'd quit doing it (assuming I wasn't banned immediately) and begin using legitimate approaches. So far that has not happened.
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They aren't "giving you" rewards if you're exploiting the system to obtain them. If they did indeed "change the system" considerably, it would be because of people exploiting the system with SAM, at which point they'd be losing too much profit on the site to continue the rewards system (at which point Playfire would just become a poor man's Raptr).

If you've created an excuse to make yourself not feel bad about exploiting a new system (that is actually quite cool, and even when used legitimately, can lead to lots of free games), that's your prerogative. You're saying it's fine to blatantly exploit the system and steal games simply because they haven't stopped you yet, or don't have the ability to stop you yet. That's fairly warped, opportunistic logic.

Anyone can do whatever they like, but if this exploitation keeps up, odds are the cheaters are going to ruin the system for everyone, cheaters and legitimate users alike. But hey, you cashed in quick and got your free games, so it was worth it for you.

That's the mentality of society anyways.

 
If you don't wanna use SAM that's your prerogative, but saying that using it is piracy is really off base and not worthy of this moral crusade you're on. 

 
Bruticis said:
It's the bleeding hearts posts, I'm deeply touched.
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eQsKaWS.jpg


Really though, I'm not all that worried about poor Playfire/GMG losing money on digital games. I'm more worried about the system going under quicker because everyone wants to cash in and have that instant gratification, instead of being patient and allowing the system to continue and grow.

 
vince_carter said:
If you don't wanna use SAM that's your prerogative, but saying that using it is piracy is really off base and not worthy of this moral crusade you're on.
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If you'd like to explain why it's not akin to piracy, be my guest. That's not really the point of my "moral crusade" (as I explained above in my reply to Brut), but it really isn't much different.

 
vince_carter said:
They gave me like $30 in credit for doing nothing meaningful. I don't care if they're quick about it, that is an excellent service and i'm grateful they're doing at all. Mind boggling to me that people are bitching about them being slow about replying to e-mails and such, but then again this is the internet.
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tl;dr

make your point faster next time

dumbass

 
Idiotekque said:
If you'd like to explain why it's not akin to piracy, be my guest. That's not really the point of my "moral crusade" (as I explained above in my reply to Brut), but it really isn't much different.
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Why sir, I couldn't help but notice you have +rep on your steam profile from several people. Now I'm not one to judge or make assumptions but surely those aren't from buying and selling games out of region??? I know you'd never do that because that would be akin to well, piracy.

 
Idiotekque said:
If you'd like to explain why it's not akin to piracy, be my guest. That's not really the point of my "moral crusade" (as I explained above in my reply to Brut), but it really isn't much different.
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It's nothing like piracy. The same way buying a bunch of langers juice for .10 a piece and mailing in the labels for $10 PSN cards wasn't piracy. It's a promotional program that people are taking advantage of. The onus is on them to stop people from using SAM, and they don't seem to give a fuck. I would say buying steam keys from eastern euro traders is far more shady. All your posts about this just read like sour grapes to me because you don't want to risk your GMG account, but want free stuff (and fast) and don't want to see other people getting free stuff before you.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzpndHtdl9A[/youtube]

 
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Bruticis said:
Why sir, I couldn't help but notice you have +rep on your steam profile from several people. Now I'm not one to judge or make assumptions but surely those aren't from buying and selling games out of region??? I know you'd never do that because that would be akin to well, piracy.
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I'm not going to argue subjective, perceived morals with you. I said how I felt about it, yes, but morals are highly opinionated. I don't see buying a game from a friend who's in a different region as stealing. Others might.

As you seemed to have ignored in my reply to you, my real concern is all the exploiting of the current system forcing Playfire to shut down the rewards program, thereby ruining it for everyone. You're a bright enough guy though, I don't think I need to repeat that to you.

 
Idiotekque said:
I'm not going to argue subjective, perceived morals with you. I said how I felt about it, yes, but morals are highly opinionated. I don't see buying a game from a friend who's in a different region as stealing. Others might.

As you seemed to have ignored in my reply to you, my real concern is all the exploiting of the current system forcing Playfire to shut down the rewards program, thereby ruining it for everyone. You're a bright enough guy though, I don't think I need to repeat that to you.
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Oh I get your point 100% and honestly, I completely agree (about people screwing it up for everyone, not the piracy crap) BUT you can't control the random people on the internet. You and I both know this is getting exploited to hell and back right now by far more people then just a couple of people on CAG. Jump in while you can before it's gone for good.

 
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