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General discussion$13,000 spent on Steam Cards by one person(82 posts)(82 posts)
(82 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 06, 2016
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BlackThorny: Do they just Show Up from time to time, or do they only appear from crafting?
The last theory I heard about booster packs was that whenever a badge is crafted by a steam user, a booster pack is created and given to a random user. If there are 5 possible users, and one of them has a 20% increase, the odds are 5, 5, 5, 5, 6.
No idea how valid that theory is, since it's quite hard to test.
Posted July 06, 2016
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BlackThorny: Does this mean that with his level of 30K he can actually MAKE MORE then the 13K$ he lost just from selling free booster packs?
How free are they? Do they just Show Up from time to time, or do they only appear from crafting?
Not sure... I got 3 booster packs over the last 2-3 years at random, but I don't actively trade cards. I get drops from games when playing them and they more or less just sit there. I've crafted a few badges from free stuff like the holiday sales to try to get a free text box for my profile where I can type stuff, but other than that I don't care much about the cards. Eventually will sell them all on the market to get a few bucks for games some day when I'm bored probably. I think booster packs are so incredibly rare that the average gamer is unlikely to ever get them, especially if they don't have a high Steam level.

All very limited utility though IMHO. If one factors in personal time spent, then even if you sell cards for theoretical profit, it's probably negative when factoring in the time factor.
Posted July 06, 2016
Probably not a big deal to the guy. $13,000 only represents 1% of $1,300,000, after all. You just need to put it into perspective.

What is dumb, though, is that Valve is using a signed 16-bit variable to store user levels. Even when unsigned, it could still only go up to about 65,000. Just use a 32-bit variable (widely supported so it shouldn't be a problem) and be done with it for multiple lives, probably.

I hope they'll do something for them, but probably not since Valve doesn't really care for their customers.
Posted July 06, 2016
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almabrds: What an idiot.
+1, sadly, sober truth.
Posted July 06, 2016
There would have been like 1,200,239,523 better ways to use all that money. Straight up burning it would've even been one of them.
Posted July 06, 2016
"i have a history about one of my friend..."

Such a nice friend.
Posted July 06, 2016
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Tyrrhia: Probably not a big deal to the guy. $13,000 only represents 1% of $1,300,000, after all. You just need to put it into perspective.

What is dumb, though, is that Valve is using a signed 16-bit variable to store user levels. Even when unsigned, it could still only go up to about 65,000. Just use a 32-bit variable (widely supported so it shouldn't be a problem) and be done with it for multiple lives, probably.

I hope they'll do something for them, but probably not since Valve doesn't really care for their customers.
I disagree, the likelihood of anyone ever acquiring this many badges is remotely slim to the point where the Valve coders probably never consciously even considered the possibility of someone doing this. Evidenced by it having never happened before. People like to take stories like this and paint victims and oppressors though, it makes them feel better. Reality is that in general - all software has limits, and "unlimited" quite often in life including in computer software design means "really high limits nobody is likely to reach under normal circumstances". I wouldn't even consider this a bug. It's an incredibly unlikely circumstance to occur normally.

People need to calm down and put the witch burning torches down over things like this seriously, and stop assuming when something unforeseen like this happens that it was designed like this on purpose to fuck people over. What the guy did is absolutely ridiculous really. I'm not saying he should just suffer the consequences, but he shouldn't really be shocked to hit a software limit like this. Moreso, he shouldn't jump to the conclusions that he's automatically fucked and needs to tell the world how Valve is oppressing him. That's a lot of conclusions being jumped to.

I haven't read all of the news going on over this yet, but personally I think the reasonable thing to happen next, is that due to the problem being brought to Valve's eye they will most likely examine their code to see if it is possible to update it to a 32bit or 64bit integer without breaking pre-existing APIs, as well as look at other options on the software side. It may or may not be something they can fix easily without causing breakage of other software including potentially 3rd party software that uses the Steam API - that's something that'd have to be investigated.

On the matter of the guy being out all of that money, that's a separate issue to deal with. Obviously the guy is crazy to spend that kind of money on virtual bullshit like this, but that's his freedom to be crazy I guess. Regardless of any legal or other obligations that may or may not exist, personally I think Valve would be in the best position if they were to recompensate this person via free games or Steam wallet credit or something just as a good will gesture to him for his patronage of their system. They should and probably will enhance their code base to either allow more badges than the current limit and/or to take steps to ensure other people are unable to get in a position to hit this limit in the future.

In the mean time, one thing they could do if they plan on enhancing the code to handle that many badges (ridiculous if you ask me), is to give this guy special treatment and remove the expiry date on his cards, but freeze them from being tradable so he can retain them for now until they hopefully can resolve the issue technologically and thus enable him to convert the remaining cards to badges.

Why must people always look at the dark side of things and assume the worst, assume bad will is or will occur? There are good outcomes that are possible also, and any money Valve might lose by making this customer happy at their own expense would likely be returned to them many times over in positive publicity for doing so.

I predict that Valve will do something positive for this guy, and to attempt to fix the software to increase the limits not only of badges but they'll probably investigate any other such limits that might be lurking around also and potentially update those to be more future proofed too.

This isn't the result of "stupid" programming, nor malicious intent, it is just the nature of computer software development and inability to predict the future when designing something. I doubt the designers ever even thought it would be a remote possibility someone would do something like this - even at an _unconscious_ level, so shitting on them over a 16bit int is just another form of witch burning or bikeshedding IMHO. But then the community is full of people that can't feel redeemed unless they have someone to blame too so there ya go.
Posted July 06, 2016
This was the first sale in recent years that I didn't even look at beyond the first day. I used to collect cards and sell them (to that kind of person), and buy games with that, but decided that it's too much time spent for getting that kind of money. If I want a game I can just buy it with the money I have (and I'd rather not buy games anyway).
Posted July 06, 2016
He wanted to become rich, but failed - and became famous. gj!
Posted July 06, 2016
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Lin545: He wanted to become rich, but failed - and became famous. gj!
And because he's famous, he'll become rich.
Posted July 06, 2016
For science!
Posted July 07, 2016
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skeletonbow: I disagree, the likelihood of anyone ever acquiring this many badges is remotely slim to the point where the Valve coders probably never consciously even considered the possibility of someone doing this. Evidenced by it having never happened before. People like to take stories like this and paint victims and oppressors though, it makes them feel better. Reality is that in general - all software has limits, and "unlimited" quite often in life including in computer software design means "really high limits nobody is likely to reach under normal circumstances". I wouldn't even consider this a bug. It's an incredibly unlikely circumstance to occur normally.
True, it had never happened before . . . but there were foretelling signs. According to and recorded by SteamDB, the highest badge level for the Summer Sale 2015 was , and the highest badge level for the Winter Sale 2015 was [url=https://steamdb.info/badges/?appid=425280] 19,619. This highest has only been going up over the years, and at alarming rates for the last sale, so it was extremely likely that someone would cross that threshold, even if not this sale but the next one.

And I'm not calling it a bug because it obviously isn't, it's working as intended, rather a poor decision. I'm not against optimisation, but there I don't think it was necessary.

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skeletonbow: [. . .] shitting on them over a 16bit int is just another form of witch burning or bikeshedding IMHO. But then the community is full of people that can't feel redeemed unless they have someone to blame too so there ya go.
I'm not witch-burning them. I used Steam for some years and never had any problems with Valve. "Dumb" isn't a strong word, and in this context, it just means that I really don't know why they made this choice while the other was becoming more and more the right one. Also, on their FAQ, it says that "there is no limit to the number of times you can upgrade this badge." I know, expecting infinite isn't realistic nor feasible, but a small bottom-of-the-page note for the more than average user could have softened this issue: "* Except for hardware / software limitations. Effective maximum level: 32,767."

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skeletonbow: Why must people always look at the dark side of things and assume the worst, assume bad will is or will occur? There are good outcomes that are possible also, and any money Valve might lose by making this customer happy at their own expense would likely be returned to them many times over in positive publicity for doing so.

I predict that Valve will do something positive for this guy, and to attempt to fix the software to increase the limits not only of badges but they'll probably investigate any other such limits that might be lurking around also and potentially update those to be more future proofed too.
Oh, I sincerely hope that you're right, but I don't hold my hopes up, especially considering Valve's history.

And why be pessimistic all the time? Well, the other question could be posed as well: why be optimistic all the time? I am in the pessimistic camp. I don't like to be disappointed so I always try to assume the worst and try to imagine all possible outcomes, however far-fetched they may be; and when something better than what I was hoping for happens, I can be thankful that the worst did not happen. Personalities.
Posted July 07, 2016
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Tyrrhia: True, it had never happened before . . . but there were foretelling signs. According to and recorded by SteamDB, the highest badge level for the Summer Sale 2015 was , and the highest badge level for the Winter Sale 2015 was [url=https://steamdb.info/badges/?appid=425280] 19,619. This highest has only been going up over the years, and at alarming rates for the last sale, so it was extremely likely that someone would cross that threshold, even if not this sale but the next one.

And I'm not calling it a bug because it obviously isn't, it's working as intended, rather a poor decision. I'm not against optimisation, but there I don't think it was necessary.
The thing is, all software has natural design limitations both conscious and unconscious in it as well as bugs, and any limitation that is intentional or unintentional in the design or any bug that is uncovered in a given program someone can think and say "How could they possibly be so stupid to let this happen? They SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!". While it may be true to say for some software some of the time, in particular software written by low level programmers without the proper skills and motivation/care, they might deserve it even. But today's software is infinitely complex, interacting in complex ways with hundreds of APIs developed by diverse teams of people at a variety of skill levels. As a software developer myself, I think that for people to expect that such complex software should never have any unforeseen limitations or bugs in it is rather naive though. It's always easy for people to say "they should have known" or "they should have caught this before" for anything. It's even true for some things, but it's hardly reasonable for every possible bug. This issue isn't even a bug IMHO, and when it was designed, I doubt many programmers expert or otherwise would review that code and say "hmm, a signed short int is too small for a maximum number of badges". Any reasonably minded programmer would be sane to think "no idiot would ever get that many badges" if they even thought that much about it to begin with. :)

I do agree with anyone who thinks it is always best to avoid artificial limitations on things - but you have to make an estimate and draw a line somewhere one way or another. Even a 32bit integer or 64bit integer has an upper limit. Maybe Donald Trump might decide he wants to overflow a 32bit int worth of Steam badges some day, you never know. :) Realistically it is perfectly rational for their programmers to have considered a 16bit signed to be big enough, even if it turns out there are morons out there who would waste that much money to break the software. Seriously, Valve makes shit tonnes of money from all this trading card nonsense, so if they ever thought someone would actually spend that much money on trading cards and badges, you can bet your right eye that they would have made it a 64bit int hands down. I bet they do just that in the future too. :)

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Tyrrhia: I'm not witch-burning them. I used Steam for some years and never had any problems with Valve. "Dumb" isn't a strong word, and in this context, it just means that I really don't know why they made this choice while the other was becoming more and more the right one.
Perhaps you're not, but many people are and do for sure. For something like this it's often with arguments about how obvious it is to not have such a limitation. Well yeah, after the fact is known everything is obvious. I'd like to see thousands of lines of source code written by people who think such things are that obvious to review. I bet I could find dozens of similar limitations/issues in their code in 10 minutes if they can even write code. :)

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Tyrrhia: Also, on their FAQ, it says that "there is no limit to the number of times you can upgrade this badge." I know, expecting infinite isn't realistic nor feasible, but a small bottom-of-the-page note for the more than average user could have softened this issue: "* Except for hardware / software limitations. Effective maximum level: 32,767."
Obviously they never remotely anticipated that ever being a limit that would or could be broken by someone or they would have increased the limit rather than put some obscure notice like that up. They're not putting a limit in place like that to prevent something, rather code is written with sensible upper limits that you expect will never be breached. You're not going to then study every line of your code and sprinkle your documentation with 10000 warnings about the actual real world reasonable limits you've chosen. People don't read EULAs, they're not going to read unnecessary comments like that which one person in 15 years has managed to trigger. Something like that isn't remotely worth a warning or acknowledgement.

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Tyrrhia: Oh, I sincerely hope that you're right, but I don't hold my hopes up, especially considering Valve's history.

And why be pessimistic all the time? Well, the other question could be posed as well: why be optimistic all the time? I am in the pessimistic camp. I don't like to be disappointed so I always try to assume the worst and try to imagine all possible outcomes, however far-fetched they may be; and when something better than what I was hoping for happens, I can be thankful that the worst did not happen. Personalities.
Everyone has views that are optimistic about some things, pessimistic about others, but what I want to know, is why not be realistic all of the time. An optimist sees the glass as half full, while the pessimist sees the glass as half empty. I on the other hand am a realist, I see the glass as being twice as big as it needs to be in order to contain the amount of liquid that needs to be contained.

:)
Posted July 07, 2016
He could have invested in a decent car, a better computer, heck even savings for a future education but instead used it on Steam trading cards...

Wow.
Posted July 07, 2016
Where do I find a guy like this? I have this lovely bridge I could sell him...
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion$13,000 spent on Steam Cards by one person(82 posts)(82 posts)
(82 posts)