The Steam Summer Sale is causing frustrations yet again. This time, Valve has apologized for a misunderstanding with its Grand Prix event during the Steam Summer Sale that's resulted in tons of indie developers seeing their games delisted from users' wishlists.
The Valve Grand Prix is a store-based mini-game that's going on alongside the Steam Summer Sale, where customers can win games currently listed in their wishlists. The game is based off of how much users shop, with every dollar spent equals an additional 100 points players can earn for their daily maximum number of points. Completing quests and claiming achievements also awards points that can add up to your total score.
At the end of the day, random members of the top first, second and third place teams will receive the top items from their wishlists.
But it wasn't always that clear. The contest has been more than a little convoluted and difficult to understand, and as a result users have been scrambling to rearrange games in their wishlists in an effort to win the games they most wanted to be rewarded with. For many, this meant kicking smaller (and cheaper) indie games to the curb and removing them entirely. This is harmful for indie developers, many of whom have worked quite some time to encourage users to wishlist their games, losing hard-earned progress in the blink of an eye all in the name of a free game.
In order to lessen some of the confusion and make things right to the indie developers harmed by such a move, Valve took to its official blog with a statement.
"We designed something pretty complicated with a whole bunch of numbers and rules and recognize we should've been more clear," the statement read. "We want to apologize for the confusion that this has caused, and also apologize for the broken mechanics that have led to an unbalanced event."
The confusion stemmed partially from the main Grand Prix page, where the lengthy rules segment offers advice for players looking to participate:
"Be sure to update your Wishlist before you put the pedal to the metal, as the very best drivers will be awarded their Most Wished For games throughout the event."
Unfortunately, it appears several Steam users had already misinterpreted the contest rules. Valve has made some changes to them as well as the Grand Prix event itself. According to the company, the event dashboard and manual on the landing page have been updated to offer further clarification on the rules. In addition, there's also been some balancing work on the back-end to make it more difficult for one team to emerge victorious over another due to brute force attacks or coordinated efforts to break the game.
The new landing page rules state the following:
"If your team makes it to the podium and you are randomly chosen to win something off your Steam Wishlist, then we’ll grant you the top item. Just move your favorite item to the top of your wishlist and you should be good to go. There’s no need to remove other items from your wishlist—keep them there so you’ll be notified when those items release or go on sale."
If you've moved anything around during the event in an effort to better target which game it is you could potentially win, you can go ahead and return them to where they were. It's only the top slot you should be concerned with.
