VVVVVV for free - charity Ebay bid

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Jimlad

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There's currently a charity promotion, where if you bid on a pair of socks you get the indie PC game VVVVVV for free on Steam, even if you don't win the auction! The bidding ends in over a week, but get in quick if you don't want to end up as the one with the hot potato on the last day.

All proceeds go to the Child's Play charity. Keys will be sent to bidders when bidding closes.

Blog post:
http://distractionware.com/blog/?p=1501

Ebay link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300491205217
 
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[quote name='Matedawg11']LOL guys if you're willing to fake bid $4150 and fear of having to pay it why not just buy it for $5 on steam? I would've been in if it was under $100 but I cant risk this... Also, the guy shouldve set up several auctions to make it more reasonable but whatever...[/QUOTE]


i know i regretted it after i did it. it wasnt worth the stress. and your right about multiple auctions then they could all close for like 100 bucks and everyone would have the money. I think this thing might go up to like 20,000 dollars or more with nobody willing to pay it.
 
[quote name='bredbu']i know i regretted it after i did it. it wasnt worth the stress. and your right about multiple auctions then they could all close for like 100 bucks and everyone would have the money. I think this thing might go up to like 20,000 dollars or more with nobody willing to pay it.[/QUOTE]

Lol actually he did set up several auctions I just read the blog...I feel dumb...:cry:
 
[quote name='NinjaGuerra']T_T Somebody do me a favor and end my misery... I'm starting to feel sick...[/QUOTE]

I would, I actually got the money to pay for it. But I'm enjoying this way too much. :)
 
So far, I don't see anyone outbidding anyone. Raise your hand if you're the dum...eerr, generous CAG who has the top bid :)
 
[quote name='M-PG71C']I would, I actually got the money to pay for it. But I'm enjoying this way too much. :)[/QUOTE]

=( Just go for it please, I'm sure you'll eventually get outbid, I can't handle this!
 
[quote name='NinjaGuerra']T_T Somebody do me a favor and end my misery... I'm starting to feel sick...[/QUOTE]

LOL! It's been sitting at this price for a while.

Please keep chronicling your feelings! I know it's dickish, but it makes me smile.
 
[quote name='macschwag14']LOL! It's been sitting at this price for a while.

Please keep chronicling your feelings! I know it's dickish, but it makes me smile.[/QUOTE]

I started staring at the bid price and getting dizzy, thinking about being going over 4,100 dollars, and then getting a 30 dollar fee, and then getting butt raped in prison...

Help me please!
 
This went from funny to sad in a matter of hours and I say that not so sarcastically. Really it's quite disgusting that at the very least half these bids are by non paying folks just in it for a free game awaiting some incredibly thoughtful person with a pocketbook hefty enough to cover such insolence. For their sake (and this is directed to the people behind the auction) I hope they receive such a commitment because otherwise at this pace it'll end in the double digit thousands with no payer until the price falls back in into the hundreds.

Great idea (and I hate to offend anyone) but this is seriously being abused.
 
Like I said.. I'll be sleeping sound tonight. Enjoy your socks whoever's going to pay for them!
(by the way I played this game online to try it out.. it's not worth the stress)
 
This is like playing Russian roulette with your wallet.

i knew i should have taken the shot back when it was 500 dollars

bidding on a 4,200 sock to get a game?
lolno
 
[quote name='IronZombie']Like I said.. I'll be sleeping sound tonight. Enjoy your socks whoever's going to pay for them!
(by the way I played this game online to try it out.. it's not worth the stress)[/QUOTE]

The game may not be worth it, but what about the children? Won't someone think of the children!
 
Shit. I'm bidding on a couple of other items and accidently increased my bid amount on this auction instead of the one I wanted to do. Well played eBay gluttony. Well played.
 
All that stress for a five dollar game :whistle2:/

Can't say this isn't expected though. Didn't they have something like this where you could pay whatever you want for some other indie games and a ton of ppl still donated a cent/increased piracy rates for those games?
 
[quote name='LoneGhost']This went from funny to sad in a matter of hours and I say that not so sarcastically. Really it's quite disgusting that at the very least half these bids are by non paying folks just in it for a free game awaiting some incredibly thoughtful person with a pocketbook hefty enough to cover such insolence. For their sake (and this is directed to the people behind the auction) I hope they receive such a commitment because otherwise at this pace it'll end in the double digit thousands with no payer until the price falls back in into the hundreds.

Great idea (and I hate to offend anyone) but this is seriously being abused.[/QUOTE]

Did NO ONE but me read the blog post? If you bid on the socks, the DEVELOPER gives you a free copy of VVVVVV whether you win the bidding or not.

FFS, it's CheapAssGamers not, StupidPeopleBuyingGames. And SPBG isn't as catchy anyways.
 
So what do you do with a $4500 pair of socks, anyway? At that point do you even want to wear them? Do you put them on display and say "yeah I paid four grand for those socks to get a free game" or just hide them from view?
 
Really guys, if you have no intention or cannot afford the price, do not bid. If you want the game so bad and don't want to pay for it, just pirate the damn game. It's far better of an option than a bidder who cannot pay the donation to a great charity.
 
[quote name='rayne117']Did NO ONE but me read the blog post? If you bid on the socks, the DEVELOPER gives you a free copy of VVVVVV whether you win the bidding or not.

FFS, it's CheapAssGamers not, StupidPeopleBuyingGames. And SPBG isn't as catchy anyways.[/QUOTE]

My head's a bit of a mush right now but I'm not sure I understand what you've posted. I fully understand that if you don't win but bid you receive the game for free. What I had posted was how a lot of bids were simply "fake" and were never intended to be payed off meaning now the chain has to be reeled back and fall to the person behind the "winner" so on and so on until they find a taker.

And as I said, it's a moot point if IF a high roller comes through and cleans up the bids for everyone. Doesn't really make it "ok" but it does relieve people of responsibility...
 
Wow, I can't believe the amount of people who are really doing this just to get a $5 free game that looks worse than an 8-bit Nintendo game.

This is for a charity folks...

The first thing that comes to mind is the poor sucker who gets mugged and shot on the street for the $20 bucks in their wallet. I'm surprised that the Cheap Ass Gamer moderators haven't stopped this thread to stop the propagation of this unethical behavior...
 
The sheer volume of bidders in such a short period of time is what is making all these "fake" bidders come out of the woodwork. I admit I'm guilty, even though it was thousands of dollars ago. I did it with 100% confidence that I wouldn't win, however. While I know it's morally wrong, I think early in, this auction was designed for this to happen, hence offering the free game. They knew this would get to a relatively high amount, because they probably have a handful of people in mind to scoop it up later on. If not, a faker bidding upwards of $10-20,000 will be one sorry person. :) The higher it gets, the more cautious people are going to get(hopefully). I'm pretty confident the right thing will happen in the end. Atleast I hope so for the charities sake. I will donate atleast the price of this game to the CAG drive this Christmas though, to cleanse my conscience atleast.
 
I'm extremely tempted by this, but I think I'm gonna buy the game at full price later on. This guy deserves to make some kind of income from this.
 
This is stupid. There is no way someone is going to let themselves be the final bidder and pay. They will either just not pay or use fake accounts. The people who put up this auction didn't think it through.
 
I bet they will have to cancel the auction and say they will not send out any free games. Then everyone who bid with no intention of winning will get upset like they deserved it and yell "HOW DARE YOU!"
 
[quote name='wreckemtexastech']damn how good is this game??
[/QUOTE]
It's a great retroish platformer, and easily worth the $4.99 I paid for it. I wouldn't say it's for everyone though, but there's a demo on Steam so go try it out.

[quote name='scottman']I bet they will have to cancel the auction and say they will not send out any free games. Then everyone who bid with no intention of winning will get upset like they deserved it and yell "HOW DARE YOU!"[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't surprise me in the least.
 
I think what they should have did is set a maximum price for the game. For example if the bidding hit $200.00, every bidder after that is not eligible for the game. So then you would get serious bidders after a certain price.
 
[quote name='gamer1233']I think what they should have did is set a maximum price for the game. For example if the bidding hit $200.00, every bidder after that is not eligible for the game. So then you would get serious bidders after a certain price.[/QUOTE]


QFT, in the "I agree" sense.

But with CAGs and probably SDs and FWs bidding the hell out of this, almost nobody is going to even attempt a bid unless they're in it for the charity.

It's $5,200 right now, and if you check the bid history, someone raised the initial price from $3 to $20, then a new user attempted to outbid that person about 15 times.

It wouldn't surprise me if some people are registering new accounts to bid to get the game and then not pay in case they win.
 
[quote name='Fawful007']So what do you do with a $4500 pair of socks, anyway? At that point do you even want to wear them? Do you put them on display and say "yeah I paid four grand for those socks to get a free game" or just hide them from view?[/QUOTE]
Sell them on eBay. Duh.
 
[quote name='BitLooter']Sell them on eBay. Duh.[/QUOTE]

Yup, just make your money back.

Seriously though, I was afraid to bid at $4,550.00
 
[quote name='Blade']It wouldn't surprise me if some people are registering new accounts to bid to get the game and then not pay in case they win.[/QUOTE]

In the bid history, there are easily about 20 new accounts with 0 feedback bidding. Hopefully one of these people doesn't actually win.
 
Its at $5,500, and I don't think I'm cheap enough to risk getting it AT ALL for a free game, and I don't want to be a douche and make a fake account...
 
If nothing else, I find this absolutely fascinating as a sort of social experiment. I wonder if anyone's ever carried out similar psychology experiments. To be honest at this point if nobody pays up at the end I don't mind paying for the normal game, but it'll definitely be interesting to see what happens!
 
I think if the person who wins backs down, besides being hunted down and put on display for the public as the person that tried to cheat charity over a $5 game(thought it was $15?), what should be done in addition is see if steam will allow a charity sale. Sell the game for $2.50 a pop with all proceeds going to childs play and add a donate to childs play button on top of that. My guess is that if the top person ends up being that big of a douche we could see at least $2-$5k raised in a steam sale.
 
I'm not even going to risk bidding with those socks at $6,200.
Nearly a 100% chance someone will bid higher with 6 days left, but still.... I barely have that amount in my name and pretty all that is going towards a car when I start my job.

I can imagine it now:
"So, when are you going to buy that car?"
"Well... I bought a sweet pair of socks instead."
 
If the winner does not pay up, there is no harm done. The free game is going to be given after the auction is over. No pay, no play. Will there be a bunch of angry bidders? Probably, but who cares? Most were just scamming anyway. If a legitimate bidder is that upset, they can buy the game for $5 and donate the thousands more directly to the charity. They can then auction the socks again with better rules and expectations.
 
lol, those socks are actually pretty awesome. i already bought the game at full price though, not that i would dream of bidding $6300 anyway.

also, game is totally worth full price. One of my favorite platformers in a long time, second only to Super Meat boy.
 
Much too high for me to want to bid on it for a free game. I did anyways though, and now I feel a bit scummy even though I've been outbid. Think I may end up buying the game and gifting my copy to a friend to make myself feel less so. Not completely unscummy, just less.
 
[quote name='DeadReckon']Much too high for me to want to bid on it for a free game. I did anyways though, and now I feel a bit scummy even though I've been outbid. Think I may end up buying the game and gifting my copy to a friend to make myself feel less so. Not completely unscummy, just less.[/QUOTE]

Or you could donate to the charity. Just donate $20 to childs play or something.
 
I still think people are making this out to be a much bigger deal then it is. Even now its only about 350 bids on the item and many are duplicate bidders. It wouldn't suprise me if they only had to give out 300 or so copies of the game at this point. I also am fairly confident someone who wants the publicity will bid on this on the last day.
 
[quote name='PapaSmerf']If the winner does not pay up, there is no harm done. The free game is going to be given after the auction is over. No pay, no play. Will there be a bunch of angry bidders? Probably, but who cares? Most were just scamming anyway. If a legitimate bidder is that upset, they can buy the game for $5 and donate the thousands more directly to the charity. They can then auction the socks again with better rules and expectations.[/QUOTE]

^^^^^^

I don't see why everyone is getting so worked up.

"Won't someone please think of the charities!", well, you can still donate whether you care about the socks or not.
 
On Nov-12-10 at 02:26:00 PST, seller added the following information:


It is heartwarming to see that people are being so charitable! I do feel, however, that it would be irresponsible of me not to remind people about the Ebay User Agreement, specifically that bids cannot be cancelled at a whim and say that please, bid only if you are intending to complete the transaction. A couple of points on this note;
  • They are only socks. Socks with an arguably cool theme, but completely normal socks nevertheless.
  • Should the winning bidder have a change of heart, the second-highest bidder will receive the item - should that bidder too decide that the price was a little too steep it will fall to the third bidder, and so forth. In the event of this occurring on a larger scale, it would take a lot of time to get the item to the actual winning bidder. Also, none of the retracting bidders will be able to take advantage of Terry's generous offer and their Ebay profiles will show that they have unpaid items in their history.
Thank you, and bid responsibly!
 
[quote name='nbajammer']Also, none of the retracting bidders will be able to take advantage of Terry's generous offer and their Ebay profiles will show that they have unpaid items in their history.
Thank you, and bid responsibly![/QUOTE]

wow, the plot thickens...
 
I'm pretty sure that only the highest bidder will have an unpaid item show up in their history. Everyone else should be fine, as it is only a 2nd chance offer and your not actually obligated to pay. Unless he was just talking about people canceling their bids in general.
 
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