Hello Gameflip and folks,
Some of you may know me as PEDJA-GAMES (ⓟⓔⓓⓙⓐ-ⓖⓐⓜⓔⓢ) and I mostly sell Steam keys on Gameflip. I’m pretty new here, so I wasn’t trying to bring too much attention, and just did my “business”. We’re all selling here to make money. Some of us want to make it big, some of us just want to cover the expenses after buying some games to play. I have perfect score as a seller and I never try to cheat or scam anyone and most important - I always make sure that my pricing is good and tempting. After few months, I started to sell more things than initially planned and selling them quickly. I believe good rep has something to do with it. So whats my problem? I like this to be fun way of making small cash and playing good games but not annoying need of constantly changing something because others are not playing fair. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to improve. By doing this and selling stuff more and more, I wanted to make my sales recognizable.
First I started to use joy-pad emoji at the beginning of my listing’s title. Few days after, others did that too (some of them were copying complete game descriptions I put a lot effort into, like user “Game Changers ¡Online 24/7!”; can post proof of this if needed, but that was while ago and reported to Gemaflip without any reply). Now my titles contain my initials at the end but that’s not enough, as they are visible only if game title is short. So I decided to make a template for my sales. It’s not some work of art, but it’s my work. It was okay for a while with few sporadic cases of using my descriptions and my titles style…
And then “reputable” user “KRYPTONITE Oficial (((Online)))” started using almost the same template for his listings. He just took my template and put different icon in top left corner. I know you can say “it’s okay”, because I don’t have any intellectual property for that template. That’s correct and I’m aware he is not breaking any rules, but that’s simply just not nice. Then I noticed something else in his sales (and will write more about that later) - his items are with 1 day(s) delay. So I put phrase “instant delivery” in my template and replaced my icon with my full Gameflip name. That went well for a while. He was selling in his “stolen” way, mostly posting in different time than me. Week or two later, he did something new. He also put joy-pad icon in his titles to look even more like mine. So it was time for me to make new template (see how tiresome that became?). Few hours later a new random guy appeared with my fresh template:
He didn’t even remove my name from cover. He is doing this often (you can find more other user’s names in his listings, so you can check).
But let’s get back to “KRYPTONITE Oficial (((Online)))”. After he got used to template he didn’t make and ideas he didn’t think of first, he started something that hurts me more. And most important, not just me, but every seller on Gameflip, cuz I believe he is not the only one doing this. He started spamming my sales by putting a lot of listings always few minutes after me. I would say that’s an okay thing, but if he is “1 day(s)” seller it is not okay and here’s why - HE DOESN’T HAVE ITEMS HE IS LISTING. Anyone can spam anyone’s sales this way. I did some research, because if someone is hurting me, then I need to see how he’s doing business and why. User “KRYPTONITE Oficial (((Online)))” waits for someone to buy from him. So I waited for that too. Then I went to G2A to check and watch actively listing of the same game there. Soon after, that listing is sold on G2A. Every single time (I checked even slower selling titles)! This doesn’t happen only if the game is even cheaper on some official Steam key selling sites. So, are you guys in Gameflip sure you want to things go like this? I come here as a buyer too and when I see pages and pages of listings that I know are from “1 day(s)” sellers, I leave Gameflip and search elsewhere.
I believe this is fine example of “tldr” material, so here are my two questions/suggestions:
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Do you have any idea or advice how to bypass stealing templates and initially pretending to be other seller? What if I copyright my next template on any stock site? I don’t want to do this, so can any warning be issued to those users? I don’t need anyone to be banned, as we all need this place to grow.
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Is it possible to somehow limit sales which are “one or more days” delivery? Let’s say that you make a rule that every user can post 10 delayed delivery items, but unlimited number of instant delivery items. I’m sure more new sellers will come if their sales are going to be visible longer and not instantly bombed by same bunch of “reputable” sellers that actually don’t even have games they listed.
I’ll continue to sell here, but let’s make this “selling competition” fair, and more important - better place for buyers.
Thank you for your time,
ⓟⓔⓓⓙⓐ-ⓖⓐⓜⓔⓢ
EDIT: There were more pictures initially, but as a new user, I needed to remove them all but one. Everything I wrote can be easily checked.