A Guide On How To Evaluate Your Offers

••÷ Common trading etiquette ÷••

• It's customary for accounts that are new on Barter.vg or for those that have few completed trade offers to send their keys first.
• Keys are to be exchanged only through Steam chat (or in agreed-upon circumstances, on Discord). Offer comments are public, therefore pasting the keys there might result in someone else redeeming them.
• Aim to make contact with the other trader first, before sending them your keys. A short greeting message and asking for consent that the other party is still willing to do the trade and available to do so can help you avoid cases in which you'd reveal your keys without receiving anything in return.
• Always make sure that the exchange involves keys redeemable in the region of the other trader. When you are unsure about this, discuss it with them first or ask for assistance on Barter.vg's Discord server. Checking the SteamGifts topic associated with the bundle that the game was featured in will also help you understand region locks better (keep in mind that Humble Bundle region lock notifications are misleading).
• Allow the other trader a few days to respond to your offer, once accepted. Some people check their offer status only once every few days.

••÷ How to value your games ÷••

There are no set rules for valuing games on Barter, although it's common sense to not abuse others with unfair value systems just because there's no ruleset that dictates how one should evaluate their offers.
However, most traders will use a system based on the prices from the unofficial retail shops, commonly indexed by websites such as gg.deals or allkeyshop.
In some cases, traders additionally take into consideration:

• the H:W ratio or T:WL
• past bundle history (bundle count / bundle tier)
• whether a game was given away for free
• whether a game counts as +1 to heir library / achievement count (these are valued slightly higher than the games that do not count as +1, because these are rarer)
• whether the game drops trading cards, and if so, their marketable value
• store price or discount history - rather irrelevant though, considering that most tradable come from bundles, thus their actual value does not depend on the story price any more

Please keep in mind that the value of a game changes over time, depending on various factors (bundle counts, ownership / tradable counts, being featured in mass giveaways, being delisted, etc.).

••÷ What to look out for before accepting a trade: ÷••

🔼 HIGHLY RELEVANT: collection indicators for the other trader

On each game entry from an offer, collection tags are visible for both accounts involved in the trade. These can show you whether the game you are sending out is already featured in the other trader's collections.
In most cases, there is no reason for the other trader to request a key from you if they already have the game in their library or even in their tradables. These tags are often encountered with people that don't intend to redeem your key and who instead will likely list it on the grey market for some profit. In some circumstances, traders will seek an extra copy for a friend or relative (especially if the game can be played in co-op), but these situations are very rare.
In case you encounter at least one of these collection indicators, you are highly advised to check the grey market prices for those items and use them to evaluate whether the trade offer is fair or not, to protect yourself from those that would want to take advantage of you being a new user on Barter:

• library = shows that the game is already in their library
• tradable = shows that they already have a key for trade, they could redeem it if they wanted to, unless it has some regional restrictions
• wishlist (extra) = shows that they already have the game, but they want one extra copy
• wishlist (custom) = the item was added to their collection manually from the Barter page (as opposed to "sync-api"); since resellers keep their profile private for obvious reasons, they usually have wishlist (custom) or wishlist (extra) tags

Example:

The user 🦈 is offering you Hazel Sky in exchange for NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER and The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos.
From the offer you can see that 🦈 already has 2 tradables of NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER in his collection, and they want at least one more copy.
Similarly, 🦈 already has 3 tradables for The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos, and wants at least one more copy (wishlist (extra)) while they already have the game in their library.

🔼 HIGHLY RELEVANT: game tags

Games listed in an offer often have extra tags that can help you evaluate the offer better.
Please make sure to pay attention to them before accepting a trade.
Here are the most common ones that you can encounter:

• $0 = the game was given away for free at some point (usually a mass giveaway). Most of these games are valued lower than regular bundled games, but there are several exceptions that bring a substantial profit when sold on the grey market (example: Dead by Daylight is at the moment resold for more than $10 / copy). Resellers will try to convince you that "it was given away for free, thus it has no value".
• 🌐Region locked = some purchases receive keys that can be redeemed in certain regions. You might want to double check if the game offered is redeemable in your region before sending out your keys. Cooperate with the other trader in identifying the correct region locks (in most cases you can rely on the information provided by the SteamGifts threads associated to the source bundle).
• key or curator = press copies intended for promotional purposes, and not for trading. More info by clicking on the "curator" link.
• ⎚ = Purchase disabled / Delisted / Banned; these games cannot be purchased from the store any more, and there is a very limited amount of keys left, thus they are usually much more valuable than regular bundled games. When you see this tag, you are strongly advised to check the grey market prices for it, as resellers are always eager to acquire them, offering you in exchange low-value games, with the pretense that "cannot be bought any more, no one wants it". This is usually just a lie.

Example:

The user 🦈 is offering 26 TF2 keys for Poker Night at the Inventory.
Notice the "Purchase disabled" game tag applied on Poker Night at the Inventory. This should immediately trigger you to check its gg.deals value, to avoid accepting an unfair offer for it.

🔽 Other indicators, that are relevant only in certain circumstances:

• SteamTrades rep: Unfortunately, this value is not visible by default on the offer page, but you can click the SteamTrades icon next to the other trader's profile. A negative reputation usually shows that you might have a bad experience when trading with that user. It's highly recommended to be careful when trading with such users.
• Have:Want (h:w) or Tradable:Wishlist (t:w) ratio: games with low tradable count and high wishlist count are obviously rarer, and any regular bundle game, thus you should be careful when accepting offers for them
• IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD) / SteamDB historical lows
• Personal stats of the trader sending you an offer, which can give you a hint on the trading habits of the user. These are found on their profile page, or directly on the offer page right under their name (completed offers / unique offers / disputes).

🔽 Tips on how to read the personal stats of a trader:

In this example, the user sent 47286 offers (indicating that they are persistently spamming all users with offers), of which 77% get declined (receiver consider this trader's offers not worth accepting = bad offers).
The acceptance percentage is only 16%, indicating that this user is very picky with what kind of offers they accept. The cancelled percentages are very low for both received and sent offers, which indicates that once accepted, the trader honors the agreement.

Please keep in mind that resellers are more inclined to have a high count of sent offers, and a low acceptance rate, as their offers are solely oriented towards making a profit. A high value of completed trades does not imply that it's a good trader - once again. Resellers are the ones having most completed offers on the site, therefore it should be taken as a sign that you should investigate their profile a bit before accepting an offer from them.

••÷ Exercises ÷••

Exercise 1

Assume that:

• You are interested in the games offered
• The user 🦈 has a public profile, with ~250 games.
• The user 🦈 has around 300 unique trades completed on Barter.

Would you accept this offer?

Solution (short answer)

The trade is strongly NOT in your favor. You are free to accept it if you really want the games offered, though be aware that your key will be resold for $10 profit and your game is much more rare and valuable than what's offered.

Solution (long answer / steps)

1. Notice that the user already has at least one copy in their tradables collection (the "tradable" tag next to their profile name under "High On Life"). This means that if they actually wanted to redeem it, they would have done so until now. It's unlikely that your key will be redeemed.

2. By checking the gg.deals pricing for each of these games, you'd notice some difference between the two sides of the offer: Slay the Spire ~$8.51 + Wizard of Legend ~$5.88 for High On Life ~24.33, or more specifically ~$9.94 in their favor.

3. You notice the wishlist (custom) tag, yet when you check 🦈's Steam profile you see that it's public. This means that they added the game to their wishlist directly on Barter, which is what resellers usually do as they like to fish for specific titles.

4. The user has 300 completed trades on Barter, so it inspires enough trust to trade with them. However, with an account that has less than 300 games, but more than 300 trades on Barter, it's pretty clear that they don't redeem the games they trade for. A quick inspection of the Steam profile will tell you if this is a throwaway account used only for carding, or if they have any kind of Steam activity (playtime, achievements earned, screenshots etc).

5. To reinforce the argument in the previous step, you can also check if they redeemed the games they received from their completed trades (offer history is public for anyone on Barter).

6. The games offered are largely more common than yours. High On Life has 662 wishlists and has been bundled only once so far (in an expensive Humble Bundle ($30 for 6 games + 1 DLC)), while the games offers have largely more tradable counts (87 / 154 vs 22) and each of them have been bundled 3 times already, last time in a rather popular bundle ($40 for 86 Steam keys).

In conclusion, as there are several factors pointing out at them being a reseller, it's up to you to decide if it's worth paying extra for the games offered. The trade is strongly NOT in your favor. You are free to accept it if you really want the games offered, though be aware that your key will be resold for $10 profit and your game is much more rare and valuable than what's offered.

Exercise 2

Assume that:

• You are interested in the game offered
• The user 🦈 has a public profile, with ~250 games.
• The user 🦈 has around 1500 unique trades completed on Barter.
• The user 🦈 has around 11000 sent trades.
• The user 🦈 has around 77% decline rate.

Would you accept this offer?

Solution (short answer)

There are several factors pointing out at them being a reseller and one that spams out unfair offers. It's strongly advised to not accept this trade because of the HUGE price difference between the two sides (~$19), and it's pretty probably they were just fishing for some considerable profit masked behind a somewhat balanced minimum gg.deals price (which corresponds to the Rockstar Games Launcher entry, and not to the entry for a Steam key).

Solution (long answer / steps)

1. The user has no collection indicators apart from wishlist (custom). This alone is not really enough to make a correct assessment, but this should already trigger you to check gg.deals pricing.

2. By checking the minimum gg.deals pricing for each of these games, you find: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition ~$4.59 and Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition ~$8.32.

3. The offer looks decent enough for it to be accepted as the difference between the two sides is perhaps negligible enough. OH WAIT!!! The minimum listing for Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition belongs to the Rockstar Games Launcher entry, and not to an entry for a Steam key.

4. Let's check the actual price for a Steam key, as that's what you would trade away. Scrolling down on the gg.deals page for Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition until you reach DRM: Steam, you notice an entry for "Grand Theft Auto IV GTA Complete Edition EN Global Steam Gift" ~$22.88. Nope, this is not what you're looking for: this a gift between two Steam accounts, not a Steam key. Finally, if you scroll down a bit more you find "Grand Theft Auto IV (Complete Edition) Steam Key Global" ~$23.58. This is what your key will be sold as, if the sender is actually a reseller. The HUGE price difference (~$19) is already a big warning sign.

5. Looking to investigate further, you notice that the user 🦈 has around 1500 trades completed. Checking their Barter stats you see that this user sent out 11000 offers, which means that they like to spam out offers. However, are they good offers, or bad offers such as the one you received? The 77% decline rate of their offers shows you that the rest of the traders largely consider these offers not worthy to be accepted, so they are probably lowball offers.

6. 1500 trades completed yet 250 games in their Steam account. That's a pretty solid proof that this user does not trade to redeem their keys (especially if most trades involves games and not marketable items).

7. To reinforce the argument in the previous step, you can also check if they redeemed the games they received from their completed trades (offer history is public for anyone on Barter).

In conclusion, as there are several factors pointing out at them being a reseller and one that spams out unfair offers. It's strongly advised to not accept this trade because of the HUGE price difference between the two sides (~$19), and it's pretty probably they were just fishing for some considerable profit masked behind a somewhat balanced minimum gg.deals price (which corresponds to the Rockstar Games Launcher entry, and not to the entry for a Steam key).