Verified Actual Gamer Program Information [See Best Answer / 2021-10-08 update]

[Codeplayer]

Looking at the latest WAN show right now and the general idea is:

Giving scalpers money is making them scalp more. Its their "job" so the problem gets worse.

 

What I would suggest:

Fight scalpers with their own tools, become one of them.. undercover.

 

1. Get someone from yiour staff to try and find shady routs to aquire cards like scalpers, hire a scalper to show how they do it. Make it a series, it will be huge.

 

2. Make buyer bots and use scalper tactics to buy up cards, again series, again huge, I mean how to make a buyer bot for your card good stuff. Make that bot part of the verified gamer program, an app online so every verified gamer get their 1 to 4 (SLI anyone?) card share from the bot's "catch" so you don't have to sell the stock you own but sort of backlog of future "bot catches".

 

3. A program where you pay "scalper price" for the card to LTT, but for that extra you install an app on your PC that from time to time tracks that the card is still installed in your PC and that you kind of sort of actually use it. So when 3 years pass, you get a choice- you can get the extra scalp money back if you have really used that card or you get an upgrade if you send your card back for other gamers that are on budget and want used and then you get an upgrade to the latest tech it covers or you can pay more for higher tier upgrade, no questions asked, already verified. That app also gives you some perk like floatplane subscription, discounts at LTT store ability to report your configuration to LTT for statistics and a verified gamer xYears tag at forums.

 

All used stuff flipping will make alot of more work. But that means you become a tech store. I know there is the issue that you might then appear as biased. But make it a non-profit store. Have you ever taught of that? Even if you are profitable, you can start funds to support stuff like right to repair. Plus you get tons of more hardware to review before NDA, tons of more customer feedback info also. Even if you are non profit, it does not mean you have to cut prices, you just have to use the profit for charity. You can also help many beginner system builders that could maybe use affiliate links of system configurations to bring people to your store so that they can get paid for advice what to buy. You don't have to run it, just make the rules and own it. Hire people to run it. I know margins are little, but you'd be a huge success from day 1.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, jmillertime89 said:

Just watched someone's recording of them taking the quiz and jesus christ that was way harder than I expected. Does anyone know how many you actually had to get right in order to be validated? 

I know in yesterday's WAN show they said it may not be a quiz next time, but just asking so I have some idea of how difficult this is going to be in general. 

You had to get 15/15 to get on the either order a card or list for manual checking. And considering all cards of first drop were sold, there were enough actual gamers.

 

E: If anyone has read/watched Ready Player One, the concept here is not that far apart of the plotline of that.

Edited March 27, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[AlexP11223]

2 hours ago, jmillertime89 said:

Does anyone know how many you actually had to get right in order to be validated? 

You had unlimited retries and could skip 2 questions.

 

So it's only the question of speed.

[FriedEngineer]

1 minute ago, AlexP11223 said:

You had unlimited retries and could skip 2 questions.

 

So it's only the question of speed.

Oh man, I didn’t realize you could skip two questions; I thought skipping would cost a life.

[Sovek]

There were still 5 questions I had no hope in answering because I never played the game or even knew anything about, KOTOR? the heck is that?

 

And before someone says "you must not game much", I've been playing PC games since Windows 3.1 was a thing.... I just don't play certain games.

 

Usually I wouldn't even care as my 1070 is perfectly suitable for everything I play.... and then there is MSFS 2020 which I'm desperately wanting to get into. 

[FriedEngineer]

Just now, Sovek said:

There were still 5 questions I had no hope in answering because I never played the game or even knew anything about, KOTOR? the heck is that?

 

And before someone says "you must not game much", I've been playing PC games since Windows 3.1 was a thing.... I just don't play certain games.

 

Usually I wouldn't even care as my 1070 is perfectly suitable for everything I play.... and then there is MSFS 2020 which I'm desperately wanting to get into. 

KOTOR is “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”

[Sovek]

4 minutes ago, FriedEngineer said:

KOTOR is “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”

That was my guess but then no context so it could have meant anything, and still I couldn't answer as that as having never played it and I tend to stay away from MMORPGs, last one I played was Maple Story 2, liked it cause it was real cute, till I got to a certain point and ran a raid or whatever for a week straight for materials and kept failing the #$%@! RNG. Said no and havn't touched it since.

 

Oh and PUBG was a "I have no intrest in playing that POS game and thus have no idea". 

[bestbattle]

As an old member of another IT forum, I love seeing the invasion of 1 post accounts during giveaways (or drops in this case).

 

Anyway.

 

Did the drop take place on the LTT store or where? (just finished watching the WAN vod and didn't catch any clear info on this)

[mekalus]

8 hours ago, Spotty said:

Luke posted the details earlier in this thread.

It took 29 minutes between the video going live and the last graphics card (of 100?) being sold.

 

 

Thank you!

[LogicalDrm]

4 minutes ago, bestbattle said:

Did the drop take place on the LTT store or where? (just finished watching the WAN vod and didn't catch any clear info on this)

Information such as links were given in video, the actual drop was handled through lttstore.com

[hoemma]

1 hour ago, FriedEngineer said:

Oh man, I didn’t realize you could skip two questions; I thought skipping would cost a life.

That's the idea behind skipping. You have 3 lives. Skipping 2 questions would cost you 2 lives. Skipping is usually safer than guessing if you have no clue what the answer to a specific question. You can easily lose all 3 lives by guessing one single question wrong.

 

[hoemma]

29 minutes ago, Sovek said:

That was my guess but then no context so it could have meant anything, and still I couldn't answer as that as having never played it and I tend to stay away from MMORPGs, last one I played was Maple Story 2, liked it cause it was real cute, till I got to a certain point and ran a raid or whatever for a week straight for materials and kept failing the #$%@! RNG. Said no and havn't touched it since.

 

Oh and PUBG was a "I have no intrest in playing that POS game and thus have no idea". 

KOTOR was one of the most iconic PC games of all time. It was groundbreaking when it was released and hard to avoid reading or hearing about it. As a gamer, who follows the industry, you could be totally aware that KOTOR was a round-based single player RPG, without ever playing or owning it, just like you would know which genre Half-life, Starcraft or Civilization belong to without ever playing them.

 

There were a couple of question in the quiz about games I haven't played, but still managed to answer them correctly, like the one about Japanese fighting games.

[b1k3rdude]

So I already have a fairly good system (see my sig), but originally tried and failed to get an 6800XT. So where I to get my hand on a 6800XT,  I would sell my RTX 3070 at the original msrp (£500) to my best friend and take his GTX1070 in exchange to keep the price he pays me, down.

My issue is being aware of the program but not seeing when or where to do the VAG, despite looking at and being sub'd to all the LMG channels.

[AlexP11223]

1 hour ago, b1k3rdude said:

My issue is being aware of the program but not seeing when or where to do the VAG, despite looking at and being sub'd to all the LMG channels.

Try reading this thread.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, b1k3rdude said:

My issue is being aware of the program but not seeing when or where to do the VAG, despite looking at and being sub'd to all the LMG channels.

Can you elaborate this question? The first drop was made already on Tuesday. There's no information when next drop will happen.

[Tieox]

I think all scalpers should be forced to use toilet paper with itching powder all over the sheets.  

 

[Hotpiggy]

On 3/6/2021 at 5:32 AM, Donut417 said:

What I got out of it was this. They will release videos at what ever time, some videos will have info on how to buy these cards. 

 

Cards are available world wide HOWEVER shipping , VAT, and Tariffs are paid by the buyer. 

From what I've observed, Linus is basically telling us 'if you have a real job and a real family and real life issues, then you can't sit in front of youtube all day long hitting refresh waiting for some random video to pop up with some cryptic message on how to get in on the verified gamer program.  So he's basically lying to us, you don't have to be just a gamer, you also have to have no life and be able to type fast enough to set the world typing record at the right place at the right time.  Hitting the bell doesn nothing unless you have YouTube open 24/7 and watching it, or if you have no life but to constantly check email.  So we may be diehard fans, but not according to linus, his huge ego doesn't give two shits about us.  I never heard of this "first round" ever happening.  Thanks a lot Linus, thanks for getting our hopes up for the possibility to maybe get a card, then wiping your ass with all of our personal data you've collected.  I'll still watch your videos, I enjoy them a lot, and I really enjoy you and your quirky personality, but as for your promises to give us real gamers a chance at getting a card, well F-You.  You're full of shit when it comes to this.  Thank you for all your entertainment, but f-you for your bullshit "real gamers" scam.  Before all this crap went down, I had a 3080 on order with a guaranteed arrival date.  3 days before that was to come to fruition I had to cancel that order so the money could be used to pay part of a deductible for my son's medical bills regarding a liver transplant (an entirely diff. story).  When I was able to get back to ordering my card, this current bullshit went into full force and they were nowhere to be found, I've been trying to get one ever since.  Thankfully, my son still enjoys playing his Nintendo Switch, but since we already sold his video card, a GTX 1080 Ti for the money for the new 3080, that's all he has, the switch.  Then Linus announced this verified gamers thing which from my POV is vapor ware, so thanks a lot Linus, thanks a lot.  I apologize if I am coming across as upset or angry, but truth be told, I am.  At the entire situation, and the false claims of hope don't help at all.  I no longer let my son watch LTT because it just gets him excited and hopeful.

 

On 3/6/2021 at 6:46 PM, wONKEyeYEs said:

I hope this doesn't turn out to be a who can click through fastest thing.

This is exactly what it is.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 9:52 PM, BrandonPotter0 said:

Im definitely up for joining this Verified Actual Gamer Program. Ill be happy to show off my steam game info and what ever is needed  Been waiting for a TUF 3080 since late November. lmao.

Its hard to play games on Integrated graphics >-< Am borrowing a GPU atm, and I got a very used 980 coming in. I need a 3080 >-<

Yes, why can't we register as a verified gamer beforehand instead of from my understanding, you have to go through this process as you attempt to purchase a card, meanwhile, the faster typers have already bought out all of the cards.  If this program goes 'south' I hope Mr Linus loses his ass as far as subscribers and viewers go.  It's so tiring watching all of these reviewers cry and complain about the shortage while in the background of their videos they have shelves of Unicorns sitting in stock behind them as they "sympathize" with us, awe boo hoo, you guys only have 2-5 of each of these cards yet your so sad we can't buy them...

 

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Can you elaborate this question? The first drop was made already on Tuesday. There's no information when next drop will happen.

So we've already missed a drop we never even knew existed?  Fuck you LMG.

[dizmo]

Just now, Hotpiggy said:

From what I've observed, Linus is basically telling us 'if you have a real job and a real family and real life issues, then you can't sit in front of youtube all day long hitting refresh waiting for some random video to pop up with some cryptic message on how to get in on the verified gamer program.  So he's basically lying to us, you don't have to be just a gamer, you also have to have no life and be able to type fast enough to set the world typing record at the right place at the right time.  Hitting the bell doesn nothing unless you have YouTube open 24/7 and watching it, or if you have no life but to constantly check email.  So we may be diehard fans, but not according to linus, his huge ego doesn't give two shits about us.  I never heard of this "first round" ever happening.  Thanks a lot Linus, thanks for getting our hopes up for the possibility to maybe get a card, then wiping your ass with all of our personal data you've collected.  I'll still watch your videos, I enjoy them a lot, and I really enjoy you and your quirky personality, but as for your promises to give us real gamers a chance at getting a card, well F-You.  You're full of shit when it comes to this.  Thank you for all your entertainment, but f-you for your bullshit "real gamers" scam.  Before all this crap went down, I had a 3080 on order with a guaranteed arrival date.  3 days before that was to come to fruition I had to cancel that order so the money could be used to pay part of a deductible for my son's medical bills regarding a liver transplant (an entirely diff. story).  When I was able to get back to ordering my card, this current bullshit went into full force and they were nowhere to be found, I've been trying to get one ever since.  Thankfully, my son still enjoys playing his Nintendo Switch, but since we already sold his video card, a GTX 1080 Ti for the money for the new 3080, that's all he has, the switch.  Then Linus announced this verified gamers thing which from my POV is vapor ware, so thanks a lot Linus, thanks a lot.  I apologize if I am coming across as upset or angry, but truth be told, I am.  At the entire situation, and the false claims of hope don't help at all.  I no longer let my son watch LTT because it just gets him excited and hopeful.

He said on the WAN show that there would be other drops, at different times of day for those that have jobs and to account for time zone differences. If you're subbed to the channel and watch the videos you'll find out when. He's also said this is only for his most hardcore of fans (basically), and that it's a reward to those that watch the content.

 

It's not nearly as hard as you make it seem. If your typing skills aren't up for it, sure, that's unfortunate, but that's kind of on you. I also don't think they have to be that good. They didn't sell out for something like 20 minutes. Lots of time, if you were right there and ready to buy. They also post in the LTT Official part of the forum when a new video goes up (sometimes before the video goes up, sometimes at the same time, occasionally after) so that can be a way to find out as well.

 

As for the rest of your rant:

• It wasn't a very cryptic message. He gave the way to get to the site, and the clue was easily found with a 2 second Google search.
  It's not supposed to be dead easy.
• How exactly did he get your personal data?
• Not everyone was going to get one. He had what, 100 cards? There were thousands, if not tens of thousands of people that wanted one.
• If he didn't care about you to even a slight degree, he wouldn't have bothered setting this up at all.
• He didn't lie about "us" getting a chance to buy the cards. They all sold. So those people did get one. You didn't, and while unfortunate, it doesn't negate the fact that others did.
• Your son still has something to play on. That's a lot more than some have.

I've never seen such entitlement. You're super salty about not being able to buy a luxury item, and frankly, that's a little weird. If you're so busy with your family, life and issues, maybe spending money on a graphics card shouldn't be your first priority anyway?

[Nexxus]

5 hours ago, Sovek said:

That was my guess but then no context so it could have meant anything

Not really, KOTOR was an EXTREMELY common abbreviation at the time, hell I still use it today and people who played bioware RPGs instantly know what i'm referring to.  It also wasnt an MMORPG, you are thinking about "The Old Republic" Same universe but different game entirely. 

[AlexP11223]

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

YouTube open 24/7

More like 2/4 (assuming that currently it supposed to be during the usual LTT publication window, and probably not on weekends).

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

From what I've observed, Linus is basically telling us 'if you have a real job and a real family and real life issues, then you can't sit in front of youtube all day long hitting refresh waiting for some random video to pop up with some cryptic message on how to get in on the verified gamer program.  So he's basically lying to us, you don't have to be just a gamer, you also have to have no life and be able to type fast enough to set the world typing record at the right place at the right time.  Hitting the bell doesn nothing unless you have YouTube open 24/7 and watching it, or if you have no life but to constantly check email.  So we may be diehard fans, but not according to linus, his huge ego doesn't give two shits about us.  I never heard of this "first round" ever happening. 

Thats, to be frank, all on you. The event was teased before first announcement in WAN Show. And all the information I have is either from WAN Shows or from those who got chance to participate this first drop. About which part has Linus lied here? Or how can you call yourself "diehard fan" if you are still clueless on how and why this even is made like it is. Sounds like you are just entitled and salty.

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

Thanks a lot Linus, thanks for getting our hopes up for the possibility to maybe get a card, then wiping your ass with all of our personal data you've collected. 

How much more personal data you have provided by not being able to participate? Lol, get your story together before posting it.

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

I'll still watch your videos, I enjoy them a lot, and I really enjoy you and your quirky personality, but as for your promises to give us real gamers a chance at getting a card, well F-You.  You're full of shit when it comes to this.  Thank you for all your entertainment, but f-you for your bullshit "real gamers" scam. 

Salty-McSaltiness here. You know, he doesn't have to do any of this. He could have just go by, keep making videos. Your kind of people are the few who ruin the fun for everyone. Like Linus said, if he gets too much negative feedback, he is sending all hardware he has back. Probably losing money doing so. And I wouldn't blame him for doing it if your type of people would be more common. Good thing you are like 5th in this thread.

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

 Then Linus announced this verified gamers thing which from my POV is vapor ware, so thanks a lot Linus, thanks a lot.  I apologize if I am coming across as upset or angry, but truth be told, I am.  At the entire situation, and the false claims of hope don't help at all.  I no longer let my son watch LTT because it just gets him excited and hopeful.

Uh, what? You had some personal life issues, Linus makes one good deed to everyone and you decide to personally blame him because he personally let you down? Are you serious?

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

Yes, why can't we register as a verified gamer beforehand instead of from my understanding, you have to go through this process as you attempt to purchase a card, meanwhile, the faster typers have already bought out all of the cards. 

Ever heard of bots and scalpers? Pretty much all the ways where you register beforehand and then that list is cross-checked can and will be cheated on. And checking some 10k entries by hand would take forever. And the stock of some 100 items would still have to be somehow divided. Are you gamer enough in that group? Or even in top100? Were you in first 100 who entered and were confirmed? I bet that if they would have done it that way, you would still be whining here.

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

If this program goes 'south' I hope Mr Linus loses his ass as far as subscribers and viewers go.  It's so tiring watching all of these reviewers cry and complain about the shortage while in the background of their videos they have shelves of Unicorns sitting in stock behind them as they "sympathize" with us, awe boo hoo, you guys only have 2-5 of each of these cards yet your so sad we can't buy them...

Oh, so thats the reason... you aren't just salty. You are plain old jealous.

 

1 hour ago, Hotpiggy said:

So we've already missed a drop we never even knew existed?  Fuck you LMG.

No. You missed a drop because you weren't dedicated enough. I don't personally watch videos as they go online, I only knew drop happened because this thread suddenly had 150 new replies.

[Some guy lost over the sun]

On 3/24/2021 at 5:48 PM, Keudn said:

I love that LTT is doing this and I'm hoping to still get in on one of the other batches, but the one criticism I have is the communication for this was pretty poor. I understand the beans may have been spilled early on this and that caused some issues, but my main gripe is with the communication for when it was actually happening. I like many other people don't have the time to be rapidly refreshing the page every day for three weeks straight. IMO how this first drop was handled really favors the religious LTT viewers who catch every upload with 10 views. A bit better communication on which day we should expect the drop, or at the very least what week it is happening, would be amazing. Just my 2 cents.

100% this, I get that they want to keep it to a certain amount of people as you said "how this first drop was handled really favors the religious LTT viewers who catch every upload with 10 views." It seriously pissed me off considering that everyone was posting on the ltt twitter how they got midway through the verification to only then be turned away or even 404'd off the site from overload ig, all I just wanted was to be verified n what not then just be put on a designated waiting list. I don't even want my gpu rn, I just want to be updated and not be left out.

[Some guy lost over the sun]

On 3/24/2021 at 5:53 PM, FriedEngineer said:

There was a segment around the 3/4 mark in yesterday's video. Though the video is still live, it looks like the segment with the information for the Verified Actual Gamer program was removed. In that segment they partially stated the links to go to (there was a code you had to understand and enter it as part of the URL).The links were posted earlier in this thread if you're curious, but  I imagine they will be different next time and they currently just redirect you to a page that now reads:

Ig that's what I get for not being dedicated enough, despite watching 120 hours a week of their content a week thanks for the in depth answer tho

[Some guy lost over the sun]

On 3/25/2021 at 6:06 AM, LogicalDrm said:

The video of March 24th 2021 on LinusTechTips channel. Mention about the program is still in that video while the actual segment has been removed since.

Out of all the days I go offline for a trip... 

[AlexP11223]

2 hours ago, Hotpiggy said:

I no longer let my son watch LTT because it just gets him excited and hopeful.

It's like those parents that don't let kids to continue reading the Harry Potter books because of the recent stuff about Rowling.

 

For the rest of the post: man, wtf is wrong with you, 3080 is a (currently) limited luxury item. Nobody NEEDS it (except when used for work). If you can't get it now, find other hobbies, play any of the great older games, etc.

 

Linus never said that everyone has a good chance of getting it via VAG, he clearly said that it's impossible given the demand and the amount of GPUs they got. Only that everyone who manages to get it is a gamer.