So, about ratio in general and ratio groups in particular.

I once joined a ratio group. It, uh, didn't last too long. :P

Not my kind of thing. I entered for **** all during my time there anyway.

1:1 ratio groups never work in general, and such groups collapse sooner or later.

Successful ratio groups are usually around 1:0.7 (you can win more than you give). My group for example uses 0.75, and we celebrated a first year since being created recently.

It's about maximizing winnings in general. You can either give away game to anybody and get nothing back, or give away game to the group and get >guaranteed< win, and very often even more than value of your game in the first place. Assuming you have leftovers for giveaways, such as bundle leftovers, you're not really losing anything, you can only gain.

Thing is, ratio groups are not for everyone. They work great because you have a guaranteed win for every giveaway you create, as opposed to more liberal groups where you often have many giveaways, but also many entries (and many leechers).

I agree with everything you said, right down to joining 3 years ago, being absent a good portion of that time, and how much the community has changed since then. When I first joined, sure, we had the level restrictions, and some uber guys complaining about leeches. But that mindset was the exception not the rule. Nearly everyone on the site at that time, had found SG in search of free steam games. Back then, just being active in the forums, was enough of a contribution for most people to feel like you were a part of the site.

I've always created giveaways, even if they werent the best, but now it feels like an obligation more than something I'm doing willingly to give back to the community and keep the site going. Its a bit disheartening to be completely honest. But it is what it is, communities change, and this is no exception.

How is 1:1 in games given away fair? If I only give away Bad Rats and I have 1:1 ratio, but there's a guy that gives away expensive games and has a lower ratio than me, am I considered better than him? o.O I know that you referred to extreme cases too, but still, it's not fair at all. xD And anyway, ratio is worthless. It's like saying that I have money and I can buy games to give away resulting in being able to enter better giveaways, but people that don't have money to buy games to give away, don't deserve to get better games! Does it sound fair? Because it sounds....strange and unfair to me. And about giveaway groups, well, it's a bit......difficult to think of it. :P

And BTW, last thing. Unless you're in ratio group you shouldn't care that much about your ratio. It's up to every person how he manages his ratio on SG. My ratio became FAR off (I'm trying to fix it, but I'm doing poorly), yet I don't consider myself a leecher, as I always tend to give something back to community, both groups I participate, but also general public. It's not about 1:1 value, very usually it's 0.5 of the value or even less, but I'm still happy to give something back.

TL;DR - Why you should bother? Let everybody manage whatever ratio he wants, and also let other giveaway creators to put whatever SGT rules they want. If one wants to reward generous people - he can, if one wants to reward leechers or rule breakers - he can too.

I agree on everything you said.
I also get annoyed when someone wins one of my giveaways and has an 80-1 win ratio. The first time a complete leech won a game from me, I figured I'd put level 1 as a threshold, but I think I need to revise it to something better.
I do think a reasonable ratio (3-1 maybe?) is fair, to avoid leeching. I'd definitely go by games given, and not value, because not everyone can afford to spend significant amounts of money, but it's really not a big deal to buy a $1 or $2 cheapo bundle, and bring your ratio into line.

1:1 groups are really just a pot-luck version of trading, kinda like subscribing to mystery bundles. I don't see the point. I'd rather just buy the games I want straight up rather than commit to taking a spin on the mystery wheel every time

they can do whatever they care.
if i don't like groups, i don't join them, no need to complain or discuss.

The fact that they are basically trading isn't even the worst part of it, the worst part is that they are leveling up and getting access to more giveaways than everybody else just by giving 1:1 to their 'group of friends'.

Why would you gift anything to high level contributors?

Sometimes it's nice to feel rewarded for what you do. In general, the high level users give a lot to lower-level users, and getting to see space cat every once in a while helps keep the motivation up.

I'm still baffled that some people don't understand the charity/gift giving part of this website. What the hell is the point of giving away games if you expect others to do the same to you? EVERYONE might as well buy their own games, despite the fact that there are lots of charitable people on this site and many not-so-wealthy people to match them.

EDIT: I'm clearly generalizing quite a bit here and, in a sense, am a hypocrite (I only did private giveaways until levels were introduced, which I then did private level 1 giveaways but I'm trying to steer away from that a bit - Did my first public a while ago) but my core point is there. If you don't understand it, then feel free to speak up. I like to talk to people and learn more!

EDIT2: I'm also not explicitly saying that the only point of this website is to giveaway games to others for the pure "I want to help the poor and unfortunate!" angle. There's obviously more to it than that. That being said, this site is literally giving games to other people and the game-giving process is free on both sides.

Assuming generous = wealthy is just wrong. I see level 0 users with thousands of games and high Steam level all the time, or inventories full of expensive gifts and items and hundreds of trade feedbacks on profile. On the other hand there are people with low income that will spare a bit of what they have to make giveaways.
Of course not everyone can give away $60 AAA games, but overall it's really more about being wiling to give away something than being able to.
Because someone is high level doesn't mean they can afford all the games they want. And sometimes they won't be able to buy a game they want exactly because they spent money on giveaways instead of them. People giving away games from their own wishlist are not that uncommon.

Thanks for bringing up the touchy subject and saying what a lot of us think.

I agree with you. Very lucid and well articulated. I have a lot of games on Steam. But they were mostly bought years ago when I had a good job and was foolish enough to think that it would last forever. I've been nursing a $10 Steam wallet for months now. It sucks to be poor, especially when one is a giver by nature. Reading your post, this Louis CK bit came to mind. It's not random or tangential. It's germane to the discussion, particularly the segment beginning at 3:05.

Back when I was new to SG (oh, so many moons ago...), I joined various ratio-based groups. Every single one of them died because people would take as much as they could while giving back as little as possible. The life cycle of such groups would go something like this:

1. Leader has an idea for a group.
2. Leader makes giveaway and recruits members.
3. A few members try to give expensive or highly popular giveaways.
4. Everyone else gives bundled junk.
5. Those giving popular stuff get tired of seeing bundled junk and stop giving.
6. Members lose interest in the group because it's nothing but bundled junk.
7. Group becomes inactive (i.e. dies).

Since then, I've been in other, non-ratio-based groups, and I see a similar "draining" effect in most of them. It would seem that people get discouraged when they put money and effort into a group and it seems that other members are not doing the same. I'm not even talking dollar values, either, because there are some great games on Steam that are inexpensive and/or bundled (e.g. One-Finger Death-Punch). When you're giving away Fallout 4, however, and the person who wins it responds with The Slaughtering Grounds, it feels like leeching.

I've seen various methods attempted by all sorts of people to try and avoid "the leechers," and some methods work better than others. The most effective seems to be selective recruitment. If the requirements of the group are stringent enough, there is much less chance of those predisposed to "leeching" getting into the group. Another way of dealing with the problem is having "leeching" behavior lead to ejection from the group. (i.e. The greedier you are, the more quickly you leave the group.)

I have yet to see a "perfect" solution to the issue, but for now, I continue to watch and wait....

(scroll down for the tl;dr version)

I agree with your basic sentiments, though your perception of elitism is flawed.
The aim is to get games to actual, respectable people.
Low level giveaways are flooded with cheaters and bots and deliberate leechers,
This is further complicated by the inability to prevent rule-breakers from entering giveaways without utilizing SGTools or manually overseeing groups.

The perception is that high level users are more trustworthy. There's also the impression that they're generous, so it feels better to "give back" to them.
For the most part, that's all true- though it's certainly not absolute.
I for example had a 10 copy level 5+ giveaway where there where, including rerolls, an even 2/3rds of the individuals had rule-breaking history. One individual had *27** Non-Activations.

So, it's a bit flawed.
Several people try to make specialized events targeting lower level or low win users. Those take more effort to arrange [than throwing up a simple high level giveaway], however, which complicates their being done more often.

Also, I'm presumably edging around 'high-level' and it seems rather likely that the majority of users on the site are notably better off financially than i am.
I mean, "own a good whole lot of games themselves" certainly applies to me now, and I don't begrudge anyone feeling I don't "deserve" more games, as that's not my valuation to make.
Just saying, be careful with being absolute in your impressions. I dedicate all my free funds to games [for myself and others] each month because they, this community, all of it makes life a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise. My potentially poor use of finances doesn't necessarily make me wealthy, it just means I have a hobby I invest dedicatedly into.

Besides, what would be so bad about giving back to the generous users [I'm talking 14 won, 240 unbundled sent] now and then? It's still a net positive for the low level users of the site that those users often target.
It's not inherently better than giving to low level users, but it oughtn't be considered shameful, either.

So, we've clarified that low level users are a troublesome category to work with, and high level users aren't necessarily different in circumstances to low level users.

So now I'm going to wrap that up with the real point:
Level doesn't matter a smidge as far as determining if someone is a valid recipient for a game.

Oh, I'm not talking subjectively, I mean, mechanically speaking.
The assumption is that you want games to go to the people that aren't rich, don't have a lot of games, and will appreciate the games most.
SG level, as noted above, doesn't do any of those things well. Moreover, level is often rather misleading!
See, the only point of reference that can be considered a good guideline for meeting those objectives, is Steam library size- and that's going to differ dramatically user to user, regardless of level, with tons of low level users who have huge libraries, and several high level users having small libraries.

tl;dr version:
So, don't worry about elitism or whatever. Just put your giveaways to where you think they'll be most appreciated, and don't worry about what other people are doing with their games. It oughtn't be affecting you directly anyway (unless there's an aim to get more giveaways targeted toward you).

Furthermore, I can assure you (though you ought be aware of it yourself) that the further down the levels you go, the more giveaways you see, often with significant raising in amount per level dropped. So your premise for the argument is flimsy to begin with.

If you're concerned about where games are going, push the library size angle. that's going to be the only real point of reference worth considering.
For anything else, realize that the considerations involved are generally not based in elitism, but in calculated consideration of what kinds of users are likely to be receiving the games with those settings.

I agree with most of your points except for 1:1 ratio in games given away being fair. In fact I'm very puzzled why people continue to use this measure, which obviously punishes people who give away actual expensive games (of AAA quality even) and reward people who give away cheap and/or bundled games. The ratio measurement for raw CV suffers the same problem. There is a reason that the level system uses real CV only and in most cases real CV is the only fair option (Real CV suffers from the fact that you can still abuse games on up to 90% sales, but that's still more fair than the alternative). And it's not very hard to just combine real CV with e.g. raw CV or # check and get the best of both worlds.

Honestly ratio in game given away kind of weirds me out. There are so many people who give away games that are never going to be played, I think quality should be given priority over quantity. At the same time I understand that many bundle games are great, I mean I'm currently finishing a bundle game that I won here :)
Obviousy I may be biased because I give away mostly AAA game but it was a concious decision on my part to focus on games I would personally like to play. Oh well, I don't really care either way to be honest :) People should be able to give away games on their terms, whatever they are.

EDIT: I'm just going to add that I said all of the above because I personally believe that games won should be played, I know that not everyone feel the same.

From my point of view the only people who deserve to win are those who haven't won a lot. I don't like the "random trading site" vibe SG got when CV was introduced (I was here before CV), which has gotten worse with SGtools. I much prefer charitable giving to "you give, you get" trading.

Personally when making public giveaways, I dont mind leeches. I am perfectly happy with giving them the win if it meant they activated it and I didn't have to check activation for the next 7 days. Afterall not everyone can buy all the games they want. I dont even mind if they play it or not. Before getting a job that pays well, I was stuck with a crappy PC that barely ran games from the beginning of millennium. But there is always hope for future, if a winner has a game now and gets a better PC down the line, he may play it. Also one must consider backlogs.

As for purely ratio, I have good fortune to be part of generous ratio group. Its 2 games won for 1 given away right now, I think. When buying bundles, I check that group on how many own my duplicates. If there is chance of me getting some entries, I send it there. If not, then I make a public one. Lately I have settled on lv3. While its nice to send a game to an user who hasn't won anything and he realizes that steamgifts isn't a scam afterall... there are simply too many reroll tickets I potentially have to make. And I do make a ticket if there are unactivated/multiple wins.

You mentioned group ratios are a form of trading... after debating with myself I concede the point. If there is a new bundle and for some reason I dont want to buy it myself (too expensive for the number of games, too many games owned or something similar) and I want a specific game, I will have an excellent chance to pick it up from there right now or in future. I do know that my ratio there is excellent and I dont have to worry about exceeding it.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. "I want to give away games to people who can't afford to buy their own... but they must be level 6+ and I'm going to put CV 500+ rule on my SGT check." Doesn't make sense at all. I make my giveaways level 1. I think one game given away is showing that you're at least a little bit aware of how the site works, have made the effort to give away something, and it's not hard to find one cheap game for that purpose either.
It doesn't bother me in groups though. I just don't join 1:1 CV groups so not my business that they do. There's lots of elitism in forum/open giveaways, too.

I never had any experience with ratio based giveaways or ratio groups but if you indeed reduce is to the monetary value of the giveaways there is not much of a point to them. But these groups might also be considered an exchange of idea and opinions. With an evergrowing amount of games most users have not the time to look at all of them or even take a closer look. In such group members could make giveaways which others mmay have overlooked or didn't look close enough and give them the chance win it resulting in a broadening of one's own spectrum.

Also the last part of your opening implies some awful things. Not every high level user is rich. For some people it is just easier to spend money for someone else instead for themselves. It is another story if they have a giant library since this does imply more wealth. But also the game numbers may be wrong since there are to many cheap possibilities nowadays where you can increase these numbers with very little money needed.

Also this site, for me, has never been about giving people who can't afford them. This is not a charity. Even if we just assume it would be this way. The low level users as target group are problematic. If you have the time just go through 10000 Steam Profiles of level 0 and 1 users and check what percentage has less than 150 games. You will notice (with a sufficient amount of data) that most of them are not low levels because they can't afford to make giveaways. They don't want to. There are even threads (mostly from Yirg) which perfectly describe how you can without spending any money get to level two or three in a short time. People choose to not give away for other reasons than being poor.

Also there is no problem with elitism in the community as whole. The majority doesn't care for it and has no problem with it. You are most likely confusing the vocal group (read: a few people in the forum) with the silent majority. There is a lot of dangerous generalisation.

I hope you dont mind if i comment here without really answering/replying to your thread but well.. think a little bit further on the 1:1 real cv - thingy

I thought about that and it came to my mind that giving away only bundled games is the only logical step to permanently increase your Real CV! Why? Because the value of bundled games is the most persistent. Little example? Hitman Absolution at release was about.. hm.. dunno 40€ ? Two months later you could have it in the steamsale for like 5€... a little bit further.. it was bundled.
So you would consider someone who gave away 40€ worth of game a real generous person. And in my humble opinion.. it is.
But basically you could also invest those 40€ into 1€ Humblebundle Games and gift all of them.
then you get a) more Real CV in the long run b) more gifted gifts overall c) the only way these cv get reduced is, if the game is going to be free

ofcourse thats just if you like to harvest cv in the most efficient way..
people that give away tripple a games are the real mvp.. but its not something to increase your cv efficient.

or am i somewhere wrong with that? feel free to correct me..