Thank you Lilly, I was always amazed at your competence and eye for details in this not-so-simple matter of game bundles, Steam packages, regional restrictions and all that. We benefitted a lot from your knowledge and experience that can not be taken for granted but many did.
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Big thanks for everything you've done during all these years. You will be missed.
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You are amazing Lilly, don't let the haters tell otherwise, but I totally understand your choice and that it is time to free up space for other things. I have always been impressed by how fast you Are with making those topics and even having funny poll options! I'm proud to see you choose you and your personal life and this sounds as the best decision. I'll miss your threads but it will be alright.
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Thanks for all the great work you've done Lilly! You deserve all the kind words and more
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Your bundle threads have been incredibly helpful Lilly, so helpful in fact, that I had made a habit of checking your threads here and stopped visiting the original websites to check for new content altogether, which is a testament to your continuous, thorough and excellent work and I am sure I wasn't the only one. Reading (and voting) in the humorous polls was a delight, they always made me smile :)
I can't even imagine how much time and effort it took you to do it consistently, heck, I'd give you a job for sure if I could, you'd make a fantastic community manager, I can't believe that people would hate on such an amazing person as yourself, it borders on insanity.
Big thanks and much love and support!!
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Thank you for your efforts during these years Lilly, you have been a pillar of SG (and just discovered from this thread you also helped in Barter!) ever since I started buying bundles 5 years ago and I have nothing but admiration for the commitment you've put into this project at no personal benefit and considerable personal cost beyond what we could see from the outside.
I don't know what transpired exactly but I am sorry you were target of harassments, the one occasion where we interacted directly on barter, you were as wonderful a person as I thought you'd be from watching you in the bundle threads, so thank you once again for everything and I hope you take care of yourself and have a wonderful December even if 2024 hasn't been very good until now.
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I can really relate to some of the points you made. I'm sorry you've faced harassment and false accusations. Your work has been hugely appreciated (though sadly sometimes thankless) and will be dearly missed. Thank you for keeping it up for so long and good luck with whatever comes next!
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We definitely don't see eye to eye on many topics, but I have always appreciated what you've done for the Barter/SG communties. I'm sure with your work ethic, the next thing you tackle in life will be just as successful. Best wishes and thanks for your service Lilly 🫡
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I've never participated in your threads but the information you've shared here was invaluable and what you've done the community irreplaceable.Thank you for everything you've done here, I hope your time away from this work you put here helps in the long run, because I'm sure it'll be tough to get used to it at first
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A small update:
As many of you already know, starting 2025, Barter will not support trade offers any more (announced here). Back when I created this post, no decision hadn't been made yet. Now, with the trading aspect of Barter being turned off, the sensible choice to make was between shutting down the platform completely, or continuing to maintain its database of bundles / giveaways / items.
Thus, to avoid a complete shutdown (at least for now), I volunteered to continue updating bundles and giveaways on Barter (perhaps with a few hours of delay, yet knowing myself probably at least once per day). Most people would find the decision of keeping up the site useless and time wasting, as they used the platform for trading purposes only. However, there are other third party services and several dozens of Discord servers that rely on its bundle, giveaway and item database which would then be affected by a complete shutdown.
Collections (wishlists, library, etc.) will switch to private, but logged in users will still be able to quickly see the games owned / wishlisted / most wanted, etc. from a bundle. The bundle view is also available without being logged in.
Notices (such as duplicate / revoked keys) will still be updated based on your reports from the respective SG thread or through other channels (Steam chat, Discord, or anywhere else you can reach out to me).
Another point of concern that many SG users raised was the region locks, which are usually messy and difficult to figure out. Since this seems to be a rather big issue, I will aim to provide through SG comments the same kind of breakdown as I used to do for my threads. However, to do that, I will still need everyone's help in posting their regional subs / gift link notifications - just like you kindly do now. Without having eyes from multiple regions of the world, it's impossible to provide a correct breakdown of all possible packages.
Depending on what shape future bundle threads will take, this info might also need to be centralized on Barter bundle pages, in the notes section. No promises here, we will see about that when the time comes.
Thank you once again for the kind words, positive thoughts and for all the support that you generously expressed not only here, but also on various other bundle threads. I will keep these comments in my heart forever. ❤️
You are THE BEST!
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Thank you for also keeping tiny Barter alive. I much prefer Barter's bundle pages to ITAD, it's very resourceful.
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Just now saw this update, and I'm extremely grateful. The bundle lock breakdowns are absolutely invaluable.
Thanks so much for your continued efforts, you are the best of the best 😁
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I'm not usually very social, but this situation deeply saddens me. The comments in this thread show continuous support and admiration, and I hope that helps you heal. Unfortunately, with the internet, so much goes unseen, and the hurt can cut deep, often leaving those wounded to suffer alone... until it's too late.
Your posts are always so well-crafted. I hope that wherever you choose to use your skills in the future, the recipients will be grateful and supportive and lift you up beyond those that try to bring you down.
Sincerely Thank you for your contributions.
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There was this person before you, rachellove who did the same "job" and quitted for the exact same reason.
Truth is trolls will be always harassing people, whoever might it be and whatever would it do.
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Thanks for your excellent service over the years Lily! You'll be missed. And I'm really sorry to hear what've happened to you. The groundless accusations and the feeling of powerlessness to defend yourself must be devastating for you. I hope everything gets better for you :)
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it's sad but thank you for what you did and the time you devoted, I myself found out about offers several times thanks to you
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Thank you for the work you have done for so many years ^^
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Thank you for providing this service for all of us and I wish you the best wherever it may take you.
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The site won't be the same without you. Amazing you were putting in that much time/effort/quality for free.
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Thank you so much and best of luck with your future works ❤️
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You know, when I read you are stepping away I first felt angered, but then sad really. The poisonous people that are everywhere nowadays have won again. Only problem is that nobody wins anything, we all lose something special we had, because you are special. During the years your deals threads have become a part of my, and I’m sure hundreds of others, daily routine. Similar to the morning cup of coffee. Just as an example.
Some years ago I was in a similar situation, I had to step away from a 10+ years hobby in an online community where you put every minute of your free time, sometimes even during working hours. It was for different reasons, but I think the sad and empty feeling is probably the same. Then some time passed and now, when I look back, I only remember the good memories, all the fun I had while working on the daily chores I had, and last, but most important, I still have all the friendships and the exceptional people I learned so much from. Oh, also - change is almost always for the better, as scary as it may be.
I guess what I am saying is this - while we now feel sad and probably angry, you will never lose our eternal gratitude, love and respect. For your dedication, countless hours of work, for the giveaways and generosity. I trust I speak for everyone when I say we hope you will remain part of the communities here and on Steam, even if not that active.
So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything and, I’ll quote you from earlier - may the future be as generous to you as you were to us! <3
Peter
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Thank you for the generosity you've shown the community(-ies) with all of the time spent sharing information! Hoping 2025 brings peace, joy, good health and a bit more prosperity to you!
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Thank you again Lily for you invaluable efforts over the years on barter and SG.
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Holy sh*t, I just read this, but I can't say I didn't expect it to happen sooner or later (I can say as an old timer that good people who do a lot for the community tend to be harassed the most). Thank you for these 7 years :)
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Appreciate all the work/time/effort you put into what you have done for all of us all these years. Taking care of yourself is a must and no one with any sense or heart will condemn you for your choice. Nothing but gratitude and appreciation over here. Thanks lots!
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Dear SteamGifts community,
I'm sad to announce that I have made the decision to step down from creating / maintaining bundle threads starting 01 Jan 2025.
I am not quitting SteamGifts, but I will remain active only through comments and giveaways.
This might seem sudden for you, but it’s a decision I reached after lengthy consideration. For seven years, I’ve been the main person to create bundle threads and I would have probably been able to continue for many more, if not for some external factors that were out of my control.
2024 was one of the more difficult years of my life. I’ve continuously been the target of online harassment and untruthful / unfounded accusations, in many of these cases without a way for me to disprove them. I considered explaining myself many times, but past experience shows that those who seek to harm me aren’t looking for an explanation, and anything I dare to say in my defense would only be twisted into even worse lies. It’s understandable that without opening up and showing my side of the story, some of you might have negatively changed your opinion about me. This was a risk I knowingly took, as the least bad of the two options.
Seven years of doing bundle threads is a long time and aiming to keep these bundle threads as informative as possible and posting them close to the bundle launch time required a lot of sacrifices on my part. My sleep was the first one to be affected, as trying to be online when a bundle might (not necessarily would) launch often meant cutting down on my sleep, shifting the flow of my entire day (thus affecting the schedule of my family and friends too) or even scheduling trips in order to accommodate bundle threads as much as possible, all that not even knowing the bundle schedule in advance, as this is rarely made public. Obviously, no one forced me to do so, but in regards to bundle threads, I always wanted to give my best, and for me that meant first and foremost creating the thread as soon as possible, especially in the Humble BTA era - a habit that I continued even after it, throughout the years. Balancing bundle threads and work never was (and still isn't) an easy thing but at least it improved my ability to handle multiple mental tasks at the same time.
Aside from bundle thread creation, additional time went into maintaining these threads too: reading all the comments & continuously updating threads with the information you guys kindly share (coupons, subs, free DLC to claim, out of stock items, etc.). Together with my daily activities on Barter.vg (syncing this information between the two platforms was primarily done by me), these ate a significant chunk of my free time, similar to an unpaid part-time job. I’ve never received any monetary compensation for it, and I never wanted any compensation in the first place. My reason for doing this was always to help the two communities and keep the information as comprehensive as possible. It’s the kind of work that would be boring for most people, and get even more repetitive over the years, but I’m the kind of person who derives satisfaction and a feeling of stability from doing the same thing over and over again. I've always struggled to find my place in this world, but bundle threads (and Barter to some extent) gave me the feeling of contributing to society in a way that suited me.
Looking back at all these, I realized that a change is long overdue, as scary as that change might be. Firstly, due to the current online harassment situation, being a public person brings me more harm than I am willing to accept. Needless to say, I shouldn’t let myself be affected by what others think of me or say about me. To some extent I can do that but there’s still a line when too much hostility actually becomes… simply too much. Secondly, I’d like to allocate this time to something else. I’m not yet sure what that will be, for now I will keep myself open to possibilities and see what life has in stock for me.
As I step down from making bundle threads on SteamGifts, I also step down from Barter.vg. I’ve been the go-to person for most things on Barter during the past ~9 years, dealing with pretty much anything that was needed at the time when it was needed, filling every gap when there was no one else willing to do so. That may have made people mistaken me as an admin having full authority on Barter, and as a natural consequence, I attracted a certain amount of hate regarding some decisions that were taken during the recent years, while in reality those decisions were not mine to take. I’ve been held culpable and blamed for things that I didn’t even do. Different user groups have directly accused me of the exact nasty behavior that they themselves engage in, to justify the very same, and intentionally kept spreading those lies about me.
Much like SteamGifts, Barter.vg works solely on a volunteer-basis, with people assuming certain roles temporarily and performing them whenever they see fit or when their time allows. Without someone to be there when no one else is available or as a backup for them, Barter data (bundles, giveaways, items, notices) will probably see a decrease in consistency in the near future. At the moment of writing this, I can’t tell in what way the platform will change (or if it will in any way). Its future and shape is still in talks with the admin because there are several other factors to consider.
I’ll end this huge wall of text by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to all of you who supported me throughout the years. You were the reason for which I was able to continue doing this for so long. Thank you for the laughs we had together, for keeping the discussions on the bundle threads drama-free, for helping each other (and me) by answering questions, submitting region lock information, prices in different currencies and correcting my mistakes. Going forth, I hope you will show the same kindness and support to the people who will step up and continue doing this work.
🚂🚂🚂 A little train of various little indie games 🚂🚂🚂🌟 2024-10-30: Edit: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the kind words and positive energy you shared through these comments. Your response is beyond overwhelming. 💜
(I won't be able to reply to everyone, but I will try to answer some of these comments over the weekend.)
🌟 2024-12-08: A small update, mostly regarding my future activity on Barter.
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