Thank You Lily
I don't know if you will read this but I would (as others have and will) would like to say that I love you (in a friendly online sense) for all the work you put in over the years - I have seen some of the harsh comments towards not only you but many others which is unforgivable.
I like yourself and others do not know what will happen here or with Barter.vg (if it will come back at all) and if anyone will take over such threads (I would do but I have seen my time lessen as my work increases)
I wish you nothing but the best and if you and I should have our paths in the future and I hope so we will remain such as friends and colleges.
I will - while being sad for the loss to site , I will be one of the many that hope your time away from the Internet helps you and your mental health and gives your live the purpose that the site did (and I suspect still does)
If there one day is a hall of fame here on Steam gift I would nominate you 100% for that and I bet I am not the only one either.
I also would like to take the time to say Thank-You again - Thank you as a thread maker - Thank you as a member of Steam gifts and most importantly Thank You as a friend
Please let me know if you ever want to talk as I will always be here for you Lily and would take it as a great honour to do so and hope I can be of any help and comfort - Here is a hug to try and make this a tiny bit less sad and help your move into other of life's many options outside the internet.
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Hearts for you. I hope you find joy in whatever you decide to do.
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Thank you for everything you have done for us bundle-buyers and the community as a whole.Well wishes for the future!
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Sorry to hear and I really appreciate what you were doing for such long time. It was also very very useful and i used it as a main source of such information. THANK YOU.
Ps. I also really sorry you were a target of online harassment and untruthful / unfounded accusations.Was it connected with this site or others?
Too be honest I had also such one episode not connected directly with this page but still in some extent connected with SG (the some persons are also active here = it connected here). It was more like false accusations not trying to hear truth or any (strong) arguments which I had. The only effect was increase of these false accusations (like in your situation). Strange thing is that at last some of these persons started to spread lies about me around to other places (I sometimes wonder how anyone find motivation to spread lies or harass others but it is how the word works - maybe they feel more important in this way or they can not admit they are wrong - don't know). I think best way is to just ignore such persons,
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Honestly it's crazy to me that you've been doing all this with such precision and timeliness for such a long time without even any form of compensation, not even a professional would have given the amount of dedication you put in this.
Your work has been INVALUABLE for the bundle community and you have no idea how grateful I am, and I think lots of people share the same feeling.
I usually don't post much and thinking of all the times I used your threads as THE source of information for bundles and didn't even say a thank you makes me want to write this to let you know how appreciated it has been, and hoping that knowing this will -if not erase- at lease make the harassment you were victim of a smaller thing.
I don't know what those people want from you, some no-lifers on the internet really seem to have no purpose other than trying to make people lives miserable, I hope you forget about them and find joy in doing something where you're not bothered, and enjoy being here on the other forums without this pressure.
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Thanks for all the efforts!
It is a low appreciation work what you have been doing, but I’m sure a lot of us have used your work to create giveaways with the correct restrictions and have seen bundles that we bought because you linked them here.
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Thank you so much for everything you've done for us, I really appreciate it, and I wish you all the best :)
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You've done an amazing job all these years and I think everyone in the community couldn't be thankful enough for it. It's not without a bit of egoism that I say it's sad to see you stop, but I completely understand your reasons and I only hope that this change improves your life and makes you feel better.
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Thank you for all the meticulous work you always put into your posts, and your contribution to this site! I loved seeing your posts everytime a new bundle would pop up!
Very sorry to hear about the harrassment and everything otherwise making your life more difficult, but glad to hear you will be prioritising your wellbeing going forward!
Best of luck and I sincerely hope everything works out for you and gets better! 💙
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Really happy for you that you could make this decision. It sounds like your hobby became a toxic job over these 7 years. I'm sorry for all the idiots you encountered, you deserve better. I find it hard to understand how these cretins feel entitled enough to put someone down over gaming related matters. Atleast u wouldn't come across such people again.
Hope you are now able to focus on things that serve your mental health and your sleep schedule. Wish you the best!
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Your threads have been tremendously useful for many individuals on here. It is unfortunate that you were harassed given how much effort you have put in over the years. Thank you for everything you have done an I hope that you can enjoy your free time that you now have.
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You will still be around, so this is not goodbye at all (I hope). But let me say what everyone else in this thread is saying: your bundle threads were INCREDIBLY helpful, since they were informative, quick, well organized. They were my go-to source of information to figure out what bundles to buy, what region locks they had, etc.
That said, I can only imagine how much work it has been for you to put them up and mantain them for all these years... so it is 100% understandable that you might want to pass the torch (even without the harassment you mention, that is just ridiculous).
Anyway, again, we will still "see" each other around, right? You should go play some games now (or, hm, starting 01 Jan 2025?)! :D :D
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE!! :D
Cheers!
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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 🚂🚂🚂
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