I think it's a nice idea, though not really a solution to anything. As others have said, the idea of circles (several friend lists) would make it better.

While I don't like contributor giveaways, and won't mind getting rid of them, this friend list idea is more like an added feature than a solution to anything.

I still think that the "brownie point" idea (which I posted about in the other thread) will work better, as it should still reward contributions but with a little less friction.

I don't like this option, I prefer the 1st option a lot more.

And what is if someone wants to make different giveaways with different requirements? Do they have to manually remove old friends and add new friends for each giveaway? :/

In that case the friends system would be a lot worse than the group giveaway sytem.

Sounds much better than the first one, but it's still not perfect.

To be honest, this pushes forward the notion that SteamGifts is nothing but a blind trade site.

You'll kill the site if you do this.

This option is like 100 times better than previous one. I've always wished a system like that where i can control who enter the giveaway and who not. Private giveaways don't have a limit and everyone with link can enter, group giveaways are also kinda same because friends kept inviting their friends and so on.

Positives:

• controlling who exactly can enter the giveaway
• no more "y u no let me enter Fortix coz i dun haev 1000$ contrib" crying
• bundle keys are allowed (damn i'd literally kill for a Puzzle Agent key..summer sale made me broke xD)

Negatives:

• less social people (like me) will have a hard time to get new friends

Anyways, i like this option :)

lol ya

This seems pretty much useless IMO.
If I wanted this I'd just open a private giveaway and give the URL to the people I chose. Not particularly difficult, and it effectively accomplishes the same thing and does so without removing existing options.

This solution is less appealing then the status quo. Definitely favor the previous solution.

I dont like this

I don't think you should remove contributor giveaways. Regardless of whether people gifting something to boost their contributor's value or purely for the sake of giving, they're still giving games away. There's been an explosion of giveaways with the contributor system added. Sure there are ways to exploit it, there's a questionable sincerity of giveaways created, but the pros for the system overweights the cons majorly, and the main reason is more giveaways.

Friends system sounds interesting, but that's another 'closed' giveaways type. Contributor giveaways, on the other hand, are public, they have a clear requirement that everybody can see, and this actually pushes many people to give away more games. I mean, it even stimulated my best friend (who was never into this site that much and never gave away anything) to actually get the game and give it away here.

So all in all I like the first solution much better. Removing the system is not the solution, in my opinion, and friends system is definitely not the replacement for contributor giveaways. It'd be interesting to see it being implemented, but, like I said earlier, this is just another closed type of giveaways which will not help stimulating gifting in any way. And many people do need this stimulation to give something away, especially if they haven't won anything yet.

I like the first option better. I think this is a little elitist, for example I create giveaways but I am not so active at the forums, I can participate in contributors giveaways but maybe will be left out in "friends" giveaways

I'm not sure I like this idea too much to be honest. I mean, like others have said some people may not be able to make a lot of friends because they don't have time to socialize or don't want to get overly involved with the community.

Another thing is maybe that new kinds of begging or annoyances will arise, like people going around trying to get gift givers to be their friends and such.

Also, I think this will possibly lead to elitist groups who basically swap games with each other. Yeah I know we already have Steam community groups like that, and I don't like the idea of making more ways to create boundaries between users. The contributor thing was tolerable because the idea behind it was still solid - giving a little reward for people who gift, but I'd be more than okay to discard it in the face of issues like bundle abuse. Giving games should be about helping out those who may not be able to afford games or to simply make people happy.

Honestly, I don't even know who I'd add to as friends - I'd rather just do a large group giveaway or public/semi-public (e.g. puzzles) than a friend giveaway. I don't think I want to be creating any special exclusive clubs of my own.

Friend circles are a good idea and should be implemented...but as others have said, contributor's too good of a thing to remove entirely.

The thing about contributor giveaways is, they're a way for people to prove their niceness and reliability without actually having to spend time on these forums (and we all know just how caustic these forums are). Removing them doesn't do anything but prevent people who don't have a lot of free time to spare from being able to increase their odds of winning things.

Should they just be buying games instead of entering giveaways if they have that much money? Maybe. But you aren't allowed to look down on people who give lots of games away and also look down on people who give little to nothing away. (Unless you're a sociopath.)

Huh, that's pretty complicated, so the option #1 is better... Anyway, I suggest another solution. Basically let it be as it's now, just make sure that people know the rules. And if someone disrespects the rules, use the suspension hammer.

So here's my solution:

• New rule: If a game was in an indie bundle, giving away a key of this game isn't allowed at all.
• New rule: If someone is giving away a tradable copy of a game that was in a bundle, his inventory must be public.
• New information box and checkbox if a bundle game is selected. An example here.
• If someone breaks this rule - 1-3 weeks suspension
• If someone breaks this rule more than once - 1-6 months suspension

What do you say? :3

Even with the explanation, the system sounds entirely redundant, and unnecessary. I don't mind the contributor system, in fact, I like setting my giveaways to $0.01 as to only allow those that have contributed to enter. Really this still just seems like the current private giveaway system, only again. Pointless.

I prefer option #1 to this. It's nice to have a friend system and provide gifts to only your friends, but I think the nice thing about the contributor system is that it gives something back to those who support this site and keep it alive by gifting games. It creates a feeling of being part of a large community of gifters. The contributor system increases the number of giveaways on the site while also adding incentive for non-contributors to give something so they can enter more exclusive giveaways. This second option will just create small pockets of users who gift to each other and break up the community.

I still wish steamgifts would just calculate contributor value based on the value of the gift at time of giving, using Steam's current value (including sale price if needed). Support team could mark bundle games as they come out and set the date the bundle came out, so it would affect users who give bundle games from that date forward and not legitimate giveaways from before the bundle existed. It would add incentive for users to give games while they are new and worth lots of points, rather than just giving cheap indie games that don't devalue which seems to be the current trend.

I like the contributor giveaway how it is. I just may not know the "headaches" it's caused, but I see it as a leech preventative. It's not like EVERYONE does the contributor giveaway's anyhow.

nty

". . . we can return to gifting for the purpose of gifting. We might see a few less users and giveaways on the site, since we'd no longer be providing anything in return, but maybe those are the users we shouldn't be fighting to keep."

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. That said, I don't see anything wrong with having contributor giveaways unless it generates too much workload trying to just keep people honest for you guys to handle it. If it's just too much, then drop them. Otherwise, I like the first idea. I think it was an excellent compromise. People like me will dislike the fact that that much credit is still allowed for exploiters, and the exploiters will continue to whine about losing their massively inflated values. No one is really completely happy with it, which is usually a good sign where compromise is concerned. Everyone should feel just a little cheated. Honestly, you should probably ignore most, if not all, of the criticism leveled at it saying that it's unfair to some people to decrease their values because some of them are legitimate, yadda yadda yadda. Firstly, those are a minority of cases. Secondly, even most of those will only have a relatively small reduction in value. I, for one, stand to lose over 10%, due primarily to some KF giveaways I did back when they had their million copies event. That's probably at the higher end of the scale percentage-wise of what you can expect to see most legitimate gifters losing. There are probably a very few, very rare exceptions that will lose significantly larger chunks of value, but, as a rule, if your value drops by half or more after adjustments, it probably should. That said, I like this idea, too, and I think both should be implemented.

tl;dr: Can't it be both?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I would have to friend everyone I wanted to join my giveaway? That seems like a lot of leg work to give away a game. If I want everyone to have a shot at it....well..that's going to take awhile. Also what if people don't add you as a friend? You don't get to enter any giveaways? Kinda lame if you personally give games away too, may as well just trade them or give them to friends who probably won't play them or just let them sit there. I'm still pretty new here and I don't know anyone personally. No idea if any of this makes sense, I'm stupidly tired.

TLDR; Seems like a bad idea, yes something needs to be done but I don't think this is it.

This should be implemented even if the contribution remain or not.

I think it is too much similar to group/private giveaways.

Imo best of the three but alas far from being the best available

Not a fan of this option.