As a giveaway creator I think it is more important that the games I give are experienced. I would prefer that a configurable cooldown period could be activated on the winner, disabling point regeneration for x days after win. This would force people to reflect on which giveaways they really want to enter. And give them time to play the game before continuing to enter more giveaways.
I would like to set one month cooldown on all my winners to make sure they actually consider playing it.
The information about cooldowns should only be human-readable, to trap auto joiners in cooldowns.
Edit: after reading the conversation below I no longer consider this a good idea. :)
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Lol, I like this one.
It could mean that people would avoid free or extremely cheap games en masse though. And we would have problem of creator's complaining they did not receive 5 entries in GAs in public GAs
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Well this also solves so called "games" to be given away for easy CV. Win win :D
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I mean region-free public GAs aren't bound by 5 entries to gain CV, so all they need is 1 person to enter.
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Not really, the multiaccounters or the "special groups" will enter then one for the other into the GAs to have the entries (it give much too much multiaccounters -and a good bunch of them are autojoiners on top -at least my group catch a lot of them that should be catched before from the automatic system in the most cases [but it don't happen...]-).
Only the honest users with one account would be hit in the end.
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Well if it is configurable there should be an option to turn it off (maybe by default). That should solve most problems about the minimum entries.
I know this wont be implemented, but still... this is such a nice idea.
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Wouldn't everyone just turn it off then so they could enter as much as they like?
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It would be on creator's side to decide if there is timer after winning their GA
So your last won GA would determine if there is timer or not. At least that's who I understand it.
In this case it should be visible though, to avoid "funny" creators making GAs with extremely long waiting times as a prank
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Oh got it. I thought they meant on the enterer's (not sure if that's a word lol) side. I think the best way to even avoid that troll would be to make a limit on the limit, like 1 month max or something. Otherwise, it could lead to confusion or rerolls if someone didn't read carefully (or didn't fully understand how it worked, the translation was bad, etc.).
Obv. it would catch autojoiners but also, I feel like those autojoiners after seeing the win, would just request a reroll or something until they get something better.
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Yep, exactly. The config should be on the creator side.
I also agree with showing warning about the cooldown period.
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How would rerolls work then? Because I feel like people would just ask for a reroll if the length was too long or they autojoined w/o seeing the length.
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We would implement limit to how many re-rolls you can request from the creator per month 🤣
Obv I'm joking
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I love the idea, I just feel like it couldn't ever be implemented because of the headache it would create in support tickets, discussions, and the like.
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I would like to have support section working like say Origin support. Go through some pre-checks before you're allowed to make ticket. Would save so much time that need to be spent on
"You need to wait week before you can chose new winner"
"You need winner's permission to delete GA"
"You need to submit screenshot of your region on Steam before we can adjust it"
"We can't accept re-roll when you incorrectly chose giveaway regional restrictions"
"We can't change game to something entirely different, only between two versions of the same game"
"We can't change any details of GA when it's already running. You'd need to delete and re-create it"
...
Like interactive FAQ that doesn't allow you to make ticket unless basic requirements are not met. I know it doesn't take long to request more info but if you need to spend few seconds on each ticket to just ask for basic info it does add up.
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OOOOHH, I like that! Most people don't read the FAQs (and sometimes even I don't understand certain parts of what will allow me to contact support and what they can do, so I check the forums), so it would save so much time and effort and lower the support tickets.
The most confusing time was when I had a winner who didn't activate their win within the last 30 days, so I requested a reroll, but by that time I thought the key might've been expired, so I was told to request a deletion instead. Ended up needing 2 support tickets bc I needed to report that winner but also get a giveaway deletion without their permission.
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The most confusing time was when I had a winner who didn't activate their win within the last 30 days, so I requested a reroll, but by that time I thought the key might've been expired, so I was told to request a deletion instead. Ended up needing 2 support tickets bc I needed to report that winner but also get a giveaway deletion without their permission.
That's complicated xD And this kind of issues would need to have "None of the options apply to me" option. Also it may look complicated you need to make "delete giveaway" ticket after "request new winner" is already opened but it's not possible to delete GAs by wrong ticket category. Easier and faster for both creator and support to make new ticket, than look for mod that can manually delete GA. It's also shown that say it was me who deleted your GA, so there is no background or ticket of what happened. Normally I assume someone broke rule when creating GA, when it was manually deleted by a mod.
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oh had something troublesome like that before. dude said to reroll but apparently permission for reroll is not permission to delete so I had to get them to also agree to delete. Luckily didn't require 2 different tickets but was still extra work
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Half of the tickets in each queue would be gone! lol
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Reroll only works if creator makes a ticket and winner agrees.
Winner agreeing alone doesn't grant a reroll.
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True, but if you request re-roll and creator doesn't make ticket they can in the end keep GA forever in "awaiting feedback" status. Or mark it as not received after enough passes. Creator won't get CV in both situations, so they would create tickets.
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Well I mean they can just not touch the key for a week, forcing a reroll. Or they can request one from the creator to save them that headache. I think I asked for a reroll once because I set my OS to mac but I double-checked the game after winning and it looked like it wouldn't open unless I reverted to Catalina (it showed that it could be run on 64-bit mac but the discussions showed otherwise). I made sure to check better after that, but the creator agreed so someone else could actually play it.
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I didnt think much about the rerolls tbh. I would suggest to give the gifter an option whether to activate the cooldown or not, just in case there is an honest offender like those who won the game from other giveaway or something. If we can only choose either one, i would still activate the cooldown tbh, just to warn people to pay attention to the giveaways that they entered.
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Yeah, like I said above, I love the idea but it would 100% turn into a nightmare. I could imagine all the discussions complaining about accidentally entering or how they got to a certain level so they should have shorter cooldowns, or how that's not in the nature of the site, etc.
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Yeah, and it will take a lot of effort and work (for the mods) too. Imagine the tickets that will come when it is newly implemented...
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Well it's SteamGifts, not SteamPlayYourWins. Not gonna happen. And I can't wait for topics "Why GAs cool down time vary so wildly", "We need to have limits on how much we need to wait between winning GAs depending on game's worth!", "I didn't gave away all those games to get to level 10 for you to limit in how many junk GAs (I will never play) I can enter!!".
But would be interesting to see how people's entry habits would change.
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That's why I like giving to PA when the game is good. I had one winner delete his account before having to play the win tho and that kinda turned me off of it for a little bit.
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Well they won't be able to re-create account for a year and will lose all created / won GAs.
Don't think it's something people do willy-nilly
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Oh I understand that, just made me sad that it wouldn't be played bc they literally deleted their account.
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I myself would welcome this change (or something like it -- the minimum could be 8 hours, say), it would make the whole environment more pleasant and relaxed. Count me in the group of slightly compulsive users (yes, a "me-problem", I do understand that), I am one of the (few? I thought there would be more?) people that enter the site right after Humble Choice is revealed to find those oh-so-nice 1 hour GAs. Not very healthy? By making GAs longer, I would have less of a chance of winning, but I would like it anyway.
A secondary positive effect: do remember that bots have an advantage in short GAs (they never have to sleep), so this proposed change would slightly favor human beings to be able to participate in the GAs they want the most.
A tertiary positive effect: longer GAs mean more time for people to realize mistakes and delete GAs they have done wrongly.
Against the proposal, I saw one big argument in the thread -- we would have more GAs active in the main page, which could be annoying. It would not affect me much, since I mainly use the "New GA" page, and the number of GAs I would check would not change at all.
That said, all in all, it is just a threshold (1 hour? 30 minutes? 8 hours? 1 day?), no big deal. I can see from the rest of the thread that most people would dislike this change, so... well, ok, it is fine as it is too.
Cheers!
Edit: folks, do not assume doppelei wants to win more! If he is slighlly compulsive as people are assuming, he manages to spend all his points anyway (like me), and by having more options of GAs to enter, he would just enter different GAs. Ok, I am projecting the way I use the site, but I repeat: with this change, I would probably have LESS of a chance of winning (I work from home, in my computer, I can check the site all the time), but I would use the site less times a day.
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How about no? This site should consider giveaway creators interests first, since that's who spend money after all. And giveaway creators should have freedom on how they want to do their giveaways, if they want giveaways be short - so be it. If somebody has OCD they are free to leave this site or even ask moderators for ban to fight their obsession with this site. Your proposal is just another one of "I want to enter more giveaways" kind.
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As both a giveaway enterer (is that a word?) and a giveaway maker, I disagree about making it a full day, but I do agree that 1 hour is a bit short. Every giveaway I ever make, I have double digit entries in the time it takes me to post the giveaway, then go back to it to double (triple, quadruple, whatever) check the giveaway and make sure I have it all set up right. The speed at which I accumulate that number of entries tells me they're bots.
I use an add-on (called "AutoJoin for SteamGifts" if anybody is interested) that allows me to enter games from the front page, and allows "infinite scroll" (get to the bottom of the page, it auto-loads the next page and attaches it so it looks like I'm scrolling a single page). In fact, that's how I found this site, I stumbled on the add-on, was like "what's that?" and came to check it out. It has an option, which I have never used, to automatically enter certain types of giveaways (for example, whitelisted ones), so I know for a fact bots exist. It's SUPPOSED to be against the rules and get you banned, but I've never actually seen or heard of anybody getting banned for using that.
So, my main complaint about a 1-hour giveaway is not that I don't get to see it, but that it doesn't give actual humans much time to enter it so you have a very high chance of just throwing it away to a bot. This is basically just rewarding people for breaking the rules.
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"To guarantee not missing any giveaway, the users must check every hour for new giveaways. This results in compulsive behaviour, checking the site even every few minutes, every time the user has one brief moment and is unsure of being able to check the site again during the next hour."
Regardless of minimum duration time, if this is something you or others feel compelled to do because you might "miss a giveaway" then it might be a good idea to take a long break from SG.
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Nope, just no. Terrible idea IMO. When you get into a quickie with an interesting game to win and kinda low-ish entries number just consider yourself lucky and smile instead of thinking about all those you "lost" by not being online on SG 24/7 ;-) Besides you can always make a giveaway group with such rules enforced and whatnot.
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Name me one reason why your FOMO as a potential winner should override the existence of options/choices for gifters. And no, your FOMO itself is no reason.
If they want a quick giveaway, they know of the consequence that many will miss out. Their gift, their choice.
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the shorter ones have a higher chance of winning and when im giving shovelware away i just want to get it over with
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From them I brought the idea, and I happily check just twice a day!
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but the result is less opportunities to win due to the number of entries on each GA. . On IG For 7 months i only win feudalife regifted keys and demo beta games, no game from other source. With this kind of system you give less chances to win wishlisted games for normal users (no bot, no multiaccount)
Furthermore, on IG you can reach lvls without an investment by gifting useless dlcs with high value (look actually the warfare tank dlc flood) , free beta keys from alienware or other sites, free keys from feudalife so its specially unfair regarding people who send games they spend money for.
If they apply your suggest, you can remove 30% of my winnings on SG . Thats why I disagree. I see the 1hour gifts as a chance for unlucky users (you may dont understand because you win often actually)
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the primary reason for such a short time limit is a holdover from when this site really was steam-based gifts.
flash sales would be held for a limited time and the gifter could not give the gift a week, or even a day later, since the price changed. Plus potential delay from reaching the winner.
While gifting has all but died with regional restrictions, it still exists to a limited capacity and some people did create gifts from the winter sale - which has ended.
If a person decided to do this at the last minute, they need that tiny window to create it.
My suggestion would be to blacklist items you don't want to see to hopefully increase your chances of seeing the ones you are interested in.
But yeah, it's luck whether you see it in time, sadly.
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Toxic.
Got +30 blacklists for this. What a friendly community.
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lol that kinda cv ratio and still complaining... 31
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Nothing to do with toxicity I just don't like to give to people who are just around to exploit the site. So I blacklisted you too.
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I did not blacklist you because of what you are proposing, but because of what you are
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I think I saw topic like that few times. And all times it ended with "it's up to creator", which is IMO true.
I used to check giveaways constantly when I joined here but at some point stopped. I don't even have time to play games that much anymore. Sometimes I'm even forgetting to check giveaways for days, lol. So guess I have opposite "problem" to you.
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TBH no, because winning on this site is based on pure luck, and some users are luckier than others, so those 1 hour giveaways are pretty much giving more chance to those a bit unluckier users here if they catch that giveaway at the right time.
Even though, I would like very much to be able to enter more giveaways, I am still against this idea, because it is the giveaway creators choice, they are the one that is gifting it and should be given the option to do it however they like.
That is freedom of choice, TBH what are you asking for is basically something like, Buses shouldnt be running every hour, instead they should be waiting for me at the bus stop, because I am sleeping or working and can`t enter them.
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Nah, you just need to accept the fact that you will miss a lot of giveaways and that's fine. After all this is like a free lottery, so why worry about the times you didn't get to participate when you still only win a tiny fraction of the times you do join.
Be happy about the giveaways you actually win and try to not obsess about the thousands you don't or it might consume you. That's how randomness works.
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I like the flexibility and convenience <24 hour GAs provide.
I can make a bunch of giveaways Saturday night, and wake up Sunday morning to send them all out (for example). That's very appealing to me.
Personally, I don't do many (any?) 1 hour GAs, but I can see it being convenient for some people, and if that option wasn't available, maybe they wouldn't do the GA.
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Back when we gained P based ono the number of giveaways, THAT led to compulsive behavior. I had to be on every 20 minutes for the first few hours each time Humble released a new bundle. Now I just check about twice a day. My FOMO is quite low. I don't even know about giveaways I miss in between my site checks.
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Nah i rather have the choice to make quick giveaways
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Hi. I propose that a limit of one day to miminum giveaway duration be enforced on all public and whitelist/group giveaways.
Giveaways can be created with a duration of one hour. Many giveaways are created like this.
To guarantee not missing any giveaway, the users must check every hour for new giveaways. This results in compulsive behaviour, checking the site even every few minutes, every time the user has one brief moment and is unsure of being able to check the site again during the next hour.
Increasing minimum giveaway duration gives the user greater certainty about being able to check the site again, decreasing compulsive checking. Since people routines and schedules are usually organized daily, a duration of one day is the minimal duration that better adjust to most people's lifes.
This applies to public and whitelist/group giveaways, since those demand the user to actively check for updates. Invite only giveaways are announced differently, and not incurr in the compulsive checking deriving from short minimum giveaway duration.
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