Taken from GM-Site:

Friends, it sometimes happens that a result of over 1,5 years of hard work with almost no day offs could be killed with just one push of a button.

It seems that Steam doesn't like when someone provides a great service. Maybe they got jealous, or maybe they don't like the fact that because of GameMiner a huge amount of people in RU/CIS territories learned about Steam and began to use a legal digital game distribution service. I don't know.

The fact is: today Steam has locked all our accounts. Gift receiving account, gift sending account, account for all those gifts from crates (where most of our profits went). They locked even my personal account.

At the moment we have stopped accepting gifts. Of course we immediately wrote to every possible addresses, trying to reach Valve people including Gaben. We will wait for their response.

But if this is a witch hunt – sadly GameMiner as you know and love it will cease to exist. Next several days will show us what to expect.

It pains us the most that we've already had so much great plans (and we've already invested our profits in them).

Our huge re-design update should have raised our content and usability to an out-of-reach level. Also, we have planned to help indie devs to promote their games or to help them pass greenlight. All this free of charge.
Also we’ve been working with some key stores so they would give away hot releases for you in exchange for some ad space. And so on.

It will be a pity if all our efforts just disappear.


So what now, PB/Gala and SG is next?

10 years ago*

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What is gameminer ?

edit : nevermind, googled it.

10 years ago
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Too lazy to google it, let's move

10 years ago
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Bad move steam.. bad move.

10 years ago
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Even shitty Playblink is working OK. But why Gameminer?

10 years ago
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One Steam-related gambling site at a time, I suspect.

GM and PB provided a service that people obviously wanted. I wonder what rule the sites broke, exactly?

10 years ago
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buying in rus and gifting ?

10 years ago
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According to their site, Games purchased on the RU Steam store are nearly all region locked. I don't see why this would be a problem for GM. If people are using VPN to bypass region lockouts, that's on the people doing that. Close the accounts of people who abuse the system, not the people who are legally reselling Steam game keys and gift copies.

10 years ago
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I think reselling your gift copies is never legal according to Steam TOS? Maybe that's the case.

10 years ago
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Bullshit....

10 years ago
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What do you mean bullshit?
May I sell gift subscriptions?

Steam Gift Purchases can not be sold. Attempting to sell a gift subscription is a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and may result in your account being permanently disabled.

10 years ago
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Not in EU countries. Remember law > any license agreement, terms and conditions.

10 years ago
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Just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean they can't lock your account.

10 years ago
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That doesn't mean that they can't revoke your access to their service for doing so, it just means they can't prosecute in that jurisdiction.

10 years ago
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I'm not saying I know the particulars of the existing laws, but in theory there could be a law saying "no one is allowed to deny the reselling of their product," or something of that sort.

10 years ago
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they charge real world money for their gold to enter giveaways, thats probably it

10 years ago
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PlayBlink is kinda doing the same...

10 years ago
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probably next

10 years ago
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I agree with you. This probably the reason...

10 years ago
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They propaganded use of bugs

10 years ago
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This sucks to hear. Hopefully you guys can sort it out with Valve. Gameminer and SG are the only 2 giveaway sites where I have actually won anything on.

10 years ago
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I only used the site shortly but still its sad that this had to happen to people's hard work and the community at Game miner :(

Hope this was just a mis-understanding , good luck

10 years ago
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Will there be any announce about that incident on gameminer site?

10 years ago
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10 years ago
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I was about to say, the OP mentioned that they pulled the quote from their website. :)

10 years ago
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thanks

10 years ago
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It seems I have account there, must have signed up once upon a time and then never gone back. Its sad to see Steam do this, but is it because they dont want cheap RU/CIS copies of games being distributed out to non-RU/CIS countries?

10 years ago
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Don't think so. I've won a RU/CIS game there and couldn't activate it. Just had to put it out for giveaway.

10 years ago
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depends on a game. Region restricted games had a special icon on GM. A lot of cheaper RU/CIS games are not region locked and were freely gifted there (but also on PB, SG and any other site).

10 years ago
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Good luck, Gameminer! I hope Valve wouldn't be "bad guy" in this situation...

10 years ago
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Taking into account how rude sometimes your admins are its seems logical.

10 years ago
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Game Miner turned from a giveaway site into an online casino with all the crates/keys/luck items/gold event stuff they have going on there you can buy for real money. Maybe that's why Valve decided to stop it.

10 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 6 years ago.

10 years ago
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Isn't Playblink similar? You "donate" money to enter better giveaways. When is that being shut down? :D

10 years ago
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They'll probably be next to get locked down, but Gameminer was bigger and it was also a Russian website meaning bunch of games bought for lower prices being gifted to other regions (the regionfree stuff at least)

10 years ago
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But here, on SteamGifts, you can create giveaways for contributors only. What's different from Playblink?

10 years ago
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That's up to the user though if they want to do that or not. And you get cv by gifting games to other random people, not by 'donating' real money to the site owners.

10 years ago
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Steamgifts does not ask for any kind of donations or payments from its members, unlike Playblink or Gameminer.

Also the "economy" on Steamgifts is community-made and driven. You cannot raise your chances by donating to the site owner like on PB and GM.

I'd say this is exactly why sites like SG will survive while others probably wont.

10 years ago
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You're not forced to donate money. You can also level up and increase your chances by only giving Steam Gifts.

10 years ago
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Thanks, Sherlock.

10 years ago
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np Dr. Watson.

10 years ago
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And that justifies everything of course. There is a reason why gambling is heavily restricted in most countries. And on Game Miner you are constantly reminded to spend money for a thousand different things they offer, all related to gambling. There is even a slot machine on a prominent place on the front page...can't get more obvious than that.

It's even worse since most people on these sites are probably young adults or kids who don't know how to deal with money in a responsible way yet.

10 years ago
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Not on Playblink, the contributor giveaways are only available to those who donate money to the site.

10 years ago
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Thinking about that now I see why CG never acepted the "Donate money to suport SG" idea even with many topics and people talking about it and about how they would like to donate to help and stuff.

10 years ago
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i guess, this is the reason CG don;t make donation option

10 years ago
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I don't think they will get shut down. I'm not too sure but for GM didn't you have to buy coal or whatever to enter giveaways?

You don't need to for PB, except for special giveaways, and those "donate to charities"(Like 10%? or some Shit.)

10 years ago
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it's the same system. YOu didn't need to buy coal, you could wait for it to regenerate same as on PB. You could buy yourself entrance to higher chances GAs with gold (real money) same as on PB you can donate and gain limited-time entrance to better GAs as well. And if you ndonatemoney on PB you also get shitload of points. I don't see any difference here to be honest.

10 years ago
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Ah. Well I only use GM like once, so barely now anything about it.

"You could buy yourself entrance to higher chances GAs with gold (real money) same as on PB you can donate and gain limited-time entrance to better GAs as well." Does some of it go to charity? Maybe that was part of the problem.

10 years ago
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honestly giving 10% to charity is just a lazy excuse. 90% goes to owner anyway.

10 years ago
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thats how the site recive some money to provide the service sg have on every giveawaysite a advertising add gm dont have some adds.

10 years ago
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I didn't know about Playblink until now. Looks a bit fishy as well. Maybe they get away with it because they donate to charity...lol. Still, Game Miner looks worse, almost like an online casino.

10 years ago
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yeah

10 years ago
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Its sad to hear...
I won games only from gameminer and steamgifts...

10 years ago
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Steam went just full retard mode, never go full retard mode.

10 years ago
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"full retard mode" You just went full retard. Never go full retard.

10 years ago
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Aaannnnddd... You went full retard, even tough you have been warned not to.

claps

10 years ago
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Coincidence or not just got my fear 3 humble key revoked that i won on GM!

10 years ago
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Yeah, but its cause the CC fraud..Humble revoked a lots of keys, blame the giveaway creator.

10 years ago
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Might be case of someone dumped stolen games to them and they then redistirbute them further.

10 years ago
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There were a TON of ARMA2 and 3 giveaways just a little while ago.

10 years ago
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I think it has to do with the cheap games accuired from RU/cis and won by other people. I hope they can get it sorted out. Even if they have to go back to just serving the Russian federation and cis countries again.

10 years ago
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It has nothing to do with cheap games.

10 years ago
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Gameminer always felt like that fishy version of SteamGifts. They were making profit with people giving gifts to each other. I doubt that is allowed in the terms of use.

Not that I liked winning and dumping extra keys at that site.

10 years ago
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scroll a little bit down and look at the adds here you dont find some on gm. what you guys think that provide a service like that are free?

10 years ago
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Yes, but you don't buy points with real money on SteamGifts. Neither you are given the option to open crates with said points to acquire games.

10 years ago
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Are you comparing a few ads to some of the things GM does?

10 years ago
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i'm very sad to hear this. GM is my first GA site I can enter. my first GA i won. Good luck for you.

10 years ago
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Someone always digs too deep...

10 years ago
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10 years ago
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LOTR reference ?

10 years ago
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надеюсь что СТИМовцы поймут опрометчивость такого шага и произведут разблокировку аккаунтов

10 years ago
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Merry Christmas.... Steam deleted my humble warner bross bundle (traded) and now this.... Thanks :/

10 years ago
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That was your fault. You should've had better sense than that. "Gee, a bundle is being sold by this trader for $2 less than you can actually buy it? Wow, this must be legitimate!"

10 years ago
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^

10 years ago
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hahahah, i am mostly amazed with people who have problems with their bundle then ask about it to their sellers, and just nod and give smileys :) :) when the seller gave them new urls and say thanks like it's all good nao. even at 3tf2 keys per humble url, their brains didnt function when the seller can replace their humble urls not only once but sometimes twice or thrice :D

10 years ago
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Good, I won two games there a year ago and didn't get any of them. Serves them right to be closed down.

10 years ago
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tough luck D:

10 years ago
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by your logic we should close SG every time some idiot post a fake GA?

I won 21 games on GM and received all 21 of them.

10 years ago
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Well, i won 74 games there and all received and legit.

10 years ago
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ZAEBCA EPTA

10 years ago
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I've got a bad feeling that TremorGames might be the next one...

10 years ago
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If this is the only way to stop the reflink spam all across Steam, then I'm fine with it.

10 years ago
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Why would they shut down TremorGames? as far as I can see it's like Kongregate with some games giving you points which you use to buy the games. They're not connected to Steam in anyway. Hell you even create a seperate account where as GM used the steam login integration thing.

10 years ago
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please close it already

10 years ago
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I actually just don't want SG to be shut down. Everything else is fine.

10 years ago
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SG is safe, as it doesn't have any steam bot account to receive, stock and send games. You exchange games contributor-winner face to face. What I am afraid now is that they make start taking actions against individual contributors who give away games on SG. Especially ones that do it a lot and have a lot of "movement" on their account.

10 years ago
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Every Russian is thief and crook

10 years ago
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Like your mother

10 years ago
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Dunno how I missed this. Get out.

10 years ago
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Shit, I thought he was beign sarcastic. I'd be a failure as a mod lol

10 years ago
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I think he actually was since he's Russian himself. But who knows.

10 years ago
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Poe's Law.

10 years ago
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Yeah, exactly. The first thig I did after reading that comment, was taking a look at his profile. Not that I'm sad he got a vacation, tho. Rules are rules, and I've been suspended from SG because of a comment that was meant to be "funny"

10 years ago
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like I said. Poe's Law. You did check his profile. Me and probably many users did not. And because of that it doesn't matter if he was trying to be funny or was seriously stating his opinion. Without background check you were unable to see this. And if he'd went unpunished othera that has seen his comment and took it seriously may have tought it's ok to say things like that on forums.

10 years ago
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Jade for president!

10 years ago
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What about Galagiveaway? it's my first both introduction to bundle and giveaway, I hope they will be fine.

10 years ago
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nah, they like SG, i don;t think they will get any trouble

10 years ago
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Closed 10 years ago by makromatee.