There was a discussion about the issue already, see the details here https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Y56WH/urgent-cg-and-support-steams-new-feature-breaks-sg

I had an idea, I have verified it in the beta, you can't wishlist privated games. There could be a switch at giveaway creation, where the giveaway creator can decide to mark it wishlist only. This ensures only people who have it on their wishlist can enter. Maybe it's a AAA game and the creator wants to make sure, that only people who don't own it for sure can enter. It should be optional at creation. Maybe the key is not that wanted and people wouldn't bother to add it to their wishlist, because no one wants to have an endless wishlist for games you don't really want. But if you really want a game, add it to your wishlist and sync. Not a big price for a game you really want.

This should be the only option for DLCs and bundles imo, it would prevent people entering bundles while owning everything.

Some people said you could already kind of do this, because apparently you can remove and add back games through the support page or somewhere.

I've been on Steam for 10+ years, read the forums here somewhat regularly and I had no idea, that you can just remove and add back games. Also I think you can't play a game if it was removed. So probably, not too many people have exploited this because it's kind of hidden, not that obvious.

On the other hand, the private game feature is really visible, you can buy a game as private, it shows up as an option when you buy a game. It will never appear in your profile. You can just keep playing the game if it's private. This makes it easy, comfortable and kind of obvious to exploit. Could be a more significant problem than it already is, if it really is.

I made this topic, because I think this should be easy to implement on the site and I don't see serious drawbacks. All the necessary information is already being imported from steam. I commented this in the previous topic, but no one really said anything, that would make this a bad solution.

UPDATE:
So I have made an sgtools checked giveaway to try it out for myself. It's relatively easy with the wishlisted_game_date rule, you just set the date after the giveaway end date.

https://sgtools.info/giveaways/5f7557a9-3a51-4c74-8d78-e7b81c728d5e
(27/01) https://sgtools.info/giveaways/fc082abb-e702-46ba-8b08-ce497a1e2f77

I will also check manually if you have everything on your wishlist, before sending the gift(fanatical), so no funny business, you sketchy tricksters <3

10 months ago*

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In case you aren't aware and because implementations might take a while, SGTools already supports wishlist requirement. Doesn't help regarding users who put everything on it, but for the majority it does.

10 months ago
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you can set a condition about having max some amount of games in wishlist

10 months ago
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Oh, true. It's been a long time since my last SGTools GA.

10 months ago
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What does this mean? Does sgtools have this wishlist only feature or not? I can't try it out, since I don't have a giveaway.

10 months ago
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sgtools allows you set conditions as you wish. Like must have game in wishlist, but also must have for example <500 games in wishlist. To filter people with script that just adds every game to your wishlist when it is added on steam

10 months ago
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I probably would never enter those gas then- been some years now since steam opened the flood gates (asset flips, mature games etc) that i found it so hard to filter what could be good from the majority bad i started using the wishlist as a filter- any game i think 'this might interest me later' goes there... also most demos i like in next fest
That way whenever theres a sale and such i exclusvely browse my WL, and as i do so i end up cleaning some (either from buying to actually diving in reviews etc)

Long story short- my WL right now is precisely 4300 titles, and thats because been quite some weeks ive only removed itens from it (and bought one, firewatch)

I really wish steam allowed us to make different lists (usable in search/filter during sales) so i could have a sane 'actually most wanted' list but...

9 months ago
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Lol, pretty much the same. I have currently 8573 games ignored and 2149 wishlisted. Why? Because I don't want to check again and again the same games, that are currently rare in GAs and I just wouldn't remember, if I checked them in the past. So almost every "new" game, that I see in my GA list I immediately check, read reviews if needed and then se to either ignored or wishlisted.
I sure would prefer to have just here a wanted category, giving me a mark next to game's GAs, but I work with what I have ;)

Works pretty well, even though I began doing so just like 2 months ago - my whole GA list is just 3 page long with only 13 games on the 3rd page.

9 months ago
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Oh yeah, forgot to mention how helpful it is on SG as well. Before i went the WL way i used to spend quite some time hiding games on SG but manually doing that was too much and a gave up. The more my wl grew the more i filtered for WL and for awhile now i only browse wl GAs

9 months ago
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I have never used sgtools, because you have to check forums for those giveaways and I feel that is too restrictive and time consuming. With this solution, they would still show up in the regular lists with visible giveaway details. Only it would tell you to add it your wishlist if you want to enter, just like a level restricted giveaway.

10 months ago
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I get that, but there haven't been many new implementations lately. Also it allowed people to just wishlist the game for the giveaway. In SGTools you can additionally set a date in the past.

10 months ago
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Yeah, that's the only drawback with this, it needs to be implemented here. But most of the sgtools features are used to filter out users based on their stats, not necessarily 'cheaters' and it is unnecessarily restrictive by default. But this solution is different, it would help keep things fair and non restrictive. I think it's important, because when this private game feature leaves beta, it will tempt a lot people to just buy good games as private and try to win it here later. Hell they could private all their owned games and just try to win everything they own and didn't already win here.

Sgtools at least should have a list of 'public' giveaways.

10 months ago
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If you make the sgtools rules for a giveaway secret, it wont tell the person why they didnt pass, from what I've seen.
I have not done a sgtools GA, but it does seem to reduce the number of spam entries from the ones I've entered.
I believe sgtools can be bypassed, but sgtools can also tell you if the person did not enter thru sgtools.

10 months ago
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That's nice but I don't think majority of Steam users use Wishlist accordingly. And especially for DLC. I think all the games I wanted on my wishlist but the DLC of the games I play 100+ hours, I think most of them not on my wishlist - and yes I do want them.

Bump in case as any solution will be a good solution it seems

10 months ago
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I have a big wishlist, I have never felt it bothers me. It would be a small price to pay for keeping the site fair. This is why I said it should be optional at creation, if you feel like you really want that game, it's your choice to add it to your wishlist or not. You could still view giveaway details, it should just say on the button it's wishlist only.

10 months ago*
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Clever solution I like it.

10 months ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/SXQ3GSg Looks like it started to happen already... At this point it wouldn't be a big hassle, to just set all the somewhat valuable games, that you didn't win here, to private.

10 months ago*
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jump for ga

10 months ago
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So the wishlisted game date checks if you have the game wishlisted already before the given date I'm guessing?

At least seems to be working fine if yes, since it said I don't meet the requirements. Though as I already own the game I can't verify if it works if I had it wishlisted.

10 months ago
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Yeah it works, a few friends checked if it let's them to enter with some missing items, it does not. This should really be implemented here, it's a bit cumbersome to do the rule manually for a bundle.

10 months ago*
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bump ga

9 months ago
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BUMP

9 months ago
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bump

10 months ago
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I see that on your SGTools giveaway, it asks that the games be wishlisted since 20th January, so 5 days in the future. Does that mean someone can add the game to their wishlist and still be able to enter the giveaway?

I think if this giveaway type (wishlisted only) was built into SG, I think it should have this feature too. So a giveaway creator can allow people to wishlist after the giveaway is created, eg. if they see it on the front page and want to enter. Giveaways that don't allow for wishlists after creation would not appear to non-eligible users. The downside is that there could be more site traffic due to people syncing their profiles more often.

10 months ago
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It means before 20th January, it's after the giveaway ends. So anyone, who added before that date can get the link. It's unnecessary, but it was the simplest rule that checks if the item is on the wishlist. It works, I got feedback already.

I don't think reading the steam API for user data adds that much overhead, it would already be limited otherwise. Takes a lot more to serve the site. The alternative is leaving the bar for abuse low.

Also, wishlist only giveaways should be visible, just like higher than user level giveaways.

10 months ago*
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Will time zone come into play if there's a date?

10 months ago
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Doesn't matter you can add any date in the future, at least two days to make sure, the giveaway ends today I have added the 20th in the sgtools rule.

10 months ago
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If someone leak the giveaway link it would diminish the efforts.

10 months ago
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With sgtools you can check if the winner passed, I will also check manually. But the real solution would be to have this implemented in steamgifts, so you can leak whatever you want. Also this could work with public giveaways, same way as level restrictions.

10 months ago
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That's exactly my point, sgtools is merely a palliative.

10 months ago
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It's a band-aid, I just made this as a demo, to show that this could work with minimal logic, for now sgtools is a good enough helper. But we will need to have simpler solution, before people start to test the limits of private games. Basically they can set everything to private, that they didn't win here, it's too easy and you can't really do anything else to prevent it.

10 months ago
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I can't add a lot of games to my wishlist now, because I'm from Russia and I assume it's fair in general for games, which aren't accessible through Steam in your region, but still accessible through game stores.
Also I don't know, if it's fixed or not, but there was a bug when random game(s) may not appear in your wishlist, if wishlist has more than 50-100 games or something. I don't know, if it affects SGTools, though.
Also I can't enter SGTools for some reason ("You don't have permission to enter this resource"). Edited: it turned out SGTools are blocked for Russia/Belarus too.

10 months ago*
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Well I'm sorry, it's a tricky situation, there are few more countries that have the same kinds of restrictions. This is why I said the wishlist only switch should be optional, it would depend on the GA creator how they want to make the giveaway available. But because of a few countries we shouldn't let everyone else to abuse the system. Btw the key isn't available in Russia https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-definitive-edition

10 months ago
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Sure thing, I agree - just wanted to mention all 3 cases.
I don't know about Middle Earth (I own it fully, anyway) and Fanatical specifically (Fanatical also doesn't work in Russia) - just know that some other games are still accessible via other stores and don't have region restrictions.

10 months ago
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I could send the winner the key, but it wouldn't activate and it's 100%, that I'm not going to get another key if they can't even access fanatical, because I will be sending it through their system. Or the key could be from those other stores, but those reseller stores get the keys from the same place, I don't think you can get a key for SoW, that activates in a russian account, maybe a really old one, that was generated before the restrictions, but likely not. I guess if the key isn't old, you couldn't activate the keys for games you can't even wishlist on steam.

10 months ago
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Thanks! Good point regarding old keys! That explains it.
I guess, indeed, I see giveaways for restricted games, because keys for them weren't restricted back then. This also explains, why I don't see new released games long after date most restictions were applied.
Then 1. isn't an issue too (Edited: apart from old keys giveaways and only for cases, when game was accessible) and there may be only issues in case of 2. (when wishlisted games disappear from whishlist), but I'm not sure about that either (maybe only visual issue on Steam).
So, yeah - maybe it's an effective way to deal with private games case.

10 months ago*
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That would be nice if it was implemented. Not sure how difficult would it be to implement that into the site though.

View attached image.
10 months ago
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^^

10 months ago
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I wouldn't like it if it were "you can only enter if you wishlist before GA was created", since I find wishlist to be useless due to Steam being most expensive store around.
But I wouldn't mind "you can only enter if you wishlist before GA ends".

I feel a lot of "totally not robots" will suddenly add whole Steam to their wishlist :D

10 months ago
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For the private game issue, the date is irrelevant, we just have to know if they can add it at all.

I think there's a limit for the wishlist length, but don't quote me on that. I'm at 3500+, no issues.

10 months ago
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I'm at 3500+, no issues.

I used to add all the games from here to my wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/recommender/
Someone complaint that they cannot make a surprise gift for me, due to my wishlist takes forever to load.
This could be an issue.

10 months ago
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yeah some time ago, it was really slow, but nowadays it takes a few seconds

10 months ago
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I thought about it and it's a viable solution imo. Another solution I might add that will never be implemented by cg.

9 months ago
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I've no clue what is going on here but I guess have a bump.

9 months ago
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Just a way to make sure, that people don't own the game as private. Also a way to make sure if they don't own some DLC.

9 months ago
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Bump!

9 months ago
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Dishonored is an amazing game, so are its sequels. 😳 Bump!!!

9 months ago
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direct activation to the winner's Steam account without revealing any key would be the best solution
no idea if it can be implemented on SG

9 months ago
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that's not possible. happy cakeday btw

9 months ago
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This seems like an interesting idea.

no one wants to have an endless wishlist for games you don't really want.

I'm at 3500+

This is funny.

8 months ago
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It could be bigger. It has only games that seemed interesting and not too bad. It grew over the past decade I've been on steam.

There's no perfect solution here. This is why I say this feature should be optional, most of the giveaways are garbage anyway. But once in a while you want to gift something good and you might want to make sure you don't gift it to someone who already owns it.

8 months ago
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Speaking on the matter of privated games, I also noticed that if you mark as private any game in your library, it will appear as if you don't own that game to other users, BUT the amount of games you own on your profile will NOT change.

8 months ago
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Interesting find. But you can't know from that what they actually have.

8 months ago
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