To be more relevant you should do the same test with games with better visibility. The game you are given away have been given so many times that:
I'm sure the bots alreadys own them. lol
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That was my thought too, but then I considered that it didn't really matter, of the huge pool of SG members I'm sure 99% either have these games or have filtered them. The remainder either wanted to enter or didn't. The remainder of that small number then entered, so yes I was left with a small pool but it was still a relevant pool.
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Also on a side note, still waiting for feedback on the original GA (x2) whereas 90% of the train GAs had feedback within minutes not saying the original winners are bots, just saying that the people that were paying attention and entered the train were actually mostly around to actually mark as received very quickly too.
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I did something similar a while back. I had 4 copies of some bundled games, so I created a public GA for each, then in the description a link to an invite only GA for another GA of the same game. In the 2nd GA, I had a barely hidden link to a 3rd GA (it was a link on a period), and in the 3rd GA I had a hidden link to a 4th. Only two people made it all the way through one of them.
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Can't say I pay THAT much attention to descriptions myself haha :p
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So... aside from "people don't read descriptions" (which is unfortunately kind of old news), I assume this means that bots don't follow links in the descriptions? That or the staff did a really good job of detecting and banhammering the hell out of them.
*ponders*
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I'd say so for sure, it's not like the link was shuffled or anything to make it difficult, so if bots did look for extra GA links they would have seen it and only the real humans would have missed out!
It actually brought an interesting thought, if giving away say 5 copies of a game and you want it open to everyone but not bots, you could public GA 1 with a link to the other 4 ;)
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Some people already do that. I can't say I'd complain about more people doing it.
I'm thinking that perhaps this might mean that the whole obscuring of links in threads might not be quite as useful as we all thought. I can put up with the inconvenience if it scares bots away, but perhaps they're not even there to be scared away to begin with? Hard to say for sure, but your results do hint in that direction.
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And now make yourself the "fun" to look closer on the people from the bigger entry GA(s) and look how much extreme leecher and full region rectricted Givers you find. And yes you can think that they use autojoiners and/or scripts that allow to enter all on a site with one click and without to see the description....
You will be surprised.... or maybe not...^^, and you can fill your BL with them :-D
And as a sidenote .... 8 from 10 of such lvl 0 winners don't know a "thanks"
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Winning and not thanking is unfortunately all too common in today's world (not speaking of SG, but life in general).
I recently learned that saying "thanks for the chance" can be viewed negatively here as "inbox-spam", but courtesy says one ought to thank the giver for the gift if you are able to do so. However, it is all too easy to forget to offer thanks, whether it is because one was distracted, honestly forgot, never even thought of it in that case, or whatever reason despite the best intentions of the recipient's part.
I know I could get better about it in real life myself.
So, in case I ever won something and forgot to say "thanks" to the giver, whoever they might be, Thank you!
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Agreed, I always thank if I win something but I've stopped saying thanks for the chance in GAs unless no-one else has thanked the creator or it's a special giveaway (WL, small group, AAA). When I was thanking every GA I entered I started picking up blacklists. Some people don't like to be thanked I guess! (unless you actually win) ;) I personally don't mind people thanking for the chance, it's only one click to mark everything as read.
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They can put that in the description (some people do), but I don't like such unwritten rules. Because then you get the whole 'how-does-the social-construct-here-expect-me-to-react' kinda thing. Too much hassle, if you don't like getting thanked in a comment, just put it in the giveaway description. :)
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Spam should be opt-in, not opt-out. The only thing 1000x "Thanks for the 1/1000 chance to win a $10 game so 1 cents!!!!!" does is fill the maker's inbox and hide actual messages like asking for rerolls etc between so they go unnoticed. It's the least hassle for everyone involved if you only thank when you actually got something.
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I only speak from thanks after a win. I as exampe demand a thanks. Anyone that don't know that word after a win from me is 1 day later on my BL and can't repeat it in the future by my GA's^^
Thanks for the chance is a different thing because it can change to, annoying, spam for the GA creator.
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Depending on how people have their display settings arranged, many of course don't ever see the descriptions, let alone choose to read them or not. Still, those are stark results. I don't know what they mean, but they sure are stark!
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Decided to get rid of the remainder of two $1 bundles I got from Fanatical and at the same time have some fun in the level 0 GA zone. So I created a GA for the game Midnight Mysteries and then added a link to a small train of other games from the bundle (mostly similar).
Image of original GA
and here was the result of a quick 1 hour giveaway, with the train being 2 hours (I was going to open it in general after the original finished but decided the people that actually read the description and entered deserved their huge chances of some level 0 wins).
Image of entry results
I think the results speak for themselves, either there is a huge number of bots entering competitions or a huge number of people who don't read basic descriptions and can't even glance up to see a url. Anyway it was just a quick basic test for fun but it certainly got an interesting result!
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