Wonderful change, thank you! Should really help support, and multiple wins are such a tricky beast anyway (often hard to fix).
Anybody who's legitimately complaining about any minimal downside isn't, in my opinion, seeing the big picture.
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You're right-- I hadn't seen your reply. I skimmed the first page of the thread, then jumped to the end of the thread to comment.
While I haven't analysed every all pros/cons of every argument for and against this new feature (and its variants), I maintain that the overall benefit to support staff (cutting way down a category that accounts for 25% of our total tickets) and users (making it much "harder" to win multiple copies, which can be difficult to get fixed especially for bulk/dev giveaways or places where the GA creator doesn't care to request a reroll) far outweigh any collateral impact on P management, fake GAs, and even bot-fighting. Maybe a savvy SG user will stop entering GTAV GAs from new level-0 users so they don't risk invalidating their entries into far-more-likely-to-be-legit giveaways.
I hope you no longer feel like I'm shallowly dismissing your arguments-- you've clarified some of the collateral negative impacts I hadn't considered, but again, I just feel like the pros heavily outweigh the cons, even for users (though especially for support).
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I, for one, am thrilled I might not ever have to do a reroll ticket again.
Seems like most everyone is looking at this as what i might possibly lose. (basically an entry or some p)
If you actually do enough public give aways, you'll know this is a win.
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Very useful, thank you for adding this feature! :)
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After winning any game, clear whole giveaway entry list (including hard-to-find-again invite only) and optionally freeze points at 0 for some time (days). To peacefully play the game, without distractions ;3
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I really appreciate the new feature. :)
It is really helpful.
Great job! 😎
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Very useful for support and members.
Thanks for it!
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Nice one however I would add two things. A safety mechanism against fake GAs like JustArchi proposed and a feature to reroll a GA by the winner for the cases when he bought the game in the meantime or it wasn't recognized as owned in the first place(with a limit of lets say 10% of entries[minimum 1] to prevent abusers from making private GA for friends only and rerolling till a chosen one wins. Alternatively simply enforcing a sync before the reroll and validating if the user has the game would also do the trick).
I know that there's the matter of trust and the winner could simply activate the game and than request a reroll, however I don't know what he could achieve by doing it unless he's going for a ban. Furthermore he already can achieve the same thing by writing to the GA creator and asking him to create a reroll ticket.
I don't know what are the statistics for GA deletion tickets but at last from what I could see most cases when the winner requests a reroll end up as rerolls not GA deletions. The problem could be also solved with hiding the key until the winner requests to show it(just like the GA creator has to "send" the key), but that would require slightly more changes to the site.
Btw is there any chance to add a similar feature to remove entries on sync(an empty technical account could be used to filter out games from the free weekend promotions)?
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What about those end at the same time? Because recently there were someone created two giveaways and there were one entry for one while about ten for the other one. He ended up winning both and left a comment on the second giveaway for giveaway creator to ask for a re-roll. If he didn't choose it, and the re-roll happened on the first one, wouldn't this be a problem? (This may happen even for those that end closely.)
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Remember, if you ever win a game more than once, you should only redeem one copy, mark additional copies as not received, and ask those giveaway creators to request a new winner.
I thought we shouldn't mark any of the options?
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Technically yes - but we understand that the notification can be annoying, since it might be there for a while. So once you've notified the giveaway creator that you need a reroll in the giveaway comments, you can mark that giveaway Not Received to get rid of the notification.
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Only if reroll takes more then week) Because there is no way to mark as not received before this)
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good to know, thanks
I hated to have the symbol there for a few days when I had to wait for the reroll
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I just saw how this feature worked. It's amazing! Great user experience! Thank you!!!!
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Don't know if it has been pointed out yet, but entries from giveaways for a game should be removed if we activate a game and then sync the account as well, instead of just getting to win the game for the entries to be removed. Archi's suggestions nonetheless are pretty on spot and should definitely be considered, if not implemented.
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Thanks a lot! It was long expected feature!
I expected that removing entries will be after marking as received, but actually your way have advantages, so I believe it is a good decision.
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Oh, most glorious. I so wish this was a thing a few weeks ago for my 1000 copy GA...
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too many posts to read
this should work only after clicking recieved, to prevent
what happens next ? can i enter those ga's again till i sync the site ? or first i need to click not recieved, when the ga creator fails ?
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Would be nice to have an archive of entered giveaways in case the giveaway creator won't send the game. Especially useful for invite only giveaways that will be nearly imposible to find after removing the entries. Or some other solution. But in general, even without any way of quick re-entering the giveaway, it is a positive change so thanks for your hard work :)
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What about this scenario?
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Person sees GA#1 for a game they want.
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Uses steamid1 to enter to win that game.
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Creates a public GA#2 for same game with 10,000 copies available to win, using steamid2 and ending just before GA#1.
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steamid1 does NOT enter GA#2.
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GA#2 ends, and 10,000 entries for GA#1 are immediately removed (assuming that all people that entered GA#2 also entered GA#1), improving steamid1's (who did not enter GA#2) chance to win GA#1 immensely.
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10,000 copies GA#2 is fake, so no one that entered both GA#1 and GA#2 have any chance of winning the game. But steamid2 has greatly increased chance of winning GA#2 (perhaps 100% chance if no one else entered GA#2 but not GA#1 and < 10,000 entries).
This is an extreme example to illustrate the problem, but increasing your chance of winning GAs on a smaller scale (for private or group GAs for example) is possible and may not even be noticed.
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and may not even be noticed
aren't "x" amount of people that don't actually receive the game gonna notice? the banhammmmmma was invented for these purposes. ^^
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Yes, and steamid2 will be in trouble, but no easy way to connect that ID with steamid1 who will be scot free.
It would probably be difficult to do this more than a few times (you would need multiple steam accounts with > $100 worth of games) so it may only be a one time thing, but multiple people could do this one-time thing to get a AAA game (on a smaller scale, for instance if you are in a private GA that only has 20 or so entries, you make a public GA for 20 copies of that game and hope everyone enters that too).
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in a small group getting in with 2x steamid's to do that would be slim, but still with large risk. in the large scale it would get caught instantly.
the small scale one may not get caught till it happens a few times if they managed to work their way into that small of a group to even take advantage of with two accounts, but then support can investigate ip addresses and match it to the other one and both are perm suspended for doing multi-accounting. large scale same thing but even easier to catch.
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Only one of the IDs would have to be in the group, the other could just make a public GA and hope other members of the group enter that public GA.
Proxy/VPNs can hide source IP addresses.
I'm not saying it would be easy to exploit this, but just something to think about. Having the power to automatically remove other people's entries from a GA is something that needs to be fully fleshed out to make sure it can not be exploited.
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it doesn't matter how many copies the user creates it for, not everyone will join it and then their entire plan is flawed towards a 100% odds. the only way it would significantly impact people from removing entries is if it was a mass GA, and those people would of had to of given quite a bit in order to create a mass GA. so i seriously don't see side accounts causing havoc trying to exploit this in any method.
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The big issue I can see, is that the account being used to do 10,000 copies either has to claim developer priveleges, or build it up naturally with tons of successful GAs. In either case, the bar is going to be very high to pull off this sort of attack.
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I was just using 10,000 as an exaggerated example, the same thing can be done with smaller group or private GAs with the bogus GA being for a smaller number of prizes.
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In the case of private GAs, to add insult to injury, not only could one artificially inflate the chances of winning, but maybe even hurt the original GA creator by causing enough of the entries to be removed that it falls under 5 entries, thereby, original GA creator no longer gets any CV for it, in the case of private/invite only GAs.
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steamid2 does not have the game to give, the GA he created was fake. Anyone who enters the fake GA, and "wins" will have their entry removed from the REAL GA. Then the real GA ends and the winner is selected from a much smaller pool of entrants (anyone who did not enter or win the fake GA).
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Yeah, that was just an example, it can be done on a smaller scale to win a group or private GA (with the fake GA being public).
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the small scale won't have any effect though, it can't really increase their odds of winning but a microscopic amount with a public GA if at all.. lets say you got 5 people only to compete with. u make a public GA containing 3copies. maybe, just maybe you get insanely lucky and 1person wins one of those 3copies.. gratz, you effectively raised your odds by 5% at an extraordinary chance to both accounts being perma banned.
the chances of getting someone you want to remove from a group GA are micro. your odds are practically as high as they are gonna get as it is, why add such a massive risk to your account to just "maybe" increase your odds microscopically?
edit: wrong percentage at first. i said 20%, but the actual raise is only 5%, from 20% odds to 25% odds.
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Yeah, I guess you're right. It just makes me uneasy that one persons illicit actions can cause someone else's entries for another GA to be removed, even if they do so for no personal gain.
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that already happens no matter what system is in place unfortunately, a fake giveaway still caused lots of people to manually remove entries prior to this change. i know i didn't wait to receive it before i'd pull entries. if it's a game that is that significant to me i just purchase it. my one and only not received win i purchased instead of worrying about winning it again.
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The reason why this is impossible is that the account 2 can only create 3 GA at the beginning.
So you can't really do it (not even in small scale)
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You can do it, but would have to be on a very small scale, maybe both GAs are within the same group. But I agree that it would be unlikely to happen due to both accounts having to have a good ratio, >$100 games, etc.
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A potential extension to this would be preventing a user from entering future giveaways of the same title after they mark the win as received.
Based on my understanding the current mechanics only happens at the moment user wins the game, so let's say if someone wins Game A, then before redeeming and syncing they can still enter Game A giveaways which can lead to future multiple wins. Another case is when the user wins DLC A, since DLC are usually not detected by Steam API which means that the user can still enter giveaways for DLC A even if they redeem the win and sync their profile.
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you may learn instantly it's a fake by receiving a free key in its place though. in those circumstances they should at least have the option to still re-join giveaways once again while they still can't mark it "not received" until the week is up.
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i always tried making sure i removed them after i won, but this happened to me far more times than I would like to admit -_-
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Hey SG, I mentioned in a discussion yesterday that I was working on this feature, and I just wanted to write an announcement since it's complete. In short, when you win a game, the site will now check your other giveaway entries that are open, and remove those for the game you just won. It also works for giveaways ending at the same time. This helps to prevent you from accidentally winning a game more than once while you're sleeping, or away from the site.
FAQ
Does this happen when I win, or when I mark a gift as received?
It happens the moment you win. When users win a game more than once, it typically occurs before they even have time to visit the site. If we waited until a gift was marked as received, it would be too late in the majority of cases.
Do I get points refunded?
Yes, if any of your giveaway entries are automatically removed, we will refund the correct number of points, assuming you have less than the current maximum of 300.
Does this prevent all possibilities of winning a game more than once?
No, a user could still end up the winner of a giveaway, and then a different giveaway they entered in the past could be rerolled, causing them to have two wins for the same game. Or, a user could win a giveaway, believe they are not going to receive the gift from the giveaway creator, and start entering more giveaways for the same game, only to win again. We'll look at options to reduce these possibilities, but for now, this update covers most instances of multiple wins that we are seeing. Remember, if you ever win a game more than once, you should only redeem one copy, mark additional copies as not received, and ask those giveaway creators to request a new winner.
The main benefit of this update is the time and headaches it saves for everyone on the site. Last month we had 2,012 tickets requesting new winners because the current winners already won or purchased the game. That's nearly half of our Request New Winner tickets, or 25% of our total tickets. Overall, this is going to result in less explanations from giveaway winners, less tickets required from giveaway creators, and more sleep for the support team. It's a win-win-win.
Edit
This is now setup for rerolls as well. If a giveaway is rerolled and you're selected as the new winner, the site will remove your other giveaway entries that are currently open for the same game.
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