checked about 8, all okay, got bored and didn't fancy the prospect of about 40 more. Maybe when I'm supposed to be working or something.
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Is it possible to check for such things automatically? I mean it's possible to query for the games a user owns; at least once a week when this profile sync thing shows up and requires you to set your profile to public. So my intuition tells me that an activation of a won giveaway can be automatically verified as soon as the winner marks it as received.
Am I on the wrong track here?
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Some games aren't recognized correctly. See 'Game of Dwarves' above. At least one other game I own, can't remember which one, doesn't get recognized either. So it seems to be a common issue (since I don't own that many games compared to other people and two of them are already not recognized).
Plus there are other cases, like what happened to me. You will see that I won Victoria 2, but I don't have it on my account. The reason is that the guy who made the giveaway sent me a duplicate key. He didn't know, because he got the key from someone else. Gifting keys if you don't know whether they'll work or not is not ok, I know. But he was a nice guy and apologized, then offered to give me Geneforge Saga instead. I wanted Geneforge Saga anyway, both Victoria and Geneforge are bundle games, both are worth 20$. I think it would have been pretty idiotic to refuse the offer and mark his gift as not received. Suspend me, but if I have to decide between using common sense or blindly following rules I'll always pick the first option.
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Found 3 that did not activate. 2 more had private/friend-only accounts.
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I got banned once for not activating a gift; I think the site banned me automatically without the need for someone to report... (I think).
Anyways, it was one of those 1000 copies giveaways that give you the cd-key on the win giveaway list; it took me a while to realize that I had won and then I didn't use my home pc for a few days. Got the ban and learned to check the won list at least once a week... :-D
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I agree.
To avoid problems with private profiles I decided to always add the winner on Steam and deliver the gift on through the Steam chat. In this way there is istant feedback about the won giveaway, istant marked as received and before deleting the winner from my friends I can check if he activated it.
Anyway there is always a small chance that somebody immediately delete me and make his profile private as soon as I send him the gift and in that case I would like to report him but since it isn't in the rules it wouldn't have effect.
Also, aren't you supposed to have the profile set to public to let the sync system check for game existing in your accunt???
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You only have to make your account public while the [weekly?] sync takes place. Once that's done, you can return the settings to "private" or "friends only".
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Well, it's the price you pay for having a private profile.
There comes a time every couple of weeks where Steamgifts will not allow you to view any of its pages until you've re-synced your account, and you either sync it, or find another website to visit.
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There is no reason why you can't ask someone to make their profile accessible to you before handing over a gift.
That way you can check for any skullduggery and request re-roll if necessary.
Enforcing public profiles is unnecessary. Some people like to keep their profiles private for perfectly good reasons. A hidden profile doesn't automatically mean that ballbaggery is afoot.
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That's what I meant too by saying that I don't undertand the perfectly good reasons behind the decision to keep profiles private.
If you keep your profile only for your friends then I don't see why you would really need to write anything about you to introuce yourself.
On the other hand if you want to use your profile to introduce yourself to others (the whole community) it should be obviously public.
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I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if Steam wants to be the Facebook of gaming.
It's difficult to see what value there is to having a public profile, other than to satisfy other people's hunger for information. Privacy has the added benefit of discouraging random adds from beggars and hopeful traders/scammers.
I guess those with whom I chat or play co-op games will have their own opinions of me (good or bad), but I'd rather these opinions be based on genuine interaction than the fact I spent fifty-four hours in the last 2 weeks playing Bad Rats (the only game in my library with more than two minutes of play-time), or Gaben's recent post on my wall that I am the biggest rocket polisher in all Christendom.
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Well Steam is definitely moving in the direction of social gaming instead of being just a digital distribution service. But still, there are a lot of privacy settings outside of a completely private profile. Letting people see the games you play or showing them a slice of you doesn't hurt does it? :P At the end of hte day, to each their own.
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I personally don't care about Steam new and future Facebook attitude but I know it is unavoidable since that's what average people currently like. Just think about new profiles and levels!
Anyway I understand your point but I feel you shouldn't actually care so much about random people opinions. If someone based his opinions just on my gaming stats or whatever I could have written on my profile, then I would be more than gald that he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. :D
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Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well, but it's not that I'm worried about what random people think of me. It's more that what is described as "social" these days isn't really anything of the sort. It ofter has more in common with voyeurism than actual interaction.
Perhaps I'm probably a bit too fond of privacy for my own good, but I close my curtains after dark, and usually decline the opportunity to pin my bank statements to the local community notice board. It's not that I'm hiding anything. It's not even that it would really matter if I did. It's certainly not that I'm shunning my community, or denying them the chance of an insight into my mundane existence. These people either know me because they have interacted me, or they don't. I kind of like it that way :)
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Yeah, I totally agree about what's the actual meaning of 'social' these days and I don't like it at all either. Oh, and don't worry maybe I didn't get what you actually meant since English it's not my fist language.
I understad your point of view about privacy, I'm really fond of it too. I am a very reserved person by nature and I'm not really that outgoing usually. You know, I have double curtains!
What I meant to say it's that I don't feel the same about my profile on a commuity all about gaming. I don't think there is anything confidential that I would write on it and anything really interesting for 'voyeurs' either.
In SG community I'm kinda open, for example, but that doesn't mean I'm not careful and discreet at all.
I obviously didn't mean to imply that you have something to hide either but I can't help wandering what's the reason behind a Steam private profile. Anyway as I said, I respect and have in mind your point of view. Hope I didn't sound like I wanted to enforce my opinion on you.
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I didn't take any offence at all, and had no clue that you weren't a natural English speaker :)
I never object to people voicing different opinions, although it seems as though, when it all boils down, ours are actually fairly similar.
As you say, it would be good to see automatic checking enabled, as it would avoid a whole load of amateur sleuthing, and probably save the mods a heap of time checking through support tickets (especially for transgressions which have already been punished...)
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Honestly, I find it really hard to understand what kind of personal details you would want to keep private on a Steam gaming profile but of course I have to agree with the fact that anybody should be free to do what he wants with it.
So what would you suggest to do - as I said above - if you have just sent the gift and the winner suddenly make his profile private, since you can't report him (due to the fact that having private profiles is allowed)?
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If you're concerned, I'd check the profile before sending the game to see if they have a history of skullduggery. As for after the event, I guess if you have major concerns you could always ask them if you could check that the game has been redeemed on their profile.
If they refuse, and you are particularly worried, I suppose you could raise a support ticket in a week or two's time, explaining the winner's suspicious behaviour, and ask them to check the sync records to ensure your game has been activated.
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Or maybe not :P
Even our glorious leader cg has a private profile :)
The best solution would be to have Steamgifts check your won games against the games on your account (making exceptions for those few which don't show, etc).
The tools for this are already in place (sync functionality with Steam account, list of games activated on each user's profile, database of games won). I see this as the ultimate way to resolve the problem, removing the need for all of this malarky :)
Anyway, I see your point, and agree that it's all too easy for those users who ARE trying to screw the system to hide behind private profiles. However, there's a much more satisfactory solution to the problem than simply forcing people to either make their profiles public or leave the site for good.
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Then I hope this solution will be really taken into account by cg and staff and developed further.
That way there would be no need to limit people freedom about their profiles loosing the chance to have members like you as a result. And I probably wouldn't feel so suspicious about those people anymore too. :)
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A rule for public profiles is not necessary if you simply have the site automatically compare the giveaways won to the games actually on the account during the weekly sync. If a game is found to be missing, it could then flag the account.
Edit: oops, I see someone already suggested that. Great minds think alike, but apparently great minds also don't read the whole thread before replying. ;)
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In 84 giveaways nobody regifted or didn't activate their games. I also love how almost nobody actually PLAYED that games, then why the hell am i gifting them?
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I never plan on breaking the rules again(didn't know them tbh), but is it possible to be suspended for the same offence twice if enough people report you?
Edit: found a regifter on one of my giveaways who I reported. Kind of glad I read this thread now.
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It is against the rule of law.
Double jeopardy
non bis in idem
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Can't the weekly sync be sync'd with won giveaways ? It'd automatically spot people that didn't activate their winnings.
I am aware of the DLCs often not being listed.
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Shame. Would at least partially solve this problem.
Making a sort of white-(black?)-list with games that unconditionally show up and then comparing it with the sync'd list is out of the question, i suppose ?
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Heh i do that most of the time, infact i check almost all entries many a times and report so many.
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I found somebody who won one of my giveaways and didn't activate the game on his account. He's already been suspended though. I don't know what the suspension was for.
Also there is a problem. DLC. It doesn't get listed on your profile, so there's no way to check up on it. I don't think soundtracks show up either.
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How long does it usually take for you guys, when you "request a new winner" because of some of the mentioned reasons?
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up to 48 hours, but ive always got my rerolls done by first day, just make sure you state the fact you want to reward a person who has a clean slate. thats what i always say and its 100% understandable,
whether they have paid for their crimes with a past ban or not, i refuse to gift a game to someone who has broke rules. i only give my games to people with clean bills of health
and mods have always honored my decisions on it and allowed the reroll
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so recently ive gone on a man hunt to find people breaking rules, and just in the last hour ive found and reported like 5 people who have been winning games and not activating their games or retrading them
the last one i found really pee'd me off....
he has won almost 25 games, and people are still sending him his wins even though about 6 or 7 of his giveaways have not been activated on his steam account!!!!!!!!!!!!@!@!@!!!
seriously? would you say he deserves his wins? does anyone deserve their wins when they break the rules?????
please for the love of all the greek gods.... start inspecting your winners before you send them free games!
im begging every one of you to just take 1 minute out of your time to make sure the person getting your game absolutely deserves it!
i think ill spend most of my day inspecting every user i can find on this site..... it just breaks my heart to think someone lost a giveaway that deserved it more then the person who won it that might not even activate some of their wins.......
EDITim actually proud to see many of you have checked your winners just for funzies and found rule breakers, thats great news and im at least happy to see some light is shining on the issue ^__^EDIT2lots of you have found rule breakers in your very own giveaways, thats rather saddening but im glad they were found... this is why we cant have nice things, people who dont follow rules at least some riffraff is getting caught lolEDIT3why cant cg just make it so after you win a game, if it doesnt appear in your sync list within a week when you get auto synced.... that the system bans you instantly? this would solve this sites problem of pirating wins and not activating them v__v cant be that hard to make it so that your wins must match your sync...Comment has been collapsed.