The threads are organized by bump dates, not by creation dates, so it's hard to find new threads.
Also, people blacklist for no reason (personally I don't care, but it's a deterrent for many).
Posts can be one and the same often (I made a train, I made a puzzle, I don't like blacklists, I don't like whitelists, I don't like leeching)
For me though, it was the drama. It's not even for that many people, but there are people that don't want an interesting experience, but instead are just trying to stir up drama, whether for the luls, the right to be offended or just a pathetic plea for attention. I used to like drama and "juicy gossip", but life is too short to cause shit like this. It's boring if you're just looking in from the outside and pathetic when actually participating in it.
So, for me some people were so childish that it ruined my overall experience. Now though I've found that the vast majority of the site is filled with interesting people and I want to hang out here, so here I am. I just ignore the bad apples.
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not much to comment on when all the threads are:
- whitelist4whitelist thread disguised as "check my wl ga **WINK WINK** remember-to-wl-me"
- "*these users* are farming more cv than me, please ban all their games"
- "i don't like drama, so have this non-drama thread (filled with drama)"
- "i don't care about blacklists, so i'm gonna post a thread about how it's unfair to bl me"
- "recommend me a game/movie i will never play/watch"
- puzzles
- cakeday/bday where everyone posts the same reply+gif (so original)
- using steamgifts as google ("how does humble monthly works?")
i'm just glad there are scripts to hide whole categories and threads. they make the forums x100 times easier to browse and remove a lot of stress.
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"recommend me a game/movie i will never play/watch"
I never thought about that until you just said it.
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Back in my old flat I found actually two A5 sheets of paper filled with game recommendations... but yeah, time :| Though I rather read topics about forward things like being happy with games than yet another "which moba / battle royale is the better" type. Though tbh the "recommend me good multiplayer titles" topic was done like 5+ times already, with the previous ones still on the forum . Still a good incentive, but at this point a master-list would be more useful.
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It's caused I stopped posting. lol :P
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Comments started declining around May 2016. Stats were first introduced to the site in April 2016. Conclusion: the stats from April 2016 and before are all fake stats!
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the newness of the site has worn off, it's aging, and has a larger, less tight-knit user base than before, like a neighborhood block where everyone knows each other as they've all just moved in, versus the city it's in a few years later.
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region locks, and disappearance of Steam inventory gifts put a damper on many of the more fun giveaway events, making it more of a hassle than necessary for gifters
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forum clutter, particularly the drama and deals threads. While I enjoy having all the deals threads around, I'm curious if they should splinter off into a different SG site (similar to SteamTrades), for the benefit of the community. Old SG still had plenty of drama, but it felt like more of it was closer-knit drama that protected it's own and less infighting. Could be rose colored glasses I'm wearing there though.
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WL/BL drama/fears... my thought here would be to further limit the number of people you're allowed to have on your black list (to maybe 10), but that's probably a terrible solution for removing drama, and only relieves fear. And I'm still not completely confident that bots are completely taken care of by cg's detection, resulting in that being an even more flawed solution.
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bots. the more "people" who win who aren't ever a part of the SG community, the less likely gifters are to make quality giveaways, rather than just handing out leftovers. the fewer quality giveaways there are, the less attractive the site is for people who value their own time. people who value their own time are inclined to make an effort to include themselves in a more friendly community with less drama.
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flood of shovelware on Steam. Quantity is dominating quality... see above re: people who value their own time.
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a general de-focus on the community, and re-focus on free games. one of the things I remember being particularly attractive about the old site (SGv1) was that a high number of comments was seen as a generally good thing, and either in the sign-up or somewhere in the rules was an official statement encouraging users to be active in the forum as part of the community.
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random member berry thought: 'member when many of the drama threads were because folks couldn't join because their Steam account didn't have enough game value on it?
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------> "region locks, and disappearance of Steam inventory gifts put a damper on many of the more fun giveaway events, making it more of a hassle than necessary for gifters"
-This totally. With Steam locking down prices, sure it's great for devs that they get a fair price from their products, but Valve destroyed the trading market for its own interests and to cut down on people potentially using the market for money laundering purposes. So it's not as easy to find cheap games outside of official sales.
Not having the inventory option anymore makes it impossible to bank a stock of games when games you want do go on sale. And both of those changes, region locks and no saving gifts, put a huge hit on the whole grey/gray market with sites like g2a.com for example not having the same amount of games for sale.
know they are controversial and I really really REALLY do not want to start that debate on this post, but I have purchased games from that site (G2A, and that other one that I can't remember the name of) in the past and I have used some of those games in GA's but I only ever purchased Steam Inventory gifts and never product keys because with gift copies I could leave it in my own inventory for awhile to make sure it wasn't something that was gonna be deleted for being a fraudulent purchase. I'd buy it, let it sit in my inventory for a month, and then give it away relatively worry free. Without the reliability of inventory games I doubt I'll ever purchase anything from one of those sites again.
-----> "flood of shovelware on Steam. Quantity is dominating quality... see above re: people who value their own time"
Ironically, right around the time that the trading market was collapsing, Valve decided to open the floodgates, first with Greenlight which was bad enough but at least with Greenlight people had to take the time to abuse the system put in place before they got their game on Steam. The hoops they had to jump through, though often circumvented in less than completely honest ways, at least stemmed the tide a little. Nowadays, people put up anything, even games that contain other people's work to try and make a quick buck before someone notices and the game gets pulled. It's as bad as the iOS App Store and wading through all the garbage to find the hidden gems is overwhelming.
------> two other reasons I thought might be part of it
-Things are tough financially for a lot of people right now. I personally have been having financial difficulties and I'm not able to create the GA's I would like to be creating and although I'm tempted to go back through my list of keys on various sites, the vast majority of it is just bundle trash and really not adding anything meaningful to anyone's library, save giving them a few cents from trading cards that would drop from a game they will play once and then never again.
-And two, the more time that goes by the more people who have higher levels and no longer have the same incentive to keep cranking out the GA's, and the more people who become just plain burned out. I myself go through phases where I stop caring about video games and don't play anything for months and then a game comes along like Monster Hunter World and I end up putting in over 400 hours of playtime and counting. And eventually I'll get burned out on it and I'll quit playing it and everything else then the next life-stealing game will come along and the cycle will repeat, And even with this site it happens. I'll say nothing for months and months and then one day I'll find myself back here, reading posts at first and then getting drawn in and then becoming active again.
So maybe it's just a matter of a large number of people feeling burned out at the same time and it's just a part of a cycle and it will correct itself and activity will go back up. I think the best thing though if anyone is concerned about the well being and longevity of SteamGifts, is to spread the word, do what you can to promote the site, not just online but in real life by word of mouth, and help to get new members to join who will come in and have a great deal of fun with the same amount of enthusiasm that we all felt when we first discovered how much fun it is not just to win but to give games away and brighten someone's day.
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Late to the thread, probe said everything I could think of and more; a fine post.
And to Skanda ... blacklisting fears are real, and expressing one's opinion may be the fastest way to land one.
BL isn't supposed to be a character attack in principle, but there are some of us who struggle with them anyway.
They make me feel unwanted and unwelcome. And I find it ever harder to post. It's something I wish I could change in my thought-process, but it's really hard.
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How many people are actually active?
I'm paying a rare visit to SG right now after not really being around much. It was nothing to do with the site as such, I just broke my addiction of buying every bundle there was and SG was where I got my bundle news. I'd stopped entering gibs a while before that as I began to feel bad about not playing wins.
Think I missed a lot of this drama that's being spoken of. Factions/splits? Not sure if serious. There was a fair bit of drama when I was around but nothing like that!
It does seem like comments on giveaways are down from what I remember. They were already down big time from about 10 per 100 when I first joined to 2 or so. Looking at the front page it looks like 0 out of 100 is the new standard. People had already started blacklisting for comments but I always liked the interaction personally.
Back now because I'm sorting some of those old bundle keys out - loading a few up on alt accounts where they have card drops but some games are probably too good to waste like that then there's the ones without cards too. Might have some stuff to give away in the near future.
Good to see quite a few old names around on this thread that I recognise :)
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I don't have anything useful / good to add so I don't engage. I think godprobe's comment is pretty spot-on.
Feels like the young ones are using twitter / discord / reddit / snapchat / [whatever the hip thing is right now] nowadays.
They don't spend their time on forums like this, I think. Glued to the smartphone.
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It's a shame, I have definitely noticed a decline in both the quantity and quality of posts on the forums. I used to visit pretty regularly and could usually find an entertaining post, but now I'll check and not even open any of the topics.
As Mully said, it's often just a bunch of the same type of threads. It doesn't help that a lot of key members have left or stopped posting. I used to groan at ambi's shitposts, but the low effort stuff now makes me almost miss them. I guess I'm as much to blame as anybody though for not posting anything interesting.
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I genuinely miss Konrad compared to one-two of the current trolls who seem more evil than just ignorant, like Konrad was...
Like how on current Steam selection Bad Rats would be an above average game :D
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He didn't try get enough help to fight the HERESY on the forum...
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I'm still waiting for the next Hunger Games or Drawing/Singing Contest :P
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You're late by a few hours :P
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/nmzGu/sg-karaoke-6
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Always makes me happy when I see something about the Hunger Games. <3
I still have a list of names for SGHG4 somewhere.
When steam had that big region change, it really kinda killed SG in general for me. (nowadays I lurk mostly)
Would still like to do a 4th Hunger Games.Although no idea if the interest is there for others.. lol
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It's mostly us old buggers that know what it is, you might need to reintroduce it :P
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before that shitposting, there was this Dolan guy. he once came back, and the new community ripped him apart :D
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I blame Gaben.
Steam has hit a dead end, the site/program is in an abysmal state since forever, but the generation that used it and didn't care are parents now and knee deep in baby shit, working on a career, or their depression caught up with them. All the active users are in PUBG or DOTA2, the rest are on the other 2 or 3 games that aren't connected to Steam.
The US/EU players are playing less, the new markets more, and they don't mingle as much.
The 1 million users thing on SG is kinda silly, I'd prefer to know active users, not historic users. You can bin at least 85% of those million, making SG bundled :P
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It's not rocket science as to what happened. The good content creators and people who gave to the community got flamed out by the people who now are the prominent members of the forum. They sucked all the life out of the place and made it completely devoid of any fun or community spirit. The clique won, the good users left, here's what you are left with.
However other communities sprung up away from here, away from other people. It's not like it wasn't coming though, people have BEGGED for stronger moderation/more moderation of the forums for years. Other communities are MUCH more welcoming, with no infighting or if there is, its sorted out quickly.
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like this?
nice contribution ...thats the morals high ground you were talking about?
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your comments were stupid and rude, everyone has a bad day. ,but i wouldn´t have pointed this out if this would have been a single misstep. Also you had the chance to post a single sorry since 3weeks..I was shocked too xD have a nice weekend o/
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No I don´t care about looking awesome thats why i dont post every single thought of mine here in the forums...-_-, i have no idea about this bl drama youre talking about, and i really dont care about this stuff in general. ... And I wont start a endless discussion here... it doesnt makes sense since your changing your opion more often than your panties. o/
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It was rude to blacklist someone that whitelisted you
Double standards much?
How is it that what you said ("We all have problems.. Welcome to life." to someone who was physically attacked in the streets) isn't rude while someone blacklisting you is? That is 110% ass-backwards to me. Your being blacklisted by someone was more important than compassion or common human decency. That's fucked up. (as I said at the time, you'd have been better off not posting at all - your motive was entirely too obvious to anyone with half a brain.)
Kinda looks to me like you earned that blacklist all by yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. Plain and simple.
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Yep, and it's unfuckingbelievable to me that you can think someone blacklisting you while you have them whitelisted is rude, but what you said isn't. Simply unfuckingbelievable.
You deserved to be blacklisted. That's my belief, and I'd blacklist anyone (and have) who said something like that to someone who has gone through a similar situation. I absolutely don't ever want you entering any giveaway of mine. Period.
More than a little ironic, too, you playing the victim after telling Mully "Welcome to life. We all have problems." You live and die by your double standards.
I don't feel shame for what I said.
That says it all right there.
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What I said was basic advice.
"Welcome to life. We all have problems" isn't advice. Not in any way, shape or form. Tell yourself whatever you like. But stop telling yourself it's advice.
Not being rude or I wasn't trying to.
It's my belief you were, or I wouldn't have blacklisted you. In point of fact, it's the only reason I blacklist anyone.
I didn't blacklist you because you have a different view and you have been more rude many times.
You'll never see me say I'm nice or generous. Ever. You'll also never see me say anything about someone blacklisting me. Ever. You see, I let others decide that for themselves about me. I don't kiss ass, and I don't mince words. It's not worth sacrificing my dignity and integrity for the sake of a few more games. And You didn't need to blacklist me. I already can't enter your giveaways by my own choice. You blacklisting me does nothing, and would leave you without the whole "blacklisting is rude when someone has you whitelisted" moral ground you keep trying and failing to stand on. I'm not stupid.
No sweat off my back.
Mhm, that's why you've brought it up to three different people now.
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What you said in Mully's thread was a terrible thing to say, and came from no place of "kindness". It came from you being upset you were blacklisted. I find that extremely selfish. If you find me saying that to be "belittling", then so be it.
I'm okay with that.
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I wasn't using this site before Valve changed how games/gifts could be given on Steam so I don't know how it used to be, but I assume that was a factor that makes it harder for people to use SteamGifts.
Most bundle sites seem to have gotten worse as well.
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On the flipside, Romania has a leeet (13337) amount of registered users at the moment of writing. so that's cool.
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Steam gifts is the only steam community I visit, but I basically come here for the charts in the deals section, or to giveaway some monthly leftovers.
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people spam with similar "bump!" in every single thread, so nothing to read here ☠
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I think (and hope) that a decrease in the summer is something usual, since many user are on vacation. Let's see if from september the numbers start growing a little :s
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That don't change as long as the ammount of active users that give anything is so much smaller then the overwhelming ammount of extreme leechers and bots.
As long as the public GA's (at least the low level ones) can't be used to give the games to winners without sgtools marks/extreme leechers and/or bots i don't see a way that it will change.
The discussion threads change each months to more uninteresing then before. I think because a lot of old members leave the side or at least lower down there ammount of time they invest into sg and not much normal new members come to the site. Extrem Leechers don't write much...
or only "how i can win", "why i won only...", "why i got a blacklist i have only won 200 games and gift nothing (and other had worst statistics so why i am bad....)", "spend money to charity XYZ -often the own pocket will be filled...-".
Yes, i am demotivated and yes you can see it maybe at my comment here.
Thats life :-D
I am one, of a lot examples. I gave up to change anything by public GAs and other things, after much fighting.
I give only 10% from the ammount months ago posting comments is around the same... and not with "bumps". I control with whitelist and groups which ones get anything. Or with sgtools. But that can't be the solution to handle too much "black sheeps".
And i am OFTEN not in the mood to make any Giveaways... because it partly feels like you support with the GA's TOO OFTEN the nigerian prince or the coin miners in dif. countries...
The last point is changeable when different stuff fits...
From my steamfriends ended a part there sg time (a lot of them are high levels) and focuse on other sites that do the same.
Mostly because they are not more willing to feed extreme leeching people
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And, as a result, the forums are much easier to follow without all the senseless spamming.
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