I dont think it is agaist rules. If it was, the region restricted ga`s should too
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The guidelines : "Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time."
It's against th rules, even if I understand why you wouldn't think so.
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He is unfortunately right.
Anyway.
Although you shouldn't have made a giveaway for a region-locked game, you are not obliged to give anything to the winner. You made a mistake, but the only consequence to that is, that you'll get a "not received" in your statistics. That's basically nothing.
If you don't want that either, try to convince him that it was an honest mistake and that you can't just provide a key you never had available in teh first place.. Maybe he'll have an understanding in the end, so you can just ask support for a deletion of the giveaway.*
yes, I totally calmed down and edited this
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Edit: Well. Looking at those comments, that seems to be the absolute worst person on all of Steamgifts.
The winner however, wasn't German and is declaring that under the SG rules, what I mentioned in the description is meaningless and that I have to provide them a non-German key. In fact, upon looking, most of the entrants didn't appear to be German.
Take the Non-Activation [after trying for a reroll]- Staff shouldn't apply punishment for that circumstance, and even if they do, it's only a 2-day suspension: Still far better than giving in to a complete shitstain exploiter.
[Also, for reference, the SG rules do NOT say you are obligated to provide a non-German key. They say you are obligated to provide a working key, and that you shouldn't list region-restricted giveaways for regions that aren't in the official region-restricted list. So in theory, your giveaway should be grounds for a giveaway deletion and suspension, not grounds for non-activaiton and suspension, if it abides strictly to the rules. :P]
- All giveaways should be for Steam redeemable gifts or Steam redeemable keys.
- Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time.
In any case, typically you'd want to do something along the lines of what the last person giving away a German key did, and check their listed regions and then invite them to a group, and do a group-only giveaway.
Also note that if the person in question was openly hostile toward you, then you do have grounds for a reroll. Unfortunately, "only" being a totaly entitled ass isn't enough to merit that.
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P.S. I still don't get why cg spends his time on nearly-useless site fluff features instead of stuff like that.. :X
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Perhaps support will approve just deleting the giveaway? I would try that.
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Support will most likely delete the giveaway for you, explain what happened. Something similar happened with the Deep Silver keys, and they told me to request to delete the giveaway and explain the situation.
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Yes burn them all because they are giving away games for free...
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You should have done a forum giveaways for this case, people have been very respectful for my restricted giveaway that way. With all the auto joiners, lots of people enter without reading anymore...
But i'm afraid to say that your winner is right, you cannot do a region lock with just a sentence in the description... and on the forum either actually. But you have to rely on the kindness of people I guess.
EDIT : here is te guidelines extract : "Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time."
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Right, but nothing in the rules states that you're obligated to give a key of the region of the person who ignored your description- they only say you have to provide a working key, and that you shouldn't post restricted gibs at all.
Meaning that it's grounds for a giveaway DELETION [in the same way that posting a beta key/free game would be, even it if was under the title of a different game], not that the creator is required to give a new key.
Moreover, for reasons I'm not going to mention, it's clear this individual is a blatant exploiter who entered solely to try and scam a key.
Which is clearly goes past being scum, and into site abuse territory.
So yeah, everything related to that winner is pure scummery and bullshit, and the OP is likely only going to end up getting their giveaway deleted.
Plus side, we've all been introduced to a strong competitor for SG's "worst user" award.
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"nothing in the rules states that you're obligated to give a key of the region of the person" : and the person is asking for a "valid key" for the giveaway which is not region locked. he is not asking for a key from his region, i don't understand your first point.
the giveaway creator should just have deleted the giveaway. he asked for a reroll in the first place... since the creator didn't respect the rules, i don't get why the winner coulndn't ask for a working key (which is actually in the rules).
so here we have a creator who did 2 mistakes (the GA in the first place, then the reroll) and a winner who just asked for a working key, according to the rules. he might be an ass, but he is an ass in his right.
i would be the support, i would delete the GA because the creator did an honest mistake trusting that a public GA won't have any "bad" entries. and the winner is acting as an ass. but i cannot give my full compassion to the creator, sorry.
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There are 2 types of keys for this game. 1 that works everywhere except in Germany and the special, censored german version which was being given away here. This key activates all over the world so the "winner" is conning the creator out of another key.
Edit: To clarify, the german key is a working key for the whole world, just a censored version of the game.
Edit2: Looks like schwachi is right. https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/n2uZvJw
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"The giveaway was for a German only Steam key". He is speaking here of a german key only, not a cut version woirking all around the world, hence my confusion :)
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Yeah. All these bloody regional restrictions etc. are getting really annoying and confusing.
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No, it is not. If you´re talking about Gemini: Heroes Reborn. German key can not be activated outside Germany.
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Some people report they don't have a problem activating it even if they aren`t from germany. I'm not completly sure about it either, but the winner didn't even try to activate the game, before stating that it's not activatable.
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Just another reason to make region restriction: Germany a thing
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Am I missing something here or isn't it already implemented:
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Wow that's awesome. Now I can make my Deponia Doomsday GAs without handpicking entries or having to trust people that they are actually from where they say they are. Too bad people from Switzerland and Austria will be left out (keys are D / A / CH) but that's a price I'm willing to pay.
Did they implement this region restriction recently ?
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When did they implement that O_O ?
and I gave away Southpark to a friend... no cv ._.
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Can't find the announcement, but it has been there for quite some time.
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if you look down on this thread CG claimed that he just add this
so nah, not for quite some time :)
edit: just me being ass lolz
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Just now, because of this thread it seems. See cgs answer below
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you missed that CG did that AFTER this topic wnet to life :) OP couldnt use that
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Thank you for the responses, information and detailing of the rules. I believe I have to abide by SG's rules and hence I will provide the winner a non-German key.
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I feel like everything I said was overlooked. :(
I mean, do what you feel comfortable with, but you're under no obligation to provide them with a new key, if for no other reason than the key you gave them works perfectly fine in any region. :P
But also because of the whole 'it's not in any way part of SG's rules that you need to provide them with a new key (they're telling you complete BS), and at most your giveaway simply will be deleted' bit.
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It is true that Gemini Heroes is available all over the world. However, there are two versions of the game, a WW version and a German version. Unlike many other games, each version uses different keys.
You can read about that here in the first post of this thread: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/1jVO2/groupees-be-mine-25-bundle-1-region-locked-game-mystery-game-revealed-live
I wasn't aware of the rule before creating this thread, but now I am and the SG rules state that I can't create giveaways for region restricted keys that aren't listed when creating a giveaway. But I fully agree that the available options for region restricted giveaways on SG are inadequate and need updating (i.e German only keys, E.U only keys etc etc, the ability to manually specific a region).
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I'm aware. I bought the same bundle you did, AND I followed the threads on the matter.
The ROW version can be activated everywhere but Germany, the reduced-blood version can be activated everywhere including Germany. As far as I'm aware there is no German-only key in existence :P
( P.S. Read the very top of the original thread post in that thread you linked, silly-butt: )
If ROW redeemed, German key can be redeemed, but will be
German[Low-Blood] version.
and the SG rules state that I can't create giveaways for region restricted keys that aren't listed when creating a giveaway.
Despite that rule existing, most users ignore it, so don't stress it.
As I said, though, there's no rule requiring you to provide the game, and if you notice, just above that region-restriction rule is the free/beta key rule, which is phrased near identically- and those giveaways are simply deleted when called to attention. As far as I've been aware, region-restriction giveaways are treated the same way.
The only time I've ever heard of you being obligated to provide a new key, is if the original key flat out didn't work [for anyone].
Either way, rules aside, you should never feel obligated to give a key to someone abusing the site like that. Especially not without running it past staff first, just to see what they say about that kind of behavior.
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If you scroll down, there is another quote that says :
UPDATE 11 (May 12th): user Incredipede says this: If buyers in Germany purchase the bundle now, they will only receive a key which can only be activated in Germany
There seem to be region-locked keys ciculating, at least now.
So I'm really not sure if the "low-violence" version can really be activated everywhere in the world. It's a bit confusing - at least for me....
Edit: Ah forget it, i can't figure it out :D
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During all that, we checked the steamdb entries and only found the one German-related version of the game, and it had (German-purchasable-only) (Norestrictions activation) settings.
I was actually basing off that more than any suppositions, or even Cyanic's confirmation that it could be activated in ROW, OR all the numerous affirmations here on SG that they were ROW-activatable [giveaways aside, enough ROW users were complaining that they'd managed to activate the wrong key, or both keys :P].
In other words, unless we all somehow screwed up our steamdb search, or they added a new steam store entry for the game just to change things up midway through the bundle, things haven't changed since. And it really seems unlikely they'd have changed things up midway through.
Most of what you're seeing that says it's German-only was just early supposition by SG users, that was later proved inaccurate.
(The exact line you're quoting seems to actually be stating that German users now only get the German key, instead of both a ROW key and German key, which is what bundle purchasers were getting prior to that point.)
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I'm not doubting that you have a sound base for your conclusion. I just wanted to be sure that there are really no region-restricted keys in circulation. Cause if there aren't any, then that guy would be a liar and supposedly* a scammer. [which maybe even justify a suspension]. But then we should be sure about that.
But if you find the time, could you tell me, where do I have to look at to see that a game has a "Norestrictions activation" tag?` https://steamdb.info/sub/91308/
I'm always confused by that and it would be helpful as I'm someone from that region.
(I don't think that statement is solely about the fact that it's just one key now)
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https://steamdb.info/sub/51390/info/ [ROW]
AllowPurchaseFromRestrictedCountries No
PurchaseRestrictedCountries DE
https://steamdb.info/sub/91308/ [Germany]
AllowPurchaseFromRestrictedCountries Yes
PurchaseRestrictedCountries DE
https://steamdb.info/sub/26340/ [Dead Island Riptide (NA version)]
AllowPurchaseFromRestrictedCountries No
PurchaseRestrictedCountries AL AD AT BE BA BG HR CY CZ DK EE FI FR GE DE GR HU IS IE IT LV LI LT LU MK MT MC CS NL NO PL PT RO SM CS SK SI ES SE CH TR GB VA AX FO GI GG IM JE SJ
if it was region-locked, it'd look like that last one (except likely with an even longer list, with DE being the only one NOT listed.)
Besides, we KNOW he didn't try and activate it:
Reroll will not solve this problem, i think there are less than 10% German participants, so i am still waiting for you to send me valid key.
However , i did not reveal or use your region locked key that you sent to me. So your key is still valid (for German only).
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Reroll will not solve this problem, i think there are less than 10% German participants, so i am still waiting for you to send me valid key.
However , i did not reveal or use your region locked key that you sent to me. So your key is still valid (for German only).
Ha, jeah well that's... pretty obvious ....
Well thanks for letting me know! Although I still find steamdb confusing. :D
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Can confirm that the low violence key can be activated in the UK at least.However I don't think SteamDB is entirely reliable in all cases. As an example they don't seem to have a match for at least some of the many made up regions that Deep Silver seem to use.
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It works the other way too. I mistakenly activated both keys, with the German one first. Haven't ran it too work out what It runs as yet though and there's no indication on the account page which is which.
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There actually is a way to tell them apart. :)
steam client > Help > steam support > games, software, etc
Type Gemini in the search box, click on one of the results.
At the top of the page in the nav bar it'll list the game's app id ( ex, this is what it shows for Victor Vran: https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithGame/?appid=345180 ).
51390 is the uncensored version, 91308 is the low-blood version.
Just finish the support process of removing from library, for the one you don't want to keep ^.^
( Well, I assume both'll show in search- else it'll get a bit trickier.. :X )
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I meant just looking at the licenses and activation page - there they both show just as Gemini:Heroes Reborn. Whilst I have two licenses they aren't separate game entries.
Following that process it looked like there was only one initially but after clicking through to remove it does show both. Thanks for that
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Glad it helped! ^.^
[even if my specifics were apparently off :X]
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He has to provide working key no matter what description says. All special rules in description were supposed to be approved by SG support and they were available for private giveaways only (at least it was so at old SG). I won one once and then I was rerolled simply because I didn't fulfilled "entry fee":
I won http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/sQ8ci/barbie-dreamhouse-party giveaway. But now winner was rerolled. I want to know the reason why?
The gifter had a special rule in the giveaway description, approved by support, that you did not adhere to.
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In current SG, special rules are not supported under any circumstances [except through SGTools filters, and use of groups].
However..
You cannot ask users to perform any special action in order for their entry to be considered valid, such as liking a Facebook page, or following a Twitter account.
Region-restrictions are not special actions. You're not asking the user to do anything, you're offering something that has inherent restrictions that you didn't apply. You're in no way saying their entry is invalid, and you are providing them the key when asked. That they can't activate the game is a separate matter altogether. In any case, such elements never count toward the special action rule.
The only rule that applies to region-restricted giveaways is the 'you should not post them at all' rule, and that one has been so overwhelmingly ignored by staff, that at this point it'd be absurd if they actually punished for it. That aside, I'm not aware of them actually doing so, but rather treating them like free/beta games, and simply deleting them where necessary.
But, most importantly, he did provide a ROW-activatable key, so the entire matter is moot to begin with! :'P
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You've forgot one simple SG rule for the winners:
Won gifts should be activated to the Steam account used during registration, and they should not be regifted, traded, or sold.
And the winner said that he can't activate it.
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That's not relevant to the Creator guidelines in the least.
Free/Beta/Region-Restricted games are deleted by staff when they're called to staff's attention. Regardless of anything else, there are no 'obligation' guidelines in the rules, whatsoever. They only exist as a concept because there's usually no way to delete giveaways that AREN'T free/beta/region-restricted if the keys are non-functional, without providing a functional key.
Moreover, what the winner is supposed to do, isn't relevant to what the creator is supposed to do.
And it certainly isn't relevant to made up concepts like gifting obligations.
But more importantly, if you read the winner's comments, he explicitly states he never even tried to activate the key, he specifically entered that giveaway knowing the key was [presumed to be] region-restricted, just so he could try and blackmail a non-region-restricted key out of the creator.
Given his intent, he never even considered trying the key to see if it worked.
tl;dr version, he's a very "lovely" individual. :X
[Also, think of what normally happens when a winner can't activate a game (ie, because they have it in their library already). They aren't given a new key, their entry is rerolled. So obviously, there's no reason to assume they'd get a key here, either.]
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Well, things like that are supposed to be discussed with support before GA making, definitely not after. As for that "lovely individual" gave enough reasons to blacklist him, even though I think that technically SG support will be at his side at this particular case. But who knows. :unknown:
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https://www.steamgifts.com/user/xadorotag - that's just a link, definitely not calling you to do anything with it, just thought it may be worth looking ;)
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You should remove the link, calling out is not allowed ^^
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This was from the humble bundle right?
I had a similar issue a few weeks ago with Stikbold from one of the humble monthlys. As I live in AU, the version I had a key for was restricted - I contacted humble and asked them for a working German Key. They waved their magic wands and A new key was supplied for me - It took about 3 days to organise but they were very helpful.
Not sure if that helps you but it might be worth a try.
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Groupees. It's already a ROW-activatable key. The ass in question didn't even bother checking.
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If I were you, I wouldn't provide any key to him, but send his reply, and your description to Support, and see what they say. If they say, that you either have to take a non-sent, or give him a region free key, I would take the non-sent, because of its inability to read descriptions. Then the next step would be to submit a ticket to add German only to region restrictions. This would be pretty useful, because while german keys are usually activatable by anyone in the world, they mostly reflect that the game is cut, so people, who join these region restricted GAs will know that they won't get a ROW (or uncut) key.
Or you could create a private group and use it for valid entrants. You can make a "recruitment" thread here on SG, and you can check for every entrant's info before adding them to your group :). It's a shame that such high level users can't or don't read descriptions.
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That guy clearly read the description beforehand, since he never even tried to activate the [ROW-activatable] key he was given. He intentionally entered after seeing the restriction information, to try and blackmail a key out of the OP. You can see that from his " I am actually kinda surprised that a guy with such insane ratio as yours, cant get me simple key of a bundled game." comment.
He's a site-abusing scammer, who should be removed from the site altogether.
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I am actually kinda surprised that a guy with such insane ratio as yours, cant get me simple key of a bundled game.
"So your winner can and should activate the key you provided."
Your opinion of what that user ought do is a lot more generous than my own..
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Also ich habe den gleich mal auf die Blacklist gesetzt. Was für ein Arsch, wenn ich mir das so anschaue ...
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ja, ich auch, solche Leute brauche ich auch nicht.
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They do have an option to create giveaways restricted to Germany. I just saw it in create giveaways section.
Anyways you must create a support ticket for deletion of the giveaway.
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I like how we made it this far without anyone else noticing that :P
Plus side, that ought make it nice and easy to repost, if staff allows the GA creator to do so.
[Given that it's ROW-redeemable, they may not; but since Germans can't activate the ROW-keys, it's handy if at least some of the German keys make their way toward actual Germans. :P]
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Oh is it? Germans can't activate ROW keys? Then I think staff should allow him to repost.
Sure it will be great for the Germans ;-)
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nobody could noticed it, cause this feature is a couple of minutes old ;-)
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It is against the rules of SG, giveaway description means nothing. I am actually kinda surprised that a guy with such insane ratio as yours, cant get me simple key of a bundled game.
That guy is an asshole
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I just added Germany as a new region, so the option is there for the future, or if you need to recreate the giveaway.
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Excellent! That's certainly the best way to solve these problem, many thanks from Germany :)
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Thank you so much :D Now I can finally make my Deponia Doomsday GAs.
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Any chance we can get an AU type restriction/zone as well? Would help when I give away my Humble stuff
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Finally is "North Korea for German Gamers" added as a region!
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Yay! Here's one to celebrate the event: https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/SaP47/gemini-heroes-reborn
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Like sooth said. This guy lied you in the face. He can acitvate the key, he will just get the cut version (which you stated in the description). So just tell him to provide a screenshot of the key beeing not redeemable or to get rerolled.
Probability is, that he activated the key to a different account anyways. From his mentality I would expect that.
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there is a screenshot in the GA comments, actually.
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jeha, it was added like 1.5 hours after my comment.
And there is the list of games missing. Normally when getting that error there are standing the names of the games in the field. here it is empty.
Makes me a bit uspicious, but hey, it's not my GA.
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I'm surprised your winner is such a dick, considering that he's so active on this site. He will from now on be much less active in joining giveaways, though :-)
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I brought the key as part of bundle from Groupees; they stated, at the time at least (I haven't gone and checked today if that has changed), that they would provide both a WW key and a German key for the game.
I used the WW key myself and gave the German key in the mentioned giveaway; after seeing numerous other giveaways on SG offering German keys for this game.
In this instance, due to Groupee's description of the key and now also finding out that such giveaways were actually against SG's rules at the time, I will provide the winner a WW key for the game.
But thankfully, due to Germany now being added as an option to the region restrictions when creating a giveaway (thanks cg :) ), this issue shouldn't arise again, which will be beneficial to all in future.
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But.. you don't have to give them a WW key.. your key is already activatable (and not against rules in any way).. and you have grounds to delete.. and likely even to reroll.. so no reason at all..
Whatever, I'm done. :P
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I was in same situation just on opposite side. I just gave my permission for GA to be deleted and we solved it like that. GA's creator was even kind enough to drop me key for other game for my troubles. Why do people need to make so much mess over a game.
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i would not give him anything. i would quickly give the german key to someone else, just to see if he really didn't activate it (it's possible he used it for a second account or something), and then live with one unsent gift. better than giving this guy, who clearly tried to trick you into giving him a second key, what he wants.
as said before, giveaway deletion might be a viable option here.
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don't actually think that he's trying to trick anyone, having quite high number of won and sent gifts. probably a little bit stubborn and possibly using autojoiner scripts. but being 7+ level it would be already possible to figure out the situation and allow for the GA removal. but for some reason he doesn't want to do anything like that.
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I am currently in dispute with the winner of one of my giveaways?
The giveaway was for a German only Steam key, which I believe I made clear in the description, as there is currently no option when creating a giveaway, to limit it to German entries (the existing region restricting options are probably missing a couple of notable ones like this):
"Here we have a German Steam key for this game that will appear on the winners won page shortly after the giveaway ends. Naturally, this key is meant for German persons."
The winner however, wasn't German and is declaring that under the SG rules, what I mentioned in the description is meaningless and that I have to provide them a non-German key. In fact, upon looking, most of the entrants didn't appear to be German.
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