It's weird to think that SG's gonna be really quiet soon.

I share the bundle theory. SG has, ever since SG 2.0, been driven by bundles. While people give away other things, bundles has been the lubrication that keeps the site active. Things have changed on the bundle scene though, many bundle sites have died, and this include the ones that were the best sources for cheap keys. There were bundle sites that would give you a major discount if you bought multiple copies of a bundle, and that's not really a thing anymore. Sites like Groupees and IndieGala are not really spamming bundles anymore either (particularly not ones with huge discounts. Right now IG does not have a single bundle that reaches an effective discount of 95%).

Well, I am one of those who a few years ago did more GAs than I do these days. And while out there still is availability of somewhat half-way decent games for e.g. 5 cents a key (even after Steam restricted mass-creation of keys and set limitation to new games dropping cards, and after e.g. Gogo-Bundle went away), and while I could skip checking on SGTools whether each of 50 separate GAs-winners has activated all previous wins and while I could not care/scroll/investigate whether win was marked as received, I fail to see what the point is of going an extra mile (particularly in spending time required with GA-making) when sometimes even the majority of winners seem like "3 GAs created several years ago, and 1000+ games won since".

Which is not meant as a complaint about "leechers", but simply pointing out that it doesn't seem much fair to be making an extra effort for those who easily made $50 in card-profits from wins on SG, but are too cheap to purchase even a $1 bundle for GAs once in 5 years. And since SG unfortunately doesn't offer options such as setting a sort of captcha-challenge for entering GA, and/or increasing points required to enter (as to somewhat counter bots and scripts), I only share duplicates from bundles now, and that moreorless restricted (which also means that SG isn't that interesting to new users as could be, with me not being the only one who ended up not doing much low-level public GAs anymore due to mentioned issues).

Ever since 5G came into play the SG activity has been on a steady decline.....

My reasons why i dont make so many giveaways as used to are:
1) Tremoregames website died (such easy way to get cheap keys)
2) I got my LVL 10
3) Started doing group giveaways
4) Got older?

What saddens me most is the decrease in forum activity: https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/discussions
I have the bad feeling that the golden years of the SG community are behind us :-(
While I still do a GA from time to time, I've stopped entering them long ago, the discussions are what keeps me coming back almost every day (even if I'm more a silent reader these days)

A lot of bundlers have shut down. A few were good and are sorely missed (early times IndieRoyale, for instance; a few Blinks were good, too), but there was a boom around 2015, with many small players entering the market with little or no ability to attract quality titles; in some cases, they then proceeded to put out bundles of shovelware at a breakneck pace - which some people bought and gave away because...

There sure are other dynamics specific to SteamGifts, too - but I'm not sure how wise it is to go there.

Suffice say SG's fate was basically always tied to bundles, even back then when it was forbidden to give away bundle keys.

Take this to the extreme consequences, it means that the moment Humble went under, radically switched model, anything major that happens, really - it's likely going to be the end of SteamGifts, as the size of SG without (Humble) bundles was (is) very small, and most of the current community is probably here because of (Humble) bundles, too, either directly or indirectly.

Which is kind of a fun notion in a freaky way: the Humble hating crowd is actually actively working to put SteamGifts on the fast lane to the graveyard.

Speaking of freaky notions, isn't it funny, too, to think that this community has long had a sizable, vocal portion that apparently would love nothing else than for Steam to crash and burn? Something to keep in mind whenever you see someone taking a dump on Steam or Valve, or advocating that you buy your games on a different store that doesn't sell Steam keys.

it is all about perspective. the quantity decreased but maybe the quality will increase? i think many people who were not so invested in sg moved on and only people who engage more stay and are active in the community. humble bundle has a huge impact too imo. i cant even remember the last bundle i bought.

I have 1000+ GAs created but very few recently.
For me the main problem is having ended up with an endless backlog and not so much time to play. Whenever a bundle comes out I either own most games or I find just one that I'm interested in, and investing 10$ in a single game that I'm just slightly interested in and will play maybe in 8 years is not appealing.
Overall bundles are less interesting. I also regret keep paying 12$ on Humble Bundle since the last decent bundle (in which I found 2+ games I really want to play) was November.

On the other hand levelling on SG is less satisfying. When I started the HB montly gave full value, now it's not like that anymore. Level system was a nice little incentive for creating more GAs but when I think I have to spend around 750$ in bundles or 250$ in full value (and praying it won't decrease 2 days later) is not encouraging at all. Especially when you don't have a CEO pay.

yeah its like a month i see no many trending games but i guess it will pass eventally dont worry play those you have and enjoy it

these are hard times . people need to think about theire familly , bills works theire lives many have to work even in these times
and after that they have alot of problems

we`re scared thinking much about being in some kinda prison people dont have a normal life right now to think about another staff
is not theire priority

Well, if it helps, I just started working on my next event, and I already have 216 keys for it. 🖖🏻😁🤙🏻

Been mentioning that for years, nobody listened. ;)

Now this site it just place for "harvesters", except the users who stick here & type message from time to time.
Too bad...just too bad.

Epic are giving away so many decent games people no longer need to come here to get them. ;)

Looking at other graphs it actually looks like less GAs, but in general they are of a higher CV.
So less shit giveaways.
That's good isn't it?

Having thought about it, I think during at least some of those peaks many of the giveaways may have been Digital Homicide games. Nobody wants to go back to that.

like most things people come and go, it's up to the new members to replace that gap. preferably you need a close community, because with time that essence disappears.
when i joined the site was doing great, but the magic is now lost partially due to other members that kept the discussion boards more alive also leaving, mostly for good, others still mostly lurking
a larger reason is, this site came at the right time for me, i had little money of my own, the concept was new and fresh to me, bundles were also something i had never heard about, coming from PS3. And this was a time of a lot of bundles, 1$ bundles.
i don't know i just don't feel the current community is all that tight, there is little steamgifts culture, no noteworthy memes, no one you could call a "character"
its all about making GAs, entering GAs and discussing how the last HB wasn't nearly as good as the last.

As an old lurker, I think the bundle keys taking over is a factor, but I honestly think the bigger factor was the region restrictions. It is pretty much what killed the site for me (and many others) since I liked doing global keys, and sometimes websites wouldn't even say if it was US only or not, so it made making giveaways annoying. I often miss doing events on the site, but rarely have the time for it nowwadays.

After changes with steam gifts (you can't buy and hold steam gifts in your steam inventory now), there are only games from last bundles here.

I haven't really been active since 2-3 years ago (looking back on my account). I've logged in to check the community today for the first time in a long time. My personal reason is because life just got in the way, being busy with work etc, things became more important than being on SG. Owning a variety of games no longer interest me either, didn't have much time to play, and I lost interest in gaming (I still game from time to time). The quality of bundles seem to be going downwards, I haven't seen any that sparked my interest. I still love the community here, everyone is extremely friendly and giving.