Do you play games that you win?! [Vent]

Yes, most people here join GAs for a +1 on their steam accounts, some cards and badges. Not all though.

I've trying a new method in my thread where I'm only inviting people to join a GA if they have beaten a % of their wins according to this script. It's been working wonders for me and I highly recommend it, if you really wanna find people that will actually play your game. Also some groups like Actually Playing Games, BLAEO or Playing Appreciated where you have play your wins to stay in the group are great and you should consider creating GAs there if want people to try your game.

I wish you luck with your game!

Read your OP and decided to DL the demo and give it a try. Seems like a pretty good game, compared to most on Steam*

I think there are enough suggestions on here already that will solve your issue for my comments to be superfluous, however I would agree with an above comment that this is a gifting site and as such it's one-sided as far as each giveaway goes.

*Not sure that's the highest compliment I have ever paid, given the awful level of most steam games, one reason I play huge numbers of games I pay for, win, trade, whatever, for no more than 10 minutes. Also, a good 10% of the tiny(read cheap) games are unloadable, unstartable, unplayable etc.....so they can never be used.

Good luck.

P.S. I am the one and only Gaming Womble....no Womble I'd rather be.

Since you ask i give it a second try now.
Less disappointment than the 1st time but i still don't really like it enough to put the effort it need now.

Maybe later like i had initially plan...

Edit: it wasn't (and isn't) uninstalled so when i say disappointment it doesn't means that i don't like it at all

Oh wow, that's a lot of comments.
I'll try to read all of them, but no promises =P

That's sadly the reality of Steamgifts. You should try finding the right groups of creating a whitelist for the purpose of giving away your game while also receiving playtimes, suggestions and reviews. I'm sure you could find enough people.

I love games, which is why I have a gigantic backlog - I don't farm cards and I'm not interested in any Steam hierarchies; I just love to play. Always have.

And I have a job, and I'm also an actor, so there are rehearsals and auditions and performances to add to the day-job hours. And I also like to have a life, from time to time.

Do I have too many games? Yes. It's a dilemma. Do I want to play every single one? No, because bundles leave me with a whole bunch of kinda games - games I kinda want to play, but not really (these days I try to give all of those away here). Do I want to play every single one I enter for on Steamgifts? A solid YES. When will I get to them? Who knows - life is like that.

You should've given them to a more filtered group of people so that you could have a lower chance of people just idling games without playing them

I knew your game for a while, entered one of your GA's too but wasn't fortunate enough to win though. Maybe you could try to get it into some bundles, that would prabably increase the chance of people playing it. I think if you really want your game to get played, you shouldn't hope for sales on Steam, but make it more available to people. Why should the customer pay for an unknown indie game when he can spend the same money on a discounted well received AAA title. No offense, your game looks decent but there's more interesting games out there that I'd chose to buy over yours. :D

Hello, I like play games I win. But honnestly with 20 games on the way and 200 games in library I have to make choises.
Yes I Idle cards but not for sell it, I try to have badges from games I like.
From some profits of seeling icones I bought Alan Wake and 2 other games with promo and I haven't play it from now.
When I say I play games it's I try to finish it with all achievement if possible. I make categories on steam: favorites, to play, on the way, finished, finished with all achivements, finished but miss achievements, games with no ends (turbo pug series), trash games, unplayables.
I only kick one game cause cam is unplayable.
When I finish a game or kick it, I try to make a review.

+1 to all the comments saying playing appreciated is a great group.
it doesn't have any restriction for entering as long as you promise to follow the rules but you do get kicked if you don't play any of your wins within a month.
I'm not going promise that all the people who win your game there will play it (I've had 2 of my winners kicked from the group for just idling the game and not playing it) but you have a really high percentage of players that will and anyone that hasn't will not be allowed to again.

It sounds really disappointing as a developer to have the game you worked hard on idled and ignored I hope you find some players that enjoy your game and receive the recognition for your work.

OK, got the message - whitelists and Playing Appreciated seems like the way to go. Thanks =]

I will drop few keys for wide public too, maybe it will land in some busy students or astronauts library and it will end up being played 2030 - that's good too. If it will end up idled and forgotten, well, idlers are people too. No hate.

I won this game a while ago and actually played it, though I wasn't good enough to earn any achievements so I don't have proof. I should probably try again ... I have since stopped entering for action or arcade type games. I wish I could give back my win, but I can't.

You are likely giving it to the wrong people/groups.
If I got one I'd play it. The games I haven't gotten to either I ended up playing on console or can't run reliably on my current laptop. I'm a huge bullet hell fan.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can also do a WL giveaway using the BLAEO or whatever it's called to only add people who play their wins.

To be brutally honest, I don't always play the games I won. I have played many of them thus far and have the intention of playing most, but not all. Some of my older wins were from a time when I often entered giveaways based on the chance of winning or just spending points for the sake of it. Now I restrict myself to games that pique my interest. That and perhaps the occasional game where a developer posts a giveaway with thousands of entries, they seem to want everyone to have a copy so I don't feel so bad.

I am regretful that you're disappointed in how your giveaways turned out, though I hope it doesn't completely sour you on the site. Perhaps you should check out the group Playing Appreciated, they require wins to be played within 1 month.

I see you've tried giveaways with less than 50 copies, how did that turn out? Setting giveaways to 50 copies will increase your exposure, but will likely invite many to enter without intentions of playing. So, it comes down to exposure versus likelihood someone will play. I also believe if you perhaps raise your level requirements you may find more matured users who won't as quickly enter giveaways for a simple +1 to their Steam library. I know my attitude changed on the site after some use and others as well, though I can't speak for everyone.

As for your game... at a 90% positive review it sounds like a good game. That being said, I cannot be a judge of the game as I am not fond of the Shoot 'Em Up genre in general. That is why I've never entered to win a copy.

Try "Playing Appreciated" group.
People are required de play games won from group within one month. (or they get kicked, sometimes it is required to be enforced)

But first of all, do you explicitly ask people for feedback in the giveaway page ?

As they are probably more giveaways than people, they win several games, so time they allow for each of them is not necessarily automatic.

I am going to play the game.

I love SG and believe there are loads of great people, but I think people (including me, I played about 20% of my wins) are used to free games here, and won't play them. A lot of people are game collectors, too. From what I've seen, the majority of the SG members have big libraries of games.

I was speaking to a game dev once about how to get his new game attention and play time, and we didn't feel like SG was the best place to do it.

I'm in a Steam related FB group, as well as a few steam sub communities in other places, and when I drop a key, it's such a big deal and event as people aren't used to it, and have smaller libraries. The winners are so happy to get a new game that they actually try it. Finding places like that would work more, in my opinion.

Or Youtubers.

Yes, I play the games I win (though I'm holding off on Mad Max until I finish watching all the films). That said, if I don't enjoy a game after an hour or two I'll put it down instead of forcing myself through it.

In the past I had entered pretty much any giveaway to see how long it would take to win something. I didn't end up playing that game. It's been a couple years since I won my first and only game but have recently started getting back into the SG community with some giveaways. I have also adapted the habit of only entering giveaways that I would be happy to see I won. I want to play the games that I am lucky enough to win because I personally find it disrespectful to just accept a game and just leave it forever. It seems like the gift would be much better given to others.

I haven't won any giveaways in a couple years but when I do, I will make sure to give the game a spin, this post helped with reemphasizing the importance of this.

I wish you the best of luck with your game and with future giveaways if you happen to forgive the members of this community that take your giveaways for granted.

Bear with me, I'm going to try and make a point for you and I hope you'll read my reasoning behind it.

You should give away MORE copies if that's what's happening. Here's why:

1. If people are only idling your game for cards, they probably weren't going to buy it and pay for it anyway, so you don't lose a sale. However, if they sell the cards or buy other cards to craft a badge (and they'll do one or the other almost certainly) you get a cut of the card sales. Thus, you get a small amount of money where you wouldn't have gotten it otherwise.

2. If the people do play it, you are getting what you want, plus they'll also get cards and either sell them or try to get the other ones to craft badges (and make you a little more money).

To me, it appears to be win-win. Just look at the good side of it. Even if they just farm cards to sell, you are still getting money when you would not have gotten it without the giveaway! :)

Oh yes, I remember winning a copy from you way back!
Really felt like you went out of your way to make it something fun. Engaged and helpful developer too!

Personally, I have a tendency to not play some of the more fancy or expensive games I win because they require me to put in a large amount of time and give up a large amount of disk space just to try them out.

I only enter games that I actually want to play. It's just that first thing I do is idle them. My list of filtered games is huge.

If you want people to play it, then add 3k more achievements. Those achievement hunters are voracious. ;)

I won a copy of this from you. I'm sorry that my action (in part) has led to your dissatisfaction. Sometime over the next few days, I will take the time to try it out. I promise. I also stream nearly every day (for a very small number of followers) and I will stream this when I do. (I'll ping you afterwards, if you like.)

I have a lot of games in my library as many people have pointed out is a goal for some. That doesn't mean I don't want to play them all (there are some bad ones out there), unfortunately, there's not enough time for me to enjoy all of them, especially when I find one I really enjoy and play that one a lot.

It's a nice move to make a thread on discussion section anyway. You can't blame winners as people don't know what you want to make out of us. Many games have been given away so far in the name of promotion, in reality for card farming that would give tiny profit to both sides. Maybe you can create giveaways on this thread asking any feedback they feel.