Your Last Public Giveaway?

never made a public giveaway before

The 1 cent Frozen Synapse Bundle.

so far I made only 2 giveaways, both public and the first one was Left 4 Dead 2, the other was Railworks 3: Train Simulator 2012 Deluxe edition :)

I mostly make puzzles/riddles, I guess I find them entertaining. My first and last public thing was a spare Portal.

Well, the simplest answer is that the vast majority of people entering public giveaways contribute nothing, appreciate nothing, and half of them (maybe more) don't even want what they're entering for. On top of that, many of them can't even be bothered to read the rules (I sometimes wonder how many even know the forums exist), and some of them don't care about them, whether they're aware or not. I'd rather give games to people who won't try to trade them away, who actually want them, and who might even appreciate them or contribute something to the community. With a public giveaway, the odds of that happening become vanishingly slim, and the people who contribute the most, the people who are the foundation of this community, know it as well as (or better than) I do, and I suspect they agree with my sentiment. The stats tend to support that, also. If they didn't, this thread probably wouldn't exist.

I'm not a top contributor and probably never will be, but I made 10 giveaways until now (3 still running), and reserve the better prizes for private giveaways. I don't feel the same as wbarton about the people entering public giveaways, but I think that kind of feeling does play into it. It's easier to give to people who are part of a community. Sometimes, it's even part of the rules of that community. If you join a group to have a better chance at getting games and that group requires that you give games to the group, that adds even more non-public giveaways, whose only reason of existence is the desire of the person posting them to win more games.

For me, I started with public giveaways, then decided to see if I can get fans for my facebook page using giveaways. Worked well so far.

By the way, one of tempting things for me in public giveaways is to see how many people will enter a giveaway for any small thing.

Last game I gave out publicly was the FEAR collection.

Hamilton's Great Adventure

10% off the people who enters says thanks.

I have been lacking. Mostly because I'm broke from buying too much from the holiday sales thanksgiving+xmas it left me with little to gift lmao. I did do a few giveaways by just messaging friends and asking if they wanted it. Gave away about 10 gifts that way but publicly I haven't done anything in a long while.

I give out DLCs when they're on sale, partially because it'll boost my giveaway cap for private or group gifts. Everyone has already mentioned the lack of appreciation in most public giveaways; it's rare to see a giveaway with more than 10% thanks compared to entries. Even in puzzle giveaways.. 30% of my puzzle entries don't say thank you. It's frustrating, and I totally understand why it turns people off to public gifts.

My last public giveaways have been DLCs as well. I had a few private giveaways that were posted in the forum. I call those semi-public giveaways.

This one

THANKS FOR SKYRIM!

Gave away Dungeon Defenders and its DLC, I loved it!

You ask why, Zombie?
Well i had really bad experience after a while with public giveaways. One of the winners traded my game to someone else, one even sold it and one asked me if i can buy him some dlc's with the game he won. With some exceptions, most of the people i see in public giveaways are jerks. Ok i understand i someone doesnt want to write "thank you" for a chance to win a game which i bought with my hard earned money but is it really necessary to write crap like "i wipe the sperm off my cat" in comments on bad english? Fuck those people, im done with public giveaways, im now in few really respectfull groups that appreciate me, always write thanks in giveaways and theyre all around pretty good people

Mine was a few months ago, nothing since because I'm a horrible evil bitter person. Also because I'm broke 98.5% of the time.
More recently it's because I'm annoyed so few people say thanks, and irritated that winners seem to be equally likely to be angry your not giving them extra games as they are thankful they won in the first place.

I have a few games sitting in my inventory for when I find a sufficiently appealing private group, alas I'm too lazy to look for one. May end up just doing a forum giveaway for anyone whose contributed in the past.

I do need to do something though, leaving them sitting there is pretty wasteful.

My first giveaway (today) was a group giveaway. Honestly, I'd rather make a giveaway for a bunch of people that want the game instead of someone entering just to add it to their own personal collection. I've given away a bunch of games elsewhere and it annoys me that people will take them and not play a single minute.

Some people like dealing with public, some like dealing with a group of friends, personal choice.

LA Noire is now up for grabs. Not really my cup of tea.

It was an avadon Black Fortress but the guy don't said "Thanks" and also I'm thinking he sold the gift :\

People aren't AS thankful in public giveaways. I haven't done any but would consider it only if I really wanted to help promote a game.

I've done private giveaways where I got more thanks than entries, actually that's been the case for like every giveaway I've done, all private. Take a look at any random giveaway publicly and you usually have less than 10% of the entrants say thanks. If you can't be bothered to say thanks, then I can't be bothered to spend my money to make giveaways for you. I much rather reward people who are both generous and grateful. Also as mentioned by others, a lot of people undoubtedly just enter to enter for public giveaways, and feel entitled to everything.

Now, that being said, I think a lot of groups are flawed. I've seen groups with leaders who don't gift but require it to join, and not to be a douchebag but I have seen chicks in some high profile gifting groups with less than 10$ in giveaways on their accounts, just sayin'

Made a public giveaway since SG was only invite..

I've only made two giveaways yet but both of them public and I'm not interested in joining any private giveaway groups because I don't want to pay a 'subscription fee' for a chance to win some games I don't really want. It doesn't help that the community for such groups is insanely fragmented, that means I cannot possibly offer the chance to win to all the good people who really want it, either they contribute themselves or not.
I think there should be a subcategory for giveaways "Public, but only available for those who create giveaways themselves", that would unite a lot of groups into one big fuzzy blob and would reduce amount of bots/illiterate people.

I've only made one giveaway so far, and it was public... but I have to be honest, next time I'll probably do a group giveaway. All going public did was lead to people begging me for games. :/ I chose to give out the game via Steamgifts because 1) I wanted to give back to this community and 2) to get people's interest in a cool series (I gifted a Broken Sword pack). Begging me for something you don't even want doesn't accomplish either goal, and it -is- a bit irksome watching people who actually wanted the game losing to someone who just clicked enter for the hell of it, which seems to happen quite a lot in public giveaways.

/end rant