Vent: Unresponsive Winner with 20,000 Entries and Zero Contributions

SG is always frustrating. I even considered to find real friends to gift games to them instead using that site.

Are you talking about your giveaways that ended 9 hours ago? Maybe the winner is in a different timezone?

Yeah, that sucks when you're starting out - doesn't get your CV, and also ties down one of your GA slots. Small upside, that at least you don't have to chase them around because of the site changes a few months ago.

Can't really avoid that if you want to do public, and low level giveaways. Higher levels, or forum giveaways with some easy anti-bot measures help a bit, but it's different in spirit than public level 0 in terms of reach and "fairness".

edit: don't expect games to be claimed within 24 hours (they can, just don't expect it in the first place), people can have busy days and they also have to sleep.

We all started as you are, and encountered the same issues you are facing :)

Some people do not claim their wins until a full week, but as other people said, you now have the possibilty to have automatic rerolls when a week has passed, so it's way better than before!

Many people adapt differently. Some give only to groups, other use forum giveaways, others make high level public Gas.

Find your way, by trial and error :)

People have their own schedules and lives. That's why they have a week to claim a win. In this scenario, I'd relax. At worst, you reroll after the week elapses.

"What makes it worse is that they haven’t even responded to claim the game, and now I have to wait an entire week before"

It hasn't even been 10 hours since the giveaway ended?! Do you not sleep? Maybe they're not as active either so maybe it takes a few days, that's why there's a 7 day rule. Doesn't mean the winner is on some crusade to f with you. Take it easy.

Dude chill a bit no one is on the site 24/7 they have a week to claim it and no where does it say you have to make giveaways to win giveaways

If you had looked into the statistics provided by the site you wouldn't be surprised by a winner with no giveaway of his/her own. https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/all-users
The graph shows nearly 90% of members being level 0 meaning they've never done a giveway. Even accounted for a huge amount of inactive users I dare say the vast majority of SG has never done a giveaway.

I encountered one before with my level 1, 1 hour public gw..
What pissed me off is the guy just simply refuse to claim the key even though they are online multiple times and keep entering giveaways.
They take almost a week to mark it as received. Scripting for sure I guess, I don't mind it but just mark received quicker man...

I might use the "Don't like bots?" thread and do invite only gw in the future.

"Registered 4 days ago"
Much to learn you still have.

As everyone else has said, its not as if its even been a full day yet.

5 discussions in 4 days... I think you just need to enjoy the site a bit more.
Spend some time reading some of the discussions, participate in entering some giveaways, or, just spend some time away from the site if you have to...
...because at the rate you're going, you will be leaving this site within the week due to burnout and frustration.

Textbook answer for your earlier thread about why you should use level restrictions!
Level locking prevents leeches 9/10, especially above a certain threshold, as well as eliminating bots and people who are more prone to be unresponsive.

Radio, it's been barely 12 hours. Even terminally online people have to sleep and probably go to work. Not counting daily life activities and time zone differences. Its normal for keys to be redeemed within 24-48 hours. You're all amped up. Try a jigsaw (jigidi) puzzle or the Cozy Community Train in the Discussions.

Registered 4 days ago...
You talk like you have been here for longer...
Just chill, even I show up online but can't really redeem the game straight away.. (of course if it's urgent I will try to) As I want to take my time to make sure it's the correct game and take my time saying thanks. (maybe will have some idea to write something out of ordinary)

Eventually it requires an attitude change on your part. When starting out, it can be frustrating, but I just assume those winners that don't redeem promptly have a life outside this site. Shit, I've had life events that have kept me from visiting and redeeming wins well after the 7 days, and I was very grateful to the giver for not re-rolling. That's how I frame things now with unresponsive winners. Obviously if they are constantly online on SG and playing on Steam, then I just wait a week and re-roll.

If you really care about who wins your game, then you might consider sgtools or one of several groups that have curated users, like Unlucky-7, Playing Appreciated - closed for now, TalePlay, or Playing Matters.

In fact, assuming you are here to also win games, then to prevent frustration, I suggest you try joining some of the above groups when you are eligible. That, or you need to massively increase your entry count. Levelling up will obviously also help, but it has diminishing returns. Anyway, good luck, stay positive!

Had two of those that I had to re-roll after 1 week. And over 90% of my GA winners couldn't be fucked to write a simple "thanks". But at least I got the spammy "thanks for giveaway" comments from the same people over and over :3

Not surprised though.

That's a bummer.

I'm just getting started in SG.

But I know what you mean.

My account is just 2 days old.

Have won nothing so far.

Definitely will try to contribute to the community if I can afford it.

Hi, just a few things for you (and others) to think about:

1. The user can be in a different timezone, so yeah there that. So while one is on free time, anothers could be sleeping, working, or busy with something else

2. Everyone as a life and responsabilities, outside steamgifts. Besides working or studying, there could be also fathers and mothers here to care for their kids. Or maybe they have to care for someone that needs. People need to travel or go on vacation. while one has time for steamgifts, another can not have it at the moment.

3. Maybe its not consensual but, steamgifts its not about sharing (that is optional), its about giveaways. It ispossible to give and expect nothing back. Also, people have different lives and different amount of money available, people can give if they want and what they can give.

4. Some people might share keys from bundle leftovers and maybe dont buy bundles anymore? Maybe some difficult times or responsabilities that not allow them to buy bundles like before.

I rarely have problems with giveaways but, after 3 days, I try to contact winner to remind about the giveaway and to understand if needs more time to activate key

I hope I helped something
Maybe someone want to share some more things to think about...

Have a nice day and enjoy steamgifts with calm

https://www.steamgifts.com/about/guidelines.

The winning section tells you all you need to know. Patience is a virtue and this would apply in your situation.

The creator has a week to send the key and the winner has one week to activate it on their steam account before it can be rerolled.

Reading the above would save you getting so worked up over this. If you want the game to go to a subset of people, then use the levels, groups, whitelist, sgtools, puzzles, forums, geographic regions to restrict it. This is your right as a creator.

When I make a giveaway and I have made a few, once the giveaway has ended, it is no longer my gift/key and the gift/key belongs to the winner as far as i am concerned. I usually have no expectations when I gift it apart from the fact they follow the rules of the site and even if they don't, the winner will have do deal with any repercussions as a result of it.

Also bear in mind all of us at some stage started at level 0 and if no giveaways were ever made at that level, most of us would probably no longer be on the site. I know that keys made for low levels are likely to go to bots so i understand your frustration in that respect but you cannot have heavy gifters without lots of winners that don't give much back to balance it. Its one of the fundamental principles of how this site works. Granted there is way more of one type than the other, but I have made my peace with this a long time ago or i would probably have left this site. I hope this helps and i hope you continue to enjoy gifting as i am sure your winners will appreciate what you are doing!

Well, I am not going to defend that user, but think about this:
Not everyone has the means to even get a bundle to give away leftovers over the course of a whole year. Like, maybe having a computer and internet are a luxury for them that they might not be able to afford now.
My average entries per year are 17,602 approx. More in the first years, less in the last years. That's in 5 years and 4 months.
Some people work on weekends. Public services such as hospitals, private ones like restaurants and bars, whatever.

With that I mean, reading your description is easy to think the worst, but maybe there are worse things in the air.

Said that, 0 gifts in a year, not even a free key from Fanatical or somewhere? Spending all the daily points? Yes it's obvious. But that's not "exploiting the system". The system is just as that. Nobody forces anyone to actually give back. You'll end on blacklist and eternally entering only level 0 giveaways, but you're not breaking any rule; except that it smells as teen lubricant. Bots, multiaccounters and autojoiners are the scourge of SG. If the user is a human, ethically speaking, there's much more to be said, but not going to ATM.

Personally I spent the first 3 years in SG without income and I still reached level 5 or something. Reaching level 2 or 3 should be quite simple and easy for 99% of the people. When I got a job, I tried to have a 2:1 ratio (a personal goal in more areas out of SG). Give two for each one received. There are other things in SG I've not been able to do, but well, I tried; that's no excuse, I don't consider myself a good SG winner. And, after a while and some experiments, it's rare that I make gibs less than level 3. You're leaving behind most of the bots and leechers, but that's not the reason I chose level 3. I'm also going to try one of these days SGTools, but I've been saying that for 2 years anyway...

And the 7 days is a good period I think, don't fret and have some patience. Not everyone can enter everyday. It's been said, life. Family, work, friends, there's a life away from the computer, specially in weekends if you have better plans. Same goes to you, maybe life gets in the way but you have 7 days to send the key. BUT. BIG ONE. I hate when I see the winner entering SG several times a day, everyday, until the fifth day when the gift is redeemed, and then they don't even leave a thanks. It literally takes a minute: click on redeem, mark received, enter the gib, write "Hey thanks!" and that's all; on computer, phone, tablet, toaster. And then some idiot points at you and say "your blacklisting reasons are laughable". Well, no they aren't. I wish I could remember who it was so I could blacklist him again (I wiped my blacklist on my birthday but I doubt any of them noticed).

I was looking at a few of your threads you've created and figured I would just respond to this one.

There's no requirements to enter and win giveaways. Some people come on this site, enter giveaways and logoff and have zero intention of being part of the community, contributing, or interacting with anyone, even to say thank you if they win something. That's just how it is for some people, not everyone who does this is a bot though.

Your giveaway didn't even end 24 hours ago, that's not an unresponsive winner. The winner has a week from when the giveaway ends to mark a status. Just because the giveaway ended doesn't mean you're going to receive the feedback the same day. If they are on SG that doesn't nessasarily mean they have access to their steam account where they can activate a game. Even at higher levels your still going to get people who don't mark a status right away.

Making higher level giveaways of course will be better if you are looking to decrease people who have contributed less, so that's definitely something to consider moving forward if that's an issue for you.

Looks like you have a two-fold issue here that needs different answers.

As I'm sure youve read several times now - there can be a multitude of reasons why winners don't immediately redeem and mark as received. If you for example won something a few minutes after shutting off PC to go to sleep, then woke up and went to school/work/whatever and returned next afternoon to a "rant" in discussions about your behaviour, about you not redeeming the key - yeah, you see where I'm going with this?
Life has a way of getting in the way sometimes and this is the reason we have 7 days to redeem, so here you just need to chill a bit. Usually most here will redeem quicker than that, but sometimes you just gotta wait. Yeah I know, you're new here and you want to get your levels/points on a running start - but this is just one of those things you gotta learn to live with.

The second thing seems to be you've checked the winners account and have seen some disturbing stats on it. It might be a an autojoiner, a bot, or someone almost always on here using ESGST for quicker entries. The first two you can usually avoid by setting a higher user levels on your GA's than 0 (as the overwhelming amount of bots are 0 or 1 level accounts) - but do keep in mind that will also exclude all new users that are genuinely here to enjoy the site. As GA creator this is your choice to make.
You won't get rid of all by raising the level requrement, you'll still see some winners like that from time to time - sad truth about what lengths some people will go to to "cheat" the system...

But for now, just chill. The winner will likely redeem and mark as received soon -(ish).

And welcome to SteamGifts, hope you will enjoy the place.