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

I usually keep a low profile here due to a busy schedule, but first of all, thank you for wanting to give away games to others and doing at least seven giveaways so far. No acts of kindness should go unnoticed lol. I'm basically repeating what others have said already. The thing you should always keep in mind as you go through this process is what are your goals for your giveaways and what steps do you take to accomplish those goals. For example, you've determined zero level giveaways don't accomplish what you want - where someone who has zero giveaways and 20k entries are able to win your games. I realized that early on myself - steamgift somewhere has stats of what % of members are a particular level - and I decided level 3 is a good level to give away most games at. Its high enough level to weed out the bots and rewards a large enough % of the site visitors who have given out a few games.

You may add other goals for your giveaways over time as well. Some people want their games to be played by the winner for example. But having that control over your giveaways takes time. Like reviewing if people who have won your games have played them or not. I myself don't worry about the motives someone has for entering my giveaways. I've worked on 20 shipped games and my goal is to help my fellow developers out by buying games and hopefully brighten someone's day when they win the game.

This means someone has to really go out of their way for me to blacklist them. The only person I've ever blacklisted in over 1000 giveaways is someone you can likely relate to right now. He was someone who started showing up in my giveaways basically posting that people should give away games to get higher level and allow higher level giveaways to reward them. While in principle there is nothing wrong with this, he himself had entered tens of thousands of giveaways and hadn't given away any games in years. I told him to stop as he wasn't practicing what he was asking others to do and my giveaways were not the place to preach this. He didn't reply back or stop so I blacklisted him.

As others have said, learn to have some patience. People have lives where marking the game they've won won't be as important as other things. They could be out of town for the weekend, etc. It may take a few days before they mark it as won. Either the winner will claim the game or you'll be able to request a new one in a week. Its not the end of the world. You still have a few giveaway slots so it shouldn't keep you from giving away more games while you wait for it to be collected. I believe every game I've given away has been marked within 3-4 days.

Finally the other main thing you need to learn if you haven't is DLC/game packages (like "complete edition" that is a rollup of multiple items) can be entered by those who already own it. Its a limitation of the steam api that prevents SteamGifts from detecting if the product is owned. You'll want to add it in the description to check it otherwise someone will always say "I can enter even though I own it" lol. You'll need to check to make sure the person who wins it doesn't have it before sending the key. This was another mistake I made early on here.

Welcome to the site, hopefully over time you will enjoy your time here!

Frustration rant after 4 days? How many alt accounts do you have ? 😅

If you want people who give back:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/wNLEK/sg-pillars-a-group-for-steamgifts-contributors
There are probably similar groups with more strict rules.
For SG Tools you can use this thread for example.

If you want people who play their wins, some suitable groups should show up here:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussions/group-recruitment/search?q=play

I try to think of it like "some people are going to abuse the system, but most people are fine"
I know I've definitely given free games to bots and shit like that, but I've also given them to children that can't buy their own games, or poorer people that can't afford it, so it all balances out in the end

Welcome to Steamgifts and thanks for making giveaways. As you have seen, most people do not ever make a single giveaway, so you are already placing yourself in the upper percentages!

I've been here a little while and made a few giveaways. I understand it can be frustrating when you're starting out and want to level up and the winner is online and entering more giveaways but not activating their win ASAP. Especially since you can activate keys on the web, they can even do it on their phone, we are all extremely connected these days, there's really no excuse... but, according to the rules, they have a week and that week starts after you've sent the key .So, you should mentally prepare yourself that each giveaway may take a week before it is resolved. By the way, as the giveaway creator you also have up to a week to send the game in the first place.

The reason for the 7 day period is, I suppose, sometimes "life happens" -- a natural disaster, computer failure, health problems, an unexpected house-guest, your dog gets sick... sometimes even the giveaway creator or winner has died. Not saying those are likely in this case, it's probably a case of an auto-joiner... but you never know for sure!

For me, personally, I try not to worry about it. Once I've decided to give away a game I've detached myself from that property. Best case scenario, the winner actually wants the game and plays and enjoys it. But it's really not any of my business. I've had a few giveaway winners take a month, or more, before claiming (especially during the thick of Covid-19 times). I'm a patient person.

You've gotten good advice from the others! Setting contributor levels, joining groups, whitelisting people, regional restrictions, are all great ways to limit the audience and (somewhat) control who wins to what makes you comfortable.

You can view the active users stats to see roughly how many active users are on the site from each country and each level. Russia is the most active country and Level 1 is the most active level, right now.

Have fun :)

Hopefully, this helps raise awareness about some of the issues we face as giveaway hosts and encourages others to take steps to ensure their giveaways feel more rewarding for everyone involved.

You say this...

I guess this is a lesson for me to always use stricter entry requirements going forward

but you answered yourself already earlier in your rant.

Welcome to Steamgifts!