How do people decide what level to put a giveaway?

4+, since these users -almost- never break the rules and they know how the site works, so I won't have to hunt them down to make them mark it as received :p

Hmm. Value of the game - difficulty accessing +/- mood for the day = giveaway level

That's a good question, it's interesting to see how other people decide the level restriction.
I would gladly make only no level giveaways if it weren't for rule breakers. It depends if the giveaway is a key or link/gift. I'm afraid someone would claim the key is used, so I set higher levels. It never happened before and hope it never will but with gifts I have proof. And by higher levels I mean 3+, I've had two level 2 regifters so far.

If it's a really good game that's never been bundled, I'll do it the same level as I am. But, I buy a lot of bundles, so I try to spread the love around... a lot of those I'll leave at maybe 2-ish, some 1-ish, and I will even occasionally toss an open to everyone one out, but only if I feel like I am up to chasing someone down to ask to have it marked as received. Doesn't always happen, but I mean, if I don't feel like dealing with it, then it's at least a 2.

I just put whatever level I feel like on my giveaways, however, I don't go above my own level (unless I think the giveaway will take me to that level).

I just pick a number, almost at random when I create it.

I usually just put it at 1. That way its someone who at least put something back towards the site. I always check to make sure theyve activated previous wins though.

I don't put a level restriction on most of my giveaways.
When I put one it's usually because it's not a game from a bundle or just because I feel like putting a level for no specific reason. I usually put it at level 2-3. The highest level I have used is 5.

I'll get back to you on that. i need to ask if it's okay to tell you..

I do not use levels. If I feel the need to restrict the entries somehow, I will use other means. Lately it has been more of making mostly giveaways for people in the white list.

but then I think all the people at 2 or higher might already have the games and wouldn't be interested in them anyways

you would be surprised how many high-level members don't have some of the typical bundle games. i can take a game i believe everyone should have by now, make a level 8 giveaway with it - and i get more than enough entries. ^^

It depends a bit on what I'm doing the GA for. When I'm making several GAs at once, I like to have a wide level range, thus being able to reward the generous people without cutting the low level people out of the equation entirely. Not everyone can afford to buy a lot of games to giveaway, but it feels nice to be rewarded for doing something nice, and I guess that helps motivate people to make more GAs (it helps me at least ;) ).
I won't make a level 0 GA unless it's either for a specific reason, or behind some level of "protection" (a puzzle, group GAs, WL GAs). I've just had too much trouble with them.
If I've had a lot of problems with people recently, I'm more likely to host high level GAs, as I don't feel like dealing with yet another person who is unwilling to activate his/her game, insults me for saying "Please, no copy-pasted "thanks" or similar, or who starts complaining about my previous GAs being ones that he/she could not enter.

Ouija board.

All my giveaways are pretty much bundle dupes, and I see no reason to restrict them (they're also minimum duration, because impatience!).

When I only had a few GA slots I might have followed up to get the gift marked as Received, but now I don't care (and actually have zero not marked as Received right now, folks are generally pretty good). Even the one loser who blemished my record by changing his Received to Not Received and later apparently re-gifting isn't worth wasting energy on (I didn't follow up on that because he'd somehow got on my tiny blacklist already, can't remember why).

If I was rich enough and so inclined to actually buy games to give away, I suppose I might do things differently.

I always set it to 1. I hope someone with level 0 makes his/her first giveaway (giveaway bait)

I always put my giveaways at least at level 1, because I want to encourage people to give away games too. Sometimes I feel like setting it a bit higher, but there's no real reason for that.

Back in the day I used to do lvl 0 giveaways but there were too many cases where the winners had problems following rules. Can't remember when I started doing lvl 2 giveaways just in case. Then for some reason I raised that to 3. Then when I stopped adding my winners in Steam and started putting the keys in SG instead, I decided to make lvl 4 giveaways. I had no real logic to it, just wanted to make sure I get winners who know what they're doing.

level 2 for bundled games
level 3 for non-bundled game.

Don't worry about higher level already having the games you're giving away or not being interested by it. you'll most of the time still have people who don't have it who would be interested by it.

I gave away 7 games with level 0 required, and yesterday I decided to create my first giveaway for level 1+. This is mostly because I don't want to wait very long for the feedback, and also I encountered people who won games worth e.g. $100 and gave nothing back, which is unfair I believe. Those guys can even sell the trading cards and buy something cheap to give it away, but don't do that. So, I think that after a few giveaways made to your level-1 you should make them for people at your level+.

I never put any level on my giveaways. I just don't think CV will ever fully reflect how much someone "needs" what I am giving away. Some folks have have a high CV and given back a lot to this community, for which I am grateful, but they may also have a huge backlog of games they'll never be able to play in a lifetime. On the other hand, someone who is new to this site or just doesn't have any cash to give anything away at the moment, may be very happy to receive even a small bundle game. I don't care about leechers, it's not a big deal to me ... the only thing that really pisses me off is when people automatically enter giveaways via script and don't even read the description.

Before creating a GA I listen to this song and usually go with 1.
Because it's such a lonely number. Also: BnAHC

i started with leveled GAs when i was at the End of lvl 3, now i do Lvl 1+ until i got lvl 5, then i go to lvl 2+ and maybe later at lvl 5 i'll start with lvl3+ too
and i only started leveled giveaways at the end of lvl 3 because i hate leechers... which got 0 sent but 35 wins, with level 1+ i can be sure, the others got a few sent, but most just got 2-4 sent but won ~20 i guess i should start doing lvl 2+ sooner ^^

I'd say its inversely related to the number of times its been bundled. If its never been bundled, then at least Level 4 (unless it was cheap to begin with). If its been bundled once, but is still an otherwise expensive game (and highly sought after), then I usually start at about 3 or 4. Thief for example, was in my last train, and its been bundled, but there's still plenty of people who missed the bundle or didn't have the spare scratch, so I did Level 3.

Well, it really depends on the giveaway.
For example, I personally mostly create private giveaways for the forum. Usually, they are puzzle giveaways. In that case, I don't set any CV requirement, since the user earned the chance to enter the giveaway fair and square by solving the puzzle.

However, if I only create a simple, easy to find/access giveaway, I might set the CV to level 1 to 4. As of lately, I promised myself to set the CV level higher more often, due to the winners being complete leeches.

As many people say it varies,

• if I make a giveaway for my whitelist, I don't bother putting a level on it.
• If I make a giveaway for my giveaway group it's level 1. this is because someone from my group won a game from me with over 100 wins and no giveaways. I didn't want to give him the game (but as there was no reason to re roll i did)
• If I make giveaways for other groups it depends on what I think about the group/it's admittance policy
• as for public giveaways it depends on why i am doing the giveaway/
• same goes for private giveaways