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Free weekends and keeping profile un-synced?

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weirdfish

If you've played a game during a Free Weekend, syncing your profile will make SteamGifts think that you own the game and prevent you from entering giveaways for it, for ...what? the two following weeks IIRC? Right, so questions:

What if my SG profile is not synced yet and I'm entering one such giveaway? can that lead to measures, like a ban?
What if I temporarily set my profile as private to prevent the issue described above?

Horrible gib for you
whoops sorry, wrong link

8 years ago*

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Free weekends, then?

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Awesome!
And lose the chance to enter more gibs? Avoid them like the plague!
With refunds, who needs free weekends anymore?
I'm too cool to play games for free
Obligatory starchy tuber based option
15 Comments
arfeu

Two weeks? Once he free promotion is over doesn't the game dissapear from your library? I played Rocket League this weekend, I kept my profileunsynced until the promotion ended and then I sync again; I thought that was fine.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

That's what I seem to recall from past experience. But it's been some time since the last time I've tried, so things may have changed or my recollection be hazy.

8 years ago
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arfeu

just entered a Rocket League GA, so yes, it looks like once the fre weekend is over, you can go on leeching entering giveaways.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

I did too, but my profile was last synced, manually, 5 days ago. In previous instances I recalled automatic syncs taking place making entering giveaways impossible; that was after taking advantage of the free weekend which, IIRC, meant actually launching the game, not just downloading it.

The two weeks thing comes, I think, because SteamGifts looks, or looked, at your playtime for the last two weeks: if it is (was?) greater than zero than it would say "Exists in account".

After two weeks that figure goes to 0 again if you don't own the game, so you could enter again.

8 years ago
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arfeu

synced just before installing it during free week, played it during the entire weekend without sync, and then synced again today (after expiration) and I was already able (or still, if that's what you are trying to say) to enter giveaways for the game.

8 years ago
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BirdCute

If you can't enter any giveaways of the game that was on free weekend, make sure to uninstall it and then just activate a random key. It can be already used, that's not a problem, because it will still refresh your licenses and SG refresh should work fine again.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

edit: on second thought, I don't think that would work, the license is expired as far as Steam as concerned. See the reasoning on the 2wk playtime in the comment above

8 years ago*
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cowlikesapricot

https://store.steampowered.com/account/licenses/ might let you remove the game from your library.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

That doesn't seem to be applicable, the free weekend license does not appear on my account page, as expected because Steam says my license is expired.

Like I was saying in the comment above, the problem seems to stem by SteamGifts checking your playtime during the last two weeks.

8 years ago
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cowlikesapricot

Setting your profile to private won't help anything. If it is set to private, a user can ask support to check your Steam profile. Support is made up of active users so they should know if free weekends are taking place. I highly doubt you would be falsely banned for entering a giveaway you described.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

Good points. However, it would keep SteamGifts from auto-syncing hence maintaining the ability to enter gibs for the game. Not for long admittedly, because, from just checking the FAQ again:

you can use the site with a private profile, however, if you wish to enter giveaways, the site will ask you to switch to a public Steam profile once a week to bring your account up-to-date.

(I maintained a public profile for years, that I couldn't say what rules applied to private profiles anymore.)

8 years ago
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cowlikesapricot

The link I provided should let you remove the game from your library before the free weekend is over, if you want to enter giveaways for it. arfeu said after you sync your account, you should be good to go.

8 years ago
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Mully

must be the first suggestion i see to not-sync the profile.

8 years ago
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weirdfish

I'm confused by your remark, where did you see a suggestion to not sync?

I entered a Rocket League giveaway not long ago and the questions popped to mind.

8 years ago
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Mully

i just compared the idea of not syncing on free weekends with the rest of the threads about syncing. people usually want to force everyone to sync every day to avoid multiple wins, and forget that free weekends mess things up really bad.

8 years ago
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