Your Opinion: Banning CD-key giveaways

Well, CD Key's could be a problem, you can't be sure where they were purchased. But then again there are many great legal CD-Key giveaways here.

Maybe allow them under certain circumstances, like adding in the description "CD - Key only. Purchased at ...". Maybe even add a new field when you start a giveaway "Steamgift: [] / CD-Key only []".

I was only giving away CD-Keys so far, some were bought at GreenManGaming.com. Those legal resellers should be added to a whitelist or so.

Cd keys aren't the only shady part. You can also gift and than claim your money back and the gift receiver will get banned.

I don't think banning them is proper, I'd hoped that the people here were better than faking things... Though I admit the Ruse, Eets and Dark Messiah MP stuff along with the begging, entering for already owned things and even things people don't have the prerequisite for have managed to damage the image I held of common goddamned sense.

Can that guy who sends you a cd key, make and scan of it. Anyways we will lose some peeps that gives games because of banning CD-Keys. I think the sub must send CD-Key with scan and winner when activates game should print "Receipt for CD-Key subscrition". There is a button when you activate a game, as you can see here: http://jaredheinrichs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image3.png

The key giveaways sometimes seemed a little shady to me too. I guess I would vote for the Gift-Only option.

Steam Gifts-only would mean a heck of a drop in giveaways, but then again it would be safer. It's hard to make the right decision regarding this.

Don't ban them. Just add a mandatory option while creating a giveaway, where will be a option to choose if it's a Steamgift or a CD key. Then in a giveaway everybody will see if it's Steamgift or just a CD key and it's only on him/her if he/she takes a risk...

yes, ban the keys before someone gets their steam account banned.

I don't care, but in that case, forget that you ever got Prey, Cult :P

If it can be activated on steam why ban them? I say ban a person who doesn't really gift the giveaway the second time he does it again and also ban everyone he has given an invite too...

What should I do with my giveaway of Dark Messiah MP keys? I havent sent keys yet because I must create five different e-mail to receive five different, legit keys. I see that all of these is now bannable, but I do not want to be banned. Maybe just remove that giveaway and return points to everybody who entered?

I say ban Dark Messiah and Bundles, but don't ban ALL keys.

Maybe someday an indie developer will come to you, Cult, and propose giving you 10 keys for giveaway. It would be a promotion for his game, but also a giveaway for you. However, developers can't actually gift you games like that, they can only give you keys, so I think it's a bad idea to ban ALL keys. However, I wouldn't like giveaways of keys for games such as Call of Duty. The keys are regionalised and let's say you are American - you can win Polish version of the game - playing is pretty much pointless.

I think it' better to ban Dark Messiah and bundles rather than all CD keys. Also, submission rules should be shown right before creating submission, looks like lots of people just don't read them.

Okay you ban Dark Messiah but if peeps want to make a full version giveaway of that game, whats then?

i think keys should stay but there should be a filter allowing you to hide them

also is there any way to stop the dark massiah mp spammers?

Better yet can someonecontact valve and get some official backing one way or another?

I vote for banning them. This looks too smelly to me.
After checking some Humble Frozen/Heated Indie packs that been offered here, I discovered that most of the users offering them also SELL them via their steam account (look at the profile description, there's a link to something that looks like a Russian Paypal type of service). Each quotes a different price (1-5 USD), and it seems it is not limited to one key. Any of us can buy one.

I do respect all users and thank them for their kindness, but it looks too fishy selling keys and offering them here. How did these keys get to the user? Are they stolen? Might our account be banned because of this in the future?

IMHO, the solution should be - banning these offers.
Lets us Google better and find these packs for a cheap price, rather than making our steam account - with it's numerous games - banned.

Don't ban.

Maybe we can create a new section with a flag that says CDKey giveaway?

Don't ban.

Why not just ban Dark Messiah giveaways? There's lots of legitimate cd-key giveaways (looking at Gin and Spoonalicious). It's unfair to lump them with DM MP keys.

Require a confirmation that the user has got the CD-KEY, like a photo or something similar. If that is not possible, then ban them. On the other hand, there may be games only available trough CD-KEYs. I wouldn't want to get a illegally obtained game though... There could be a notice that the games could possibly be received illegally.

I think we should get rid of them all too. Steam items only!

I vote for Steam-gift system only. Safety of our accounts at first.

I also give my vote towards steam-gifts only.

The humble bundle key situation is not exactly a giveaway is it, more like sharing the same key. I say ban them. Only keys that can be activated on steam should be allowed.

Well, My friend once won 200 BF2 keys for Steam, and this is often done (maybe other games though) on lan game winners.

Unfortunately , if this system is implemented , that means in the near future i won't be able to gift you guys at all .

I use the giveaway key thingy on all of my giveaways 100% , so it won't be good in the end if i couldn't do giveaways that way .

I vote no .