FAQ/Rules and Guidelines

This is in progress, and will be edited often.

Hi there! Welcome to the SteamGifts community. We're glad you're here, and even more glad that you took an interest in the FAQ! There's been a lot of confusion and debate as to rules, ethics, behavior, etc., so here is a handy write up for everyone.

Sections for policies are in this order: Base Rules, Giveaways, Site Etiquette, Keys Considered Exploited, Policy on Bundles, Site and Points FAQ, and Tutorials.

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New to SteamGifts?

The New Gifter's Guide to Gifting - credit goes to cfriend

Formatting FAQ - How to edit text your comments in the community - me

SteamGifts Site Addon, Steam Menu Mod, and iPhone/Android App - credit goes to Kennyist, ronzano, and Zo

Will it activate on Steam? - credit goes to AJValentine

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SteamGifts Staff:

• cg - Administrator
• Lokonopa - Head Moderator
• Raiden - Chat Moderator
• thejadefalcon - Chat Moderator
• Yatterman - Chat Moderator
• Hichigo - Chat Moderator

Please note that our staff will never message you to beg for a gift, to ask about account details, or to threaten your account.

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FAQ pour utilisateurs francophones - Credit goes to DereckShiller

Perguntas frequentes (FAQ) em português - Credit goes to LuckyBoy

Текст на русском языке доступен здесь - Credit goes to DimazzzZ

Para español, haga clic aquí - Credit goes to emiih

Jezyk polski: kliknij tutaj - Credit goes to uvi

Klicka här för Svenska - Credit goes to Swishkebab

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A Update on points

Official CG Announcements - with thanks to tragikos for keeping this updated.

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Base Rules:

• Please submit any support requests in the Support Forum. The forum is not used to receive support from the mods or admin.
• Don't enter for games you already own.
• Do not ask for any sort of payment/exchange in order to enter a giveaway. This applies to group rules as well.
• Do not link to any referral programs.
• Don't trade, sell, resubmit, or give away games you win.
• Do not link or distribute private giveaway URL's unless expressly asked to do so.
• Winnings must be redeemed on the winning account.
• Begging in the community will not be tolerated.
• Only one SG account allowed per person. Please do not share accounts.
• Try to be active in the forum/chat.
• Do not call out submitters in giveaways. Please click the report button or submit a ticket, do not comment on the giveaway claiming the giveaway to be fake.
• Only one account per IP address. If you have someone else at your location using SteamGifts, please give the admin a heads up by submitting a ticket on the Support Forum.
• Please avoid using NSFW or offensive avatars. Avatars are not synced with the "Sync" feature of SteamGifts, it happens automatically.

Giveaways:

• The submitter and winner(s) of the giveaway have seven (7) days to complete the gifting process. This includes the activation of the gift on the Steam account of the winner.
• Please note you cannot gift games from your Steam library. They are permanently attached to your account and not giftable.
• Do not misrepresent the title being given away.
• Extraneous/special rules for giveaways require moderator approval. Public giveaways cannot have any special rules. Would you like to know more?
• Please do not offer trades in the description of your giveaways.
• Do not submit individual keys from bundles.
• Do not submit what we consider exploited CD-keys. These are listed below.
• Do not submit CD-keys that require VPN activation or methods to bypass regional restrictions.
• Do not submit guest passes, beta keys (Dota 2 and CS:GO giftable copies whitelisted), or in-game items from games such as TF2.
• Do not submit Steam or online game accounts (EVE, RIFT, etc).
• Do not submit coupons or special Steam items, such as coal.
• Only enter for DLC if you have the required base game.
• You must redeem the game on the account you entered with, and may not trade it to others.

Chat Room, Forum, and Site Etiquette:

• The chat room or forum is NOT used for trading items/games.
• Please avoid creating topics for political discussion.
• Do not link to any referral programs.
• Puzzles: Do not leak, post answers, suggest hints, or directly link to the prize/giveaway.
• If you would like to include some self-promotion in the chat or forum, please run it by a mod first.
• Be considerate of all users at all times related to the site/chat, etc.
• Do not beg or offer to trade in chat or forum. Do not beg for games in chat/forum or PM SG members from chat for games.
• Always thank submitters. Thanking is not required to enter a giveaway.
• Please do not call out users in the forum or chat. Submit a ticket in the Support Forum.

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Keys Considered Exploited:

• Serious Sam: Double D
• Dead Island
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
• Bulletstorm
• Homefront Shotgun DLC
• AI War
• Supreme Commander / Forged Alliance
• Portal 2
• DiRT 3
• Puppy Games Keys
• Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Multiplayer
• Eets (in certain amounts)
• Puzzle Agent (same reason as Eets)

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IGN Prime Keys

• Members may submit these keys as giveaways.

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Submitting Bundles

• Users may not submit individual keys from any bundle. This includes either keys for activating the entire bundle, parts of the bundle, or individual keys for games. Please do not submit games from bundles while they are on sale to avoid confusion. These giveaways are subject to immediate removal. Members may only submit unused, giftable links of the bundle. Accounts that habitually violate this policy may be suspended until further notice.

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Formatting:

Formatting FAQ - Written by lokonopa

Markdown Examples

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FAQ:

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Are you affiliated with Steam?

• No! We are a collective of avid gamers who enjoy Valve's incredible digital distribution service.

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Will I get in trouble using this or is this against Steam's TOS?

• As of now, we have yet to hear of a single issue with the thousands of gifts given away from the community. If any concerns were to arise, we would be more than happy to reach out to Valve, and do our best to address these issues, helping them understand the winners have no connections with the users providing the games. Overall, we're simply helping people find a way to share their extra copies, and SteamGifts is not setup to dodge country restrictions or pricing in anyway. Hopefully in the future we'll be able to get game publishers or even Valve involved.

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When are you getting rid of the invites?

• Site registration is now open and invites are no longer in place as of November 9th, 2011.

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What's with these points?

• The point system is designed to prevent users from entering for every single giveaway. This lowers the overall number of entries, and provides everyone with better odds of winning games they're interested in playing. New users start out with 25P. Every time anyone submits a game, every member of the site, excluding the giveaway creator, receives 5 percent of that gifts value (in USD) in points. For example, if a $50 gift is created, every user on the site receives 2.5 points. And, if a $20 gift is created, everyone would receive 1 point. These points can then be spent on entering giveaways.

  1P = $1 - When entering a giveaway, 1P is equal to $1. If you're entering for a chance to win a game valued at $20, you'll spend 20 points. If at anytime you decide to remove your entry while the giveaway is open, those points will be returned.

  The maximum number of points that can be banked is 300. This is to prevent users from stocking up on points while being away for long periods of time.

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How are the winners chosen?

• The winners are randomly selected. There's a cron job running every 5 minutes, checking for closed giveaways that need winners assigned. Since giveaways end by default on a 5 minute mark, the winners should be instantly selected.

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Do I get my points back when the giveaway is over?

• No, points are spent on the opportunity to win, and not returned after the giveaway closes.

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Does SteamGifts somehow supply me with the game(s)?

• SteamGifts itself does not gift any games directly. Only the submitter of a giveaway that created the giveaway is responsible for sending out the gift(s). When creating a giveway, you agree that you have an available copy of the gift(s). You cannot gift games from your library as they are permanently attached to your Steam account upon activation.

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Can I win a game for someone else I know?

• Members may only enter for their own account for games they do not already own.

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I haven't won anything, and this other person has won a bunch. What gives?

• Winners are selected at random from the database the moment a giveaway closes. The past history of a member has no affect on their chances of winning, and everyone always has an equal opportunity of being selected.

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How can I increase my odds of winning or acquire more points faster?

• There are no ways to increase your odds of winning, you have the same chances of winning as everyone else. Points, as explained in the "points" portion of the FAQ, only increase when a public giveaway is submitted. Group and private giveaways currently do not distribute points.

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What type of security is in place to protect my Steam information?

• SteamGifts and SteamGameSales take advantage of the Steam OpenID platform. When you choose to login, you're forwarded over to the official Steam site, where they authenticate your information as usual. If you successfully login, they pass across your 64bit Steam ID, which is public information (ex: 76561198020696458). Although our sites are extremely secure, if the database was ever hacked, and all the information compromised, you would still be safe, because the only information we know or save is public data.

  Our sites have been verified on the official Steam forums by moderators multiple times, we have tens of thousands of members, and sites such as SteamGameSales are stickied and recommended on their forums for tracking sales and price reductions.

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What are the base requirements to join the site?

• We require all registered users to have at least $50.00 worth of games associated with their Steam account. This is to prevent users from creating multiple Steam accounts for use on this site, which might result in cheating. This value is automatically generated when you register, using the game list from your Steam profile.

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How will I know I've won?

A green banner with a winning message will appear on each page of SteamGifts.com while you are logged in on your account. Clicking on the link in the green banner will redirect you to the winning giveaway. SteamGifts.com does not currently notify the winners of giveaways in any other fashion.

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I won a giveaway, but haven't received the gift.

• The giveaway creator has 1 week to email it before you can mark the gift as "Not received". If it's been more than 24 hours since the giveaway ended try and add the giveaway host to Steam and remind them to send the gift.

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I've changed my avatar on Steam, but SteamGifts is still my old one?

• This is an automated process and can take up to eight hours for SteamGifts to update with your avatar. Syncing your account does not affect this process.

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Understanding Feedback

The feedback system is setup to ensure users maintain a minimum of roughly 75% received on their gifts sent. Three is added to this number to give new users room to get started. For example...

1. A user has 35 received, 10 not received (78%). They would be limited to a total of 12 not received before dropping below 75%, plus the 3 given to all users, so 15 in total. Since they already have 10 not received, they could post 5 additional gifts.

2. Another user has 10 received, 0 not received (100%). They're able to post 3 not received gifts before reaching 75%. Once again, add the 3 to this number, and they can list 6 additional gifts.

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Group and Private Giveaways

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Group Giveaways

You're now able to limit your giveaway to a particular Steam group. When creating a giveaway, select the Steam Group option, along with one of your groups. If you don't see your group on the page, you might need to sync your account. They offer a few major benefits...

• You can safely share the link in chat rooms and on forums, without worrying about non-group members joining.
• It's not necessary to share the link. The giveaway will automatically appear on the site, profiles, search, etc, for member in the group (thanks for the suggestion tragikos).
• As the site grows, improved odds of winning. If you're a member of our offical group, or any other group that uses the site, you'll see these new giveaways appearing in the list, and they'll have much fewer entries than the others.

Private Giveaways

The other feature of creating of a giveaway is the choice of making your giveaway private. When made private, you will be given a unique URL after creating the giveaway. You can share this link as you please, but please be aware anyone with this link would be able to enter your private giveaway. Unlike Group giveaways, Private giveaways do not appear on the site, profiles, search, etc. Though, members will be able to see a private giveaway has ended in two ways:

• The winner accepts the gifts and changes the feedback to "received". This will allow the winning name to appear in the Latest Receive Gifts feed. The link to the private giveaway will not be available in this feed.
• The winner will have the private appear under their profile under what they've Won. Similar to the Latest Winners feed, other members will not be able to see who created the private giveaway and the link to the private giveaway will not be available.
• The URL to share your private giveaway will be available in Manage.

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Tutorial

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How to gift to your self and gift at a later date & Reclaim un-redeemed gifts

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Gee golly that sale looks great! I would like to stock up on a few and gift them at a later date! However I do not know how to, and that sale is ending fast. Don't worry Jimmy/Nancy... Old Robotic GLaPOS will show you how!

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Purchasing as a gift

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Gift the game to your own e-mail address! (Purchase as a gift and use the option Send E-mail)

• DO NOT ACCEPT OR RETRIEVE THE GAME >:O
• Wait till you want to gift it!
• Click on the main Steam Window-> Games (Menu Bar At Top) -> Manage gifts and passes!
• Right click your game and click resend

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Reclaiming un-redeemed gifts

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• Click on the main Steam window -> Games (menu at the top) -> Manage gifts and passes.
• Click on the game you wish to reclaim.
• Click "Resend" and send the gift to your own email address.
• Repeat to re-send the gift to somebody else at any time.

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