How would you do a massive giveaway?

do a giveaway train

there have been mass giveaways in the past, using a text-adventure-maze.

you would enter the maze at a random point and you could chose which way to walk. there were even different levels, portals and stuff you could pick up and store in your inventory.

it took like forever to map out the maze, but it was totally worth it =)

It wasn't about leaving the maze (there was no exit), but about finding the links to giveaways that could be on specific "spots" in the maze.

I'm pretty sure the site did log which user visited those giveaways spots and you had to post your user name in the giveaway you entered, so you could not share the GA links.

Edit: found the link

I'd give the games away one by one, or only a few at the time through a puzzle. I'd set the giveaways to end, let's say, in two days. When the two days would be over, I'd create another puzzle giveaway, and another, until I would be out of games to give. :)

Make a google doc spreadsheet and post the link maybe.

If i would be good at programming i would programm a flash game and for things like complete 10 lvls or beat the ...boss or find the hidden ....easteregg you would get link to a g iveaway or something like that, you know what i mean?

Game key scavenger hunt.

I would dump them on my bed and roll around naked on them. And when I tired of that, I would allow people to approach me and withdraw a game from beneath my glistening exterior.

Puzzles are fun. Sometimes people make a long string with bundle junk for each step, and something good hidden at the very end. One caveat - if you make a puzzle, the games will go to people who enjoy puzzles.

I know of no method to ensure each game only goes to someone who wants to play it. Hope you can find one! :)

There is only one answer for massive GiveAway - GROUP PUZZLE! :>

programm something with login and everybody can login there and get 1 game of their choice or not one game, but games of a certrain value like everybody can get games worth 20€ or 20$ so that you can get 4 for 5€ or 1 for 20€

A riddle, and whoever guesses has to add you and tell you the answer, and if its correct you give him a game(?).

xD I would just surprise people and gift them the game if I see it in their wishlist. Just so they can get up one morning, check Steam, and say "OH SHIT!"

Make a website where at random time (e.g. 100 codes per week?) appears a random code (instead of some generated text filling spaces between code drops to avoid scripts/bots/NSA) and please F5 ninjas. It's just... autokeysdumptopic thingie.

I don't like puzzles... Puzzles are great for people that like them, but for people who don't it's kind of like saying: "Here, jab at your eyeball with a fork for a few minutes". I suggest you give out any puzzle games with puzzles.

The win and you're out bracket idea isn't too bad. You could put the best game as the final prize, and that way winning and losing could be kind of fun. But, it would take a lot of work, you'd have to get people signed up, then find a way to randomly select winners from the list, then determine how many rounds it would be. But, if you did it so that the games get better each round, it could be kind of interesting.

A lot of the other ideas just seem like so much work, to either make the contest or to enter.

Create a giveaway that people can enter once (here you'll need something to verify each use was unique)
There should be a list of all the game that are being given away, corssed off as they are given away
once the giveaway begins chose one person at random as set intervals of time
That person has a limited time to draw one key at random
If time expired the person is returned to the and another person is selected
You reveal the game name at this point, but not the key
The winner can chose to accept the game and exit the giveaway or return the game to the pool and redraw, you can redraw as long as you have time remaining

Pros

• A bit of tension for the winners as they decide if they want a game or want to take a chance at something better
• could make it into an interesting event let people see the persons chices

cons

• would take some time to set up/code
• lag
• people with bad internet connections
• time (500 keys say you chose one person ever 2 minutes would take 1000 minites or roughly 16 hours)

Not begging

I could help with this and it'd be fun. There was a group once called Greedy Gifters. Group size was limited. Giveaways were frequent, but the catch was, if you were entered in a giveaway when it ended, you got kicked from the group, and banned for a month. Only one giveaway at a time, and they were typically for just an hour or two. This made people really think about their giveaway entries and led to some games of chicken. Lots of good times in Group chat of people taunting and daring each other. You, me, and maybe a couple other people (I think Zelghadis would be a good choice, and maybe a mod) could crank through that list in a week or two.

edit: every other good idea I have read or thought up myself would require as much work, or some sort of web programming to implement.

Why don't you just trade the games for paypal and then donate the money to charity or something, and not give them to fat gamer kids who already have more than they will ever play?

random keydrops throughout the forums would be kinda fun, without having the hassle of waiting and other stuff lol

I would probably do random keydrops in chatrooms, maybe make a giveaway group for the less fortunate. Perhaps even a few private giveaways in random threads on the forum.

If you are giving away 500+ games, you at least need to include two things: competition and gambling. Competition, because who doesn't love fighting for a prize. Gambling, because who doesn't live winning a prize, and then immediately risking it for a greater prize. Divide the games into prize brackets (by value, popularity, etc.), let only the lowest tier be won at first, but then give the option to take the games or proceed to the next round.

You can make a bot who posts 1 key in the according game sub-forum in the steam community. For example whenever I start a game or before I buy it, I visit the steam forums dedicated to it to see if there are some technical problems or pals to play with in case of a multiplayer title. For a DLCs you might want to use the main game forum O.R.B.. For a game copy it's better to use the trade sub-forums of the game forum O.R.B. trading forum, unfortunately noone there, for other games they're populated, that way you will be sure the game will go to someone who's searching to trade something for it. Also make sure the key is in some cryptic form like with one ? char in it and an explanation what is the ? in a separate sentence in order to be immune for other bots who craws for key drops.

Create 10-20 giveaways and add the winners to a private group. Then create private giveaways and whoever wins one is out(winner still gets the game). Do that until theres only one guy left and give him the grand prize.You could also create prizes for each place. 1 game for 20th place, 2 for 19th place etc and the winner gets all the remaining keys.

Jatan11 had one awesome idea(or at least I liked it) where he droped the code for giveaways(that 5 leter/number thing) on some people giveaways and left clues for them and for the guys that found all of them made a special giveaway