People deleting their giveaway because of a used key

Unless it's a Steam Group rule which you're in; yes, you're right.

It's not against the rules, but the winner would still have to agree in deleting. Thus it can be only seen as a warning and creators are hoping that only people join who would agree in deletion.

previous thread

i was wondering if that's against the rules or not.

no, its not against the rules to write this in giveaway description. Winner could agree or not agree with giveaway deletion

What's stopping me into creating troll giveaways

If u delete your giveaway u will loose 1 giveaway slot. If u make clear fake/troll giveaway (for example, with "Its a fake!" in description - we will miss u few days)

Good question.
I am interested to know a mod point of view on that topic.

It's not against the rules to put that into your giveaway's description, but it won't get you anywhere, since the winner still could not agree to delete it. Putting this into the giveaway's description doesn't mean the winner is actually required to agree to a deletion or anything similar. You can't force him to agree, since as the giveaway creator you still are required to provide the game you created a giveaway for.

Users here have already covered what needs to be said. Sure, gifters can hope the winner will be nice if there is an issue, but a winner isn't forced to do anything no matter what is posted in the giveaway description. While in my personal opinion, gifters should only make a giveaway for a key they know will work, there is always the possibility of just having a dud key, it unfortunately happens occasionally with certain sites.

And intentionally creating giveaways with no intent to deliver will get you suspended if it is discovered. Please don't waste anyone's time doing so.

Way I see it, lots of people have been having issues with humble bundle keys, and other bundle keys... So is it really that big a deal to take a chance? Still, I would say not to do so in public giveaways, but private trains, or group giveaways it should be acceptable.

Two different things to consider here:

• I believe that my key is valid and I intent to deliver it, but I'm not 100% sure and I want to warn potential winners about that
• I'm intentionally creating a fake giveaway, with or without announcing it

Second case is a bannable offense and it doesn't matter in this case. If you didn't supply key at all, or supplied key for another game, then there is no any intent of delivering in the first place, since you didn't even try. You could now try to gather proof how you tried to obtain a key and failed, but still, the burden is on you, you'll get suspended by definition if you don't have anything in your defense.

First case is less obvious, because it's unwritten "rule" between giver and winner. I say "rule", because it doesn't have to be respected. Winner should make no problems if he decided to join such giveaway, because he was informed in advance that it might happen. He's not obligated to follow it though, and might insist on creator taking a "not received", but it's plain dickish move considering you were warned in advance - you could not join if you couldn't stand it. Keep in mind that this is not a bannable offense per-se, since giveaway creator had intent to deliver a gift - this is what not received is for (unless you can somehow prove otherwise, such as him making giveaway for the same game the next day, just to deliver to another person but you).

So yes, it depends. You can't force winner to do anything just because you put it in giveaway description - not only agreeing to delete but other stuff such as subscribing to youtube channel, posting a like under post or anything. However, it's a pretty normal thing that we have keys lying around we're not 100% sure about - I usually just make those for my private giveaway group, because I know that nobody there will act like a dick and insist on me taking not received mark, even if it should be considered a standard thing if giveaway creator has warned you in advance about such possibility. It's pretty much a gray zone, because nobody will get mad if you do it once or twice, but you will get in trouble if significant part of your giveaways will be not received.

And lastly, you lose giveaway slot every time you delete a giveaway. Even if you created 3 "fake" gibs, claiming it was just a mistake, you wouldn't get banned (probably, no strong proof), but you wouldn't get any free slots to create more fake giveaways either.

I am ok with people that do it. I know some people giving away games might not have a lot of money, in fact I don't have much money myself. So when they get a key they want to give away they worry about it not working because they don't have the money to buy a new key. I have only had one person delete my win after finding out the key they gave me was used, the other times people made good with a different key and one time I got 2 games because the user accidentally reversed 2 keys in a train so I got the game I was supposed to win and an extra one. I felt bad about that, I wouldn't have redeemed it if I had known it was a wrong key. I wish Steam had a place where we could check keys without using them to see if they are valid and what game they are for. The ones I have issues with are the giveaways that are listed under one game, but in the description say this i for some other game but the site doesn't have it listed. If you win one of those and mark it as received then it isn't in your library it causes you issues on site, I had an issue for a bit where I accidentally redeemed a key in a wrong Steam account (it was my husband's account), and had to wait until I could buy myself a copy of the game to fix it. You also can never enter giveaways for that actual game again. It is not as much an issue now that we can giveaway games that were free, but I still see it sometimes for DLC where the person doesn't know what DLC it is.

it should be against the rules. these GA creators are coercing people into allowing them to delete the giveaways if those keys don't work (because we know what will happen if they deny the very nice and pleasant request).

if they don't have a proper key to make a ga, then drop the key in a thread and don't try to farm cv with it.
they think they are being generous by giving away their "probably used" trash, yeah, they are only being "generous" to themselves.

Honestly, while the contract or agreement in a giveaway description is not against the rule, it must be. The contract or agreement in the giveaway description has no merit whatsoever when the winner still has the authority to ask for a working key and can state their issue in a support ticket. If the contract or agreement is to state the key may or may not work as intended, then the giveaway creator should have said in a way that is not some sort of business deal. Decision of the winner to agree or disagree with the giveaway creator depends more on emotions at the time of incident rather than what decision provides the most justification.

Potentially bad keys a real problem for me. I have quite a few old keys that I probably won't give away because I can't be sure they'd work, even if I bought them from a legit site such as IndieGala. No bundle site guarantees keys beyond a certain time, and keys given away by devs in events are certainly often suspect of being repeats.

So some keys end up not being given because I don't want to end up having to spend money to fulfill a giveaway. I guess I could always drop them in the forum.

I don't have problem with people deleting ga when key is invalid. I agreed for deletion of such gas twice. Fun fact: there was nothing about it in description. Once creator contacted me and ask to mark ga as not received because he activated it by accident (he wanted to try the key because he believed that he had game already). The second time was when ga creator didn't contact me - after a week I added him on steam and found out that he hadn't read faq/guide and so on xD So I teached him a little about how this site works and then agreed for ga deletion.

On the other hand I would NEVER agree to deletion if there was a message like that in description: "By entering you agree to delete this GA if (...)". It's not only against the rules (for no additional rules) but also it's also rude.

Sorry, I feel out-of-the-loop here.

What do people mean by cv farming?

What creating a GA and later deleting it actually gives you? (other than losing a GA slot)

I think people forget that this is a voluntary site to give keys to strangers. You don't have to give keys away. If a key doesn't work then tough shit, they don't owe you any thing. If you are so angry over not getting a game then you should evaluate your life and why you are so angry with not getting a game you didn't pay for. If you can't afford to buy games and someone buying a game for you fails and you get annoyed at them for it... You need to get a new hobby and get some manners alongside it.

Sometimes I've had keys not work and sometimes I've been able to get another key and sometimes not. I've had it happen when I was the winner and have had giveaways deleted, I move on cause I'm not an ungrateful idiot that forgets people make mistakes. Pisses me off with people on this site being so elitist demanding everything.

For the "uncertain" keys, I joined ninja retreat. People there are fully aware that keys may be no good.
Anyway, this key is valid :)

Well... Devs of a game nicely gave me two keys to gift to my friends. No friend was interested enough and they told me it would just be +1 in their library : a waste. So i decided to gift these keys to whitelist. With the condition you mention. "If key doesn't work, i will first ask politely to devs for another key, but please if you join agree to delete in case of etc." Because there can be an error with a key provided by dev, for example if he gives the same to another person by mistake. Whitelist people nicely agreed to the condition and luckily there has been no error with the two keys.

And honestly, when i see some people here who would disagree to delete to "give a lesson to the gifter etc." then yes it's their right, but i just think then that it was a good choice to restrain the giveaway to whitelist.

edit : But if you add an option in the future "i'm not sure about the key, people agree to delete in case of and i agree to get 0 CV even if key works" then i would select this option in this situation. And no, i would have not thrown the keys to random strangers, because otherwise better give to friends who just add +1 in library, would have been exactly the same waste.

You will run out of giveaway slots eventually if u keep doing that .