Normally I browse only Linux giveaways (platform set in here) and for most cases it works great, however there are many games that actually have a Linux version even though it's not marked in the store, so SG doesn't detect them as Linux and thus doesn't show them. For that reason (and some others) I can think of two cases where visibility settings can do more harm than good and maybe could be disabled.

  1. when browsing wishlist giveaways - if the game is on my wishlist, then I usually want it, no further filters needed.

  2. when searching for a game - obviously I want to find specific game(s), so the filters can more often prevent it than help.

With regards to specific settings:

  1. Filter by OS - that was my main motivation for this post so it's quite obvious (at least for those who customarily use this filter)
  2. Hide games you already own? - obviously not an issue for wishlist, but when I want to search and see how many GAs there are for a game I own and want to create GA for - I need to go and disable this, then search, then go back and enable - pretty cumbersome
  3. Hide DLC if you're missing the base game? - this one is 50/50 - the dlc can pop up if I have it on your wishlist or it matches my search query even if I don't own the base game - but I can't enter anyway, so it's not like something could happen.
  4. Hide giveaways above your level? - while it's useful to hide them in normal browsing, I see no real harm if they pop up for wishlist or search terms, at least I would know they're there
  5. Hide games you manually filtered? - this one's another big reason for me (after OS) - when I search for a game that I earlier put on ignore list, I may be convinced there are no GAs for that game even if there are. same if I put it on your wishlist after you ignored it some time earlier, I suppose it happens, happened for me at least once. big drawback would be with packages and dlcs , because they are not normally detected by SG so I hide them to avoid entering them by mistake - but they could still be distinguished by the lack of "hide this game" icon next to them, and also ESGST can properly detect owned dlc.

Of course it could be made so that just specific settings are disregarded (like only OS), or maybe even allow user to select which settings are forever and which can be ignored on wishlist / search, it's just a matter of finding the right way. I just wanted to know if others would find it as useful as I do.

Thanks for reaching the end, here's a little something for you. ^_^

6 years ago

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Useful?

View Results
Yah (both)
Yah (wishlist)
Yah (searching)
Nah (neither)

Bump

6 years ago
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I think both (wishlist and searching) are useful.

Regarding Hide games you already own?, you can always open an incognito tab for that. It should be more convenient than fiddling with the settings every time.

6 years ago
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I'm in the same situation, and agree it would be useful to ignore filters for wishlisted games and the search. Even more so now that Steam reports to devs the platform breakdown on wishlists, thus encouraging Linux users to wishlist non-Linux games. It's a dumb system, but hey, Valve.

The only alternative I have found on SG is to leave the OS filter to All, then use ESGST to do the filtering, as you can set defaults for the different views (Wishlist, Group, etc.). It works, but I find that quite slow.

6 years ago
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For searching I can suggest using archive: example. (The link to it can be found in the footer.)
It shows all giveaways, without filtering anything(owned, high level, etc), it shows even deleted and ended giveaways, but you can click "open" in the left column to search only for active ones.

6 years ago
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I knew about the archive but I didn't know it was linked in the footer (just randomly found it linked in some post and remembered), thanks for the hint! :-)

6 years ago*
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Both. Yes for searching (especially by name), but yeah, wishlist makes a lot of sense, too.

6 years ago
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This functionality seems to have been added to ESGST yesterday. Thanks! :-)

6 years ago
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