Hi SG,

Our holiday gift box event is back for 2019, starting now and ending December 25! Dust off Photoshop (or Paint) and get ready to share your creative designs with our community and to unlock great giveaways each day.

https://www.steamgifts.com/happy-holidays

How it works

  1. Creating a gift box and giveaway

    • To setup a giveaway, use the link above and click "Create a Holiday Giveaway".
    • The giveaway will start immediately and end on December 25.
    • The giveaway will be available to the entire community, although region and contributor level restrictions can still be configured.
    • The giveaway will appear as invite only on your profile and not be visible throughout the site.
    • Once created, you'll see your gift box in the link above and users will have a chance to open it to access the giveaway.
    • Please ensure your gift box design is appropriate for all ages and respectful of others in the community. Inappropriate designs will need to be removed along with the corresponding giveaway.
  2. Opening gift boxes

    • You can open 5 gift boxes each day until December 25.
    • When you open a gift box, you unlock the giveaway link and are able to enter the giveaway. Unlocked gift boxes are highlighted in green on the holiday page above, and you can freely revisit those gift boxes and giveaways.
    • You will see a notification if you cannot open a gift box. This could happen when the giveaway contained within is region restricted, when you do not meet the contributor level requirements, when you already own the game, when you do not own the base game for the DLC, when you have previously won the game, or when you have been blacklisted by the giveaway creator.
    • You cannot join a giveaway by only having the direct link. If you did not open the corresponding gift box, but received the link from someone else, you will see an error when attempting to view the giveaway.

No spoilers. Please do not share what games you found or what was contained inside of a gift box.

  • Do you think gift boxes should contain hints? For example, should we display whether a box contains a frequently wishlisted game, a popular game, DLC, etc? This might allow users to better target whether they want to focus on certain types of games, or if they want to open less popular boxes with fewer entries. At the same time, the hints could spoil some of the surprise. What do you think?
  • Should we allow 5 or 10 boxes to be opened per day?

Happy holidays!

Updates

  • Based on feedback, filter and OS changes have been added here.
4 years ago*

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Happy holidays indeed, thank you!

4 years ago
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Going to need to do my biggest yee boi yet for this - thanks for the event!

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4 years ago*
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I'm having fun going through some really cool-looking boxes.
Shame I can only unlock 5 of them.

4 years ago
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That sure seems on point to me. :P

4 years ago
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Hmm... Let's see...

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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4 years ago
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4 years ago
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That got me by surprise. XD

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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It looks so unamused with falling down.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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"Hello, animal control? My cat was just eaten by a mimic. Please send trained adventurers immediately."

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Oh-hey, this is back.

You can open 5 gift boxes each day until December 25.

What's the reset time on the "per day"?

Do you think gift boxes should contain hints? For example, should we display whether a box contains a frequently wishlisted game, a popular game, DLC, etc?

Steamgifts is a site based on options in how people gift their games. Thus, between that and the fact that additional options are almost always better, I feel the event should reflect that aspect. Thus, there shouldn't be any strict approach as to how the gifts are handled, but rather gifters should be given control over certain settings (thus allowing them to choose if additional information is provided to visitors).

That said, "is a DLC" and "this is a free game" should probably be revealed outright [unless you feel that having "bad eggs" enhances the event], as those elements fundamentally change the nature of the gift. Combine that with a setting allowing the gifter to reveal whether it's for certain types of games, unbundled, etc, and DLC giveaways should be given a lot more appeal than the previous event. Flip side, DLC giveaways may suffer from fewer entrants, so that's a potential concern to address.

Also, you still haven't fixed the "Personal attacks or hate speech" section of the "Proposed Guidelines" thread, and the suspicion that its current exclusiveness in what it covers is intentional (as it is on other sites I'm familiar with) is starting to erode the level of expectations I have for you. Just FYI. >.>

4 years ago*
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What's the reset time on the "per day"?

It's based on GMT. The site will display the time remaining in the day once you open a box.

4 years ago
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The site will display the time remaining in the day once you open a box.

Any chance we can get that shown on the main event page as well?

4 years ago
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It already does, maybe it only starts showing after you open your first box?

4 years ago
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Maybe it's user-specific? That would explain the structure, after all.
Does your timer match up to anything, or does it seem specific to you?

4 years ago
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Putting the mouse over the time doesn't add any extra info, but i mentions "Choose 3 more gift boxes to open today. The day ends in 23 hours." I imagine the day started at 6:00 (GMT -6 I think, I'm in Mexico) so 12:00 a.m. GMT

It's possible the info is added by one of the addons I have.

4 years ago
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It's possible the info is added by one of the addons I have.

Being that this is SG, that does sound rather plausible. :P

4 years ago
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Just checked on my phone where I'm not using addon and there's a bar displaying the time left. It does seem to be based on 12:00 gmt, as it changed to 22 hours and I opened my fist box less than an hour ago.

4 years ago
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Thanks. :)

Hmm, fist box. Now there's a box cover idea. :P

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4 years ago
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Hahaha, I also made a typo in the first comment, why don't I see them before submitting, do'h

4 years ago
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Maybe you just like to play around, right up until you get to that do'h?
I mean, y'know it's all about that play do'h.

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4 years ago
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Well. Tagging dlcs and free games would be nice indeed. Yes.

4 years ago
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I agree especially since DLC don't registered as own...

4 years ago
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Yup, just found that out the hard way. Opened a gigt that contained PayDay 2 DLC eventhough I own the GOTY.

4 years ago
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This. Yes.

4 years ago
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Tagging dlcs and free games would be nice indeed

Agreed.

4 years ago
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(o'Θ'))Hmm..Hmm..

This time has come again this year.
I was flying.πŸͺγ€€
Now, I'm worried about the contents of the box ...🎁ヘヘ( 'Θ`)ooO(πŸ₯’πŸ…πŸŽƒπŸ‡πŸˆπŸ‰πŸŒπŸ‘πŸ’πŸ“πŸπŸŽπŸ’£" ”)

4 years ago
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Hi I could open your box with cyberpunk despite having it.

4 years ago
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Probably should also note if the game is hidden on our lists. As that is one way to filter DLC that we own...

4 years ago
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+1

4 years ago
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Probably should also note if the game is hidden on our lists. As that is one way to filter DLC that we own...

Honestly, I see a lot of benefit to this. Well, I can't say whether it's good for the event itself or not [especially given how high profile gibs would only be targetted that much more, especially via wishlist (or ignore list) manipulation*], but I really am not all that keen on the idea that I might miss a top-wishlisted giveaway or, conversely, that someone who didn't really want my game entered it simply because they stumbled onto it and the entry count was low.

*{ie, The adding and removing of specific games to wishlist or ignore list to check contents without revealing.)

And, as you touched on, basing filtering off existing lists is a great way to avoid items that feel less appealing by their fundamental nature [ie, being won DLC or undesired free game]- nevermind those which give less of a "festive" vibe and more of a "here's my garbage, take it" one. Well, cg could always just disable free games for the event, as well, to avoid half of those concerns outright.

A more clunky but potentially more functional alternative'd be to let people select an event-specific, on-site wishlist and filter list, thereby giving cg more control over how such lists are handled. Like, "select any 100 games you want to filter out for this event" and "select any 5 games you want to see revealed prior to opening". Could alternatively just limit the timing (as in, "you must add at least X number of items to desired games at once") and/or ability to remove elements from the lists. It'd be more work on cg and users, but it may work better in regards to avoiding exploitation and other issues.


/

Well, personally, I'm favorable towards just getting a "No Value", "DLC for owned game", and "DLC for unowned game" warning.
Y'know, for the simplest-to-implement fix for the matter. It'd also be cool if it combined the "free game" and "wishlist" parameters, so as to also add a "No Value + Wishlisted" result. On that note, I forget if the API sends out wishlist data for DLCs properly or not. "Wishlisted No Value/DLC" and "Unwishlisted No Value/DLC" could be an even simpler approach.

4 years ago*
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*{ie, The adding and removing of specific games to wishlist or ignore list to check contents without revealing.)

If someone spends their time to check the boxes with that method I would say they deserve to join whichever giveaways they want. Identifying the creator is possible at the moment.

4 years ago
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I was mostly noting it 'cause that was the primary concern when this matter was brought up last time around.
I don't have any real feelings on the matter, myself.

4 years ago
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It might heavly reduce number of aviable boxes for some users ( i know folks with thousands of filtered games) but personaly i would welcome such changes. Though it probably wont happen. Yes.
+1 for sure. Yes.

4 years ago
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+1
Its a lot more fun opening gifts when you know there's a good chance it's something you want instead of being almost guaranteed to be something you're not interested in.

4 years ago
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4 years ago*
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Thanks CG, glad to see this back :)

Not sure if the reset timer is per member or global but I'd like to see a global reset time if possible.

I'm fine with 5 but 10 would be fine as well.

I'd probably exclude DLC and games that are still be learned on Steam from being used. Excluding ones we've hidden wouldn't be a bad idea if possible.

4 years ago
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Another one that should be filterable is bundles. But hidden and DLC would also be hugely helpful.

4 years ago
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Do you think people would enter bundled ever i f they can search for full cv games?

4 years ago
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I meant the bundled software (games & dlc) on the steam store not the 3rd party bundles. I've opened gifts where I owned everything in the bundle on steam, but it wouldn't register ownership here on SG. Hidden removal support may have fixed that as well, but in some cases the only thing missing was the OST, and I'd rather not enter those if someone else doesn't own the base game and would gain more from winning.

Sorry for the miscommunication and for not being a bit more clear. 😁

4 years ago*
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Ah, okay, that makes sense.
I would think "profile limkted" too but I don't think that can easily be checked, SG would need to keep their own list, probably a bit too much :(

4 years ago
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+1
Excluding DLC from the event is the best approach.

4 years ago
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Thanks for bringing back this event cg. Happy upcoming holidays!

5 is fine for me.

4 years ago
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I say 10 boxes per day. Still, I likely will get coal just like the year before. ;)

4 years ago
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Yay! Thank you cg!

4 years ago
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Thx Cg, happy holidays! :D

4 years ago
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Fun times again!
But please prohibit boxes with the gift wrapper clearly indicating a particular game, only for users to open it in hope and find it was a troll. We had enough of those last year.
If the box creator wants to display the real wrapper so that more people can see it though, more power to them and it's their choice.

4 years ago
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Ehh, I thought some of the the troll presents were pretty funny. Β―\_(ツ)_/Β―

4 years ago
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Yeah, those troll wrappers are about 100x less funny than the creators think. I mean, it's obviously no big deal, just makes you roll your eyes and move on, but it's lame.

4 years ago
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5 boxes per day.
Maybe mark a dlc, so people know if they wanna open that or not risk it.

4 years ago
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Good point, would be kinda awkward opening a box and finding a DLC inside.

4 years ago
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It's all relative... maybe you can only see dlc giveaways for the games you own... if not... then it would be really weird.

4 years ago
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I'm more worried about DLC I already own, cos SG currently can't tell if I have a DLC or not so it'd have no reason to stop me from opening the box.

4 years ago
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True, true.

4 years ago
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At the same time it would also be weird to find a giveaway of DLC for a game I don't own.
I think this (giveaways of DLC for games I don't own) is already filterable for the main site?

4 years ago
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That should in theory be blocked, I guess. It is an option for the main giveaways page.

4 years ago
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5 boxes per day.
Maybe mark a dlc

Agreed.

4 years ago
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Now that I'm working off of fresh experience rather than fuzzy year-old experience, I can emphasize the following:

DLCs and Free games, and "Not Interested" in general [since that also serves to hide removed-from-Steam/Profile Limited content that can't normally be detected, much like DLCs], still remain an awkward aspect of the event, and certainly should be addressed in some way. I'd kinda be inclined towards something which forces a bit of random opening to the event, such as a daily [random open] box, but that's just my own whimsical style. There's not really any need for more than 5 boxes, especially not if fitlering (of any sort) is added.

The issue isn't in getting a feeling of "this is bad", but of getting a "why did I even have this available to me in the first place".
Highs and lows make the event (and limiting opens helps with emphasizing that), but certain should-be-filtered content simply feels like it's jarringly out-of-place for the event (and almost unnaturally reduces available openings).

In short, "more opens" is just a bandaid approach for reducing irritation over a lack of filtering; The two changes don't need to both be implemented.

4 years ago*
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Fun event just like last year.

Already created 3 boxes, try to find them~

4 years ago
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  • Yes, boxes should contain some hints (DLC and No value) to discourage the usual cheerful jesters
  • 5 boxes
4 years ago
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Yeah, I just want games. DLC and No Value items shouldn't be included/allowed. There should be a base value for items as well, imo.
Personally think 10 boxes a day would be nicer, there were a huge amount of boxes made last year.

4 years ago*
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YES! I was really hoping for this to come back, I loved seeing all the box designs people came up with last year.
Guess I should start with one myself, last time I kinda half assed it.

4 years ago
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I really liked this event last year (even though I didn't win anything from it), but I'm sad to see that none of the issues from it seem to have been addressed. It needs a way to let people avoid troll giveaways at the very least.

4 years ago*
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Excellent! Thank you cg.
I also have to vote - NO DLC or free games... it's always a bummer to unwrap these.
Hope you have a great holiday season!

4 years ago
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+1

4 years ago
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I mean, you get some great rare or unbundled DLCs at times. And some of us value DLCs very highly.
Unlike free games, which just feel out of place for the event, DLCs'd be fine if there was just some sort of indication as to which boxes contained them, and the site being able to check by wishlist that the DLCs are desired by the user. 'Course, that level of detail would only further limit how many people actually enter for certain DLC giveaways.. but then, putting low interest DLCs into the event would be a bit awkward to begin with, so maybe that sorts itself out appropriately.

4 years ago
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The idea of the event is neat but... I just opened my first five boxes and got giveaways for four games that won't run on my OS and one that I already own. Kinda dampens my enthusiasm for the event, you know? Could we please have the event respect our filters and OS preferences? I wouldn't even mind if that meant I could only open one or two boxes a day!

4 years ago
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Thanks for the suggestion, OS preferences have now been integrated. You'll only see boxes for your OS when browsing the available page, and you'll be blocked from accidentally opening a box for another OS.

4 years ago
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Much appreciated, thank you!

4 years ago
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Yay! This is back!

The Available filter is convenient, but it’s also fun to just look at the gift box designs.
Perhaps we could get a different color background/border for boxes we can’t open in All?

4 years ago
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Amazing event, maybe skin the box if the game known to be able to enter even if own it.
I lost 2 boxes on stuff I already own and still can enter (PD2 dlc and Shadow of Mordor GAs)

4 years ago
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i wish you could save box designs, then i would make an effort on them

4 years ago
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Closed 3 years ago by cg.