How does the "Recommended" tab work, really?

Pretty sure it's based on your past entries. I think after you've entered a giveaway for the same game 3+ times then it will appear there.

just like you said, it used to have GA in it that i joined often... since some time now it doesnt.
since then i started to use it less and less.
youre also not the first one wondering about what happened to it and posting a discussion... to my knowledge no real answer came from them.

I'm quite sure it's not based on my past entries, or at least not on just them, I find many games I never entered for, there, even a couple I'm not interested in at all from time to time. I thought it was for "more expensive" or AAA games, but how the system sorts that is a mystery for me. FilthySouls' hypothesis could be correct, though.

After 3 years, very active, at steamgifts i can honestly say.

I have absolutly no clue what exactly get recommended.

I don't used it long...

I hadn't noticed that tab before 😅 Just checked, it's showing some really good games!

Let me try to demystify it a bit. The recommended page looks at how popular a game is on our community wishlist, and a combination of metascore and release date. This means it'll include older games with a great metascore, and recently released games with a good metascore.

As a few people noted, in the past it also included games you recently entered but that had a couple of issues...

1. It didn't take into consideration how often a game was given away. If two giveaways were posted for game X and a user entered both of them, and 1,000 giveaways were created for game Y and the user only entered three of them, it would include game Y, even though they most likely prefer X.

2. It didn't factor in points. Users are likely to have more entries in games that require fewer points, so it would incorrectly give preference to those games.

3. It was a bit of an endless circle where it was recommending games because a user entered them at one point, and the user was entering them because they were recommended. It was easy for a lot of mediocre games to get trapped in the loop and clutter the page while overlooking better options.

In short it needs some work, but it might be worth checking once in a while to see if you missed any giveaways for games high on our wishlist, or games with a high metascore.