Cause of the contributor level system for instance, which could be easily cheated with a small group of friends then.

Sounds like you want to give away won games yourself. First people could regift it for the reason to increase their CV without actually buying anything. People could sell their won games for their own profit.
It's about respecting the giveaway creator. If you receive a gift for christmas from your mother would you just give it someone else? I know there are several cultures with very different ethics about what is polite and what not but I believe that everyone agrees that when someone is so generous to give you something he or she expects YOU to have it and noone else.
Your thread is not only controversial but not worth existing in the first place.

Just as snake and downward said. It's a soulbound item.

Because it's written there and you agreed to follow them

View attached image.

Because not having to redeem the game you've won has the following consequences:

• regifting (is already done)
• keep the game for trading later (self-boosting ones finances, also probable that the game will rot in the inventory / key list)
• even more people would enter giveaways that they don't necessarily want (meaning: less chances for people who actually want a game! - let alone that people already do that just to +1 their libraries under the excuses of whatever)

But disabling that rule would mean all of these three practices above would practicly be incouraged instead of (rightfully so) discouraged

I would wager that it's mainly to avoid people trying to profit from the system. While there is no major harm done if you happen to give a game to a friend who really want it, it would be very hard to check and see if you've given the game to a friend or if you sold/traded it for something else. So it's better to have a rule that forbids not activating the game on your account than not having it.

you probably gaind lots of new ''friends'' right now

Just a question for you if you don't like the game why do you want to enter the giveaway?
If you have no interest then don't enter and you wont have to think about regifting it

I made a giveaway so YOU can enjoy it, not so you can profit from it. Why would you even enter something you don't even want? You're just hogging a place selfishly from someone who would actually like it and if you would happen to win and then you'd just go and give / trade / sell it. That's not the spirit of this site.

You gave away some trashy game Polarity, so there is no doubt you don't care what the winner will do with it, but if you giveaway something better you would care, and will be sad if winner just get it to profit.

I don't get why the OP is getting heat, it's just a discussion :S
To the OP: mostly I guess because it opens up CV faming abuse. As others described before, a group of pple could just make fake private/group/whitelist giveaways for very expensive games without actually buying anything and getting lots of CV. You would need to either remove CV or restrict all giveaways to public to even consider allowing the winners not to activated their wins. Even if it was done (which I think most would be against), it would encourage users to enter any giveaway to trade/regift/resell the game, not because they desire to own it. This isn't the idea behind this site and it's viewed not in a good way by many.

Like people already told you, it would be an easy way to cheat the system and increase your contributor value.
Personally, why would i care if the game goes to your brother or sister, im the one giving the game, i would rather send it directly to someone who is at least going to activate it in his own account

I love when people post this sort of thing. Makes it very easy to check their wins and see if they already cheated the system.

The spirit of the site is that some one give games so the person that enters the raffle can win it and play it.

If you are not going to play the game, dont participate since there are people actually looking to play those games.

If you are going to give the game to a friend, better tell that friend about the site and let him enter the raffles of the games he wants to play.

If you want to give a friend a game, its simple, you go buy it yourself and gift it to him.

I really love your profile pic, but I strongly disagree with what you wrote for the reasons mentioned above by other users.

Short answer: Because the rules say so. Don't like it,no one is forcing you to be here. There are several sites out there that don't force it.

Long answer: (Note: this makes some generalizations,ignores some edge cases and relies and not-scientifically-acceptable data,but I still believe that it applies to at least around 80% of sg's active community.)
What you're thinking about is some sort of a lottery system; Say everyone buys tickets for $1 and one person gets a car worth $100,000 - most certainly,that car is his and once he sign whatever documents he has to he could do whatever he wanted with that car: Use it on for himself,give it to his friend,heck,if he wanted to,he could could set it aflame and no one would be able to tell him anything. Once the winning numbers are in,the winner is entitled to and the company is legally obligated to hand over the prize. Now,even if he never touches said car and puts in a garage,not touching it for the rest of his life - this isn't considered rude behavior on his part - the company which holds the lottery is here to make money and nothing else. They don't care who the winner is,what the prize is(they may rotate between several prizes worth the same amount) and what he does with it is none of their business.

What we have here is NOT a lottery; You're not paying for entering giveaways,and the people making the giveaways are just that - individuals,not companies. They make absolutely nothing from you or anyone else entering the giveaway or winning it - actually,they spend their time (and a lot of times money too) into making a giveaway,handling it properly,etc. So in a sense,making a giveaway not only doesn't give the holding party profit,but rather takes important resources from it. Now,this sounds completely illogical up to now: Why would anyone,out of their free will,waste his time and money on something he gains absolutely nothing from?

The most common reason you'll find is: "To make someone happy."
We're here because not everyone can legally afford games. Some can't even get them illegally even if they wanted to,and many don't want to. Someone getting a game for free may help him stay off piracy for just a little while longer,and when things are better for him,he'll return the favor,overall resulting in great devs being rewarded more for their games. Or because for some people,that spare bundle game that you gave away instead of adding to your backlog of hundreds of games that you'll probably never even install is worth hours of fun as they beat it 4 times,getting every possible achievement. Or because you're enthusiastic about specific game and want someone else to experience the masterpiece that it is. Or because you want to help promote a developer that you think is doing their hardest and sincerely cares about fans,hoping that the receiving party will be impressed enough not only to become a fan,but also to buy a copy on his own and gift it. Everyone has their reason. But it is for that specific reason that they made that one specific giveaway. When YOU win that giveaway,those feelings are directed towards you. There are people here who choose to work one extra hour so instead of buying a game for themselves,they can get a double pack and share the love. There have been people who gave away a $50 game that was never bundled,and never on a deep sale that they don't own yet despite the fact they would greatly enjoy it themselves. So if you'd allow me to be rude for just one sentence,because I feel that would probably summarize what many people here think very effectively: If you take those earnest feelings of the contributor and heartlessly trample them as you say in your head "eziest $50 of my life", fuck you.

You can go on playblink or game miner if you want it that way. On steamgift, that is not how it work.
There is different reason for that :

• Trying to dodge farming abuse (you have to "merit" your level after all :p otherwise they wouldn't have any signification.
• if someone don't redeem the game, how would he know that it work or not ? Scammer would just create awesome giveaway and some of them would get mark as received even if it is a random fake key...
• if someone don't redeem the game, how would we know that his accusation for being scam or not receiving the key are legit ?

After there is more moral reason like :

• if you don't want to activate the game, that mean you just prevent someone who wanted to play it from playing it by your egoism, and not everyone like egoist.
• you can just cheat the people by making them think you are a nice guy by giving game while you just are being a filthy regifter

Also, you have to understand that not everyone are just giving game they don't give a shit about and don't want to see in theyr steam library... There is awesome people on this site that just give games to make people happy and are enjoying it. Some are here to make others discovered games they found awesome but ain't known enough, and expect people to want to want it, and to play it... If everyone would just make giveaway for having a better contribution.... you won't see a lot of good giveaway, and probably just a whole bunch of crap sold at 94 %...

Aside from the CV issue, it's just plain rude to not activate a gift from someone.

Either send it back or use it.

Better yet, don't bother entering giveaways you're not interested in.
There are people who want and will play those games.

Easy, to not allow the winner making profit selling/trading the game.

I found it easier to just block the gifter whenever I win something, it saves me time from explaining myself.

First of all - site have rules. If you don't like them - don't register, problem solved. If you registered - then you must obey the rules.
As for rules... You know, someone who like you gives you a present - something personally for you. What will this person feel, if you give this gift to someone else, how do you think?
And, if someone won the game he don't want, the first question is - why he even entered the giveaway? He stole this chance from someone who actually want this game, it's unfair.

Because the site says so, they don't really need to justify it to you.

It's not a problem in giving a game you've won to a friend. If there wasn't a rule that says a winner is required to redeem won game, some people could exploit it to buff their contributor level by creating private giveaways and then just regifting the same non-redeemed game.