German only Steam keys against giveaway rules?

I dont think it is agaist rules. If it was, the region restricted ga`s should too

He is unfortunately right.
Anyway.
Although you shouldn't have made a giveaway for a region-locked game, you are not obliged to give anything to the winner. You made a mistake, but the only consequence to that is, that you'll get a "not received" in your statistics. That's basically nothing.
If you don't want that either, try to convince him that it was an honest mistake and that you can't just provide a key you never had available in teh first place.. Maybe he'll have an understanding in the end, so you can just ask support for a deletion of the giveaway.*

yes, I totally calmed down and edited this

Edit: Well. Looking at those comments, that seems to be the absolute worst person on all of Steamgifts.

The winner however, wasn't German and is declaring that under the SG rules, what I mentioned in the description is meaningless and that I have to provide them a non-German key. In fact, upon looking, most of the entrants didn't appear to be German.

Take the Non-Activation [after trying for a reroll]- Staff shouldn't apply punishment for that circumstance, and even if they do, it's only a 2-day suspension: Still far better than giving in to a complete shitstain exploiter.

[Also, for reference, the SG rules do NOT say you are obligated to provide a non-German key. They say you are obligated to provide a working key, and that you shouldn't list region-restricted giveaways for regions that aren't in the official region-restricted list. So in theory, your giveaway should be grounds for a giveaway deletion and suspension, not grounds for non-activaiton and suspension, if it abides strictly to the rules. :P]

• All giveaways should be for Steam redeemable gifts or Steam redeemable keys.
• Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time.

In any case, typically you'd want to do something along the lines of what the last person giving away a German key did, and check their listed regions and then invite them to a group, and do a group-only giveaway.

Also note that if the person in question was openly hostile toward you, then you do have grounds for a reroll. Unfortunately, "only" being a totaly entitled ass isn't enough to merit that.

That was a total asshole. o_O

Perhaps support will approve just deleting the giveaway? I would try that.

Support will most likely delete the giveaway for you, explain what happened. Something similar happened with the Deep Silver keys, and they told me to request to delete the giveaway and explain the situation.

Yes burn them all because they are giving away games for free...

You should have done a forum giveaways for this case, people have been very respectful for my restricted giveaway that way. With all the auto joiners, lots of people enter without reading anymore...
But i'm afraid to say that your winner is right, you cannot do a region lock with just a sentence in the description... and on the forum either actually. But you have to rely on the kindness of people I guess.

EDIT : here is te guidelines extract : "Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time."

Just another reason to make region restriction: Germany a thing

Thank you for the responses, information and detailing of the rules. I believe I have to abide by SG's rules and hence I will provide the winner a non-German key.

You should do something like this next time: 1, 2, 3 so you can avoid people like him, he is rude as hell, ask for a deletion.

Don't forget to blacklist.

Wow that guy really wants this game.

This was from the humble bundle right?
I had a similar issue a few weeks ago with Stikbold from one of the humble monthlys. As I live in AU, the version I had a key for was restricted - I contacted humble and asked them for a working German Key. They waved their magic wands and A new key was supplied for me - It took about 3 days to organise but they were very helpful.
Not sure if that helps you but it might be worth a try.

If I were you, I wouldn't provide any key to him, but send his reply, and your description to Support, and see what they say. If they say, that you either have to take a non-sent, or give him a region free key, I would take the non-sent, because of its inability to read descriptions. Then the next step would be to submit a ticket to add German only to region restrictions. This would be pretty useful, because while german keys are usually activatable by anyone in the world, they mostly reflect that the game is cut, so people, who join these region restricted GAs will know that they won't get a ROW (or uncut) key.

Or you could create a private group and use it for valid entrants. You can make a "recruitment" thread here on SG, and you can check for every entrant's info before adding them to your group :). It's a shame that such high level users can't or don't read descriptions.

Also ich habe den gleich mal auf die Blacklist gesetzt. Was für ein Arsch, wenn ich mir das so anschaue ...

They do have an option to create giveaways restricted to Germany. I just saw it in create giveaways section.
Anyways you must create a support ticket for deletion of the giveaway.

It is against the rules of SG, giveaway description means nothing. I am actually kinda surprised that a guy with such insane ratio as yours, cant get me simple key of a bundled game.

That guy is an asshole

I just added Germany as a new region, so the option is there for the future, or if you need to recreate the giveaway.

Like sooth said. This guy lied you in the face. He can acitvate the key, he will just get the cut version (which you stated in the description). So just tell him to provide a screenshot of the key beeing not redeemable or to get rerolled.
Probability is, that he activated the key to a different account anyways. From his mentality I would expect that.

I'm surprised your winner is such a dick, considering that he's so active on this site. He will from now on be much less active in joining giveaways, though :-)

I brought the key as part of bundle from Groupees; they stated, at the time at least (I haven't gone and checked today if that has changed), that they would provide both a WW key and a German key for the game.

I used the WW key myself and gave the German key in the mentioned giveaway; after seeing numerous other giveaways on SG offering German keys for this game.

In this instance, due to Groupee's description of the key and now also finding out that such giveaways were actually against SG's rules at the time, I will provide the winner a WW key for the game.

But thankfully, due to Germany now being added as an option to the region restrictions when creating a giveaway (thanks cg :) ), this issue shouldn't arise again, which will be beneficial to all in future.

I was in same situation just on opposite side. I just gave my permission for GA to be deleted and we solved it like that. GA's creator was even kind enough to drop me key for other game for my troubles. Why do people need to make so much mess over a game.

i would not give him anything. i would quickly give the german key to someone else, just to see if he really didn't activate it (it's possible he used it for a second account or something), and then live with one unsent gift. better than giving this guy, who clearly tried to trick you into giving him a second key, what he wants.

as said before, giveaway deletion might be a viable option here.