Authors note after immediatly uploading the discussions, seems like the screenshots didnt show as how I wished them to show -_-, oh well (fixed!)
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Unfortunately embed screenshots always show at the bottom, better to use hyperlinks instead :)
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It's not too late to go back and edit your post. You just have to remove the "!" in front of the square brackets to change the embeds into links.
Nice post, btw! I've always been curious about SG's past.
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This was a nice bit of nostalgia. Thank you. 🙂
And thanks for Skyrim!
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With konrad not being mentioned, this is a rather incomplete view on the past. ;)
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Fun fact: if your time machine could go back all to 2011 regarding staff members, you would notice that SG had two admins at that time. You'd also be surprised that it was completely fine to win the same game more than once (it was a short-lived rule).
But man, was that fun or what. I remember public giveaways would rarely pass 150-200 entries
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thanks for your small contribution, but i didnt really notice in 2011 the second admin, either i did see him and im blind or i didnt and im not guilty, as the webpage was really broken
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SG had a lot of fun moments for sure
- one crafty Russian being the sole reason why the winners are now anonymous until the gift is redeemed
- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic exploit that resulted in everyone receiving the full game eventually
- the workaround of storing giftable copies on your account when Steam didn't have a gift system yet
- the original THIS KEY FOR DEMO meme of SG
- one dude made such an elaborate story of being a blonde busty girl from Australia (with photoshopped pictures and all) that it convinced almost everyone and ended up with "her" being an SG mod until his lie was apparent. It was quite bizzare how someone could put some much energy into something that wasn't real
- someone spread a rumor that there was a thing called SG Premium that gave you better chances at winning and surprisingly a lot of people fell for it
and many many more
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damn, that sure is a lot of memories, sucks that i havent heard of it in the past (cries in missing everything fun)
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Also the funnest of facts: at first, you could only join SG through an invite code. Most people would have only a few while mods could generate quite a lot of them. Invite codes were really in high demand and there was a whole underground market on Reddit and Valve forums where people would actually trade and gift games just so they could get the invite code
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we all loved that Australian but then just vanished. NO MORE DATA.
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- someone spread a rumor that there was a thing called SG Premium that gave you better chances at winning and surprisingly a lot of people fell for it...
This is not true, Steam Gift Premium is real, they just don't want you to think it's real.
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A long time ago, SG would show the winner(s) of a giveaway right after it ended. One high-level contributor made a Skyrim giveaway (back when the game just came out and it was $49,99) and let's say a dude called Redino with a Barack Obama avatar won it. Just as it happened, some Russian dude changes his username and profile picture to be Redino and adds a giveaway creator. The creator gives him a game and a few hours later an actual winner adds him too but the game was already delivered to a winner. Or was it......?
So now all the giveaway winners are hidden until the winners give feedback (upon redeeming the game)
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Ahhh, so they would impersonate the winner. That's a good change to keep them anonymous then! Also, I do remember (some) of those days... the meme used to be 'Thanks for Skyrim'! You dont hear anyone say that anymore ;)
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And IIRC, for quite a while you could still find out the SG username of the winner by clicking on the GA's "Winners" link, typing a username in the search field, and if you still saw "Anonymous", then that was the winner. They eventually patched that.
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"one dude made such an elaborate story of being a blonde busty girl from Australia (with photoshopped pictures and all) that it convinced almost everyone and ended up with "her" being an SG mod until his lie was apparent. It was quite bizzare how someone could put some much energy into something that wasn't real"
WAIT they weren't real? Holy shit. That's crazy and newsbreaking to me.
Guess I'm just a slowpoke. lol
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Look at that, how far they've/we've come.
Nice,nice
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Oh, god. I remember nice, nice. Weren't people warned not to do that, because the person in the meme was upset their not so good English was being made fun of?
I don't judge their decision, but I'd think it was funny if one of my derpy memes made it here. A poor English moment of mine, all worst of awesome, was even a meme amongst close friends.
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Eugh, a lot of my poor english moments has been memefied too, like when I went to visit my best friend that I met on SG I was like "HURR DURR, HOW DOES ENGLISH WORK?", and proceeded to talk about "never trust a thin cock" (I forgot the word chef, and chef is kokk in Norwegian).
I do however hope the nice,nice guy is okay, I'm sorry if I hurt his feelings.
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I would have laughed my ass off if I'd said something like that. Of course I've frequently made the odd mistake in English, even with that being my first language, so I've no excuses! lol It was just my weird brain mixing up words in weird ways.
I hope he's alright, too. I'm hoping he's forgiven all of our shenanigans.
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Nice,nice was started by a guy that opened a topic on SG looking for a gamer girlfriend. It was cringey but amusing. His nice,nice was just a simple reply to someone and people started memeing it. Then mods started handing out bans for that once it was evident that the kid was actually mentally challenged so it wasn't funny anymore
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I mean, SG was kinda girl-thirst cringy. Someone added me to like "Write something that only a woman knows", and I was like.. "Ehh??"
And then a dude added me and posted a pic of me because he had done some online stalking. Thanks dude!
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Different cringy times for sure. I remember how no one would bat an eye when someone replied with "tits or GTFO" to some girl posting on SG. We've come a long way. Also, just found that "give me gamergirls" topic I talked about
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"Write something that only a woman knows" reeks of horny 12 year old. It's like "Tell me about women," but trying and failing to be "covert".
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Oh my god, I had not remembered that. All I knew is that his English was maybe... eeehh, and that's why bans were being handed out. That's why I stayed away from the meme like wet dog shit. Now I've dislike of it.
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I started to use "nice, nice" with my friends thanks to him. I always felt like it was a pretty endearing phrase, and it easily stuck with me right away.
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Let's not forget your wondrous SG hunger games, damn! I remember hanging out with my family-in-law for the first time and going frequently to the bathroom to check how I did, oops.
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Awww your comment warms my heart! :)
I am glad you enjoyed them, I had a blast doing those events. I miss doing them, they were super fun. Feel like I couldn't do anymore because I'm just out of the loop of the community nowadays.
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The SG Hunger games are collectively some of my favorite SG memories. I remember being on vacation in a bed-and-breakfast with a mountain lake view, but I was busily refreshing SG to find out who was going to die next. I was so proud that I picked the winner (Downward Concept) and got to join a small SG group for correctly picking (guessing) the winner.
It was awesome!
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I apparently made my first giveaway in January 2012, then disappeared for almost a decade. I can't even remember what it was like back then...
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Just 2 corrections; The ''OG Team Fortress'' is a Quake mod from 1996, the game that was given away in 2011 is Team Fortress Classic. At 2014, Dutch is the language spoken in the Netherlands, so it makes no sense to have both words in that sentence.
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I mainly added a (?) to Netherlands as it was mentioned in the faq as Netherladse and i wasent sure about it
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Adding to the hysterical, I mean, historical data:
In September 2014, we reached 777,777 Received gifts...
...which isn't really relevant, I guess, but at least it provides a screenshot. But soon after (2014/09/11, 18:35 GMT), the $10,000,000.00 milestone!
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Woah! I always wanted to know how Steamgifts used to be before. It's nice to see what has been done and what hasn't. So, basically after 2016, there were less actual value on what games were? Does that mean that before people used to give a lot better selection of games, like newer AAA games and stuff?
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The CV stuff did exist in 2016, it got tweaked in 2018 though, and with my time looking at archives, yeah I did see better games, granted some a bit old but still good games, and there were also polls to decide what games should be given away.
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I see, from what you describe, you don't seem very happy to where the website is at this point. Or am I understanding this wrong? What do you like most with the current changes?
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I'm not really pissed about the current state of the giveaways, especially when you can just blacklist certain games from not showing (not blacklisting the person), I do enjoy most aspects though from the currenrt age such as the useful tags, easy to use UI, simplicity in general, but I'd like to see native dark mode being added to the website plus making autojoiners less effective, since I don't wish for 1 dude with 200 games won but like 10 given away 5 years ago, giving him some access to low lvl giveaways, and I'm not the person to set high giveaway lvl reqs yet.
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Having the ability to set one like that would be nice to be honest.
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It used to be that there was a cap on how much contributor value you could get from bundled games, which was $30 + a portion of your non bundled CV (don't remember exactly what this was), so you were not encouraged to give away bundled games the same way you are today. Sure bundled games give less CV, but you're still being rewarded for every bundled game you give away, unlike ye olden days.
This was back in the days when your CV was not measured in levels, but rather in the absolute value of the games you had given away, and you could set a minimum contributor value needed to enter a giveway, which could at most be twice your contributor value. It was popular to set a contributor value requirement of 31, as that meant that if all someone had done was give away bundled games they could not enter.
Before that bundled games were, for a time, banned from the site, due to, if my memory serves, questions regarding the TOS on the bundle sites, which could in theory make it forbidden to give away games on a site like this. This is still a major grey area, but now SG does at least allow bundled games to be given away (not that it was really enforceable to stop bundled games from being given away during this time, as you could still make giveaways for them, you just had to deliver a key or gift that did not originate from a bundle. But good luck checking that!)'
The average quality of games being given away was higher, but there was also far fewer giveaways being made. This was also before Steam really opened the floodgates to all the crap they sell now, and would curate their store.
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This is missing Fortix and Bad Rats memes.
Also one of the most important changes was the fact that you didn't need an invite code to register anymore, but just needed enough value on your account (like we do now). But, I'm not sure if that was implemented on 2012 or in 2013.
The games given away are a reflection of the games available in bundles, so, back then, when HB used to do more Indie Bundles, the games were all amazing, that as well as not having region restrictions, made it so people would buy games from Russian steam players and gift them here as well.
Well, nothing lasts forever, I think the site is still good, but, if the only things on stores nowadays are IG shovelware, Fanatical re-bundles and HB mixed games, that's what we see here.
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I still visit this site daily and have done so for many years. I've stopped caring about giveaways a long time ago (though I still enter some and make some from time to time). But I still enjoy now just as much as I did back then checking the forums for the bundle threads (sensualshakti is a goddess and we miss you rachellove), gaming news and general discussions. I'd say this is my main source of gaming news, info on free games, deals and all this good stuff. I never got into discord, and I only barely use reddit, so I guess this is my main "internet thing" as far as community goes. Love you all, and love this site.
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It's strange, but I could have written almost the exact same paragraph.
The only real difference is that I almost never enter giveaways (2 this year), don't enjoy it at the levels I used to, and I never use reddit (unless linked there for some reason). But other than that, I could write it word for word. :D
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Incredible this guy is still around pursuing his nefarious plans.
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XD There is also that dude who asked "Anonymous" was hacker and should be banned. I wish to post that also but I am afraid that it might be seen as "calling out".
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Thanks so much for this! I think it's worth adding that in 2015, the site added region-restricted giveaways (as your screenshot shows). It used to be you had to reroll if the winner was from a region that couldn't activate your game.
[BTW, it's a weird coincidence that I read and commented on two of your posts nearly back-to-back.]
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It was a hard blow to giveaway websites when Steam forced region restriction. That was one of the main reasons where was easier to buy AAA games, with massive "discounts" in the past.
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So i joined the website on 30th nov 2012.
I must say it was quite a nostalgia hit, your post.
Awesome work.
I have been on and off the website but it's always warm around here.
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I recall that around 2014 (maybe even before) there were badges on the account page that you could unlock, even if you probably had to use some plugin to see them.
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Hello! This is my take on an original topic that I believe no one has ever talked about here. I hope you'll enjoy this as it needed a bit of research.
So now, what is the topic? Well I'm glad you asked, aaaand today's topic is: SG: The Past.
Some of you may now be asking yourselfs, especially those who went to the bottom of the page, why not use the Archive button? Well I'm glad you asked for the second time, this is sort of the inspiration for this thread, it does not show the past of the website at all, only past giveaways, which is not really interesting unless you're doing a study or something. And with this, lets begin!
1. 2011:
The first somewhat functional archives of this year show us the following stats:
Most giveaways around this era we're classics, such as: OG Team Fortress (the one released in 1999), Counter Strike Source, Half Life 2, OG Portal, Super Meat Boy. The top user in the month of the snapshot that was taken was a user by the name iamthesky. Sadly this user is no longer active, last time online being 9 years ago. The forums (now known as discussions in modern age) were empty mostly, with only 40 posts and 4 pages!
Screenshots (most are sadly broken webpages):
Homepage
Giveaway Page
Forums
Userpage
2. 2012:
Now this is were where getting serious! The website has more active users and the giveaways are much appealing! The games being given away were: CS:GO, Dota 2 (yes, Dota 2 was apperantly not a free game from the beginning!), CS:S. Now I will show you the stats and you can compare them yourself to be shocked:
Giveaway groups were starting to become a thing, forums were becoming popular, puzzles were also becoming a thing, the games started being more appealing, giveaways were getting 500+ entries and the entire UI was revamped.
Screenshots (woo not broken webpages!):
Homepage
Giveaway Page
Forums
Userpage
3. 2013:
2013 is mostly similar to 2012, no UI changes, mostly same giveaways but with a twist, contributor value giveaways (now known as level restrictions), they function the same as level restrictions but with contributor value restrictions. I have also noticed that in this year, autojoiners have been popping up. Statistics:
Screenshots (only 1 cause it is similar to 2012):
Contributor restrictions
NOTE: Some of the following years may have the following: limited information, have been ignored by me due to lack of interesting topics.
*2014:
2014 is the year where the rules and FAQ was introduced. These rules and FAQ were translated in the following languages at that time: Italian, Dutch, Serbian, Netherlands(?), Danish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian. This page also shows which staff members were in that time and I will show them down below, including their roles:
Screenshots (only includes a small portion of the FAQ/rules):
Rules
*2015:
2015 is a year with another UI redesign, closer to the one we know today. Giveaways can now finally be filtered based by tags (only New tag, unlike how we have it today with Wishlisted, Recommended etc), the level requierment got introduced, in favor of the contributor value one. The forum is now called Discussions, like in our age, with funny enough, a tab for trading, which is currently prohibited to current TOS. Region restrictions were added.
Screenshots:
Homepage
Discussions
Userpage
Giveaway Page
*2016:
2016, by the looks of it is the year where more trash games started to be given away. FAQ was updated, cake trains started happening more frequently.
Screenshots:
FAQ
*2017:
2017 is similar to 2016, basically the same, Recommended tag added along the All and New giveaways tags, low value games that are low effort have been spotted more, level giveaways are becoming common.
Screenshots:
Tags
*2018:
2018, SG starts a Patreon to start funding server costs, high level giveaways can be spotted a bit more frequently, the discussions tab is becoming more active with the bottom of the webpage displaying the format of discussions/deals known today, more tags start being added to discussions.
Screenshots:
Discussions
*2019
2019 is the same as 2018. No information.
*2020
2020 sees the removal of the Trades tab and the addition of prohibiting trades in TOS, Discussions/Deals bit from the botton of the page has now been extended to allow more posts to be shown.
*2021
2021 sees the addition of more tags to sort giveaways, otherwise same to 2020.
Screenshots:
Tags
And with this, we come to the end of this thread. I hope you enjoyed this quite long post, and I really wish to have your opinions as this is my first time making a new discussion here, and I also wish to know other ways to present my content here. For those who wish to know what tool i used, archive.org's WayBackMachine to dig up all of this content. It allows you to see the past of webpages, archived by other users. And with this, I shall say to you, thank you for reading. This took me around 1h and half to write, while also accidentally closing the tab where I was writing cause I was uploading screenshots (oops). I'm looking forward to write more stuff like this.
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