You can make rules, but you can't enforce them, so it's kinda pointless... Most winners will claim as soon as possible regardless of your rules, and those that don't probably won't change behaviour even if you ask them to.
But don't worry too much about it, the more successful giveaways you have made, the more giveaway slots you will have, and soon it won't matter that a few gifts are waiting to be claimed :)
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I had a feeling this would be the case. Allowing personal rules could lead to all kinds of chaos. I understand why it's like this, especially to begin with, but at the same time it's seems pretty bizarre to prevent a user from creating a new giveaway based on the winners lack of action, not the one hosting the giveaway.
Thanks :)
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Alternatively: Make a ticket requesting more giveaway slots.
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It's not really necessary though, soon enough you'll have plenty of slots anyway. Till that happens, it helps if you don't let your slots being taken by creating giveaways lasting multiple days. And level restrictions help to avoid such winners, as that problem is most common for level 0.
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Edit: I misremembered, 3 GAs= 1 more slot.
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You get 1 more slot for each giveaway you finish successfully, so you'll eventually have a lot more slots than you have to give.
Starting out can be a bit slow though as you start with just 3 slots.
You can set giveaway times to be 1h to 2 days to reduce the "time needed to get more slots", or make a ticket if you have a lot of games you'd like to give at once. (Support can take a bit of time though since its volunteer based.) Basically what Golwar said xD
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That can't be right? I've done 19 successful/complete giveaways so far but can only create 8 giveaways. I know I'll soon have more giveaway slots than I can fill, it's just annoying at the moment. maybe I just needed a little rant more than anything xD
I had actually set up some week long giveaways with a couple of shorter (2-3 day) giveaways in the hopes I could keep the shorter ones rolling off of each other. Unfortunately this user won one of the shorter giveaways. They're also level 3, so the restrictions wouldn't have helped too much in this particular case, but I see your point and I'll likely start using level restrictions more for future giveaways :)
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I think it's actually every three completed giveaways. If you delete a giveaway you also lose that slot.
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My bad, I mis-remembered. Every 3 giveaways = one extra slot.
All the best with your GAs though!
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Agreed. I don't have access to Steam or Humble or many other sites from my mobile for security reasons, nor do I have access to the e-mail account behind them. For that reason, I may not claim a win until I am at a machine where I have such access. :)
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Yeah, I understand that people may check at work, on the phones, or anywhere else where they may not have as easy access to Steam, but if you've been online and seen you've won, you should either claim it, or at least post saying that it may take a few days to activate on Steam. A little "common" courtesy as a minimum.
I blacklist for lack of courtesy anyway, so things won't happen again with the same users at least.
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I have been blacklisted when I won a game while volunteering at a camp...in the woods...because I was online with obviously no way of authenticating the game for a few days. It did not occur to me to post that I could not activate the game over the weekend because SG says I have 7 days to mark it received or not. So the 3 days I would be unable to test before marking was well within the boudaries, but alas I am a terrible human being it seems.
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agreed. there's a reason why you have a week to activate.
i can understand why it bothers contributors tho.
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I want to add a rule that my giveaways can only be entered by people who like puppies and they must kiss a puppy before pressing "Enter Giveaway" and if they don't have a puppy at hand they have to promise to kiss one later when it becomes available
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Oh, I understand that. I have a page open for SG most of the time, whether I'm on my computer or not. The particular user at the moment, however, comes online several times a day, enters more giveaways, but does nothing with the key I've sent them. If there's time to enter more giveaways, there's time to drop a quick message saying that you can't activate the game for a few days, in case they can only access Steam at the weekend or something like that.
I've blacklisted them anyway, so at least it'll be a different user if it happens again.
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However, you can threaten with the blacklist should your personal rules be ignored by the winner.
Just note that approximately 85% of people who will enter your giveaway won't read description xD
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They may be entering from a mobile app. Technically, they could still probably open a browser tab on their device, log in to Steam there, log in to SG, and activate the game. But simply opening an app and entering giveaways is a much simpler, less keyboard-intensive process. Especially if they plan to thank you properly for the giveaway, and don't want to forget to do that once they get to a real computer.
I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but it's definitely been the case for me when I've been unable to get to a legitimate computer for a few days.
Your inconvenience here is relatively small. I get that it's annoying, but you'll have additional giveaway slots in no time. You can also request additional giveaway slots from support.
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yeah, because it's easy (& fast) to open sg in the browser on your phone but i'm not even sure if there is an option in the steam mobile app to activate a key... so i'd assume ppl usually do that on their pc or laptop.
also: most users on this website never contribute several games at the same time so they don't thiink about this problem of running out of slots.
did you try to message the winners where this happened? you could just tell them in one sentence that you'd like them to activate as soon as possible because of the limited slots.
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If they're purposely delaying activating the key, what makes you think they would read any additional rules you stipulate?
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it's incredibly annoying seeing a winner online several times a day without having the courtesy to claim the game they've won
People should be aware that they don't ACTUALLY know when someone is or isn't online. I've read where people claim that a person is online 24 hours a day and hasn't activated a win. How does that even make sense? More likely is that there are farming cards or have a tab open in the background. The site has rules and timelines regarding activating wins. I believe that most would find these to be reasonable. Hopefully it's true that people actually have other lives and priorities than to be constantly watching this site.
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Like I've said already, if that's the case then a little message of "common" courtesy to let the giveaway host know it may take a while would simply take a matter of seconds. If they have time to enter more giveaways, they have time to send a quick message.
When I have a limited number of giveaways I can host and a user's preventing me from creating more, and preventing other users from getting more games, sure I'm gonna check up on them. I don't want to be left waiting by them again in the future, but I also don't want to wrongly block them. This way I can know if they're just being ignorant and selfish or not, so I know whether to blacklist them or not.
I also blacklist winners who don't say thanks. Something else that would only take a couple of seconds.
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You can blacklist anybody you want. But you are the newcomer to this forum. This forum has established ways of doing things. One of those established ways is that people have 7 days to get around to claiming their wins. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your ideas of what is or is not courteous. You come into a new place, you learn how that place does things.
To be clear, you are the one being a jerk here, not the winner of your giveaway.
If they don't claim by the time the 7 days is over, then you can follow the forum rules and ask for a re-roll. In the meantime, just shut up about it.
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I've already said I'm well aware of the 7 days to claim a game when I created the thread, so simply repeating that adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.
This is a forum/discussion board, and I created this thread to ask and discuss a specific question which I didn't see mentioned in the guidelines. Just because I'm not elite like you, I can't use the forum? I have, and will continue to follow the rules. Name calling and telling people to shut up in a place that's designed for discussions though... If you treat all newcomers like this, I'd be surprised if any stick around.
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Why should they message you? They have 7 days to activate a win. I can see your point if f someone goes beyond that without any communication. That bothered me when I was new and restricted as to number of giveaways. But 2 days should not be past your point of reasonable turnaround. On the other side of life, some GA creators take longer than 2 days to provide the key or gift. Relax and have fun. It's only a few days and before you know it you'll be eligible to create more giveaways than you are possibly able to.
FYI, my recent experience was with a new group member who after 2 days (coincidence), they were messaging me in multiple spots to activate the win. They felt the need to add comments that I was online always, dragging my feet, lying about not being online and in violation of group rules in a group where they had just joined and I had been a member for almost 2 years. Guess who blocked who? It works both ways. ;)
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I'm well aware that the official SG guidelines state that the winner of a giveaway has one week to claim and mark their game as received (or not received), but is it allowed to stipulate your own giveaway rules (within reason) to ensure it's claimed sooner?
I mainly asked because it's incredibly annoying seeing a winner online several times a day without having the courtesy to claim the game they've won, preventing me from creating a new giveaway in it's place, and robbing other users of the chance to win more games.
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