If there was a per-user "X days from previous request" cooldown, in practice users might not not remember it. As a result, when there is a large pool of keys available, there would be many accidental requests from people whose cooldown is still ongoing. This could confuse other users because they could not be sure if previous requests for some key are valid or not (they would have to know and check every previous requester's cooldown to figure that out).

I completely agree. There was one new guy about 5 days ago who claimed 26-27 games (16+4 Non-GOG and 5 + 1-2 GOG) in 24hrs by donating 1-2 keys, zero thanks was ever given to any of the donors for any game on either GA, zero sight of him has been seen in any other community thread and all his posts are still universally "low rated" on both giveaway threads (so other regulars clearly picked up on what was happening). I understand the need to clear especially the non-GOG list of "stale" keys, but fast track on that scale does attract the wrong kind of attention when it gets reposted on other sites and scammers figure out they can just buy 1-2 (potentially stolen) G2A keys for $1-2, then "fast track" them for +25 legitimate games possibly worth $30-$50, keep what they want, sell the rest on same G2A, repeat the next month and even potentially scale that up with "sock-puppet" accounts. I'm surprised the non-GOG GA hasn't been completely cleaned out by scammers already by fast track abuse especially if it's being linked to elsewhere...

As flaky as these forums are, I think at least some "regular meaningful forum activity for 2-3 months" for everyone works very well in raising the bar vs scammers / key-resellers vs the almost "zero effort" of finding 2-3x throwaway (even potentially invalid / stolen) G2A keys for a "fast track" (which is basically "purchasable trust skipping"). I remember waiting 2 years before asking for my first game simply because it felt the right thing to do out of respect for the regulars. Is a couple of months wait really that bad even for new key-donors?

It is not hard to develop a web-application for giveaway management with different levels of access.

I can do that, when I have enough time. And we will need a server to run it.

Awesome, the Fight Club was a lot of fun! :)

I would prefer inclusiveness. As I understand it both of these aim to be opportunities for active community members; if some people are involved in two communities with separate activities and separate giveaways, why limit one by the other? If the key limits per time period are reasonable, no-one can be overly greedy anyway.

Yes. I guess it wasn't such a good idea of mine.

My english is so poor. i dont know what to say. i am just an old guy to read forum at my laptop on browser.

i really like to slow chats and i already give and take lots of keys in those giveaways. that is so good for everyone wants to share things in this cruel world. i feel sad. i dont have a steam acc. in steam acc i can buy games much much cheaper. because i buy games here with dolars but steam i can buy local cruency. but i prefer here because i really like to be here. if someone fight at forum i really feel bad.

anyway ı hope someone wants to continue this hard job. i really like finkleroy he is a cool guy. but i know everyone has own different life.

because of my poor english i cant do this job. but please someone

thanks all

stay safe

I have a little poser, but guys, I'm not trying to provoke argument.

How many of you who don't like / cannot use / don't want Discord would support a forum-based alternative, but one still based off-site from here? No Discord format, no mobile phone requirements.

Similar activity rules could apply, but the giveaway could be held elsewhere, and it could even be handled so only members who apply here on the forum could be let into the GA site, cutting down on new accounts posting requests and disrupting the "flow".

It's just a question - I have no plans to do this personally. I'm just testing the waters.

What benefit would it bring over hosting it here?

I'll start drawing my character and writing up a character sheet now! There's not enough time, I tell ya!

Understatement of the year! :D

Like I said on the GA thread, considering GOG's actions towards the community, and how it leads to it becoming more and more a bubble of sycophants, with whatever remaining more discerning users being, directly or indirectly, driven away or silenced, I'm not sure I can in all fairness say that I'd still want something celebrating and rewarding what will still count as the active GOG community on here.

But also wouldn't say no if it would be created, as long as the rules would remain largely the same, in terms of eligibility criteria, request limits, nomination rules and so on, with the notable exception of being able to jump the line by donating something. That should have never been allowed, something for the active community should actually be for active community members, and indeed "new entrants" should have the responsibility to point out their recent activity that they think makes them eligible, though the giveaway admin(s) should always have the final say and complaining about being rejected should be grounds for a "timeout", as in not allowed to try again for a certain amount of time, and in case of repeated offenses even a ban.
Have to disagree with the idea of people needing to choose between the possible future GOG giveaway and the Discord one though. If anything, the members of that Discord server should be seen as already vetted for eligibility for the GOG giveaway, while maybe, at finkleroy's discretion, members becoming eligible on that potential future GOG giveaway may, eventually, be allowed there as well.
As for the start of the month, it may indeed be a good idea for it to be counted from the moment the GA admin posts on the first of the month, to clarify things. But that's mainly because the GOG forum doesn't display the actual time of a post. If it would, a set timezone, whatever it may be, would be no problem whatsoever. And even so, it seemed to work well enough...
As for Doc possibly running the new incarnation, in some ways that would be awesome... In others, however, I'm not sure how much the time requirements would work out in the long run... And, well, I'll just go ahead and say it: As great as Doc's personal giveaways are, and as much as positive interaction between members is needed and should be encouraged here, I worry about both a penchant for leniency and too much of a drive for that positivity... Especially if it'll also extend to GOG, not just to other regular users, at a time when GOG deserves anything but any way, shape or form of positivity, in particular when it comes to their dealings with just this community.

Oh, about hosting the GA off GOG... Seems rather... weird to have the GOG community giveaway off GOG, wouldn't you say? Though I admit that the one obvious benefit is that it'd be safe from GOG's increasingly heavy handed and senseless moderation...

It would make things easier to have just one giveaway which has games from any store, assuming that GOG's new policy allows that. GOG games can somehow be highlighted, like being on the games list in their own spreadsheet or something.

Taking some quality factors into all this is not a good idea, as you can easily find bad games on GOG as well, so it's better to let participants to decide which games they consider worth their time and which they do not.


Assuming it's a GOG-related site like gogdb or or gogwiki or something like that, it would feel kind of natural.
It wouldn't solve any privacy concerns though, it might actually make them worse, as there are no guarantees who is having access to data on some hobbyist site. Using fake aliases and free emails would solve that, but then how would any of that connect to forum identities here?

The only "safe" solution is to have the giveaway on GOG forums, as all information needed is already stored by GOG. Obviously using private messaging and accepting game keys does mean loosening up privacy just a bit, but still all critical information is still managed by GOG, so nothing get compromised more than it already is.

I have the impression that there are a lot of people - me being one of them - who have little to no interest in non-gog keys. Meanwhile the volume of available non-gog keys is an order of magnitude higher. Combining the two does not seem like a good idea to me.

Nitpicking, as currently phrased it's "The Community Giveaway - GoG edition" rather than "The GoG Community Giveaway" - so there's not necessarily alignment between the community and the keys.

If memory serves, the other GA was originally "The Community Giveaway - Steam edition" until it started seeing an influx of itchio and the occasional Origin/Uplay key and was renamed by Zeogold to "non-GoG Edition" to be better descriptive of the shift.
Yes, 100% on the numbers.

Aside from scale, there's also both a perceived and often real distinction between the value of the keys. GoG keys are typically bought as is (even if on sale), and non-GoG keys are most commonly coming from a larger bundle. Occasionally some of them are quite good, but most of them are, in a sense, leftovers, vs. something bought intentionally for the purpose of sharing with the community as most of the (non-daggered) GoG keys are.