Well, your account could be suspended (potentially forever) if you receive a fraudulent gift as explained in the Steam FAQ. Not that it is likely to happen often, but now you can't say nobody warned you *grins and teases*.

As for security, this is the perfect use-case scenario for Steams 'Steam Guard'.
Even if your account information would be compromised, you'd still be on the save side (in that specific case).

I've been a member at the site for quite some time. No problem so far, though I still haven't won anything. There's unfortunately the occasional "fake giveaway", but other than that it's a smooth ride. The administration at SG is doing a good job.

Surely you can come up with the answer to that yourself, but that's all besides the point. The point is if it isn't happening via the channels that Valve provide and ONLY those channels, you are at Valve's complete mercy for when they want to fuck with you.

If you and other want to take that risk, go ahead. It's your choice.

Amnesia

If anyone is interested.

Uh, no, obviously I can't, or else I wouldn't have asked ;)
But I'm sure you could easily help poor dumb me and explain what you were trying to hint at.


If the page used Valve's trading system (like I pointed out earlier in the thread), I'm not sure what misery might happen to someone using it. Steam guard would protect your account in case of a phishing attempt and the trade system would ensure that your account would stay active in case of a fraudulent purchase.

As I've pointed out earlier in the thread, at this current stage, I don't ;)

A couple of examples: Membership fees, paying cash for points (required to partake in a trade).

As for other point, gifting at present also goes Via the Steam client/email in a system set up by Valve, but if someone has problems with the payment, then both accounts stand to be disabled. The new trading system won't actually change that.

So best case, sites such as the one this topic is about are completely irrelevant. And worst case, Valve will state that any trade that originated outside of the Steam service (such as someone using a third party site to ask if anyone has X game to trade -- and as a lot of us do here with 4 packs, etc.) won't be covered by their new leniency. I.e., they won't waste time reversing trades and will simply disable all accounts involved instead -- and in doing so, give a clear message that trading should be done through them and them alone.

Bansama, everything is still happening through Steam. The site has a few main purposes.

1 - A user has extra copies of a game and they're looking to offload them to someone. Their friends might not be interested, so the site allows them to find an individual.

2 - Someone is feeling generous, and they would like to make someone's day by sending a gift to a random user who might not be as fortunate.

3 - A developer is looking to promote their game, and does so by creating a giveaway.

In all scenarios, everything happens through Steam as usual. People buy gifts through Steam, and they use the Steam gifting or trading system to send gifts. If anything, it promotes people to use their services, to register for a Steam account, and to take advantage of their sales by purchasing gifts for others. As well, it helps to showcase some advantages to using their OpenID system, and I've already heard from a number of companies that decided to implement it after seeing it used on a few of our sites. If you view the page, you can see gifts are estimated at $60,000+ for the past couple of months. I can guarantee a number of those were purchased due to the site's existence. I'm not sure why you're against the concept, we're trying to setup a fun service for Steam users, and build on the tools Valve is providing developers.

As stated in my previous response, Steam would no get any of that money even if the trade would happen on their own platform, so the additional charge should be of little concern or incentive to Steam.

As I stated previously, the trading system is massively different in this aspect according to Steams own FAQ. They clearly and explicitly states that 'In the event of this type of fraud the trade will be reversed and the offending account, not the receiving account, will be locked.'

I've been an occasional lurker around steamgifts since before when they were just hosted off their original sites (steamgamesales).

Nice to know there is the ability to have such things as private giveaways there though.. what turns me off is the immense number of people there grasping for straws, and at least the public part of the community visible in comments and such is very immature (lots of people using the word "gay", for example, as a derogatory term) and so it's hard to "break in" to the good part of the community.

But the idea is neat and the site is quite safe.. they're not the only giveaway site (there was one guy who started one, who was advertising his Xmas Secret Santa thing for weeks on the main forum and it was allowed to stay and proliferate) and I think that rule is obviously more along the lines of Steam having an outlet to cover their butts if some dispute issue ever happens from some other scam auction/trading site or something.

However SG is certainly not a scam site, so that's good enough for me.

Considering how Valve are all too happy to disable accounts for the slightest reason, I will trust third party sites with my Steam account information as much as I trust Steam support to fix the issue. I.e, I don't.

That also means never trading with complete strangers regardless of how that is instigated. Nor, for that matter, will I ever trust Valve's own Open ID stuff. It's just not worth it when I stand to lose access to games that are no longer sold on any other service (or Steam itself).

Now I'm sure you're not personally out to scam people, but that doesn't mean everyone else (including those using your service) are as honest as you and it certainly doesn't mean that the support staff I'd have to deal with, in the event of any problem, will even be capable of comprehending the issue without simply disabling my account as an easy way out.

So as I've said, it's simply not worth the risk.

It doesn't matter. Valve won't want any one making cash out of their own service. Just look at how upset they got when EA didn't want to sell their DLC through Steam. Now imagine what they'll do to someone making a profit off of them (and who isn't giving them their 40% cut).

As for the FAQ entry, that is for their trading system for trades initiated through their system. If they find that the trade was initiated elsewhere, they reserve the right to do whatever the hell they wish.

Bansama, why do you think they have an API for TF2, and viewing user items? These tools exist for this very reason. They'd love to see their trading system take off, as it'll be a huge advantage over their competition. Sites developed to help users trade only benefit them.

I posted an invite on the first page, although it's easy to overlook. Use invite code gog to register.

I honestly couldn't care less. I've already posted my reasons as to why I don't trust these things and nothing, short of Valve themselves suddenly improving their entire support image and relaxing their policies in regards to disabling accounts, is ever going to change my mind.

Good luck with your site, but I won't be using it.

Ohh ! , very sorry , and thank you , I did indeed completely overlook that !