Or what happens when it gets or stays NASTY?

Cool suggestion, m8. Would have blown y'all if that was the case yesterday. :P

I like it and would make it nastier because now people just went after certain games, now you don't know what you get and when you do get a complete code it might not be something you want.

Well, I'm not the only person that can do a giveaway like this, so if you guys wanted to do one...

However it was hard enough to get people to sign up to this one, so imagine persuading 16 people to invest 2 hours in a contest where the prize might be the humble indie bundle.

could have been done on irc.

yes, were too many to PM, slow to answer /refresh... not working always without refresh

But not everyone can afford a giveaway like that...

Can't you give an extra part of the code so you need less people, that perhaps in combination with not telling what games they are for.

Or how about some sort of turn based system...

well, as been said it would be harder to get people to play if they don't know/want what they're playing for.

though, I kind of had a thought of a variation on that.

you could save a few codes from one of GOG's freebie events, like torchlight or what have you, say 3 or 4.

Then, you could have sort of a nasty bonus round after the main action. One code is for one of the more recent, pricier game that people were playing for (like RotT or Rogue Legacy). The rest are dummy codes for one of the freebies. Announce what the prize is, but not what the codes are for. Maybe give a hint to a few of the players, like tell one person each one hint about which one is a dummy. So you have two layers going on, people trading for information on codes and trading for information on which ones are dummies.

Like I said in my initial post, people would know what the 8 or so games in the pool are. Their specific identities during the actual contest would be "modified" or "concealed" to add a little mystery/randomness.

For example, just like in this contest a few days in advance people learn the games are:

System Shock 2
Thief
Fallout
Planescape: Torment
Baldur's Gate
Arcanum
Dungeon Keeper
SimCity 2000

But when you receive your code fragments, it looks like this:

Teenagent, Part = 2, Code = xxxx
Warsow, Part = 1, Code = xxxx
Dragonsphere, Part 3, Code = xxxx
Stargunner, Part 4, Code = xxxx

And whoever is running the game knows that Teenagent = SimCity 2000, Warsow = Fallout, etc. But the contestants wouldn't know what 'Teenagent', 'Warsow', or any other 'fake name' is until they got a complete valid code. If they didn't want it or already owned it, they can use it for trading.

I think this would possibly add more nastiness since without knowing what games are early on, people will be more active in trading generally, and the 'more popular' games might not be as elusive or cause a bottleneck as a couple others commented. I'm not criticizing the flow of the game at all - I think it works just great. But again, just a thought I had.

I don't think it's a very good idea but I wanted to clarify this as people seem to be getting the impression I mean that everything should be a mystery from the beginning of signing up. I would never suggest that since people wouldn't commit to something that might not involve games they are interested in or don't own already (plus it would still be GOG games only - I didn't mean to imply mystery games would be from HIB or Steam).

Of course it all depends on how we organize this for a possible next time (if there is a next time). And as always big thanks go to wpegg for having made this giveaway possible.

Some of my questions were brought up during the post-event discussion, but I could not quite find the answers.

First is about how the players seemed to be less willing to give out fake codes than expected. For me it is partly because I couldn't know if another player is holding the same code, in which case by giving out a fake code I probably can't slow down another player much, but risking possible future trades (once wpegg verify that the code from me is a fake) with the same player.

To ensure the code parts don't get buried I assume every part is given to at least two players? It would help me to decide on the strategy if I knew how many others had the same parts.

This is also related to how the codes are assigned. None of the code parts I got are for games on my wishlist, which if is by design, I think is brilliant. This forced me to track down the players who showed interest in those games. But on the other hand, this makes me more willing to give out the real code, because I wouldn't gain much from giving out a fake.

Before the game I figured I would try to give fake parts about half of the time - or all the time. But when the game actually started I suddenly realized that time is a huge factor (once I found that I don't have any of the parts for the games I wanted), and so in the end I did not give any fake parts. This could be just me, but it would help if I had one or two parts for games on my wishlist, in which case I will almost certainly lie about those parts, and perhaps even lie about the games I am actually interested in.


While wpegg's oroginal format already worked beautifully, I think mondo84's suggestion is very interesting, to say the least. On the other hand, maybe the true identity of each game could also be part of the currency? that is, perhaps player A knows Teenagent = SimCity 2000, and player B knows Warsow = Fallout, etc. This information could be quite valuable, and I suspect people would try to lie about it.