Hey guys, I've got this idea: Why not hold a white elephant exchange, but with games? For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a celebration where everybody brings gifts, with some people bringing purposefully-bad gag gifts. All of the gifts are wrapped, somebody picks one out an opens it. After that, everybody else can either choose to pick an unwrapped gift or steal one (swap one, if they already are holding a gift) from somebody else. Typically there's a limit to how many times that something can be stolen/swapped.
For GOG, we'd have one of us collect a series of games donated by the community, some decent, others purposefully bad, low-rated, bundled, heavy on the assets, cheap Steam garbage. The person running it would have a list of colors or numbers or boxes or something that somebody picks to open, and then we limit the swapping/stealing to two or three turns (I'm open to suggestions here, as, to be honest, I've never actually DONE a white elephant exchange).
If you want more specific rules on white elephant stuff, you can find it here:
https://www.whiteelephantrules.com/
The reason I'm making this an idea rather than just hosting it myself is because, although I have a decent presence on the forums so far, I don't feel like my rep is high enough/I'm that upstanding of a member yet that everybody would trust me to run something as complicated as this with so many codes passing through my hands (such as you would with Hypersomniaclive, Sachys, _Slaugh_, or Moonshineshadow), but then, I wouldn't know, and this is up to your guys' judgement (I know little about how you people judge).
Any thoughts? Has this already been done before, I wonder?
Edited for spelling mistakes.

Don't mind me, just bumping this every few hours so that I get some feedback sooner.

There have been some similar elements in GAs on here before - but I'm honestly not sure how well this would work.

For a start, the fact you may end up with some old crap would put some people off. A lot of people would likely not donate things of much value given that.
Then of course there could be fallout and toxicity from poo prizes (we have seen this kind of thing before).
Then theres the format itself - could be off-putting - likely all entrants need to be vaugely online at the same time.

Its an interesting idea, but the only way I can really see it working at all is if a single person were to buy all the gifts and do it themselves (even just with bundle codes) - and its likely a lot more work than anybody capable of running a GA like this is up for as (from experience) add more than a couple of rules and people either try to ignore them / twist them to their own definitions or simply don't get them and you spend most of your time trying to forcefeed the concept to people who then can no longer be bothered.

On the other hand, there are elements that might work if stripped away from the specific concept you have and utilised as part of a different format or even a much more simplified one, where the entrants aren't "active" (ie the GA host does all the work).

Oh. Dang. I just thought it would be an amusing element. I mean, technically, if you join ANY giveaway, depending on what it is, there's a pretty high chance you'll get diddly squat, and at least here you're getting SOMETHING. If they don't like the game, I figured that they'd give it back to the host to give on some unrelated thread to somebody who actually wants it, or to just not use it and let the original owner keep it (I'm assuming the original owner would give from their own collection they happen to have already and not be crazy enough to actually buy a game just for this purpose). If all else fails, I could offer up some consolation prizes to bitter losers from my personal collection. I thought it might work because I figured most people would be familiar with the concept of a white elephant exchange (of course, as an American, I'm naturally obliged to assume that international people understand things that are common here, obviously). If somebody's caught bending the rules, they're kicked from the game and the host either pulls the prize or brings in another player (there can only be as many players as there are prizes). That's mainly what I was thinking, not that everybody would have to be online at the same time, but there would be, essentially, "rounds" that last for approximately a 24-hour period (or until everybody finishes) in which people can say what they're going to do (open, keep, swap, etc.). At the end of each round, the host lists who currently has what, and will dispense codes via private message after it's all over. The host does a majority of the work.

I have eighteen zillion utterly crap Steam codes. I could source all the prizes myself. "Merry Christmas, here's "Zombie Zoid!"

Just gonna bump this thread again. I'll only do this a few times before I let it die.

Heh.

I wouldn't be as cynical as to say it couldn't work, but...it would be a challenge. It's an interesting idea, but I'm curious why you'd want to do it here if you've never done one IRL.

A big part of the fun is looking at the table and trying to figure out whether to take that beautifully wrapped package, or just the gift bag with the tissue paper. The elements of selection and unwrapping would be missing here [and seeing the facial reactions of people who just opened something awesome or terrible]. Not to mention the communal drinking.

If participants bring their own games to the table, you do run the risk someone who brings a decent prize will be disappointed when everyone else brings Zombie Zoid. If you want to rely on donations, that might avoid that problem, but I can see some challenges with that too, esp. with multiple donation-driven GAs already running.

Bler, bler, bler...the Puzzlemaster is never sensible enough to ask "Why?". No, no, that is too common to everyday people. Instead, the Puzzlemaster asks "Why not?". Plus, you kind of answered your own question, I'll get to see what one is actually like...sort of. And I'm too young to drink anyways, so that part doesn't concern me.
As far as looking at the table, I figure that when the list of presents is presented (yes, that was a pun), each one will have an image attached to it of different-looking packages to sort of "simulate" that feel.
Yeah, I did intend it to mainly rely on donations. It wouldn't be big at all, we'd have I'm guessing about 11 people at maximum. If needed, I can supply a few decent-quality games, and I'm sure that yogsloth would be happy to provide us with all our "zoink" prizes.
Also, do forgive me, but I was too lazy to type the quote function every time, I'm sure you can tell I'm replying to each paragraph individually.

One more bump.

I'd certainly be interested in watching/heckling.

Hey! That's MY job (most of the time)!

Just gonna bump this one more time, after this, I'm considering the idea a failure and letting it die.