That is exactly what I proposed.

Users' participation in any set of giveaways can be made mutually exclusive by their respective rules.

Any giveaway, whose source of games are donations from community members can be called "community" in its title.

However, this very topic has been created to save and preserve GOG Community Giveaway Tradition in its classic form. You'll need to discuss "starred" and any other new "community" giveaways elsewhere.

Ok. I think BenKii should consider it. It's basically the same scheme as he has suggested, except that he can now get someone to manage the starred games in a separate thread, instead of him having to do so himself.

A bit late to the discussion but I think it's a great idea overall.

However, I am somewhat torn between whether I prefer the concept of it being a random giveaway for starred games or as some other have suggested making them count as 2-3 months of receiving a game. Both ways have some pros and cons depending on how you look at it.

Ultimately, it seems like a sensible move whichever way it gets implemented.

I don't think I want to create a new thread just for the random draw games. I think it will make things harder to manage. I also think people here are under the wrong impression that the Starred category will be as big as the regular list. That is false. It will be very few. At most, maybe only 3 at a time. And only when we have a huge list of games donated. For most of the time, the Starred category will be empty. I plan on using it sparingly to offset the demand when a huge donation arrives.

I know some folks here are totally against any form of random draw in the CG but what I'd like to say to you is why not give it a try for just the month of July. Sort of a trial run. Maybe it'll turn out great and fairer for the community as a whole. Or, maybe it'll be a total cluster-frak and we scrap the whole thing. No harm, no foul. Again, I want to repeat that I'm not getting rid of "first come, first served". Just sprinkling in a few random draw games here and there to make it a bit fairer.

... and the flat pricing was supposed to only be dropped for a very small number of highly desired games that couldn't be obtained otherwise...

Probably best solution...

Maybe make it a 48-hour window for the more popular games with a random draw for who gets it?
My first thought was 24-hour window, but everybody has a bad day where they might not remember to check this thread for updates, and it's not like there are e-mail alerts or anything to notify people when there is a new post.

This was a big part of why I said go for it. You don't seem to have been swayed to change course, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Another question, which I don't think it was mentioned. If there are more than one copies of the same starred game (e.g. 5 copies of Dragon Age), then there will be one-time participants in one draw with five possible winners at the same time, or there will be 5 draws with each draw taking place at a different subsequent time (i.e. when the first draw with its participants ends, then the other will start with different participants)?

The former. So technically, if we had multiple of one game (like 5 Dragon Age copies like your example), then your chances increase for getting one. Figured it would be the easiest way to handle that situation.

LOL.

Oh crap. I didn't even notice that. I simply copy and pasted from his initial request. This is what happens when you grant requests with only 4 hours of sleep. :P

No worries. It was just funny, not a complaint. Get some proper sleep. People can wait a few hours for their requests.

Here's something the rules don't cover: nominations for a starred game, where the nomination isn't confirmed before the draw. What happens if the nominated person wins, but declines - say two days later? I'm mostly thinking about people who didn't win and requested something else afterward - but now wish they could've been in on the re-draw for the declined game...

Hrm - maybe this case is really not that different from declined nominations for regular games? Yeah - I guess as long as you explicitly mentioned that the winner was nominated but hasn't accepted yet, then it becomes the same situation.

Okay, never mind me, carry on! :)

Wasn't this whole (misguided) conceput put in so people who don't constantly check will have a chance? And don't nominations basically serve the same purpose? In which case, since people are given time to say so if they want such a game, why also allow nominations?

Not that the rules wouldn't still say that it's first come, first served...