I agree. I consider winning the raffle if you're the only participant shouldn't change the rule regarding cooldowns. No, you should have the same restrictions as anyone else would if it were more than a one-horse race.

I actually don't understand the reasoning behind mrkgnao's suggested leniency.

It's not leniency; it's game theory.

My suggestion aims to avoid the following scenario:
- A goglodyte wants a specific starred game. He waits to see whether anyone enters.
- If someone does, he enters as well. Nothing special here.
- However, if no one does, he doesn't either. Then the end date arrives with no participants, so BenKii makes it a standard game. At which point, our goglodyte snags it with a one-month cooldown.

The current situation kind of encourages people not to be the first to join a drawing.

I'm not understanding the idea behind waiting for someone else to enter first. In my mind the only thing preventing myself from going in for a raffle item I want (and there is an alternative standard game I like too) is there is already too many people already in for it, watering down my chances and possibly destroying any chance of getting either of the games that month.

It strikes me if there's no-one who has entered for the game when I get around to checking the thread then the chances are already higher that I might win it, and so I'd go in for it.

... why wait for someone else to be in first before you put your name in?
edit: If it's because they know BenKii will downgrade it to a standard pick on the next drop then the cure is for BenKii not to do that. And the danger of dropping the cooldown for one participant will mean you'll encourage everyone not to enter in for the starred category at all.

Since: starred=draw=3 months and standard=no draw=1 month, and since the decision for listing something as starred or standard is a blur (and since some of you are against the idea of draws), why don't we follow the middle solution? No draws and 2 month cooldown for every (non-daggered) game! Just a curious suggestion.

That would defeat the purpose of the starred category: to give people a chance at a game in high demand, even if they're at work when it's added to the list, or asleep because of their time zone.

I think for the majority of times I'll leave it at a 3 month cooldown when only one person enters in. But I'll leave room open for exceptions. Like in this case, with Slay the Spire and Knight vs Giant. Sometimes I can make a mistake and pick something that I thought was high demand for starred and it ends up getting little interest. So in this case I'll mark both recipients for 1 month.

Why would a starred game be downgraded if nobody enters for it? The criteria that decided that it needed to be starred don't exactly change, so a starred game, if the <bleep> concept has to keep existing, should remain starred, on a rolling deadline for the draw. Not that I want to give suggestions that'd lead to continuing this practice, but maybe even make it require at least two participants, so if they don't exist by the time of the original draw deadline, extend it until they do.
On the other hand, what's wrong with people not joining a draw? And even in your scenario, if nobody joins and the game does get downgraded, it means nobody wanted it badly enough and therefore anyone accepts the risk of missing out on it by not being the first to request it after the downgrade, while with your suggested one month cooldown for making the sole request, it means that essentially requesting a supposedly high-value game, at no risk of missing out, carries no higher cost than requesting a standard game.
Well, Doc did say that Knight vs Giant was his pick, in which case reducing the cooldown is even weirder.

PS: As for the suggestion to allow people to enter multiple draws... Seriously now? In this incarnation of the giveaway, making lists of (standard) games in case you miss out on your first pick is no longer allowed, but making lists for the supposedly "better" ones should be?

Only Benkii is adding games at a very random times in a small batches, and so far the "better" standard games are getting snatched in a matter of minutes. So unless said person would spend a whole day or two refreshing the site, this plan could be harder to pull out than winning the raffle.

It seems my view is not shared by others, so I guess it should stay three-month. Not a big deal.

I don't think that's a good idea. Either there is a rule or there isn't. The people who ask for a starred game are well aware that there is a three-months-cooldown after winning and they are willing to risk it. So there is no need to shorten the cooldown-period just because they were the only interested in a game.

Making random exceptions could also lead to a situation in which people accuse you of preferring certain community member over others.

Isn't the 3-month cooldown based on the perceived Premium value of the game rather than the number of entries? I honestly don't see the difference between someone being the only entry / winner of a starred game vs someone being the only requester for a non-starred one. If you wanted to keep things simple / or if it's becoming difficult to reconcile "games should be starred based on price tag / premium-ness" vs the actual donor of them not wanting most of them to be, you could just scrap the whole starred / premium value thing and have "flat" 2-3 month cooldowns (ie, max 4-6 games per rolling year per person). It would still have the same effect in discouraging people compulsively asking for the sake of "maxing their quota" for 12 games per year if they don't see anything else they like that month (in case there's something they want later on in the year).

I'm totally against this suggestion, which I'm aware was made in the other thread by someone else. It's entirely because I think that this is the actual issue here:

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut -- (9 entries) $39.99
ELEX II -- (4 entries) $49.99
Knight vs Giant: The Broken Excalibur -- (1 entry) $19.99
Slay the Spire -- (1 entry) $24.99

Let's be honest here, Slay the Spire really is the best of the bunch. I assumed that people were not putting in for it because they already owned the game. However considering some of the comments in the other thread, I think the reality is that there were folks interested in Slay the Spire, but they put in for Disco Elysium instead due to its higher price tag. They didn't win and are now feeling disappointed with their own life choices. Since I got it uncontested as a very last minute entry, they're probably sitting there thinking to themselves that they could have got Slay the Spire uncontested if they had put in for that instead of Disco Elysium.

The only solution to this that I think needs to happen is that people need to stop looking at price tags and just put in for games based on what they actually want to play. I know Slay the Spire for its reputation of being one of the best roguelike/roguelites out there whereas I have always seen Disco Elysium as nothing more than an over-hyped visual novel passing itself off as an RPG. ELEX II, the other expensive game, won't even run on my laptop.



edit -- In regards to the cool down issue, I already stated in the other thread that I didn't have an issue with it being three months. I put in for the game expecting that I was going to win Slay the Spire uncontested because most wanted that visual novel, and I expected that there would be a three month cool down.

That's a matter of personal gaming tastes, isn't it? Personally I hate roguelikes, but very much enjoyed Disco Elysium.

Yes, it is totally a matter of personal preferences! While I do like visual novels, I have a version of yellow-blue colorblindness and every screen shot for Disco Elysium looks really muddy with dashes of extremely aggressive red. I only find the game to be is unpleasant to look at thus also where the opinion of Disco Elysium is overrated comes from.

In my prior post, I was specifically referring to the people in the other thread that didn't win Disco Elysium and are saying that they should have had the option to enter for Slay the Spire also as a consolation prize. I'm totally against this because what is a consolation prize to one person is an awesome game to someone else. People need to just ignore the price tags and enter based on what they would actually want to play more.

Oh absolutely! The whole point is choosing a game you want to play and enjoy doing so. I do agree with you, I just got hung up a bit on the Slay the Spire statement is all.