No No he's not hospitalized or anything like that, but expect it to be less frequent, as he wrote.

When Zeo has time, I'd like to start this year with real Party Hard . ;p

Nobody is stopping you so go on. Don't forget to take some nice pictures ;)

First of all, all the best for Zeogold.

I would like to weight in about the nominations.

I feel that, while well intended, I think they are not exactly balanced. I can only request one game for myself, but I could nominate many games away to other people. This bit has been made clear now.
I know it is all about the spirit of sharing, but if someone else is interested, they can come and check it out themselves. And those users who chose not to share their wishlist never get any nominations, no matter how great and deserving members of the GOG family they are.

You can read the list of generous offers and notice a game you are very interested in but it always exceeds your budget, even during promos. You jump into action, excited about the possibilities, and then notice that someone else got nominated for it.
Did they ask for it? No. Did they look for it? No. It just landed on their lap. "Hey, you want this?" Will they be playing it? Maybe. But it is totally different from someone else who also noticed the game on the list and acted on it, but beat you to it.

Nominated people may refuse the offer. In that case will Zeogold see if there have been more requests for it since the nomination, or will those be ignored?

I'm all for allowing nominations. Codes in this list represent games that cannot be played. We are all here because we like to play games, right? So here are my proposals:

You can nominate someone for a game. If they accept it, then both your names go into the "giftees this month" list. Unless it is a special game with lots of copies or expiring soon or game codes laying around for too long.
It may seem harsh, but anyone can nominate other users, so I think it would work out fine. And in all fairness, you are saying "instead of asking something for myself, I would like you to have this game that I think interests you", which I think is more meaningful that "I took your name from a hat, along with some other people".

An alternative would be to allow nominations on games available for for more than one week. But that may mean too much book keeping for poor Zeo. I could help him with that, but I lack the spare time at this moment. Perhaps in a few months we could work something out. I think that for now we should try to experiment some ideas.

That would not just be harsh but plain unfair since everything the one who nominated another received in the end is a "thank you for the nomination" but nothing more. Additionally people might even stop to nominate other users at all to prevent getting in the situation that THEY won't receive any gift this month. People who want to nominate have to think about "them" or "me" ... not a good idea imo. Limiting nominations quite a bit should be enough to make this fair imo.

I agree that it is a bit "harsh". But what do the gifters, who actually pay for the games, get?
When you nominate someone, it costs you nothing. You are just redirecting stuff. You can do it with love and care, or you could not.
Ok, I agree that a nominator could also be nominated. It would be a little fairer that way.

(Now I'm imagining Arnold Schwarzenegger as... The Nominator, crawling the GOG cityscape looking for targets for nomination to claim prizes in different denominations.)

Can't believe I'm reading all this...
I'll only say this: If nominations get killed off, there is no reason to continue this giveaway with all the work in the background. It will be little more than a code dump ground where just everyone is coming to grab a code for themself with someone in the background filtering giftees for activity...
This always had the spirit of people thinking about others and not only trying to grab stuff for their own collection. Sad to see this go downhill so much. I'm disappointed in how this turned out.

Relax, no one's killing the nominations and this giveaway is definitely not going downhill. December was full of good nominations by BenKii and other people. We are just trying to put some limits for everybody's benefits.

Nobody wants to stop nominations and I am sure I am not the only one who disagrees with the suggestion to punish people who nominate others. Limiting nominations just a bit per user however might be fair, especially when there are only a few keys available and those nominations are happening right at the beginning of the month. I always was more of a donator than taker so maybe I should not post my opinion here at all but at least it seems to me that by just limiting nominations a bit everybody will be happy. Zeo already stated that nominations will stay for sure so I guess there's not much to worry about that your legacy would not be honored.
It might be easier for you to understand moonshineshadows reaction if you keep in mind that it was her who was leading this giveaway for quite a very long time. Of course she wants to make sure that the spirit of this will stay alive.

Yes, you are right, her post seemed a bit extreme to me and I was close to writing "Hey relax brooooo":) I didn't mean to sound aggressive or anything

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Thanks for the laughs.

Now I keep hearing this in my head, thanks ;-)

You a Gog cop?

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