Don't really have anything new to add, but want to basically say a few +1s.
I also think that the request was probably invasive but more importantly definitely ineffective. Seriousplayer doesn't ring a bell for me either, but whether happywinner and ppdouble are the same person or not, they're definitely just here for the giveaways and shouldn't be eligible based on that. And, really, happywinner? That nick basically spells it out. And the activity requirements really need to be increase, I've been saying that all along.
About what other method could be employed in such cases, all I can think of is that GOG staff might have a say in it. I mean, they have far more data than any of us about users, and should have an interest in identifying multiple accounts...
Maybe the games list could play a part, looking for games that weren't massive giveaways present on both/all, in the idea that someone won't purchase the same game on their different accounts. Just as one factor among several, since the existence of such games won't automatically say they're different people, as they could have been gifted or otherwise freely obtained even if not part of a known mass giveaway, and some might even go through the trouble of double purchasing a few cheap games if it'd make them eligible to profit far more, while on the other hand the lack of such games, or in fact even the lack of any purchased games, most definitely doesn't mean that they're the same person, different people obviously having different interests and priorities and resources, and this being meant for the GOG active community, not the GOG active paying customers.

Seriousplayer mostly just posted newsletter discount codes on the Newsletter Code Drop thread. He had a few other posts here and there but the Newsletter thing was his biggest contribution.

So, yes, I agree that I need to be stricter when it comes to allowing folks access to the Community Giveaway.

Sorry, this is wrong in so many levels.

GM #BenKii

They were banned for violating rule #8. I quote:

"#8. You are only allowed to request keys for yourself. Every granted key must be redeemed by the account that requested it. If you would like to request a key for a friend or family member, they need to meet the eligibility requirements and you need to nominate them for it. If a donor notices that a key they donated was redeemed by a different account than the one that requested it, please let me know about it via PM. We'll all have to have a chat about what happened, and I'll take it on a case by case basis. If there are repeated issues with the same user breaking this rule, it will lead to them being banned from the giveaway."

Didn't you collect enough evidence that keys were redeemed by a different account than the one that requested them? There is irrefutable proof when that happens. If your cases are built around rule #8, then you must fully adhere to it.

Suspicion alone is insufficient to justify rule-breaking or enforcement actions, a legally defined threshold must be met. That's how the real world protects individual rights from arbitrary or unjustified intrusion. Why should it be any different here?

Note that I haven't had the opportunity to socialize with any of them, yet I clearly understand their silence and the distance they maintain. Questioning someone's honesty is offensive. Frankly, I'd be furious.

People should get off their high horse and start walking in the shoes of the excluded. One day it could be any of us. Not far from here, I just loudly criticized #kultpcgames' proposal.

Food for thought: Why is it that in all these witch hunts, our distinguished donors, whom I won't name because we all clearly know who they are, never come forward to advocate for stricter rules, despite their enormous investments here?
Could it be that the root of all this suspicions and policing isn't the generous act of sharing, but jealousy, envy, entitlement, and people who only take without giving back?
I wish there were a golden rule stipulating that only proven donors could enact rule changes. Toxicity wouldn't have such a loud voice. I couldn't be here.

Long live the control based on mere suspicion. DRM?

It's not that simple. They were smart enough not to redeem all the keys to one account. They made sure to redeem the games to the accounts that requested them. There was one instance where both ppdouble and happywinner both entered for God of War every time it was up. When ppdouble finally won a copy then happywinner suddenly stopped entering for it.

Not really. Only for gift codes bought directly on GOG. For other gift codes --- most importantly, for those received from Amazon Prime, which are nowadays the vast majority of codes --- as far as I know, it is impossible to know which account redeemed the code.

Relevant note: Every reference to #you is not personal, it applies to anyone involved in tracking.

Come on, GM #BenKii, you're adding complexity for no good reason. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the forum features don't even allow you to adequately track people's forum activity:

- How do you expect to comprehensively track each individual's participation in drawings?

- Are you also tracking everyone's non-community-giveaway activities (purchases, foreign keys), not just on this platform but elsewhere? Remember, gaming isn't exclusive to GOG. And what's worse, you don't even need to own a game officially to fully play it. Just this past weekend, I played a recent release over a friend's house.

- Are you considering how repeated losses affect participants' motivation? Or are we supposed to act like robots and keep entering until we finally win?

- Are you interviewing every participant to understand their real-life availability, gaming plans, finances, or changing tastes?

- Will you start tracking people's schedules? Because, as you know, the time of day can provide big clues about impersonation. Sorry to those who post from their phones outside their #authorized time frames. Strictly forbidden!

- Will you track people's concurrent activities? Remember, an individual can't easily be active on two accounts at the same time.

- Will you analyze people's writing styles?

- Should we start submitting IDs to prove our identities, validate our countries of origin, and so on?

Good luck with all that! Congrats in advance, you'll have solved one of the most complex unsolved issues on the internet: identity verification. Don't forget to consider all the regulatory rules that come with it.

And be ready to make time you don't have to socialize with many of us: I declare that sentence my frank, ungrateful critique.

Seriously, think about it. You're following the DRM mentality. Suspicion and distrust will only bring division, negativity, mistrust, stress, lies, fraud, false judgments, paranoia, and more. Please, stop

Food for thought: Distrust fuels the labyrinth of laws that hermeneutics seeks to navigate

To be clear, I'm not asking for anyone to get a free pass. I just believe that if the GM socialized more with the community, identifying risks could be more preventive, easier, friendlier, and constructive. At the same time, I fully understand you can't chat for hours with everyone. Maybe what we need is more interaction among ourselves.
That's all.
Exactly: welcome to the never-ending cycle of suspicion and distrust!
Can we please limit the scope to what is actually trackable? Gift codes bought directly on GOG, yes. Everything else: sorry, that's beyond control.

I think the photo request sounds fine. You're not asking them to divulge their passport number, social security or even their real name. It's not invasive to ask someone to put a face to an online account any more than requesting a drivers license when selling alcohol. You have a restriction on distribution, reasonable suspicion of misconduct from other points of evidence and an uncomplicated test to prove their right to access. Could it be manipulated? Sure, but the effort involved to do that is a barrier in itself. The giveaway is obviously being manipulated and abused by some and I don't see why anyone need be offended if something about their interactions or account arouses suspicion. It's hardly a common occurrence and clearly took place after serious consideration. Engage with the host in good faith, put their mind at ease and you'll get an apology and the sense the giveaway is being managed and maintained responsibly.

The sad thing is that it's affecting the entire net, not just a single forum.

I remember a time not too long ago when gog giveaways like this one were about giving the gift of game and that's it. There was some caution re: if some winner was a bot or scammer but it wasn't apparent or overt. Now everyone and their mother seems to think we need to crack down to the fullest lest some dastardly curr get a free game. Food for thought: most nefarious types would likely just torrent the games or obtain them through other methods rather than setting up schemes to scam a free game key here in the forums.

Sentiments like this are partly why we have several net verification (monitoring) bills being pushed in various locales. I say giveaways should do some basic diligence when giving out keys and that's it. A return to the giveawy spirit of old, if you will.

When was that? Last month?

I totally disagree about this being a DRM mentality thing. The internet and especially social media is flooded with bots and people from troll farms. Whole websites are created by AI bots. I've seen someone here linking to news site which was completely fake. Everything on that page was created by an AI.

You can't really trust anyone on the internet.

The biggest problem of GOG's community features is that there is basically no protection. It is way to easy to use the community features. The Dreamlist, this forum, the reviews and ratings and every single giveaway thread are targeted by shady characters. Some accounts here literally scream in your face that they are just here to harvest game keys.

There are threads here where four or more alt accounts having half of the posts. You even have the situation where someone is using multiple accounts to fake whole conversations in threads. The funny thing is that this person is present in this thread with multiple accounts. Oops...

So...

I can only disagree with all your posts.


I've read some of the posts of the mentioned users and these are quite similar. You won't notice it when you quickly skim through a thread.

You can additionally try to ask GOG support to investigate certain accounts whether they can detect something suspicious. This is my suggestion for this situation.

BenKii is giving up his time to run a thread for the benefit of the GOG community (he is a farmer, so has a busy real life as it is).
He has tried to be as fair as possible with all the entrants but at the end of the day he is quite within his rights to deny access to people simply on the basis that he doesn't believe they are genuine members of the community, or that he believes they are trying to play the system. His word is final.

If anything he has maybe been a bit too lenient and trusting in the past.

I also remember a time where the number of alts and low-effort accounts were a lot lower, or at least appeared to be lower. The detected increase in these does coincide with the concern the hosts (and participants) showed regarding who was eligible for what.

BenKii has stepped up and is facing a bit of a challenge in trying to make the giveaway fairer for those who truly contribute to the forum.

Important Announcement:
I've updated the text for the "Optional Approve Yourself" section under post #4 to reflect the need for more forum participation. The original text was used by recently banned accounts to quickly gain access to the giveaway. I've now made it more ambiguous as to what I consider is enough participation. This may lead to more denials but hopefully it will also lead to more deserving people receiving a game here.

Optional Approve Yourself Posts:
If you'd like to speed up the vetting process to be eligible for the Community Giveaway, then you can send links to your recent forum activity to me via PM. Please keep in mind that I do not consider posts made in giveaways and "low effort" posts as qualifying activity. What I deem is enough qualifying activity is up to my sole discretion. I still reserve the right to deny if I believe you to be a scammer or a "not so nice person".

While this is a welcome step, I hope that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, you might consider completely transferring the responsibility of locating eligible forum posts to the requesting and/or nominated users themselves. For a member to provide hyperlinks referring to compliant forum posts from the 'Topics I've participated in' section (mentioned within 'Important Announcements'), the amount of effort is, at most, minimal.

This potential requirement would not only be respectful of your time (which you continue to generously donate), but, it may also prove to be far more efficient.