ABOUT Linux Giveaways

Linux games for Linux gamers

Purpose of this group:

1. Promoting Linux gaming and Linux games

2. Allowing Linux users to share their favourite games and/or spare keys with fellow Linux gamers

3. Connecting Linux game devs with the community

How to join:

1. Make sure you have a SteamGifts account as that service hosts our giveaways (they are a reputable service in this regard; we’ve used them for years).

2. Hit the Join Group button!

3. Your Steam profile must be public while you are waiting to be approved to join – we use publicly accessible Linux platform play time to determine if potential members are Linux players, and private profiles hide this information. You are of course, free to resume you preferred privacy settings after being accepted into the group.

4. Your profile must be clean, i.e. no record of VAC bans or dishonesty (-rep etc.).

5. If you want to join the group just to contribute (e.g. you're a dev looking for Linux testers or just want to gain some publicity), please contact a mod directly through steam chat with a short message about what you’d like to do in the group.

6. Requests to join will be unsuccessful where the applicant hasn't followed the rules above, or where their observed Linux playtime is not deemed sufficient.

Once you're in:

1. Remember to sync your Steam groups with SteamGifts here[www.steamgifts.com] and take a look at our group's giveaways here[www.steamgifts.com].

2. Feel free to join and create as many giveaways as you want. Giveaways don't have to be exclusive to the Linux Giveaways SteamGifts group, but they shouldn't require any extra actions (liking, following, subscribing etc).

3. While not required, it would be nice if you actually played the games you win. On Linux. ;-)

4. Go ahead and write something in the forums. Remember to be nice to others.

5. Good luck and have fun!

This is work-in-progress and things are subject to change, all suggestions and constructive critique are welcome.

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RECENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

State of the Group, and upcoming change to new member approval process

August 2, 2020 - bradgy | 5 Comments

Hi all,

I wanted to make a post regarding the current status of this group and flag an upcoming change to the approval process for new members for thoughts and feedback.

Thanks to some prolific new members ( and some old ones!) we currently have a good number of giveaways flowing through the Steamgifts group at any one time. I wanted to say how much I appreciate the activity by the giveaway creators and users alike as it really speaks to the usefulness of a group like this, just for Linux gamers. Ultimately, I feel like we as mods can do more to grow the group and see a wider audience exposed to these great giveaways.

To that end, I wanted to put forward a new mechanism for approving members to the group by mods, and see what our current members think in order to gauge the usefulness of such a change.

Currently, the rules are a bit opaque, so I want to clarify things first and foremostly, but the basic requirement is that a new member must post a screenshot of their Linux desktop in order to verify their status as a Linux gamer. This is a useful mechanism to weed out non-Linux users, but we have consistently found that people, even obvious Linux users, fail to perform this step upon applying. This then either necessitates an automatic rejection, or a time-consuming back and forth to get the potential new user to upload the required evidence. What if there was an easier way??

Fortunately, such a way exists - and it's hidden in your Steam profile. Your playtimes on the various operating systems Steam supports (Linux, MacOS, Windows) has been logged by Valve since September 2019 and is able to be viewed for example, here[steamdb.info]. We are now able to quantify exactly how much of a "Linux user" someone on Steam is (provided their profile is public), and can use that as an aid to quickly determine someone's eligibility for this group.

Great! But what about the drawbacks of such a method? There's an obvious one as far as I can see - dual booters and people gaming in VFIO setups will still register playtime in Windows, despite perhaps considering themselves Linux users. My feeling on this is that it should still be obvious from looking at playtime stats to see that someone uses Linux most of the time, and that the relative amounts of playtime between Linux and Windows is what is important. Remember we have confirmation from Valve that Proton gaming is counted as Linux in their stats. I think we should be aiming to admit people into this group whose playtime vastly favours Linux - something in the order of 90% or more. This is a bit vague and open to interpretation, sure, but as mods we have experience in trusting our gut instincts in this area.

Thanks for taking the time to read this wall of text, and I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on this potential change, as well as any other comments or thoughts you may have on other areas of the group.

As always, GL (goodluck)

Brad