graydoggames

Oh boy.

Getting sick of clicking to copy+paste so I'll take a break to answer your question in details. It's a long story.

I don't want to spend too much on this, but the last couple of years have been kinda harsh. Brutal, even. I don't want to get into all the details but I will say that at one point, I had completely given up hope. As in, there is no hope left in your life. At all.

You just wake up, wander around, and go to sleep. That's how I would describe my life in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Wandering.

In late 2017, things started going significantly better. I don't want to spend hours discussing it, but I got lucky. Met the right persons at the right time. Found a new job almost by accident. The small things and changes I applied in my life eventually added up and I started to see the things that I did or went wrong.

In 2018, things started to go a ton better. I'm not rich by any means, but I live a comfortable life now. As a kid, teenager and even a young adult, I simply could not afford video games. Like, I wasn't poor because I could still eat and all that, but the only entertainment I could get were, well, free entertainment. I had the bare necessities to survive and that was it.

In 2018, I finally had money and bought my first gaming PC. Then, the idea of doing a huge giveaway and helping people to free games popped up in my mind. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time and I always told myself that if I ever "made it," I would do it. With that in mind, I never expected it to grow so big. I am completely overwhelmed, but also really happy that it worked.

I've stuck with my original 1,000 keys, which are mostly games that sell for $3-4 with the occasional $5-10. Keys were given at random from an excel spreadsheet. Obviously, I would have never gotten so big were it not from people PMing me free keys to give people away.

My estimations are : 750/1000 of my own keys sent, 2,500 keys from other people sent. I estimate that I have received another 2,500 keys from people, somewhere in my PM box. Am slowly going through it.

I know what it is not to have money for game and am super-happy I managed to do this. I'll conclude with a slightly maudlin line that you will hopefully forgive me, but one final reason I did that is that I realized there was too much hate in this world. Hate, hate, hate, there's hate in every single corner, every single nook. It's all around you, it pervades you and it suffocates you. Just look at the state of the world today. Everyone is so full of hate, all the time. I sure was myself for a while.

Giving out free keys to people was my way to fight back that.

When I'm out of keys.

As of writing this, I am STILL getting keys (from people donating them to me) faster than I can give them out.

I've spent roughly $1,000 USD so far.

I estimate that I am close to 4,500 right now.

Or around 10% of people who commented asking for a game

GRRRR

"Flabbergasted"

Overwhelmed.

My very first reaction was despair because it was SO huge. When I made the announcement, I got something like 800 comments, and I thought it would be perfect. I am not sure how it got to 44k.

Now that I look at it (and still send keys) I feel happy and busy in a good way :)

Holidays spirits still working. I will most likely stop sending keys as the year end, hopefully I am done by then.!