Secret Santa 2018 - Part 5. DONE!

[desocietas]

The bf and I are streaming our unboxings in a bit in case you're interested! www.twitch.tv/sethyroth

I'll post the vod later

[droaa]

No lie, my wishlist this year was very barebones since I never keep on this site so when it came time for SS, I had not much of a clue what to put down so apologies to my SS for having to contend with that. That being said, I did open mines up and I really appreciate it. For next year, I need to be a bit more prepared to make it easier. 2 of the 4 items I asked for, a megaman build thing from Japan it seems and tootsie rolls

[tpugmire]

One of the years past, I got a random box of crap too. Not a single thing I wanted or asked for. While I was disappointed, I didn’t let it bother me too much. Next year will be better kashell! 

[azure]

Here is my SS haul! You did a great job with it Kash, I knew who it was, from just the return address though 
Not pictured is a sweet perler style Kirby ornament, because it's currently on the tree. My only complaint is this VirtualOn is still sealed Kash what are you doing to my collector side 
I loved the note as well, thanks for a great surprise!

[NickAwesome]

Merry Christmas, everyone. I opened my gift from my SS a while ago; I forgot to tell Soera that I received it until yesterday. Apologies for the delay.
I was going back and forth about posting something because I didn't want to sound ungrateful, but after seeing FlashBack's post...well...I'll just say it: my gift was not good.

It's unfortunate that your Secret Santa so clearly half-assed this, and it completely defeats the purpose of this exchange in the first place.  And worst of all, it was so bad that you no longer want to participate, and the whole exchange suffers because now we lose someone here who clearly made an effort to give great gifts.  Not everyone is always going to be completely satisfied but IMO, the people who gifted kashell and flashback should not be allowed to participate anymore. 

[wolfen]

Well hopefully we do better next time. It's unfortunate but, sometimes people just don't care as much as we would like them to. I also hope my recipient liked or even recieved their gifts as I haven't seem them post anything yet.

[soera]

Well, I have been tossing around the idea of posting or not, but since other people have, I may as well too. I was the buyer for Flashback. Im sad that he did not like the gift but it wasnt just a thoughtless box of stuff I sent.

I am slightly disappointed that people were quick to say that the buyers should not participate next year. Maybe it will happen that way. 

[ignition365]

I meant several times to take pictures of my stuff I got, but I never did and I think I already put them on shelves.  Gonna try and take pictures later.

My Secret Santa was very... unorthodox in their delivery, I sort of assume they drop shipped from ebay for everything.

In the meantime, I got...

Eureka Seven Vol. 2 (PS2)
Spectral Force Genesis (NDS)
Lost Dimension (PS3)
Record of Agarest War (360)

Overall I'm pretty happy with what I got.

Getting Vol 2 of Eureka Seven just pushes me to get Vol 1 sooner, which isn't bad as I've been putting it off for too long.

Spectral Force Genesis wasn't on my wishlist, so I'm pretty stoked to have a game sent that I'm not even aware of, but looks pretty good.  I always put on my wishlist message that I'm open to games that I don't own that folks think I would like or that they personally recommend, this is the first year someone has done it.

[Cartagia]

Well, I have been tossing around the idea of posting or not, but since other people have, I may as well too. I was the buyer for Flashback. Im sad that he did not like the gift but it wasnt just a thoughtless box of stuff I sent.

I am slightly disappointed that people were quick to say that the buyers should not participate next year. Maybe it will happen that way. 

Honestly, my knee jerk reaction was to say the same thing.  However being disappointed is a risk that one has to take in participating in any Secret Santa (doubly so for Dirty Santa / White Elephant), but it was my understanding that the Wish Lists are provided to help mitigate this risk. 

I think it would be worth asking the gifters why they chose the gifts that they did.  Did the Wish List include a line like "[...] or a game I don't have!  Surprise me!"?  Because with such a large group of different style of collectors - something they don't have could end up in a situation like we saw this year (I know we know the names of most of the people involved, but I am going to avoid them, because I'm not trying to call anyone out). 

• The gifter is out shopping, and sees a game they think their receiver might like.  They were told "or something I don't have", so they check the PS4 collection, and the game isn't there.  However, the receiver already has that game on XB1.  Some collectors may be fine with this.  Others may consider it a duplicate from the collection.
• This was precisely why I stuck exactly to the Wish List - also my receivers collection was massive and just to find if they had a title while out at a shop would have taken forever.  Consider this another request for being able to search within a collection.

Who knows? I'm not trying to make light of anyone who is extremely unhappy with their gifts.  My receiver could have hated everything in the box, I haven't heard about it yet.  Just trying to think of ways that we could prevent this sort of thing from happening next year.  And the only thing I can arrive at, short of initially banning people from next year is to get their side of the story first - and possibly limiting to only provided Wish List items, because that would be about the only real enforceable rule that you could create - well other than you have to send something!.

[telly]

Here's my two cents on the issues presented based on what others had said, and my own personal experiences with Secret Santa on this site.

1. Getting games not on your "Secret Santa" wishlist but are on your site one - I would be inclined to say that if it's on your wishlist, then you would have at least some desire to own it one day. So I think it's fair game personally, but... if you ONLY want your santa to use your Secret Santa wishlist, you should say that beforehand. Personally, I always tell people they can use both wishlists, and every year (so far) they've always been great

• Year 1 - No games from my SS wishlist, only site wishlist
• Year 2 - One game from my SS wishlist, all the others were from my site wishlist
• Year 3 - 3/4 games were from my SS wishlist, extra games/items from my site wishlist and collection
• Year 4 - One game from my SS wishlist, all the others were from my site wishlist

So what's interesting is that people tend to NOT use my SS wishlist, and I think that's fine. People may already have other games around that are cheaper, duplicates, etc. It saves time and money for them, and I'm all for that if it makes things easier.

2. Getting games not on your wishlists at all - I think you really have to say that you're okay with this beforehand. Otherwise, I don't think you should be sending games that people don't have on their wishlist, even if you think they'd really like them. For me, I take games off of my site wishlist BEFORE sending in the curated one to Soera because I'm asking for them in other places, for either my birthday or Christmas.

3. Getting games you already own - Again, you have to go off the wishlists. Last year I asked for FFX/X-2 HD even though I already own FFX on PS2. Again, if it's on your wishlist, then it's assumed that it's something that you want.

As for Kashell's situation with FFXV, I'm sorry, but I have to side with the person who bought the game. I think that when your list of games is sent to Soera, all those games should be "off limits" for you to ask for or buy later down the line. I also don't think it's fair to expect that person to check Kashell's wish lists and collection regularly to make sure that what they bought is still "available". I'm not sure how Kashell got the game, and he may have not even anticipated receiving it. However, when he did, his santa should have been given an immediate direct heads up that a game is off the list. Even then, it's dicey, and it would be really inconvenient for the santa to have to return and buy something else instead. I know that would irk me personally.

4. Games arriving that don't work - That's just straight up unacceptable, doesn't matter if it's Secret Santa or not. Like Kash said, it's uncertain if it just got damaged on the way over, but either way, it should have A. Been tested, and B. Ensured that it was packaged properly.

~

That said, here's what I think should happen next year. I think people should fill out a Google Form or something when signing up, and answer a couple questions beforehand (communication is everything after all with something like this). These are some I came up with:

• Are you okay with getting games that folks think you would like that are NOT on your wishlist (provided they are still of value)?
• Would you like your Secret Santa to use your curated wishlist, site wishlist, or both?
• How do you prefer the condition of your games? Do you want them to be CIB?
• Are you okay with being paired with someone overseas?
• Are you okay with getting gifts from someone overseas?

That way we can make sure everyone is on the same page (hopefully). I agree with Cartagia that this is unfortunately part of the risks of doing a Santa online with people overseas and all. Thankfully for me I haven't had a single bad gift yet, but I know I try to make it as special for my recipient as possible, and so usually spend $20-30 over the limit anyway.

[ignition365]

Personally when I go off list and send stuff they didn't request, I try not to value that stuff at all if I can because they didn't ask for it.  I think in a previous year, I sent some manuals and stuff for games my SS had but were missing the extras according to their collection.  I didn't value it at anything so it was essentially just something extra.

I think last year I had Kash and I sent him a little gimmicky book with a little safe in it full of candy, because the majority of his wishlist was strategy guides.  I can't honestly recall, but I don't think I really valued that at anything.

[telly]

The other thing I'm wondering whether the $50 budget includes shipping or not? I've never included shipping in mine, but my gift this year was well under $50 so I think my santa factored shipping in their budget. That's fine, but I think some clarification on that would be good.

[NickAwesome]

I've never considered shipping part of the cost but it would probably good to clarify. 

I like the idea of having each person fill out a short questionnaire before participating.  Maybe that can help mitigate disappointment. 

Personally I love receiving stuff not on my wishlist, as long as I don't already own it.  And I guess if I already own it, I can just trade it to someone else for something I want.  And for my giftees, I like to go on and off the wishlist and use the wishlist as suggestions and not necessarily as required.  I also like finding most of my stuff locally, just ordering everything off ebay is not very fun.  Reading these responses though has made me second question this method.  Both of my giftees in years past have enjoyed my gifts but if I was to do the same for someone else, it might be disappointing for them.  A bit more information about my recipient and what they like would better inform me how strictly I need to follow the list. 

[justin8301]

I dont think additional guidelines/questions are a bad thing, just as long as it doesn't become "please enter the exact names of the games you want to receive". I rather enjoy going off books and trying to find things my match might like based on what they've told me about themselves. I just try to make sure to have a few things that were on their wish list in case I didn't do so well. Also i just always assumed that shipping was not included in the budget set.

With all that said, I just wanted to say thank you to soera for making this happen each year. It takes a lot of work to put this all together and you've done an amazing job with it! so Thank you soera!!

[Flashback2012]

Aye carumba...I didn't think the thread would take such a downturn. I'm covering someone else's shift this week and don't have the time to really get into it at this time but I want to thank Soera for the package I received. There were a few items in it that I didn't have that have been on my radar for some time. I did receive some duplicates and some "dupes" of games I had on other systems already but as I mentioned previously, I tend to acquire the same game across multiple systems. I just picked up de Blob2 over the weekend for DS even though I have it on Wii/PS3/XB360.

Anyway, more later. Only two more days of this God-Awful shift...