Welcome to the GameSurge 5th Anniversary Giveaway, with some very nice swag courtesy of none other than Valve! And no, we're not talking a bunch of plumbing parts, here! Valve sent me a box of stuff that I'm just itching to give away, as a way of celebrating our 5 long years here, and to give back a little to the users - after all, without you, we wouldn't be what we are today.

We'll be hanging out the entire month in #5thAnniversary chatting it up, having a good time, and giving out random small prizes (stickers mostly). Feel free to drop on in and join us there on IRC, we don't bite.

In addition to the small random giveaways on IRC, we have two different contests lined up, each with multiple (bigger) prizes, and yes, you may enter both of them. Both contests are open to all people who are 13 or older (Sorry, kids), not currently banned from GameSurge for breaking the rules, and living in the US (or anywhere else in the world if you're willing to pay for shipping if you win - my minimum wage job won't cover a bunch of packages to Europe, sorry). Details are pretty straight forward, too.

The first contest is simply a random drawing. Yea, plain and boring. Open only to AuthServ accounts over 30 days old, one entry per household, multiple entries will result in your disqualification. And that would be bad. Grand prize is an assortment of Left4Dead swag from Valve, including a very large mouse pad, a long-sleeved L4D shirt, L4D hat, L4D stickers, poster, and whatever else will fit in the package. Second, Third, Fourth, and so on will get a shirt and/or hat, stickers, and posters until I run out, all in all there being about 10 prizes total from this contest.

The second contest is a little trickier, though, but the rewards are so much sweeter. This contest is open to AuthServ accounts of any age, and you may enter as many times as you want. It isn't a random drawing, though, it's a creativity contest! Submit a story, draw a picture, make a video, sing a song, etc. Just show us something that creatively tells about your experiences on GameSurge. Entries will be judged by GameSurge staff (who are not eligible of course) on creativity alone. Upload your entries to wherever you see fit (YouTube is great for videos, Picasa or Flickr for drawings/photos/images, pathetic.org for poetry, etc, these ARE just examples), and include a URL to your entry on the form. We'll check it out and judge it, selecting a winner who will receive a copy of Valve's Left4Dead for the XBox 360, as well as the same grand prize package from the other drawing (except the mouse pad) - yes, Valve was kind enough to send me multiple packs (But only one mouse pad, go figure). Runners up in this contest will also get something similar to the other contest, mostly consisting of shirts and/or hats, stickers, posters, but also TF2 collectible card packs. Please note that GameSurge staff will not log into any website to view your entries, so if you toss it up on FaceBook or the like, and we can't get to it with out signing in, I'm afraid it'll void your entry.

RazerZone was kind enough to provide us with some very nice gifts, too. Mainly, three kick ass pairs of Razer Morays, as well as a couple beanies and wrist bands. I'll toss in the wrist bands with the general prize packs for the existing 2 contests, but the beanies and the Morays, well, I'll have more on those prizes later! A very special thanks to RazerZone for the swag, though!

Last Revision: 02/17/2009