Major Changes to Steam Gifting

Random Guy Esq.

Random Guy Esq.

Random Guy Esq.

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You can no longer buy extra games to store in your inventory, or even gift by email... Gifts now have to be sent directly to the receiver. Steam blog.

Obviously a further attempt to stamp out reselling and inter-region trading etc, but for genuine customers who liked this feature, it's a kick in the balls.
 
I have games which regularly appear in my inventory and I have absolutely no idea how they keep getting there. For instance, currently I have a copy of Dont Starve Together sat in my inventory, absolutely no clue how it got there as I've owned Dont Starve Together for ages so no idea where another copy of it came from.
 
I had never used that feature to send or receive a gift. I do understand that for some it will be a bad change but if it stops illegal website from reselling games I'm all for it. Plus the fact that steam has more or less monopoly and we cant do a thing about it.
 
nashathedog said:
Steam's New Stats Page Reveals Huge Number Of Refund Requests


Not exactly on topic but Steam related and I don't want to open a thread for it
so I hope you don't mind me putting it here.

"As of late, Steam has seen about 75,000 support requests per day, the majority of which are for refunds."

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steams-new-stats-page-reveals-huge-number-of-refun/1100-6449773/
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Why bother with a demo when you have a credit card ;)

That or you like the game but then just head to G2A to buy it for cheaper once you know you'll play it.
 
himen256 said:
I had never used that feature to send or receive a gift. I do understand that for some it will be a bad change but if it stops illegal website from reselling games I'm all for it. Plus the fact that steam has more or less monopoly and we cant do a thing about it.
Click to expand...

The dodgy websites tend to sell keys though, I'd have thought? This change will curb the activities of those individuals who are reselling/trading actual gifts for profit, but Valve could easily have tackled that problem differently, so as not to impinge on those who give gifts away for legit reasons (friends, family steamgifts.com etc).
 
I've been reading that they have also put a stop to people gifting cheap copies to other regions. If it's cheaper in another region, you can't receive a gift for that game from that region. You can however gift the game from the more expensive region to the lower priced region. Not sure if this is 100% true because I don't do this.
 
Tombstone said:
I have games which regularly appear in my inventory and I have absolutely no idea how they keep getting there. For instance, currently I have a copy of Dont Starve Together sat in my inventory, absolutely no clue how it got there as I've owned Dont Starve Together for ages so no idea where another copy of it came from.
Click to expand...

If you bought or someone bought you Don't Starve, you get a free copy of Don't Starve Together.
That's how I got mine, no idea if it's a permanent offer or not though.
 
Psymonkee said:
There goes my legendary drunken giveaways! :(
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This makes me sad :( though we can always do legendary drunk cd key giveaways.

I currently have just under 70 keys saved for a 100 key giveaway I'm going to do in here :3

Going to try and get a few nice games for in the pool too.
 
Psymonkee said:
There goes my legendary drunken giveaways! :(
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Me too Monkeh. I used to buy games cheap during sales and store them in my inventory to randomly hand out during birthdays or holidays. This more or less puts a stop to that.
 
Seriously more stupid crap steam does; more happy I am to buy from everywhere but steam; GOG doesn't do this crap - nor Origin; not sure about Uplay.

I'd rather buy from GOG than steam.....gifting is easy there - and no jumping through hoops for a refund or having to be sued in EU courts to actually force you to start doing refunds....

I just need more friends on GOG side :D - I have a feeling we'll start seeing a pick up of games being solid on GOG now....This also hurts me as YT and branching into streaming on give aways.....to my followers.

Again this is about Gabe protecting is walled garden not what's best for the customer
 
This will definitely hurt a lot of key resellers on G2A and the like!

meldarthx said:
I'd rather buy from GOG than steam.....gifting is easy there - and no jumping through hoops for a refund or having to be sued in EU courts to actually force you to start doing refunds....
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GOG are the most consumer friendly out of the lot. Unfortunately they don't seem to sell current games as much as focus on old ones. I'd happily buy more games from GOG given the opportunity.
 
This is clearly an attempt by Valve to partially stamp out resellers. Lets face it if eventually you are forced to ONLY buy direct from Valve prices will sky rocket once greedy investors are aware they no longer need to offers discounts as often!
 
Seems like a good move. Had a few friends screwed over by the same shady resellers that want to push steam gifts on you. Can't see a downside of this move. For genuine customers, you can just purchase it for your friend directly. Don't know why it wasn't done this way initially.
 
This is a good way to lose market share, I only buy most games as key site prices are good. Hopefully the games will still be available at key sites for Origin and UPlay.
 
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