Gifting Steam Games?

Sasqui · Dec 20, 2019

Steam has some good deals right now, so I snatched a game last night. At checkout it gave the option to buy it for myself or gift it... to a list of people that I've already send games to.

Question... if I haven't activated the game for myself, does Steam still allow gifting it? It used to.

I wanted to do a holiday giveaway, hence the question.

potato580+ · Dec 20, 2019

such nice idea, anyone help this pls, i dont mond anyhting free stuff

rtwjunkie · Dec 21, 2019

Sasqui said:
Steam has some good deals right now, so I snatched a game last night. At checkout it gave the option to buy it for myself or gift it... to a list of people that I've already send games to.

Question... if I haven't activated the game for myself, does Steam still allow gifting it? It used to.

I wanted to do a holiday giveaway, hence the question.

You no longer can just store it in your inventory to give later. That’s what I used to do with my giveaways. Now it must be gifted to someone immediately from your friends list.

Sasqui · Dec 27, 2019

rtwjunkie said:
You no longer can just store it in your inventory to give later. That’s what I used to do with my giveaways. Now it must be gifted to someone immediately from your friends list.

That's the way I did it before also and I came to the same conclusion after poking around. They lost a few sales, I was planning a giveaway around the holidays but I guess not.

WhiteNoise · Dec 29, 2019

Yeah, we can't do that anymore. I have run several game giveaways myself here and I just buy it when someone wins.

rtwjunkie · Dec 29, 2019

@Sasqui so what I had to do the last giveaway I did was a general giveaway, then the person picks what they want. Then....

...hopefully there are no regional restrictions based on different pricing. Then you have to back out of the sale screen on Steam and go look for the same game on another place like Humble or GMG and gift it that way. Steam have made it a total pain in the butt...and likely lost a number of sales, as you said.

Flogger23m · Dec 29, 2019

When did they make this change? I often bought games and would gift or sell them if I didn't want them. Did this for the four pack co-op games back in the day to.

Sasqui · Dec 30, 2019

Flogger23m said:
When did they make this change? I often bought games and would gift or sell them if I didn't want them. Did this for the four pack co-op games back in the day to.

I'm guessing it was within the past year. No clue why, maybe they thought they we losing sales on unused games being given away? In any case, it sucks!

Sybaris_Caesar · Dec 30, 2019

Now people give away mostly humble bundle codes they don't want or already have.

Another option is buying keys from grey market.

Third option is you can still gift games on steam but only among friends. And you can't gift until your "friend" is 3 days old. Also your friend and you have to be from the same region.

Sasqui · Dec 30, 2019

Khonjel said:
And you can't gift until your "friend" is 3 days old.

Sounds like they're trying to prevent people from re-selling. Meh!

cucker tarlson · Dec 30, 2019

rtwjunkie said:
@Sasqui so what I had to do the last giveaway I did was a general giveaway, then the person picks what they want. Then....

...hopefully there are no regional restrictions based on different pricing. Then you have to back out of the sale screen on Steam and go look for the same game on another place like Humble or GMG and gift it that way. Steam have made it a total pain in the butt...and likely lost a number of sales, as you said.

imo best way is just to get a physical gift card and send sb the code

rtwjunkie · Dec 30, 2019

cucker tarlson said:
imo best way is just to get a physical gift card and send sb the code

It sounds like it. It’s why I don’t do giveaways anymore. It’s like Valve doesn’t want any more money.

Sasqui · Dec 30, 2019

cucker tarlson said:
imo best way is just to get a physical gift card and send sb the code

I think you can still buy a Valve gift card without having to have a recipient... no?

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Gifting Steam Games?

Sasqui

potato580+

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

Sasqui

WhiteNoise

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

Flogger23m

Sasqui

Sybaris_Caesar

Sasqui

cucker tarlson

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

Sasqui

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