Valve has just announced that Steam gifts will no longer be able to be stored in one’s inventory. Users will have to send the gift as soon as it’s purchased or schedule it to be delivered at a later date. Users can also no longer send gifts via email – the recipient must have a steam account in order to receive the gift.
Steam has also announced that when it comes to cross-region gifting, Steam will only showcase the gifting option if it is indeed available. That means you won’t have to guess whether a game can be sent to other regions or not.
These changes to the system are obviously in place to prevent third-party merchants from purchasing ‘gifts’ and then selling them at later points – however, it also affects organisations who generally give out steam keys as giveaways. Those giving them out will have to make sure that the recipient has a steam account.
Strange that steam is only making these changes now considering third party merchants have been selling these keys since 2009 – and it doesn’t seem like something that took much of an effort to change, either way, it will be interesting to see the community’s response to this alteration.
What are your thoughts on these changes? Sad that you can’t sell keys as a third party merchant? I know I am (just kidding calm down). Let us know in the comments below.
