Purchasing gift copies of games for a giveaway?

[Loyal]

So a game I've been following recently went up for purchase, and I thought I'd try to support it during this early release period. The idea was that I'd purchase several copies of the game and host a giveaway where I raffle them off.

Problem is, if I wish to purchase a game as a gift, I can only purchase one at a time. Not only would I need to make each gift purchase individually, but Steam also expects me to immediately have a recipient, on my friends' list, ready to receive it. There is no option that I can see to just stick it in my inventory for later.

Is there any way to just bulk-purchase keys for later distribution flat out or something? What are my options here?

[Yasahi]

No. Your option is to buy from a seller that sells license keys.

[wuddih]

get retail keys from the dev/pub or from a 3rd party reseller.

on Steam you will also get gift banned if you continue because that is clearly commercial usage.

[Loyal]

Okay, I figured. Followup question: How do I go about actually contacting Steam directly for a resolution? The self-help menu is of no help and seems to offer no path to actually contacting a human at Steam.

Insofar as Steam's service is making it terribly difficult for me to give them money, I'm sure that's a problem they'd have a material interest in solving, yeah?

[Yasahi]

Why would you contact Valve? Are you planning to give out their games? You contact the Developer/Publisher of the game in question if you plan to go that route.

[Ogami]

Steam wont change the gifting rules for you just because you want to do a giveaway.
Please dont waste Steam Support resources with that nonsense.
You cant buy game copies in bulk and store them, end of story.
At least not on Steam. Like already mentioned go buy Steam keys from 3rd party seller sites and give those away.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Loyal:

Okay, I figured. Followup question: How do I go about actually contacting Steam directly for a resolution? The self-help menu is of no help and seems to offer no path to actually contacting a human at Steam.

Insofar as Steam's service is making it terribly difficult for me to give them money, I'm sure that's a problem they'd have a material interest in solving, yeah?

People were stocking up on those gift copies in order to sell them through 3rd party sites (despite it being against the SSA) after the sales were over. I don't think gift giveaways would compensate for that loss.

You can still send gifts, you just can't store them.

I suggest a site, such as Humble Bundle, where you can get a gift link to give to a person.