Allow people to gift things from the point shop.

[Cable]

I would really like a few things from the point shop but don't have enough money for any games. One of my friends has 100k points that he will never spend and we both would like to be able to gift things from the points shop.

[Frequency]

true

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

I'm assuming the Points Shop was designed where you can't trade/gift to others.

[JPMcMillen]

Never going to happen.

Why? Because you'll either get people taking money through 3rd party means to give people stuff they don't have the points for OR taking the money and then not giving them the stuff (i.e. scamming them).

And if you don't think this would happen, an animated background is $20 worth of points (2000). If someone had plenty of points with no plans to use them and met someone with no points but a few bucks to spare... I think you get the point.

[Crazy Tiger]

Then purchase the items on the community market. Point shop items aren't tradeable or marketable for a reason.

Stop trying to circumvent things and use the features as they're designed.

[Washell]

Your friend can "transfer" points to you through community awards, though it will take 300 points of his for each 100 points you get.

https://store.steampowered.com/points/howitworks#CommunityAwards

That aside, the system is set up to reward purchases, it's not going to change to reward you for not spending money.

[Washell]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

??? Still rewarding the original buyer with points, and they want to transfer them to someone else

Irrelevant. OP wants to gets point without spending money. The point of points is to get people, like the OP, to spend money. Not to equalise between the people who don't care about the points and those who do with as little money spend as possible.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

Originally posted by Washell:

That aside, the system is set up to reward purchases, it's not going to change to reward you for not spending money.

??? Still rewarding the original buyer with points, and they want to transfer them to someone else

And that will lead to people offering to sell points for real money, which Valve doesn't want people doing. Trust me, it would happen.

[76561198407601200]

The way it currently works seems almost exactly like a reward system that is used at a local pizza shop. At the shop you get signed up with an account which gives you x points for x money spent. Those points can be used for various rewards that are available at that time which aren't available to non rewards members. An example was i got a free xlrg pizza with the points i had, in steam's case the stuff u get from the point shop is like the free pizza. ultimately it isn't meant to be used with others, just as with steam's point shop rewards.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

And that will lead to people offering to sell points for real money, which Valve doesn't want people doing. Trust me, it would happen.

Can you not already buy emotes and ♥♥♥♥ for real money on the market, also the only way to get points is to spend real money so I don't see what money they are losing?

Some things in the point shop aren't available in the marketplace, like the animated profile backgrounds.

So if you didn't have the 2000 points, nor $20 to buy something to get you those points, there would be people offering to gift you the item if you sent them some smaller amount of money through something like PayPal or Venmo or some other similar service.

The main issue is that not everyone will be honest and attempt to keep the money and not gift the shop item. It will be a breeding ground for scammers.

[Vorpal Void]

Sorry for some necro, but this is the first thread that pops up in the Google search on the term.
I've searched it as some dude with many points who wanted to give his friends some decorations, but all I can do is to give them rewards, even for nothing (profile rewards).

Potential scammers issue that has been discussed above could be easily avoided by checking how long you're friends with someone. Make it somewhat long process - half a year, or higher, and done. Now you can gift things to your real friends and scammers will not gain anything meaningful from it.

The other solution will be just an ability to transfer points in custom quantity at 50% rate with 14 days delay as it is for now without the need to simply gift awards, since in the end it achieves the same thing.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by CV514:

The other solution will be just an ability to transfer points in custom quantity at 50% rate with 14 days delay as it is for now without the need to simply gift awards, since in the end it achieves the same thing.

There already is that, but it's less than 50%. If you give someone an award, the recipient will receive 1/3 the number of points you spent on the award, 14 days later. If you notice, ALL the awards can be evenly divided by 3, which was for this reason.

[Vorpal Void]

Ah, yes, but my point is disregard awards in the first place.
Point case: my friend could use a simple profile deco for 2000.
I can (and willing) to spend 6000 points to give them 2000 needed for that.

For now I can do that and nothing can stop me (or anyone who's willing to do that kind of thing) by giving them several profile awards just for the sake of it, and 14 days later they will receive 2000 points. That's cumbersome and feels like abusing the system rather than using it's as intended.

My proposition is to make that entire process simpler and allow to transfer points in current rates without giving out any awards at all. Perhaps even removing wait timer if transferring to friends who's in you friend list for a significant amount of time.
Or, if the schema described above is NOT intended - well, there should be timeout for giving out profile rewards.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by CV514:

Ah, yes, but my point is disregard awards in the first place.
Point case: my friend could use a simple profile deco for 2000.
I can (and willing) to spend 6000 points to give them 2000 needed for that.

For now I can do that and nothing can stop me (or anyone who's willing to do that kind of thing) by giving them several profile awards just for the sake of it, and 14 days later they will receive 2000 points. That's cumbersome and feels like abusing the system rather than using it's as intended.

My proposition is to make that entire process simpler and allow to transfer points in current rates without giving out any awards at all. Perhaps even removing wait timer if transferring to friends who's in you friend list for a significant amount of time.
Or, if the schema described above is NOT intended - well, there should be timeout for giving out profile rewards.

If Valve wanted people to be able to transfer points, even at a loss, directly from one account to another, they would have implemented that when the system was first created.

The award begging is already bad enough, but direct point transfers would lead to more forum spam and the inevitable scams that would crop up.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by ThePatchWorkHoax:

You could say the exact same argument about every single feature valve has added to an existing system for years.

As I said, Valve doesn't want to deal with the scams that would inevitably crop up if points could be directly transferred between accounts. They already have to deal with enough of that already. That's why they stopped allowing people to purchase games they could keep in their inventory to trade with others. Too many scams.

[Vorpal Void]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

As I said, Valve doesn't want to deal with the scams that would inevitably crop up if points could be directly transferred between accounts.

Well, it's a thing already, I've described "how to" in my previous message. All I propose is to make this already implemented process less infuriating, that's all.