Steam Holiday Auction and Gems Discussion!

[Spawn of Totoro]

How it Works

http://steamcommunity.com/auction

Recycle Steam Community items like Trading Cards, backgrounds, and emoticons from your Inventory into Gems and use them to bid on games up for auction. The first auction round ends on Dec 15 @ 7:45am with a new round ending every 45 minutes until the last auction round ends on Dec 18 @ 10:00am. At the end of each auction round, the top bidder for each title wins.

Pro tip: Need more items to turn into Gems? More than 1,200 games on Steam drop Trading Cards just for playing them. Find out which of your games has drops remaining on your Badges page. Also, don’t forget to craft the Trading Cards into badges, the resulting emoticons and backgrounds have a higher Gem value. If you have nothing in your Inventory to recycle, you can also trade for Gems or purchase them on the Community Market.

The Auction runs Dec 15 @ 7:45am to Dec 18 @ 10:00am when the Holiday Sale begins.


Steam Holiday Auction FAQ

NOTE: On Thursday Dec 11th we had an issue with Gems that meant we needed to reset the Auction and start over. We apologize for the interruption. Any placed bids will need to be placed again.
All Gems created by you have been returned to your Inventory
All Gem purchases from the Community Market have been reimbursed. View your Store Transactions to see the Wallet Credit to your account.
All previous Auction bids have been canceled and the Auction has been reset.
Additionally, anyone who traded away items in exchange for Steam Gems on the first day of bidding will receive a copy of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in their Inventory.

[Darthchewee]

İlk olarak Turbo5GT tarafından gönderildi:

got rid of all my items, what can i get for 110 gems?

See this is the problem with this auction, the amount of gems items are worth are pennies compared to what games are going for. Hell the Xmas profile is valued at $467.59 worth of gems right now. Unless you have 1000 items worth 20 gems, you don't have a chance of getting anything other than pinball games, which still take between 3k and 5k gems...

[echelon]

İlk olarak Turbo5GT tarafından gönderildi:

got rid of all my items, what can i get for 110 gems?

cheapest high bid i have seen is 4100, and to buy a booster pack its 1000, so nothing atm :D give it a few days and the high bids might drop

[Darthchewee]

Also, not being able to sort by lowest bid kinda sucks

*Edit* now I see a lowest bid tab, so nevermind

[Ponyeater]

Another thing: Auction sniping is another big issue. In the last minute before the auction ends a lot of people come in, overbid the top bidder and then the chain doesn't get reduced, leading to all positions being stuck. They need to nerf that by not allowing new people to bid to an item in the last 10 minutes.

Overall this entire event is so poorly planned out and executed, so many obviously flaws.

[CloneZZ]

I bid on fall of samurai collection, now i cant get that auction page to open and cant cancel my bid. Help please

[GameLord]

Any chance on that? Will I grab any of the game?

[Deirae]

This is the worst event Steam has yet to throw at us. Inflation has ruined the entire thing from the beginning.

[miha]

thats really crazy, I hope the prices of the Gems will continue to rise until the end of the auctions

[-SambaL-]

I bid 1 shiny gem!

As silly an event it might be it does seem to work. Most bids are outrages and the market has seen quite a bit of action in the last few days. Hell, it even made me check out the market and now i'm using it.
In the end it's the sheople that keep it going, not Steam. Something to do with supply and demand or whatever.

[Sparse Dunes]

İlk olarak -SambaL- tarafından gönderildi:

I bid 1 shiny gem!

As silly an event it might be it does seem to work. Most bids are outrages and the market has seen quite a bit of action in the last few days. Hell, it even made me check out the market and now i'm using it.
In the end it's the sheople that keep it going, not Steam. Something to do with supply and demand or whatever.

The auction should start to simmer down(as far as bids go). Gem sacks are priced very close to a dollar. At that point people should just buy the games.

[emixsport]

Just believe, guys, Gaben knows what's he doing :)

[CZEGameR 🍺^‿^🍺]

Hi there, I won auction of ,,Disney Mega Pack,, but i recieve duplicated item - only just one game from this pack ,,Disney Mickey 2 The power of two,,. I don't know how many, but about 5 auctions has ended and it will be problem to MANY Players (100). Do something with that!

Evidence: http://imgur.com/a/lFOqD

[-SambaL-]

İlk olarak Sparse Dunes tarafından gönderildi:

The auction should start to simmer down(as far as bids go). Gem sacks are priced very close to a dollar. At that point people should just buy the games.

You know they should and i know they should, and so do a bunch of other people, and yet they keep on going. According to the statistics roughly 5000 sack o' gems have been sold in the last hour for 70/80 euro cents.
There is a reason i said sheople. ;)

[rfpraweb]

Actually the cost of the booster packs vary by game. I saw one booster pack for one of my games listed at around 400 and other games all the way up to 1200 gems. Those that they show to the right are the games you recently played, while on the left is a box with an arrow that shows you all your games (but awfully silly it is done this way) you can select 1 game at a time to see the booster cost.

I finally decided that I think and I know if they plan this for next Winter 2015, the focus should change. Steam should decide to give back to our real life communities. Everyone on Steam can consider themselves fortunate. We have computer, internet, games. There are those who getting a Soccer ball is the best X-mas gift they could get. Just so you know I am a former United States Marine Reservist. The reserve side of the active duty Marine Corps created a program I am sure most of you have heard orf, "Toys for Tots". We try to gather up toys (new) for the less fortunate kids. I did a couple of events where I would stand by a bin in my dress blues and thanked and greeted people as they walked by.

So next year, get the publishers and developers aboard again. Except this time do a real money auction (steam wallet - the problem there is that not all of it might be real money since you could have sold things - but Steam would just have to pick up the tab on those who use funds from their wallets). Minimum bid $10 on the big name titles (I think everyone knows what I mean), $5 for the next tier, $2.5 for the next tier, and DLC that is under $1, ask for at least $! to benefit for charity. Of course the scale would have to be adjusted for expansion packs, beefier DLC"s and so on.

That way this is a win for all. The publisher, developer, steam and the person who had the highest bid in that 45 period all have given back to those less fortunate. Sure some might say this will allow the wealthy to pick up games easily, and that is true. But with minimum bids and maybe some sort of minimum winner bid (where perhaps someone who has won something, their bid on any item is now the minimum bid required for that item plus the bid that won them the item, and every time they win it gets added on, so it can keep those with smaller wallets a chance) it could be kept fair. About the only cheating that could occur of course would be by those who use stolen credit cards but I am sure Steam has a way to deal with that.

Toys for Tots is just one idea. Food banks and other non-profit's that are timed to help during the holidays should also be considered. Maybe make every 45 min auction, all proceeds go to this charity, the next 45 minute auction it goes to another charity and so on. That hopefully would encourage even the stingiest of us, if we see a favorite charity to maybe pay more than they could get it on sale and in the end, not only feel good about helping the charity but you get to take it off your United States taxes!!!!!! Don't know how it impacts those outside the US in regards to charitable donations.

Save the money you give to a politician and give to this event instead. :)

[Vic_Vinegar]

The stupidity of this promotion is beyond words.