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.

[@_@]

Escrito originalmente por | Nakama | Mind |:

Escrito originalmente por plaqueta:

The ones who used the exploit to destroy the market are not banned anymore. I still remember when valve gave a hat on tf2 for players who never got vac banned as a reward but seems that now it worths to exploit the system because all you will get is a temporal community ban.

Do you have any screens of these players with clearly duped/exploited items, and still on steam?

For example:
http://i.imgur.com/h7b4ddu.png
http://steamcommunity.com/id/EmoRin/

[himmatsj]

Escrito originalmente por Marco Vito:

Escrito originalmente por Morus:

Did a rollback ever happened on Steam before?

Since I´m on Steam (2012), no, it didn´t happen. And I doubt that it will happen. Most likely situation is: they identify and expell scheemers; change the rules for the auction and gems implementation; try to forget that they ever made a mistake.

In the last summer sales, the team distribution also gave a lot of headache, so they changed a little bit the rules of the constest from that point on; but what was done, was done.

They loose a lot of money if they decide to go back, and not only the money they won in the market, but also all the money they´ll have to expend to fix all accounts on steam. So, I guess that all we are going to get is one "my bad, it won´t happen again" (and it will happen again, at summer sale).

Again, I feel it is unfair to expel the "schemers". This was designed as a meta game. Steam's users are all gamers. They easily got carried away in the heat of the moment. There never was malicious intent on their part, nor did they "hack" anything. It was a real simple exploit.

It is dishonest, yes. But I believe a good many of us would have done the same given the circumstances.

I hope Steam reverses all transactions for those "schemers" since the Auction, but to ban them for life is immensely unfair.

[Lenky Lad]

Escrito originalmente por MrBananaGrabber:

Escrito originalmente por author:

An auction is still where the richest bidder wins. The only way they can salvage this is to make it a raffle with entries costing X amount of gems depending on the value of the game.

I agree, it should have been like that from the start. It will be interesting to see what Steam learn from all of this.

They did something similar like this a few years ago I think for the 2012 holiday sale before they even started the steam trading card system where you would get achievs for certain titles that would give you a lump of coal and you'd hold onto these for a chance at a raffle in winning X amount of games on your wishlist. You could also use the coal to earn game titles or coupons, as far as I know nothing went wrong there when using it but it did leave a lot of games unplyed for me as it was my first steam sale I attended

[iza]

Escrito originalmente por {W}Boo Boo Bear{U}:

the gem buying is total stuffed. It says there are over 1000 sacks available for 3c each, but I have been trying to pay 5c each for the last hour and it keeps getting an error message saying the items have sold out.
If the items have sold out then why doesn't it just create a buy order?

Because dozens of people are doing it.

[Kyp astar]

so what about our gems?

[Tripas]

Escrito originalmente por plaqueta:

The ones who used the exploit to destroy the market are not banned anymore. I still remember when valve gave a hat on tf2 for players who never got vac banned as a reward but seems that now it worths to exploit the system because all you will get is a temporal community ban.

And THEN Valve ended up giving the same hat anyway to those who cheated back in the day. Not to the new games who came after that event and have been playing the game fair and square without cheats, no. They decided to specifically reward those who had previously cheated and didn't get the hat back in the day.

So THAT pretty much tells you how much Valve DOESN'T punish cheaters.

[solaris32]

I got my gems back, but they aren't tradable.

[Mary Virgin]

So what happens to people who bought the gems and have them frozen? I missed the gems bus but did buy boosters cheap from steam wallet. Now it seems the gems were used to unlock many cheap boosters so will the boosters also be be revoked? How will I know I am safe after buying stuff off the market from real wallet money?

[DoctorNuggetIV]

I lost like 13 000 gems wich I legitimately got from emoticones and background :C

[Domip]

When start holiday sale games?.

[JJ, Professional Fool]

This hurts. I take pride in my account. Put many sheckles into this thing. Made some bids, scrapped hundreds of unsold items, i played by the rules, but damn. From what i am reading, it only takes a bad few eggs to ruin the fun for everyone. I highly doubt a refund, if not in market value the actual items scrapped. So....yeah. This was a blow to me. I dont really know how to feel. But at least someone on the other end got paid from this fiasco. All hail the almighty dollar.

[solaris32]

Interestingly while I can see my gems, it seems no one else can see them.

[DoctorNuggetIV]

I can see the gems I have in my inventory, but I only have 1 ^^

[Kyp astar]

500 for me just by using cards and stuff as well

[BillyTheFish]

Escrito originalmente por THE MENDOZER:

This hurts. I take pride in my account. Put many sheckles into this thing. Made some bids, scrapped hundreds of unsold items, i played by the rules, but damn. From what i am reading, it only takes a bad few eggs to ruin the fun for everyone. I highly doubt a refund, if not in market value the actual items scrapped. So....yeah. This was a blow to me. I dont really know how to feel. But at least someone on the other end got paid from this fiasco. All hail the almighty dollar.

^This. My feelings exactly, but more eloquent and with less bitterness than I'd have managed.