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Valve updates Steam gift rules to limit key resellers

Valve has changed the rules for trading Steam gifts, which will supposedly put a stop or at least hurt businesses attempting to swiftly re-sell game keys as gifts. All new games purchased as a gift will be stored in the buyer's inventory for 30 days before it can sold or traded on.

Valve's Tony Paloma announced the latest move, saying that: “All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser's inventory will be untradable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at any time. The only change is to trading.”

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“We've made this change to make trading gifts a better experience for those receiving the gifts. We're hoping this lowers the number of people who trade for a game only to have the game revoked later due to issues with the purchaser's payment method.”

This will hurt sites like G2a or Kinguin, which feature sellers buying keys in bulk and then selling them on at a discount in order to get rid of them quickly. If Valve is unable to process the original payment then Steam keys will be revoked. However, this rarely ever happens, the most recent case of keys being revoked came across earlier this year, with the launch of Sniper Elite 3.

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KitGuru Says: There is always a degree of risk when it comes to buying from key resellers. This new rule change will likely hurt key selling sites but I doubt it will kill them off entirely. What do you guys think about this? Do you ever buy from key resellers or do you only deal directly with sites like Green Man Gaming or Steam? 

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9 comments

  1. A key wouldn’t be effected by these rules…

  2. Thank god for that … for a moment there I thought normal people were gonna get away with making a little bit of money to help them live and pass on savings to other normal people …. we cant have that now … think of the rich people losing out on there profit margins … no wonder they all have to fiddle on there taxes!!

  3. i dont use green man due to you can get them cheaper but to my mind if someone sell a key cheaper than others then by rights you bought you use it or give it away as a gift to your friends ,i think its trying to knock out competition then in future selling them for an abuse price to rip fubarcookie you dont know what you are talking about ,you will find more people going to torrent sites as people cant afford them as jobs go up the wall

  4. Provided keys aren’t affected by this. It will make trading a bit more of a trust game. Tradee hands over keys as a gift, Trader buys and gifts directly to player at the checkout… Meaning you really have to trust your seller.

  5. But don’t you also love how so many great CEOs in the world take 1 dollar salary? Such a selfless thing to do where they live only off the few billion each year from shares, avoiding the income taxes that everyone else has to pay. Such fantastic and inspirational people

  6. This only affects trading, not gifting – way to hype the story, Kitguru. Thought you were better than that.

  7. So one business is bad and the other is not? What’s the difference? They’re both out to make money. There’s no “little man” here, it’s just two companies trying to maintain profitability versus the other.

  8. I’m referring to the collective home users who sell through kinguin and other sites who this may really affect not the sites who do this direct. Yes your right on that side of things but I would still see some of these companies as small fish in a very large pond with sharks like steam about but point taken

  9. this does not even affect CD Key sellers in the slightest…