What are trading cards and gems ? (GA for your help :P )

you can turn trading cards into coins which you can display on your profile and give steam xp. With gems you can buy cards and in some occasions even games.

Some games have cards that "drop" while you play the game. You can either sell them or gather the full set for each game and make a badge. When you make a badge, you get EXP, coupons, emotes, and backgrounds.

If you don't want to sell them, you can convert them into gems. With enough gems, you can swap them for card packs from any game you own that you choose.

As for card trading, some people trade them 1:1 to complete sets for badge crafting, or a small amount of cards for bundle games.

Both are just a legit scam Valve invented to make money out of thin air......and a way for some of us to get a few cents to our Seam wallet here and there.

Trading cards = free reign to dig your hand into a couch for coins every so often, except without having to dig your hands into a couch.

You can either trade them, make badges with them, sell them on the market for steam wallet balance, or convert them into gems to make booster packs or a sack of gems (1000) which is around 50p on the market, without looking,, if you don't want the cool down period trade cards with others for ones that you need, personally i sell all the cards i get and save the money up for when there is a big sale on, then make some nice giveaways, you have to be quite a high level to get a decent rate of booster pack drops.

Trading cards -> Free games -> More Trading Cards