Hey guys,

so I wanna gift some better games but the new policy on gifts by Valve is kinda dismissive.

So can I create a GA with a good title, add the winner to gift him the game and delete him right afterwards? Is that still possible?

Thanks in advance

4 years ago

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I've had issues gifting things to people who I've only just added to my friends list in the past; so, although doable, you may run into problems (outside of the normal region restrictions).

4 years ago*
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Depends on the region you are in. Games are still giftable from Steam. Just look at the prices of particular game in steamdb.info and create a GA with regional restriction. You can send gift to any region where price of said game is not much higher than 10% than the price in your region. Since you are from EU you probably can gift game to users from almost every region with exception of few. Japan, England, Australia, New Zealand, Israel are few countries where prices are relatively high.

I looked at some of the games in steamdb. Assuming you are from EU then,

  • Cyberpunk 2077 : Giftable to every region except Israel and Japan.
  • The Witcher 3: Giftable to every region except Singapore, U.A.E., Australia, Hong Kong, USA, South Asia, Israel, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.
  • ARK: Survival Evolved: Giftable to every region.

I think this might also help you.

4 years ago*
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The "new policy" is from 2-3 years ago, and multiple sites seem to indicate that gifting through Steam to a different region is not possible if the price difference between your & recipient's region is 10% - Check steamdb.info or use the Augmented Steam browser plugin for country pricing.

I don't know whether these countries with big price differences affect the list of region restrictions shown before purchasing the gift or not.

So if you have a Steam Gift game and want to setup a GA with the proper region restrictions, it might be some extra work to determine the proper restrictions to place on your SG giveaway.

4 years ago
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First off, thanks guys.

But this sounds really problematic. Maybe I'll stick to gifting keys, then..

4 years ago
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If you want to be safe, I would say stay with keys because chances are Steam will let you do it just fine but there is also a chance you won't be able to send it because they will block you because you just added the person and you have to wait who knows how long to be able to send it, if Steam would just be clear about their rules that would be nice

4 years ago
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All ya gotta do is find something where the regional pricing for all of the countries on SteamDB aren't more than 10% more than what it costs in your currency - as long as you're using GBP/USD/Euros its not the hardest thing to do.

You'll soon learn that for some reason loads of games are priced higher for random countries like Switzerland or Israel which makes it an issue, sometimes I just take the risk - no Swiss or Israeli winners as of yet!

I've always wanted to give away AKIBA'S Trip but regional pricing says no :(

4 years ago*
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I've always wanted to give away AKIBA'S Trip

Great game :) It's a pity it's so hard to find outside of Steam.

Have you played Akiba's Beat?

4 years ago
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Nope :D

4 years ago
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I am form Turkey. On top of 10% price difference policy my gifts can only be redeemed at Turkey. I can send a gift to people in other countries but they need to use vpn to redeem it! Just why?

4 years ago
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It might fail due to regional pricing. I really miss when I could buy a game and shove it in my inventory to give away later.

4 years ago
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I've been lucky so far. I also live in the U.S.
But yeah, I can see it being a risky thing to do. I mostly stick to keys now.

4 years ago*
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One way I could think of, is to buy the key via a keyseller and not steam itself. This way you can sent the key through steamgifts and don't need to add anybody.

4 years ago
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Well yes, but there is a catch. Actually two.

  1. You will need to do some research to set correct region restrictions. Even if you live in a country where regional locks isn't a thing - you still need to make sure your price is higher or equal to the price in recipient's region. If price in recipient's region is higher by 10% or more - you won't be able to send a gift.
  2. You may have issues with gift purchases for steam wallet funds. So do the giveaway only if you plan (or, at least, ready) to spend external funds.
4 years ago
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Damn should have read your comment first, I basically said the first part but with more words.

4 years ago
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In order to give a steam gift to someone the recipient needs to be from a region where the game costs the same or less.

You can't buy a game on your side where the base price is 50$ and gift to someone from a region where the base price is 60$, then the region restrictions will block the game from being sent.

If you buy a game that's on special for 90% off on your side, the base price being 50$ and your gifting it to someone where the regional price is 49.99$ and the game is only on 70% discount for some reason then you can gift the game to them as the region pricing fits the bill.

4 years ago
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