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Steam Holiday Auction

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Aiursrage2k, Dec 15, 2014.

  1. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    I traded all my cards in for gems, and I only had 465 gems, someone has over 1 million gems. I am try find some really obsecure games and bid like 5 gems on them.
    http://steamcommunity.com/auction
     

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  2. calmcarrots

    calmcarrots

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    Mar 7, 2014
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    654
  3. CaoMengde777

    CaoMengde777

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2013
    Posts:
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    >< i have like 150 gems max... and the least i see is 1400 gems lools .. but yeah i only have 2 steam games... ive tried to avoid steam like the plague..

    ooh lowest bids shows 1000 as lowest
     
  4. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    Steam holiday auction is pretty hilarious. Let's assume the average trading card is converted into 25 gems. The average trading card also converts into $0.06 (assuming someone buys it). The top bid I saw moments ago was 400,000 gems on a $60 game. Now let's math a little...

    400,000 gems = ~16,000 cards
    16,000 cards * $0.06 USD = $960

    $960 > $60

    such value in the auction house! ;)

    Are there other ways to collect gems? How are people amassing so many trading cards? There's no way people are paying almost $1,000 in cards to fight over something worth $60...
     
  5. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

    Joined:
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    15,614
    Sure, but consider an unemployed person who earns bugger all money and spends plenty of time playing Steam games. They've got lots of cards/gems whatever, but not a lot of cash, and those gems are completely useless elsewhere. So... it makes perfect sense to trade them in for games even at a ridiculous exchange rate like that. 960 fake dollars are still worth less than 60 real dollars, regardless of the fact that they're both called "dollars".

    Or... am I missing something there? I'm assuming that there's no way to get those gem-dollars out of the system as real money.
     
    Cogent and randomperson42 like this.
  6. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

    Joined:
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  7. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
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    Yea I'm pretty sure the steam wallet is steam only, but $960 steam credit is way more valuable than 400,000 gems which will likely expire after the holidays haha.

    You elect to turn your cards into gems or sell them. They sell pretty quick, each card even has how many sold in the last 24 hours and for what price. The average is about $0.06 and the sales per day is 30+. I had about 1 full inventory grid worth of stuff which I converted into only 400 gems, each card ranging from 16 to 30 gems in value. Every card was either $0.06 or $0.11. I could have made maybe $1 or $1.50 at most lol. That's still worth more than 400 gems when the lowest bid you see is 1100 gems :D

    On 1 hand, that's several steam games vs 1 or 2 steam games. There is also some nice software available through steam now for game dev. On the other hand, it's currency you've earned from playing a bunch of games, so the choice has no impact on you financially unless you want to add an extra layer of DRM to your software and buy a modeling application through steam lol.

    That must be what the pack options is. I don't play enough to get a lot of cards... I made 409 gems total. You need 1000 gem to "pack them into a sack", which is probably what people are selling for like $1 per 1000 gems.
     
  8. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I tried selling my cards once, but for an average of 6c each it was taking too long to be worth the effort. I couldn't find a way to sell in bulk, so I had to click each one individually, and I'm not really into doing chores for small change...
     
  9. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    May 23, 2013
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    Me either, but it's the same deal with cards->gems. You go to your inventory, click on the card, then you are presented with a few options. Selling and gem conversion are both there.

    There must be more to this I'm not seeing. There's no way steam duped everyone... unless it's a clever way to drain any duped cards out of the market so people can't get thousands in their steam wallet.
     
  10. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I wouldn't call it a "dupe", but that sounds like denial to me.
     
  11. Socrates

    Socrates

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2011
    Posts:
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    Hmm. Set up a free Steam account. Download free games that give cards just for loading them up the first time. Trade those cards to your main account. Convert to gems. Profit?
     
  12. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
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    Check for young accounts named aaaaaaaaaaaaaa1 and aaaaaaaa2 etc lol. I can totally see that happening.