[PC Game] Steam Winter Sale 2015 - White Elephant Edition

AshburnerX

AshburnerX

So the sale starts soon... and here is this year's gimmick - A Holiday Auction.

Basically, you turn your cards, emoticons, and backgrounds into gems, which you can then use to bid on games. If you bid the highest, you get the game. If not, you get your gems back. You can also use your gem to make more trading card boosters both during and after the event, if you'd rather have more badges.

Honestly? I think this is kind of bullshit. We already have people making bids of tens of thousands of gems for games, which basically means that unless you buy A LOT of games and have a lot of card stuff, you can never win. This event is only for the people with the biggest Steam Wallets.

So I thought "This is bullshit. We can do better... maybe we should have our own event instead?". Here's what I propose: White Elephant Gift Exchange. For those who've never taken part in a White Elephant, the idea is that anyone who wants to participate buys a game, tosses it into the pot, and then we draw lots to see who gets what. All gifts are blind, so you don't know if you are going to be getting a great game or a terrible game, only that everyone who takes part will get SOMETHING. Traditionally, you'd get and give awful gifts but you can be as nice or as mean as you'd like.

Anyone interested in trying this? If we could get enough people, it might be fun and I'm sure we could get someone like @Dave to hold the pot for dispersing.

Alright... here are the results!

@Bumble the Boy Wonder gets the off-ball Warehouse and Logistics Simulator + the Hell's Warehouse DLC! Hope you like killing zombies with a forklift! -DELIVERED-
@klew gets Sim City 4! -DELIVERED-
@Dave gets Contraption Maker! -DELIVERED-
@GasBandit get's Goat Simulator! Torchlight 2! Orion! -DELIVERED-
@Dei gets Torchlight 2! Goat Simulator! -DELIVERED-
-I- get Torchlight 2 as well! -DELIVERED-
@SpecialKO gets Borderlands: Game of the Year! Payday 2! -DELIVERED-
@Siska gets Payday 2! Borderlands: Game of the Year! -DELIVERED-
@Far gets Gauntlet! -DELIVERED-
@Zero Esc gets Orion: Prelude! Torchlight 2! -DELIVERED-
@Ravenpoe gets Desktop Dungeons! -DELIVERED-
@bhamv3 gets Cricket Revolution! -DELIVERED-

Now for the final phase before I send these out: exchanges. If for some reason you cannot receive one of these games (for instance, you already own what you received on your Steam Library and thus I can't send it to you), then speak up now and try to work out a trade with someone else. Yes, yes... I know it's not very White Elephant but I want everyone to get SOMETHING and some of you bought games old enough that there is a chance someone owns it. I'll give you guys until Monday (12/29) afternoon to work out any such exchanges before I send everything out.

EDIT - And FYI, I'm up for trading for anything except Borderlands. I already own it and all the DLC.
 
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bhamv3

bhamv3

Hmm... I'm not seeing any games available on the auction page. Apparently I don't get to participate. Oh well.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

All right, now the auction works.

I have, let's see, 400 gems.

With that, I have a realistic chance of winning... nothing.[DOUBLEPOST=1418350029,1418349895][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and regarding the white elephant gift exchange, I say count me in. I think I have a spare game or two in my Steam inventory I can exchange.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Holy shit. Brothers - A Tale of Two sons currently has a high bid of 5,000 gems. I have about 32 trading cards, worth between 5 and 32 gems each, mostly on the lower end. So, maybe 320 gems worth. Brothers sold for >$3 during the last Steam sale. I could have bought it with the money in my steam wallet that I got from selling trading cards during the last sale. This is insane. I'll just hold on to my trading cards, thank you very much.
 
Jay

Jay

Mostly all gone, made nearly $2.25 so far.

That's $2.25 more than I expected to make with that shite.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed. The elves are working frantically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they're done.
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Not impressed so far, Valve.

EDIT: Now my gems are gone from my inventory. All 400 of them.

There's speculation that someone managed to figure out how to dupe gems, because apparently right before the auction was taken down people were bidding hundreds of thousands.
 
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AshburnerX

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
I'd be game. But can you re-gift a gift on steam? How would the "pot" technically work?
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See that second option under What would you like to do with this gift that says Add to my Steam Gift inventory? You just add it to your gift inventory instead of putting it in your game library. So whoever holds the pot (which might be me or @Dave or whoever) just needs to pick that when they start getting the gifts.

So what do you think sounds like a good cut-off date? Do we want to wait the entire sale or do it reasonably close to Christmas?
 
Siska

Siska

Back to Steams silly holiday auction: Best way to get the gems seem to be not the trading cards but emoticons and backgrounds you get for crafting badges. Some can be as cheap as 3 or 4 cents and turn into 60-100 gems.

I just bought 14 :dssmallbird: (spelled just like that including semicolons) emoticons for $0.04 each and they turned into 80 gems each. The money to buy them I got from selling extra trading cards instead of turning them into gems. ATM there are over 600 :dssmallbird: left at $0.04 if anyone want to get some gems and isn't inclined to search for a better deal. There are better trades, probably, if you look. Yesterday I bought some background for $0.03 that turned into 80 gems but the price had gone up to $0.04 today and supply was low
 
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Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

So... is there no actual Steam Sale, and it's just this stupid auction thing? Because fuck that, I don't want to have to collect badges and craft gems to try and bid on games. I would rather just buy the game.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Ravenpoe said:
So... is there no actual Steam Sale, and it's just this stupid auction thing? Because fuck that, I don't want to have to collect badges and craft gems to try and bid on games. I would rather just buy the game.
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The actual sale starts the 18th, from what I hear.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Alright... maybe we should aim for New Years to do it then? Maybe the weekend before? I want everyone to have plenty of time to take advantage of the sale.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Steam Sale is on folks. I've already got my gift.

Remember: You want to pick the option that keeps it in your inventory for now. When we are ready to distribute, you'll go to your inventory, pick the game, click "Send Gift" and send it that way.
 
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Far

Far

Can it just be any giftable game or does it need to be one bought specifically for this from the sale? I have two currently sitting in my inventory I can throw in.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Remember folks: this is a White Elephant. Doesn't matter if the game is good, bad, weird, cheap, or expensive... though it being weird or bad is kind of in the intention of the event. Zombie Games, Early Access, Weird simulators... anything goes.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

AshburnerX said:
Remember folks: this is a White Elephant. Doesn't matter if the game is good, bad, weird, cheap, or expensive... though it being weird or bad is kind of in the intention of the event. Zombie Games, Early Access, Weird simulators... anything goes.
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Someone's gonna toss Sakura Spirit into the pot, I just know it.

EDIT: Also, I can confirm I have selected the game I'm going to use for the White Elephant Exchange. No, it's not Sakura Spirit. Probably.
 
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