Aware of the existence of Steam scammers, the American digital distribution and video game publisher company announces major adjustments in its rules. Valve recently announced changes to gift tradability that is set to curb fraud and scams in its software.
Speaking on the Steam Community site, Valve said new games bought as a gift will not be allowed to be traded for 30 days. The new purchase can be gifted anytime though.
"All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser's inventory will be untradeable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at anytime. The only change is to trading," Tony Paloma explained.
It can be recalled that several scammers were able to purchase large volumes of Steam game keys. The purchased games will then be posted and resold at a low price but the problem is that Valve will be forced to reject scammer's original payment and legitimate gamers' key will be revoked as well.
Paloma, with Drunken F00I codename, said, "We've made this change to make trading gifts a better experience for those receiving the gifts."
Valve's software engineer also said, "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."
It has been known that Steam key resellers and its rival retail sites have been making the most out of the software's trading features that ensures quick sale and fast money. This awry act committed by the unscrupulous netizens paved the way for the change in Steam's items tradability.
Steam, Valve-created online distributing software, has gift and trade gift features which are like "some sort of digital game bartering bazaar." The content delivery program, initially released back in 2003, already has more than 3,700 games and 100 million active users as of September this year.
