There are some Steam related things happening

[eRe4s3r]

Namely

Gifts are now region locked to the region you bought them in
http://www.reddit.com/r/SteamGameSwap/comments/2pj8zj/psa_all_gifts_are_now_regionlocked_if_bought_in

(Guess why, Hint: RUB crash)

And also..

Is it just me, or this is the dumbest sale action steam ever pulled, ever? Let's look at this in detail

1000 Gems = 0,92€
10000 Gems = €9,20

That 2014 Holiday Profile for 440000 gems costs thus.. 410€
Skyrim for 20000 Gems costs 18€

Remember, the same Skyrim Legendary Edition Steam offered for around 10€ back during sale.
http://www.steamgamesales.com/dfiKP/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-legendary-edition

Or basically, I look at the bids and for most actual interesting games, the game price is twice (or more) that of the recent tracked sales price. Or put differently, this is a scam and people think it's a sale

There are some things, especially the things very few people want that you can get for 1000 to 5000 gems though. But remember, other sites may offer the same game for substantially less...

If you want to bid on Steam, check steamgamesales for the actual sale prices before you do. You may otherwise pay twice or more of what a game is actually sold at during a real sale. Very clever and very evil of Steam to occlude the real price of things this way.

And before you argue "but I can craft gems" .. yes you can. But ask yourself this, how much "wallet" money did you spend on completing the set in order to craft those badges? That is also part of the price. Because.. you could have spent that on games.

[topper]

The even better part is that the holiday profile expires in a month!

Basically every mainstream popular game is going for way higher than its normal sale price, and initially were higher than even the full retail prices.

I was highly skeptical of getting any good deals, but I did get Drox Operative (normally $20) and Creeper World 3 (normaly $15) for around 3k gems each yesterday. The average price I paid for the gems was around $0.90 per 1k, so I got a pretty decent deal. And I made a small profit on selling the extra gems I had back on the market.

It does feel shady that the auction pages do not have the real price listed anywhere, but I think the real money Steam is making is on the market transactions. They are taking 15% on hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of transactions that are being driven by the auction process. Check out the price jump that most cards and useless items are showing. I have emptied out most of my inventory onto the market in the last 24 hours. If Steam has taught me anything in the last year, it is to not sell any cards or inventory items until a sale or special event has started.

[WingedKagouti]

Is it just me, or this is the dumbest sale action steam ever pulled, ever? Let's look at this in detail

1000 Gems = 0,92€
10000 Gems = €9,20

That 2014 Holiday Profile for 440000 gems costs thus.. 410€
Skyrim for 20000 Gems costs 18€

If you got in on the gem action early, you could get 80 Gems for 0,03€* equivalent of 0,375€ for 1000 Gems. Which is about 40% of the current price for Gems, making Skyrim Legendary Edition for 20k Gems (ie. 7,5€) a fairly good deal. Or you could package and sell those Gems to people and actually earn money with a bit of patience.

But only if you got in on the action early on.

*0.03€ was the average price for a background which could be converted into 80 Gems before the rush started.

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah the gem prices definitely peaked in the last 2 days making this entire sale a total joke. Even (HARD to actually get) 7.50 € for Skyrim is not THAT good a deal, when you remember the actual sale during Summer was for 9.99€ So you are saving what, 2€ .. but only if you jumped in very early and played market shark and literally cornered the gem market.

This is a great study how not to do sales (for customers) but probably makes Valve millions because people have lost track what the worth of gems is. It's a very clever method to hide the actual sales price. In the EU store fronts (on say, Amazon.de, or in stores themselves) this is illegal for exactly that reason.

[Coppermantis]

I just ignored the auction completely. I'm sure that people who actually a) have stuff worth cashing in for gems and b) actually care could turn a decent profit, but there's just nothing that I want enough to bother with even learning what to do and then actually bidding on stuff. I'll just wait for the actual winter sale and buy things then.

[eRe4s3r]

So the actual winter Sale has started, and surprise surprise the deals are vastly better ^^

[Zebeast46]

I got skyward collapse and a valley without wind 1 and 2 for about 1.20$ (Canadian) which I thought was a great deal