Steam Support Article update on • Permanent Bans and Gift Restrictions (new restrictions)

I guess VAC and Game Ban enabled games won't be gifted very much on SG anymore...

F***ing monopoly.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

well, all we can say, R.I.P gifts + trading. :P

I already own CS:GO and I cannot even buy CS:GO right now, both "keep for myself" and "gift to a friend" are greyed out. The messages below the game in cart says:
Your account already owns some of the above items, so you can’t purchase them again. You can purchase these items as a gift or adjust the contents of your cart to continue.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive can only be purchased for your own account at this time.

It cannot be purchased as a gift.

What???!!

"We can't figure out how to stop people from just making new accounts to cheat in CS:GO so we'll screw up gifting and trading some more!" A genius move by valve.

Ok, so there's obviously a problem here. The question is, who's going to make a viable alternative to steam?

Kinda sad that Valve is more concerned about the community for their one active game than they are for all their other customers.

Bad move, Gaben, bad move.

I can't see how these restrictions will stop cheaters.. Anybody can just use a cc or steam wallet code, steam key on another account and keep on cheating. But this is gonna kill gifting and trading of those games for sure..

1) Gift someone
2) That someone adds it to inventory
3) Send back to you
4) ???
5) VAC banned

I was joking about stuff like this would be something we voted on during the summer sale. Vote on which intrusion you want Steam to force on the users. X% of users already do it, so let's make the rest follow suit.

A good way to circumvent this is to buy keys and get it from traders. You might have to pay more but if you are a hardcore cheater or a first class asshole, then what's money to you?

Well, they are trying to fix a problem, but this doesn't really fix it.
Cheaters could just buy and gift the games to a bunch of alt accounts right away and just wait until they need them. This will mostly hurt trading. Good thing keys are still free of most of this crap.

so if you make a giveaway and your winner has vac ban, you cant create new giveaways for steamgifts for this game? i hope the support will do a reroll in this case?

It actually makes sense. If you continue reading:

"How does this affect gifting?

When a user is caught cheating, their Steam account is banned from playing multi-player on secured servers. This creates an incentive for people who cheat to stockpile copies of games on one account and to gift them to low value accounts where they can continue cheating. In response to this problem, Steam no longer allows users to purchase copies of VAC or Game Ban enabled games to their inventory. Additionally, if an account has directly gifted a game to other players who have been VAC or permanently Game Banned, then that account will lose the ability to gift that game.

We’ve taken these steps to ensure the integrity of the multi-player experience for those participating in online gaming communities. We understand that the restrictions on buying to inventory may be inconvenient for some legitimate users, but we believe that these steps will reduce the number of cheaters you’ll play against. And that’s important in having an online gaming experience that’s fair and enjoyable for everyone."

THIS, makes perfect sense. The move is similar to the Anti-cheat process for overwatch. You cheat in that game, you are permabanned. Cheaters buy a new copy as a means to bypass the ban, only to get banned again. Same process here.

All this means to us, it to be more diligent with our trades and GA's, and that's a cakewalk, so I wouldn't be too worried about this at all.
Even better, just don't trade it here, and gift the games to people you know are trustworthy.

Makes sense. Too bad it's a blanket restriction instead of just on specific ones.

Hey, Valve does have sane ideas once in a blue moon after all. They showed some signs when they locked CS:GO from gift purchasing during the summer sale, but now they finally realised that probably it would hurt the cheaters more if they can't just stock up on the games and continue like nothing happened.

So let me get this straight. At this time, I have more than 20 CS Complete in my inventory. If I trade/gift one of these to someone who gets VAC banned, I can do absolutely nothing with the rest?

Also, anyone knows if this thing is retroactive?

lmao Dota players like me gonna get screwed when we gift things. o.o

And no, I'm not gifting them for profit, those gifts for my friends (they don't have Credit Card to buy from Steam).

They keep making things worse.

I don't expect to buy anything on Steam or recommend them any more.

The funniest part is how Gabe keeps crying that Microsoft is trying to kill them off but it's Vavle that's been pushing people away this whole time.

And what if you send a gift by email and then just save the gift in the inventory?

Maybe I'm just blind but I didn't see anywhere when these changes will actually be put into effect. I knew about CS:GO already, but as of now I can buy gift copies of VAC enabled titles and store them in my inventory just fine. Anyone know when the changes will take effect?

Seems like the intention is to keep players from having multiple accounts with that specific game and cheating/doing something ilegal in those accounts.
I.E., if you gift a game to an alternate account and get banned in that second account, you will no longer be able to create a third account and gift the game to yourself again.

What about the, current traders with alot of games in their inventory?? will that be like voided or ... ??
i was just planning to buy csgo keys to start trading but then... eh i think i got the news early..

Ooooh, just think of the blackmailing!

"Thank you for the game! Now excuse me while I go get myself a game ban! Unleeeeees.... you send me a couple more of those gifts you have in your inventory. And a cookie."