I'll be giving away a few games very, very soon, including two copies of an unbundled community wish list. Before I can do so, however, I need to know something:

Can you email a gift to yourself and then forward the email to the giveaway winner to redeem on Steam?

I ask because the sale for the game ends on 8/29 and I'd like to be able to store it until I check winner for VAC ban/multiple wins. Since we can no longer store most games in inventory, I need a way of protecting the price in case (God forbid) I need to reroll.

Let me know if you have experience with this. Many thanks.

Edit: To clarify, Valve removed the ability to store VAC and game ban enabled games in inventory, and gifting a game to a person who has been banned will block any future ability to gift that game. I will most likely use SGTools to check entrants, but I will be SOL if the sale ends before I can reroll (It's 70% off right now).

Edit 2: Solved! According to multiple users, you can store gifts via an email, then send it to the recipient after checking for rule-following. The recipient can then redeem the gift since the gift link is not tied to the email it is sent to.

Edit 3: I just noticed something on the gift link. At the very end it says "redeemer=mastermonopoly%40live.com ". Is this going to cause a problem, i.e. linking the gift link to the email address?

8 years ago*

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you can still store games in inventory, what are you talking about

8 years ago
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+1 what?

8 years ago
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+2

8 years ago
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+5

8 years ago
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Unless the publisher disallows that during sale, like Valve does with CS:GO

8 years ago
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They do that? Do you happen to know any other publishers/games with such restrictions?

8 years ago
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You can't store Mount & Blade: Warband in your inventory either

8 years ago
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Had to test it and wow. I've never even considered they'd be restricting something like this!

8 years ago
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+1 you can store them in ur inv

Can you email a gift to yourself and then forward the email to the giveaway winner to redeem on Steam?
you can also email them to your self on your email if u have a secondary email :) but even if u email them those gifts wont leave your inv until the guy accepts them

8 years ago
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inv = inventory

8 years ago
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That's my question :)

I don't know if it is tracked by email address, that's the only flaw. I may test this and get back.

8 years ago
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Only games without Game/VAC ban support IIRC.
Did Valve revert their stance on that?

8 years ago
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Nope. My game is not store-able in inventory.

8 years ago
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i just redeem the gifts myself and retain/give away the keys, its just easier for both the sender and the winner.

8 years ago
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How does this work? I don't own the game, so how would I go about this method?

8 years ago
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depends on where you bought it, but usually you just click redeem and it gives you a key then you give that key away in the giveaway or you can store it in a text document til your ready to give it away,i redeem all my keys on all the sites and store them in a text doc that way i dont have to worry about the site running out of keys and me not getting one at a later date.

8 years ago
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It sounds like OP is buying from the steam store, in which case he doesn't get a key but a gift.

8 years ago
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That would be correct. The key (no pun intended) problem is the inability to store VAC ban games in inventory.

8 years ago
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I think i understand you, so yes.

8 years ago
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-Select purchase as gift
-Select store in inventory
-When you're sending the game to the winner, find it in your inventory and select "Send via email"

Steam actively warns against emailing games to yourself, so I wouldn't go for your idea, plus this way's just so much simpler

8 years ago
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You can't do that anymore with VAC/game ban enabled games. The game I want to giveaway falls under this category.

8 years ago
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the person clicking on the email link will redeem it. the email isn't linked to any account, so yes, you can do that.

8 years ago
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Thank you :) Hooray for loopholes :p

8 years ago
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i still don't know how they don't allow to store a vac protected game in the inventory, but you can email it... kinda defeats the purpose of not-gifting it. O_o

8 years ago
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And that right there is the best example of lack of foresight, problem solving, and critical thinking.

8 years ago
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just hope for the best and wish they don't disable it in the next few days xD

8 years ago
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You can enter that link directly in the key field when creating a giveaway by the way

8 years ago
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I didn't even think of that, thanks for the tip :)

8 years ago
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Could you take a look at edit 3 regarding a possible issue?

8 years ago
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It doesn't cause any problem, you can even completely remove that part from the link, it will work without it

8 years ago
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Thank you so much. That scared me for a second! You've been a great help.

8 years ago
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