Steam Introduces Changes to Gift System Making It More Straightforward

Valve is introducing changes to how gifting on Steam will work in the future. The changes are meant to make the whole process more transparent and straightforward. Gifts will now go directly from the buyer to the recipient, instead of Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory. They’re also addressing some issues with declining and scheduling gifts.

Steam is getting a complete revamp of the gift system, it seems. The aim is to make the whole thing easier to use, since there have been some problems. The new Steam Gifting system will be more streamlined than ever, if the Steam Blog post is anything to go by. They’re doing away with the Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory system. Now, the gifted item will go straight from the buyer to the gift recipient.

With the new system in place, there will be some significant changes to how the gifts work. First off, you’ll be able to schedule gifts more easily. You can buy the game months in advance, and choose exactly when the recipient should get it. The second big change is how declining will now function. Before, a declined game would just go back to the buyer’s library. Now, however, if the recipient declines the gift, the gift giver will get a full refund.

The final big alteration is in cross-country gifting. You won’t have to worry about whether your game will work on the computer of the friend your sending the gift to. It always will. If, however, the pricing between countries is radically different, the system will notify you that you can’t send that item as a gift. Needless to say, all previous gifts won’t be affected by these changes.

As usual, these changes have met with some mixed reactions from the Steam community. What’s your take on the subject? Do you think this system better or worse than the one before? Tell us in the comments!