Steam "Cards"

[Reborne]

The sale badge, as one of the 3 things you get for making a badge, gives you an item for one of 10 free to play games.

DotA 2
Path of Exile
Ragnarok Online
Realm of the Mad God
Spiral Knights
Star Conflict
Stronghold Kingdoms
Team Fortress 2
War Thunder
Warframe

The rest are the usual things for making a badge.
100XP, an emote and a background.

[Kageru]

If you put a number on something, no matter how little it means, some people will get caught up in making sure their number is bigger than anyone elses. In this case a level 1506 (and presumably still going) snow globe badge.

[Merusk]

In this case a level 1506 (and presumably still going) snow globe badge.

 

At ~$0.16 a card that's $2,409.60

[schild]

In this case a level 1506 (and presumably still going) snow globe badge.

 

At ~$0.16 a card that's $2,409.60

And in 3 hours they all disappear.

[schild]

I hate that these trade requests never work if not done manually. >_<

There was an error accepting this trade offer. Please try again later.

Blow me, Steam.

[Samwise]

I spent ten cents to get two cards to finish my Guns of Icarus badge, then got a snowglobe card (as a reward for crafting the GoI badge) which I then sold for seventeen cents.  WINNING!

[Rendakor]

I hate that these trade requests never work if not done manually. >_<

There was an error accepting this trade offer. Please try again later.

Blow me, Steam.

They were working for me a few days ago. It'd would say there was an error, then in a second the trade would go through anyway.

[schild]

I have one hour to accept this trade from Trippy :(

[Lantyssa]

It almost makes me want to generate a script to buy badges next sale.  Buy low, sell high.  Especially if making badges generates more cards.

[Reborne]

I thought about doing that manually, but the price didn't fluctuate enough while I was watching to cover the $0.02 cost for Steam's cut.

[Lantyssa]

Manually you couldn't do it.  Automating it though, and I bet you could make a small profit.  Not enough to get rich, but enough to buy several games through the year.

[Baldrake]

I came out of this with two coupons for 50% off on Crusader Kings II, good until Feb 1. If by some chance anyone wants one, PM me...

[CaptainNapkin]

I came out of this with two coupons for 50% off on Crusader Kings II, good until Feb 1. If by some chance anyone wants one, PM me...

Same if anyone wants. Also have a 75% off Droid Assault... whatever that is.

[Samwise]

Manually you couldn't do it.  Automating it though, and I bet you could make a small profit.  Not enough to get rich, but enough to buy several games through the year.

I don't think you can guarantee that cards will increase in value by that much, though; it seems like they're more likely to go down as more people get the cards.  The snowglobe cards might be an exception since the price seemed to go up as people got more desperate to cash them in before they went poof.  In retrospect it might have been smart to buy up a few dollars worth at the start of the event.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't say it would be easy, but basically the program would have to follow current prices and try to snipe cheap cards while selling them for at least a few pennies of profit.  Which is why I don't think you'll amass a fortune on it, but if it proves to work, you can set it lose during non-sale times, too.  The holiday sales just give you a good set of cards to focus on because you'll know there's a lot of trading happening with them.

[Kageru]

I would not be surprised if there are already scripts doing this.

[Merusk]

I would not be surprised if there are already scripts doing this.

Based on how quick things were "already sold.." when I was buying a few to complete my last badge, there are.  Refresh, badge sold.

[KallDrexx]

So in general is it more profitable to sell foils or unpack them and hope the cards are wroth anything.  I got the walking dead foil randomly which apparently sells for 60 cents.

[Lantyssa]

Based on how quick things were "already sold.." when I was buying a few to complete my last badge, there are.  Refresh, badge sold.

That's part of what made me think about this.  The guy with the level 1601 badge pretty much proved it.

If they'd turn the auctioning around and make it a "I'll buy X card for Y cents", it'd take a lot of steam out of such scripts.

[Yegolev]

Nothing like a good pun in the morning.

[Signe]

You can just gift cards to people and not go through that trade thing?  I still even have that Torchwood 2 card that I tried to give Schild a million years ago.  Because I would be willing to just give them away (not hat I have more than four) rather than read this entire thread and try to sort out what the fuck every one is talking about.  People sound frustrated so I can't be arsed to read the destructions on Steam, either.  I have enough frustration just trying to cope with the universe.

[Yegolev]

I'm super frustrated and would like all of your cards.

[Signe]

My four cards probably won't make you less frustrated but I'm happy to say that Steam added the ability to give away the cards without having to choose items from the other person.  It wouldn't let me do that before. 

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, but it didn't work for us when I tried to give Schild one the other day.  We ended up having to both be online to do it.

[Signe]

I went through the trade thingy, put my trade in and clicked I was done.  It warned me that I was going to lose all my cards and not get anything and I said okay.  I THINK it worked.  It looked like it did but I'm not entirely sure of anything especially after the tragic Wikipedia incident I had earlier.

[Signe]

I checked Steam and the cards I sent to Yeg were accepted so the trade DID go through okay.  I don't know this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.  It's borked I tuess.

[Yegolev]

I'm noticeably less frustrated, thank you.

[Reborne]

The biggest error I've heard with the trades recently has been when you've set everything up and hit accept, it can tell you there was an error and to try again later.
A lot of the time this actually means that everything completed successful, but some of the time it means try again later.

I'm glad it worked out for you both.

[Yegolev]

I've never had a problem with it, unlike buying games which craps out all the time.

[Ingmar]

It was having all kinds of trouble during the DOS attacks towards the end of the winter sale but otherwise it seems solid.

[Samwise]

I realized today that Steam cards provide me with a good strategy for working through my backlog.  Play each game with cards long enough to get all the free card drops (a couple of hours or so) -- if it's not fun enough that I want to keep playing it after that point, uninstall and move to the next one.

Really this is a good strategy in general and something I should do anyway, but the cards make it so that even if I'm skeptical about whether the game is worth giving those couple of hours to vs just playing something I already know is good, I can entice myself to do it with the promise of loots.

[Yegolev]

I'm enticed to leave the game running at the menu while I do other things.

[Sky]

I'm enticed to entirely ignore this stuff.

[Yegolev]

Can I have your cards?

[Sky]

Do you have 25¢? That shit ain't free!

 

I'm holding out for my Civ V stuff to be worth 2¢ each!