Does anyone know what 'Steam Gems' actually do?

[Ihateregistering1]

So I was cleaning up some of my Steam stuff today, and I was looking at all the inventory items I have. In order to just get rid of clutter, I converted most of them to "Gems".

However, no matter how hard I've looked on Google, I've still yet to see a decent explanation for what exactly gems do. Can you trade them in for games or DLC? Can you buy community market stuff with them (like DOTA 2 character accessories)? Or are they basically the equivalent of the old Microsoft "gamer points", and didn't really do anything?

Anyone know?

 

[Barbas]

You can save them up to craft into card packs once a day.

 

[DoPo]

You can save them up to craft into card packs once a day.

Yes, exactly that. The information on Steam is terse but it's not saying anything different:

[quota]Make booster packs from extra Steam Community Items in your inventory.
Recycling Community Items gives you Gems that can be used to make new booster packs.[/quote]

If you're into card trading, you can then start exchanging booster packs and/or cards for other stuff in the community. I did a bit of card trading around the time the cards started but haven't really bothered since. Still, I managed to get, I believe, 3 games off just trades.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

On your "Badges" tab, there's something like a "booster pack creator" button.

Press that, and you can see the cost for creating booster packs for eligible games. You can make one pack a day.

 

[Souplex]

On your "Badges" tab, there's something like a "booster pack creator" button.

Press that, and you can see the cost for creating booster packs for eligible games. You can make one pack a day.

Yes, but what do steam cards do?
You can redeem a pack for Benny Bucks which you can redeem for Itchy and Scratchy money which you can redeem for Paddy's bucks, which you can redeem for gems.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

On your "Badges" tab, there's something like a "booster pack creator" button.

Press that, and you can see the cost for creating booster packs for eligible games. You can make one pack a day.

Yes, but what do steam cards do?
You can redeem a pack for Benny Bucks which you can redeem for Itchy and Scratchy money which you can redeem for Paddy's bucks, which you can redeem for gems.

Well, if you collect a set of steam cards for a game, you can turn them into a steam badge. Creating a steam badge will get you custom emojis, profile backgrounds, and/or coupons for games that you can use or sell on the marketplace. The backgrounds and emojis are related to the game you created the badge for.

I've got a set of the Dust furry games, and it's a whole bunch of Gidgit doing different emotion faces. It's amusing.

Creating steam badges will also raise you steam level, which unlocks profile customization options and more friend slots.

EDIT: or, you can just get all the steam cards you can and sell them on the marketplace, saving for a cheap indie game every now and again. They tend to be worth between a nickel and a quarter each, depending on the popularity and rarity of the game in question.

 

[Elfgore]

On your "Badges" tab, there's something like a "booster pack creator" button.

Press that, and you can see the cost for creating booster packs for eligible games. You can make one pack a day.

Yes, but what do steam cards do?

Used to unlock mostly emoticons and wallpapers once you collect enough.

Spoiler: Two wallpapers I got from collecting cards

They also boost some Steam level that I think has some benefit as well.

 

[FPLOON]

1. It gets you a badge after your first set of gems...
2. They give you booster packs...
3. You can stuff them in a sack... after 1000 gems...
4. Auctions? I've never seen one of those, personally...
5. You can't sell them... or trade them... They only function as currency for trading cards and auctions, I guess...

Other than that, think of them as those gems in a F2P game... They're worth something, just not as much as real money...

 

[Fijiman]

Collect ten billion of them and Lord Gaben will personally hand you the only existing copy of Half Life 3. Or something like that.

Note that this is coming from someone who doesn't even have a Steam account and is very bored on a Sunday night.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Man, this seems like a lot of work to get like $0.25.

Oh well, maybe I'll earn enough at some point to buy cheap DLC. Thanks everyone!

 

[DoPo]

Man, this seems like a lot of work to get like $0.25.

Oh well, maybe I'll earn enough at some point to buy cheap DLC. Thanks everyone!

If you're thinking of selling directly, then I suggest you don't bother with the gems. Just sell all your cards on the marketplace. If you turn them into gems then into boosterpacks, my guess is that you wouldn't actually make as much money, though I haven't looked at the conversions. Still, I can't really imagine the cards -> gems -> booster -> marketplace would have overall positive net worth. As a general guideline, a booster pack costs roughly the same as three cards, if you can turn three cards into gems and then get a booster pack out of it, then your total gain would be zero. Unless, you will also be left with some gems. It'd be profitable if you could convert three cheaper cards into a booster pack that costs more but don't know if that would be possible.

At any rate, all of this would also require a lot of annoying bookkeping and conversions and always keeping up to date on everything. It'd be annoying. I guess if you're really into it, it might be fun, but I'd avoid it, personally.

As I said, just sell everything directly to the marketplace. It's simpler and easier. Chances are, that if you do all the conversions and stuff from above, and you do it at profit every time, you'd get something like +10-15%. I wouldn't really bother for such a low profit, especially since it would require a lot of work and on top of it, I don't even know if it's going to be profitable in the first place.

 

[Yeshe]

Note that this is coming from someone who doesn't even have a Steam account...

What is this sorcery?!

...and is very bored on a Sunday night.

Oh, nevermind.

 

[Rack]

Man, this seems like a lot of work to get like $0.25.

Oh well, maybe I'll earn enough at some point to buy cheap DLC. Thanks everyone!

If you're thinking of selling directly, then I suggest you don't bother with the gems. Just sell all your cards on the marketplace. If you turn them into gems then into boosterpacks, my guess is that you wouldn't actually make as much money, though I haven't looked at the conversions. Still, I can't really imagine the cards -> gems -> booster -> marketplace would have overall positive net worth. As a general guideline, a booster pack costs roughly the same as three cards, if you can turn three cards into gems and then get a booster pack out of it, then your total gain would be zero. Unless, you will also be left with some gems. It'd be profitable if you could convert three cheaper cards into a booster pack that costs more but don't know if that would be possible.

At any rate, all of this would also require a lot of annoying bookkeping and conversions and always keeping up to date on everything. It'd be annoying. I guess if you're really into it, it might be fun, but I'd avoid it, personally.

As I said, just sell everything directly to the marketplace. It's simpler and easier. Chances are, that if you do all the conversions and stuff from above, and you do it at profit every time, you'd get something like +10-15%. I wouldn't really bother for such a low profit, especially since it would require a lot of work and on top of it, I don't even know if it's going to be profitable in the first place.

I looked at the conversions once and they were under 10% possibly by a lot.