As Steam users wait for the impending Winter Sale (which, rumor has it, will begin on December 18) that will empty their wallets to an even greater extent this time of the year, Valve has come up with an intriging method to empty out their Steam inventories of beaten/unwanted games and items as well. The company has launched a new event called the "Steam Holiday Auction" where users can recycle unused items in their inventory for gems which are then used to bid on games up for auction.
The "Steam Holiday Auction" will let users recycle items such as emoticons, trading cards, and backgrounds from their inventory, and receive "Steam Gems" to use for bidding on the games they hope to get. Auctions will be held in rounds with the first round beginning today and ending on Monday, December 15 at 7:45AM PST.
In order to win, the Steam User needs to have the highest bid at the end of every round which is 45 minutes. At the end of the allotted time, each top bidder will receive their title and the remaining bids will carry on to the next round. Users will able to track their current bids, top bids, and winning bids in the "My Bids" section of the Holiday Auction page.
The event will completely end on December 18 at 10AM PST. After that, those who didn't win on the final round of auctions will have their gems returned. According to Valve, the gems will not be removed from everyone's inventory and can then be used to create booster packs.
There will be 100 copies of almost 2,000 titles up for auction that includes both games and software on Steam that was donated by developers and publishers. Among the vast assortment of titles up for auction are newer games such as "Alien: Isolation" and "Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth." However, the most expensive item that's been seen so far is not a game or software title. It is a 2014 Holiday Profile that will customize a user's profile with, you guessed it, a holiday motif. The current bid for that item is set at 250,100 gems.
