One of the things you can do in this year's Steam Summer Sale is earn points that can be used to acquire digital items like animated stickers, backgrounds, and avatars.
Rather than being limited to the Summer Sale, Steam's new Points Shop will be live year-round, with points awarded at a rate of 100 per $1 spent .
Points can also be used on "Community Awards" for things like reviews or user-generated content: If you see something you like, you can call it out as extra helpful, a hot take, being funny, or whatever. Naturally, you can also earn a couple of rewards for your awards—a Patron badge for granting awards for user-generated content, and a Contributor badge for doing the same with user reviews—and people on the receiving end of awards will also be given some Steam Points to go along with it, which will hopefully encourage higher-quality contributions.
Steam Points don't expire, although any you earn through purchases will be deducted with refunds, and unlike Steam Trading Cards they can't be traded or sold. Valve also noted that the trading card system will not be impacted by the change: Items like emoticons and backgrounds will remain accessible through the trading card system, but can now be acquired directly by points as well.
The full lowdown on the new, permanent Steam Points system is available here. The Steam Summer Sale is live now and runs until July 9.
Rather than being limited to the Summer Sale, Steam's new Points Shop will be live year-round, with points awarded at a rate of 100 per $1 spent .
Points can also be used on "Community Awards" for things like reviews or user-generated content: If you see something you like, you can call it out as extra helpful, a hot take, being funny, or whatever. Naturally, you can also earn a couple of rewards for your awards—a Patron badge for granting awards for user-generated content, and a Contributor badge for doing the same with user reviews—and people on the receiving end of awards will also be given some Steam Points to go along with it, which will hopefully encourage higher-quality contributions.
Steam Points don't expire, although any you earn through purchases will be deducted with refunds, and unlike Steam Trading Cards they can't be traded or sold. Valve also noted that the trading card system will not be impacted by the change: Items like emoticons and backgrounds will remain accessible through the trading card system, but can now be acquired directly by points as well.
The full lowdown on the new, permanent Steam Points system is available here. The Steam Summer Sale is live now and runs until July 9.
