The new experimental idea from Valve to 'recycle' Trading Cards, backgrounds and emoticons into gems has already backfired. These gems were to be used in an auction running December 15-18.
The gems were the needed currency to bid on almost 2,000 games on Steam, with the highest bidding awarded their prize. A new round is scheduled every 45 minutes. An exploit has been found.
Valve has suspended the new Steam Holiday Auction. "Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed," explains the company. Gems are recycled from the unwanted mass of cards, backgrounds and emoticons in the Steam inventory.
The gems can also be used to get more Trading Cards instead of bidding . "The elves are working frantically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they're done."
There are some Steam users wanting an 'inventory rollback' given the suspension. The gem exploit had to do with a duping problem, which of course completely undermined the entire enterprise.
"The first auction round ends on Monday Dec 15 at 7:45 AM PST with a new round ending every 45 minutes until the last auction round ends on Thursday Dec 18 10AM PST. One of each title will be awarded to the top bidder at the end of each round. That means 100 copies of nearly 2,000 titles are up for auction for a grand total of up to 200,000."
Check out the official Steam Holiday Auction website for the FAQ.
