Who the fuck has time to play games for that amount of money. I've spend less than half that amount in the 10+ years since I've had my Steam account.

As a professional Steam purchaser I can tell you def not me. Am glad digital games can’t collect physical dust haha.

I guess someone who scams other people.

I've seen a few virtual environments people have made to display their game libraries. I think it would really put in perspective how bad a lot of our backlogs are...

They don't need to have a use for the codes on their own Steam accounts, just have to be able to sell them.

Neat idea for small backlogs. But I don’t want to be both physically and emotionally overwhelmed by my backlog.

It'd be awesome if it depicted the games with accumulated dust on them relative to how long it's been since they were last played (or purchased, if never played).

Gonna try to find a game starting with Z!

puts on hiking shoes

That's a great idea!

I've never used those cards, but who'd pay a third party seller for just number codes of there's no way to verify they're actual steam gift codes?

"There's nothing to play!"

Another mark.

What’s happening madharchod?

-He’s starting to redeem son of bastard bitch!

Who buys stolen credit card numbers without a way to verify that they're usable? There are probably forums and other shady marketplaces where regular sellers can build a reputation and offer discounts on the card values so buyers are willing to take the risk. Not like they're losing their own money on the transaction.

Any idea what program that is? That’s pretty cool to be honest

Disclaimer: I haven't dug into it yet to see which ones are good or available to the public.

Looks like the one pictured above was a project called Hall of Games, but they were only up for a few months and then shut down in October.

I'm seeing lots of personal projects (no doubt people vibe-coding for fun). Here's one on reddit from 3 days ago:

There's a more polished-looking one on steam called Boxroom, but it seems to have mixed reviews.

200% me

It's what the metaverse should have been

Makes me wonder why Steam VR never made a version of the home environment with this functionality. Would be neat to give people the experience of grabbing a game off the shelf to play.

Maybe even adding a feature similar to EmuVR where you can play your traditional (non-VR) games on a TV in the environment (if that wouldn't melt people's GPUs to run simultaneously).

Can I get the address for this CVS? All the local Walgreens already took their Steam cards off the rack

Do not redeem, Neo! DO NOT REDEEEM, NEEEEOOOOO!!!

They use Steam for money laundering:

• Acquire shady funds such as by scamming people into purchasing gift cards.
• Add said cards to their account.
• Have a "discounted Steam games" website
• When someone "purchases" a game, use the shady funds to actually buy it and transfer it to the consumer.
• The consumer is stuck with a game bought with stolen funds, while the reseller gets clean money.

It's such an obvious thing that I can't believe they haven't done it either. People would love that.

I heard they stopped selling them a while ago precisely because they're common scam targets. But I've actually never seen one, they were never sold in my country.

Especially if the scammer is living in a country where $200 is a lot of money or if they themselves are victims of human trafficking. Anything with value can be re-sold.

DON'T tell them Morpheus sent you! Say they're for your nephew! DON'T TELL THEM IT'S MORPHEUS

Steam is trying to help, you can put "recommended play next" in your library.

of course, there's still sales popups...

Whoa shit I want that now. They could even simulate a backcover with screenshots of the game and the short description from the store.

Wow I really love the term professional steam purchaser. You have called out dozens of us.

They usually sell them for less than the amount on the card.

2026: We simply don't answer our phones anymore. Every incoming phone call is a scam.

Valve stopped making them.

So true. My phone number has an area code from a place I never actually lived in (carry-over from a family plan, most of whom do live in said area code) and I got bombarded with calls the other day. I just assumed it was US election spam and blocked every number. Could one of them be my cousin calling from the trunk of a kidnapper’s car? Possibly. But, eh, not sure what I could really do from thousands of miles away.

Same! My area code is 2k miles from here before I moved & kept no affiliations with anyone over there, so when my phone constantly blows up with spoofed numbers from that area code, they're so easy to ignore, report, block.

WHY HAVE YOU REDEEMED IT?!

No worries. Your cousin would leave a voicemail.

Steam sale, bro. Sorry, not sorry

This is kickass, what software is that?

Unfortunately this one looks to be discontinued as of October. I linked to some other examples under another comment.

There appear to be mostly personal projects out there.

Oh well. I should take this as a sign to get back into blender.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

lol legendary

This meme is officially obsolete. Steam no longer makes paper gift cards.

Phone is on silent, all calls automatically screened for spam, when it rings and isn't in my contacts, it goes to voicemail, no voicemail, no callback. All groupchats are muted, all notifications are silent, no message content on lock screen, no notif for emails, no social media apps except Lemmy. Emergency alerts are disabled too, if I'm gonna be sucked to death by a tornado, I don't wanna be looking at my phone when it happens.

A part of me has been hoping for Presidential Alerts that look like demented tweets, so that everyone switches to FOSS phones.

For those who don't get it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V2Of4Jpp7s

A package arrived with a phone inside. Once he put the phone in his hand, it rang. Most people would answer that call, I think.

Unknown number: probably spam.
Came via postal service: definitely spam.

If my cousin can't be bothered to text to arrange a time to talk, I guess they're not getting rescued.

The idea of that happening and someone immediately pressing decline with no hesitation is hilarious.