Gifting on Steam is now only available at purchase

The Steam Blog has announced new changes to the gifting procedure. Now, if you want to buy a game and send it as a gift, you can only do so at purchase. It means, for example, you can no longer send games in your library that are unplayed to your mates as gifts. 

On the flip side it should slow down a subset re-sellers, who give games they’ve bought as gifts in exchange for actual money. Grey market re-sellers have been known to bulk-buy games as gifts in sales for this purpose. That’s not how a present is supposed to work, resellers.

However, Steam users (not to mention NeoGAF) are upset at some of the restrictions that are now placed on them. For example, gifting isn’t available between countries where there’s a ‘large difference in pricing’.

The changes also stop things like, e.g., buying multiple copies of a game you like in a sale to future gift to as-yet-undecided friends (though you can schedule gifts for the future, assuming you know who and when at the point of purchase).

There are some positives, however. If you attempt to gift a game to someone who already has it, you’ll be automatically refunded. For a full rundown of the changes check out the blog post.