Steam Changes Trading Rules for Games

Valve has changed its rules for trading games on Steam in an effort to curb scammers.

Users will now have to wait 30 days before trading games, although they can gift them right away. The change, according to Valve, has been made to improve user experiences with trades: 

We've made this change to make trading gifts a better experience for those receiving the gifts. We're hoping this lowers the number of people who trade for a game only to have the game revoked later due to issues with the purchaser's payment method.

Previously, payment issues meant that rule-abiding users could have been stuck with an unplayable game while their trading partner (who made the incorrect payment) would get a perfectly working one.

While many users might innocently make this mistake, there have been more than a few cases of less scrupulous users buying bogus steam keys to quickly resell, leaving the end customer holding the bag. 

Predictably, the change has led to some Steam users being upset, (including a most likely ill-fated petition), but short of an overwhelming revolt its hard to see Valve changing their mind about this new policy. The change means that the company no longer has to deal with reversing bad trades--or at least has to deal with far fewer of them--although it's been pointed out that many users will move to mutually gifting games instead, a much less safe trading option.

While it may lead to an increase in unsafe trades, there is, ultimately little Steam can do about the issue, and with new rules Steam and Valve have (at least legally) done everything they reasonably can to protect consumers.