What Is the Point of Steam Trading Cards?
Steam Trading Cards have two main purposes. You can sell them for Steam Wallet cash, which you can then use to buy various in-game items on the Steam Community Marketplace and games on the regular Steam Store. If you obtain a full set of cards for any given game, you can receive additional rewards.
How to Get Steam Trading Cards
There are a few ways to get Steam Cards, but the only way to obtain them for free is by playing games on Steam. When a game includes Steam Card support, you earn them just by playing the game. Each game has a preset number of cards in its full set, and playing the game allows you to gain about half of those cards. You can also obtain Steam Cards by trading with friends and strangers, buying them on the Steam Community Marketplace, and opening booster packs. Here’s how to get Steam Cards for free:
How to Sell Steam Trading Cards
After you have some Steam Trading Cards in your inventory, it’s time to decide what to do with them. You can sell them, trade them, or hold on to them for later. The only use for Steam Cards outside of selling them is to craft them into badges, so if you aren’t interested in doing that for any given game, then the best thing to do is sell them. Selling Steam Cards earns you money that goes into your Steam Wallet, and you can use those funds to buy new Steam Cards to complete a badge or save up for more expensive purchases like in-game items or full games at the Steam store. Here’s how to sell Steam Cards: Your card appear on the Steam Market. When it sells, you receive an email. If you use the Steam Guard app, tap the ☰ (three vertical lines) icon and then tap Confirmations. Select the box next to the card you put up for sale and choose Confirm Selected.
What Are Steam Gems?
If you’ve ever sold a Steam Trading Card or even looked at one in your inventory, you probably noticed the option that allows you to turn Steam Cards into gems. Steam gems are a relic of the Steam holiday sale that took place in 2014, but they’re still relevant. The methods for earning them that were available during that sale are no longer around, but you can turn cards and other Steam inventory items into gems. Gems have two purposes. If you collect 1,000 gems, you can pack them into a sack and then sell it on the Steam Marketplace. You can also use them to create booster packs. Since gems can be sold or turned into booster packs, and some Steam inventory items are worth so little, turning your worthless inventory items into gems is a valid way to get some extra cash or Steam Card booster packs eventually. Here’s how to turn a Steam Card, or anything else in your Steam inventory, into gems:
What Are Steam Trading Card Booster Packs?
Steam Trading Card booster packs are similar to those you might have seen for physical trading card games. Each one contains three cards from a specific game, and you can’t tell which cards until you get them. When you collect all the available cards from a game, you’re eligible to earn booster packs from that game. To maintain eligibility, you must log into Steam at least once each week. As you level up your Steam profile, your chances for earning booster packs also goes up, which is an incentive to obtain more cards, to craft more badges, and to level up your profile. You can sell booster packs with or without opening them. In addition to regular cards, opening a booster pack has a tiny chance to reveal a rare foil card. Foil cards can be used to create foil badges, which feature unique artwork. If you’re looking to complete a badge, then opening a booster pack for that game is a good idea. Otherwise, selling it unopened is usually a better idea. Here’s how to use a Steam Card booster pack:
What Are Steam Badges?
Steam Badges are a cosmetic item that you can display on your Steam profile. By default, your profile shows the four most recently completed badges, but you can also prominently feature any of them. You obtain most badges by crafting together full sets of Steam Trading Cards, but you can also get badges from participating in Steam sale events and hitting milestones such as owning a specific number of games on Steam. The primary purpose of Steam Badges is that every time you earn one, you earn experience points. These experience points are used to level up your Steam profile. As your profile level grows, you gain the ability to have more Steam friends, add additional content blocks to your profile, and more. Here’s how to obtain a Steam Badge through crafting: The fastest way to complete a badge is to click Buy remaining cards on the Market. You can also click the trade button (arrows icon) underneath a friend’s name to send a trade request, or click Visit Trade Forum to trade with a stranger.
