Valve has just made some big changes to how gifting works on Steam. The new updates mean you can now buy and send games to people without jumping through as many hoops.
The biggest change is that you no longer need a Steam account to buy a game for someone else. Last year, Valve tested this for gift cards and hardware. Now it works for every game on the platform. You can just share your wishlist with someone, and they can buy you a game as a guest. No account needed on their end.
There is also a new way to send gifts through email. Instead of needing a person’s Steam username, you can just type in their email address. They will get a link in their inbox. If that email is linked to their Steam account, they can sign in and claim the game right away.
But there are a few things to keep in mind. The person has 30 days to accept the gift. After that, Steam will give the buyer their money back. You also cannot set a gift to arrive on a specific date. And both you and the person you are sending the gift to must be in the same country.
Gifting across different countries has also gotten easier. Steam can now figure out the right price in the local currency when you check out. This only works if the person you are buying for is already on your friends list.
Wishlists have been improved, too. You can now buy a game from someone’s wishlist without being friends with them first. You can also share a wishlist link that only shows certain games, so people know exactly what you want.
When you buy through a wishlist link, Steam fills in the recipient’s details automatically. This saves time and makes the whole process smoother, even for people who do not use Steam themselves.
Valve also added some new ways to organise wishlists and manage them better. Those details were shared in a separate update. But for most people, the big takeaway is that buying games for others is now faster and simpler than ever before.