[Solved] Steam Inventory—what's it about?

[Brian Boru]

Another thread…

Share your beloved Steam inventory item

Greeeeeeeetings community! Some of you might have accumulated some items in your steam inventory after years as a user. This will be the place to share some of those really cool items that you worship for their awesomeness. You don't have to share your whole inventory, just clip a picture of...

forums.pcgamer.com

…took me down a rabbit hole, which seems to be in danger of being part of a large warren of time suck. So please share what you know about this whole sub-system—what it's for, how best to use it, etc.

items in your steam inventory after years

Been on Steam 14 years, seen this Inventory thing pop up occasionally, never actually found it. Well the secret is out! For those who don't know:
It's not on the Steam site or your account there—as far as I can see;
It's in the Steam app/launcher under the View menu item.

Seems I have 44 inventory items, look like trading cards—is that a lot or very few?
Looks like I got a bunch of 'em from the 2018 Winter Sale—some are definitely from games I've never had in my Library. Then there are some from C&C Remastered, which I bought & completed.
I have over 800 games on Steam.

I see a couple of options:
Sell 'em for ~5 cents each;
Turn into Gems…;
…Which can be used to create Booster Packs.

Huh, I guess I wandered down this hole before—I have 128 Gems and 2 Sacks of Gems… so I had to have created those, right?

Badges

Looks like I need a full set of cards to make a badge, so I guess that's why there's a trading market. Not immediately obvious what these Badges are for.

Booster Packs

Also not immediately obvious what Booster Packs are for. Can make one per day for one game. As Shakespeare would say, WTF?

 

[Colif]

I don't have many but I wasn't expecting to have many. I do have a gift of a game I already own in there which is always helpful. One foil card, rest are normal. I don't see a dollar value but I wasn't after selling any,

Once you have gotten all of your card drops for a game you own, you have a chance of receiving a booster pack. Boosters contain 3 random cards from the set. The odds of receiving a booster pack increase based on your Steam level: +20% for every 10 levels. In addition, Valve has said that there is an 'anti-bad luck' measure in play: the longer you go without receiving a pack, the greater your odds of receiving one in future giveaways.

Booster Packs

For a full list, see Category:Booster Pack. Once you have gotten all of your card drops for a game you own, you have a chance of receiving a booster pack. Boosters contain 3 random cards from the set. The odds of receiving a booster pack increase based on your Steam level: +20% for every 10...

steamtradingcards.fandom.com

how do you get the cards anyway? I suspect the only ones I have are from booster packs as I never recall seeing them before?

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm pretty sure you can get up to 4 cards per game by just playing it for a certain amount of time. I also don't think they actually do anything beyond aesthetics.

 

[Frindis]

I'm not that interested in booster packs/cards/emoticons myself, but there seems to be a community for it for sure. Especially the foil cards can be both valuable and also look pretty cool. I'm more into skins and especially Rust skins. Each week there are new skins for sale (8 items approx) and the fun part is investing in them, using them, and basically sitting on the items until it is time to sell them for a profit. If an item is too popular, then it will take years before you'll earn anything back (if any), so you have to take that into consideration and not just buy everything up.

Some try to exploit the market for a quick buck or two, ...like this guy:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u372HKrw5eA

 

[mainer]

I've never really paid too much attention to my inventory in Steam, but out of curiosity after reading your post, I found that I have 160 items. Most are trading cards from starting a game I've never played before (usually 4 cards as Pifanjr stated above, but I've also seen as few as 2 or 3, so maybe it's random, I really don't know). There's also some badges in there that I gained from various sales, but I have no idea what use they have.

I've never traded or purchased any booster packs or cards, or sold any, nor have I turned them into gems. My interest just wasn't high enough I guess. You can apply filters in the inventory to show only certain items (I actually just found that out by looking today).

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

They don't have any value or use, some people just want to collect them. It also levels up your Steam account, personally I have no interest in my Steam level or collecting digital cards but people do buy them.

They drop while you are playing a game randomly, you'll only get 4 and have to trade or buy the other two to make the set, which levels up your account AFAIK.

I've sold a bunch every so often and bought a couple of cheap games with the store credit.

 

[Brian Boru]

They don't have any value or use

Thank you, the rabbits can remain safe from me then
I'll stick mine on sale then and let 'em earn pennies… or not.

I'm pretty sure you can get up to 4 cards per game by just playing it for a certain amount of time

Sounds right, I have for C&C Remastered which I finished. None for other games tho, so it must depend on the devs whether or not to enable the cards.

Thank you good folks, mystery solved

 

[Zloth]

Gems can buy booster packs which let you get more cards for a game without trading.

The number of cards you get for playing depends on the total number of cards for the game. It's rare for a game to let you have even half the possible cards.

If you get all the cards for a game, you can trade them in for a badge. Along with the badge, you might get other do-dads like an emoticon or profile background picture. You also get experience points. If you get all the cards a second time, you can level up the badge.

Experience points level up your account. Higher level accounts can do more fancy things with their profile page. You also get badges & xp for other things, like having an account for a long time.

One of the Steam sale events a few years ago (the one where they divided the community into teams and had us "race") gave me a ton of xp and shot my level up from something like 20 up to 50.

There's also the whole "Points" thing, which you get for buying games. You can give awards to other folks by spending your points on an award for them, and the recipient will get some of those points (though definitely not all of them - Steam needs a way to destroy points to keep inflation in check). Points can also be used to buy pretty bling for your profile. Here's what mine is looking like: https://steamcommunity.com/id/ZlothX/

P.S. You mostly get cards from playing a game. You can get random ones that just fall out of the sky for simply playing games on Steam but they are really rare. People can gift them to you, too.

 

[ZedClampet]

Another thread…

Share your beloved Steam inventory item

Greeeeeeeetings community! Some of you might have accumulated some items in your steam inventory after years as a user. This will be the place to share some of those really cool items that you worship for their awesomeness. You don't have to share your whole inventory, just clip a picture of...

forums.pcgamer.com

…took me down a rabbit hole, which seems to be in danger of being part of a large warren of time suck. So please share what you know about this whole sub-system—what it's for, how best to use it, etc.


Been on Steam 14 years, seen this Inventory thing pop up occasionally, never actually found it. Well the secret is out! For those who don't know:
It's not on the Steam site or your account there—as far as I can see;
It's in the Steam app/launcher under the View menu item.

Seems I have 44 inventory items, look like trading cards—is that a lot or very few?
Looks like I got a bunch of 'em from the 2018 Winter Sale—some are definitely from games I've never had in my Library. Then there are some from C&C Remastered, which I bought & completed.
I have over 800 games on Steam.

I see a couple of options:
Sell 'em for ~5 cents each;
Turn into Gems…;
…Which can be used to create Booster Packs.

Huh, I guess I wandered down this hole before—I have 128 Gems and 2 Sacks of Gems… so I had to have created those, right?

Badges

Looks like I need a full set of cards to make a badge, so I guess that's why there's a trading market. Not immediately obvious what these Badges are for.

Booster Packs

Also not immediately obvious what Booster Packs are for. Can make one per day for one game. As Shakespeare would say, WTF?

I've got 912 items in my inventory (37 pages), most of them are cards.

I used to make the badges of the games that I completed, but kind of lost interest in it. Doesn't really serve a purpose other than to display them on your profile page. So now I just collect endless cards, which drop from most games after you play for more than 2 hours (before the 2 hour refund window started, cards started dropping as soon as you ran the game for the first time).

I have sold a bunch of duplicates, but otherwise I keep them just in case I ever decide to start making badges again.

By the way, cards are a good source of income for both Steam and the developers because every time you sell a card, a little bit of the money goes to Steam/developer.

 

[Brian Boru]

Thank you, recent additions

recipient will get some of those points (though definitely not all of them

Right, I've given a few, typically 300 points for good reviews, of which the recipient gets 100.

every time you sell a card, a little bit of the money goes to Steam/developer

Good to know, may as well throw pennies at devs.

Some people flip things and actually make money doing it

Really? Are there more expensive cards than the 5 cents one I have?

 

[Zloth]

Foil cards can be worth over 20 cents. No idea how you 'flip' them, though. Maybe buy them between patches/DLC then sell when the update shows up and the number of players jumps?

 

[Brian Boru]

No idea how you 'flip' them, though

Scalpers!