Steam adds new community rewards with Steam Points expansion

Valve has expanded users’ options inside its Steam Points reward store.

Earlier this week Steam announced that it would expand the number of items available for purchase using Steam Points, the currency gained by spending money on games, DLC, and in-game items for games on its platform. The largest expansion was to the selection of Community Awards, a system that allows users to give awards to posts, guides, and screenshots uploaded by users on a game’s Steam Hub.

Valve introduced four new animated awards that users can hand out to each other, including the new awards “Treasure,” “Mad Scientist,” “Mind Blown,” and “Golden Unicorn.” When a user’s content receives one of these awards from another Steam Community member, they’re awarded a handful of Steam Points to use in Valve’s customization store. Here’s the breakdown:

• Treasure: 200 Points
• Mad Scientist: only for user-generated content such as guides or screenshots, 100 Points
• Mind Blown: 400 Points
• Golden Unicorn: 800 Points

Steam adds trading card and emoticon purchase options to Points Store

Valve also integrated the Steam Points store into a game’s store page, meaning that players will now know what kind of personal rewards become available once they purchase any given game. So far, points can be redeemed for animated chat avatars, profile backgrounds, animated profile pictures, and more.

Steam users can read more about Valve’s expansive new system in WIN.gg’s in-depth coverage of the store’s new customization options through the image below.

In addition to Valve’s new options for rewards, the software developer also added the ability for players to purchase trading cards directly alongside the current random drop system that rewards owners for the amount of play time they have with a game. With the change, individual cards are available using Steam Points, meaning that players won’t have to cross their fingers or visit the Steam Marketplace to nab the final card for a game’s collection and the profile badge to go with it.

Steam Points store expansion is next strike in war against Epic Games store

It’s a big change for how Steam’s popular trading card system works. Collecting all a game’s trading cards allows users to craft badges that can be displayed on their profile, a testament to their dedication to a particular game. But often a user either had to trade for any cards they were missing or purchase them off of the marketplace, meaning that crafting a full set for a badge would be both time-consuming and potentially expensive. Now, Steam offers another avenue for users to spend their points to complete their set. 

For every cent spent in the Steam Store, whether on a new game, DLC, and even in-game items like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s weapon crate keys, users receive one point to spend. When introduced earlier this summer, the system was retroactive and awarded users points based on the total amount spent on Steam’s storefront from the first purchase ever made. That left some players, especially those with older accounts, with a massive number of points to throw around. Now, Valve has added another avenue for players to spend them.

Several new games were also added to the points store in a variety of ways, including some of the summer’s most popular games such as Death Stranding, Control, and Mortal Kombat. Here’s a full list of new games that came to the Points store with the new update and the type of awards they offer:

• Control
  • Animated Backgrounds
• Death Stranding
  • Backgrounds
  • Emoticons
• Hades
  • Stickers
  • Backgrounds
  • Emoticons
• Astroneer
  • Stickers
• Monster Prom
  • Stickers
• Dying Light
  • Stickers
• Mortal Kombat
  • Animated Stickers
• Beat Saber
  • Animated Stickers
• Risk of Rain 2
  • Animated Stickers
  • Animated Avatars
  • Backgrounds
  • Profile Frame
• Dota 2
  • an Aghanim’s Labyrinth-themed avatar frame

With Steam’s recent changes to its Points Store, Valve is clearly focusing on the community aspect of its gaming platform while also adding massive publishers to its ever-growing library of game options. Electronic Arts exclusives like Battlefield 1 arrived on Steam in early July, while the publisher’s game pass debuted in September. The move signals shifts in Valve’s priorities as it seems to be winning the battle against Epic Games’ own virtual storefront, the Epic Games Store. 

The move is designed to make users feel more closely attached to their actual Steam account, something that will make them think twice about purchasing non-exclusive titles on other DRMs.