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[umiman]

Yeah... it's kinda weird. I think the people bidding on it don't realize the effect is time limited.

[BurnedToast]

I just checked the bid on Borderlands - The Pre-Sequel. Currently 127800 gems, at a price of 50 cents per 1000 gems, comes out to 63.9€. Price in the store is 49.99€.

In other news, the highest bid on the holiday profile is currently 1045000 gems ... or 522.5€. WTF???

2014 Holiday Profile
Celebrate the season in style with this decorative holiday profile! Your heart may just grow 3 sizes as you are bathed in Holiday cheer!

Grants a gold effect to avatar and persona name.

Winners of this item can enable or disable the 2014 Holiday Profile by selecting the item in their Steam Inventory and selecting the Enable or Disable action. This item is not tradable nor can it be listed on the Steam Community Market.

This item is good for a limited time and will expire Jan 16th, 2015.

Over 500 euros for a decorative item that exists only one month?

People are incredibly irrational when it comes to auctions. That things are priced in gems, not dollars makes it even worse (Pricing things in alternate currencies or "points" makes people much more likely to impulse buy without considering the cost).

Here's a link to some research by some economists. They studied some ebay auctions, and for one particular item, well...

"We found that in 43% of the auctions the bidders ended up paying more than the 'buy it now' price," Malmendier says.

so yeah, I doubt many people are going to get a good deal from the auction and I'm staying away from it completely.

[Darkmere]

I'm glad someone else worked through it. I did the same maths about rough price per gem and the bids being more expensive than just buying. I thought I'd done something wrong somewhere, but people just really are so stupid they will overpay just to be the winner of a non-competition.

[jhxmt]

I'm glad someone else worked through it. I did the same maths about rough price per gem and the bids being more expensive than just buying. I thought I'd done something wrong somewhere, but people just really are so stupid they will overpay just to be the winner of a non-competition.

It's even more pronounced when you realise that people's desire to turn trading cards into badges to get more gems will (inevitably) be pushing up demand for trading cards on the marketplace - thus making direct card sales even more efficient.

Assuming not everybody's entirely 100% rational all of the time, of course - and BurnedToast's post above provides some excellent evidence that they're not.

[umiman]

Somewhat amused to see people learning about economics here.

I'm now at $15 in trading card sales and apparently have 45 more listings on the market. Woop. Funny how 4 pages of trading cards can turn out this much.

[Sappho]

So is it a good idea to put up all my excess cards for sale right now at a price a few cents higher than the current sales are happening at, and figure the prices will rise until I get my listed price? Or should I wait until the prices go up more and sell them when I see how high they will get?

I tried to study economics way back in high school and it did not go well. Any spoon feeding of recommendations is appreciated. : )

EDIT: Also, I know someone else mentioned this already, but... should we resurrect the steam trading cards thread? Or maybe create a new thread for this? I feel bad taking over the sales thread like this.

[umiman]

Normally you'd get 1 steamcent for a trading card whereas now you can get anywhere between 3 to 22 steamcents. Considering gems are absolutely worthless (you can't win against the idiots bidding on stuff with gems and the price of gems is laughable), there's really no comparison. After all, you could convert all your excess cards into gems and gain... nothing really. Or you could get a small amount of steamcash to use to buy some games in the future. It's a simple decision.

The only lessons people should take from this are:

1. Auctions only benefit the sellers.
2. Artificial currency is bullshit.
3. People are irrational.

Edit:

Also this

Remember that Valve hired an economist exactly for reasons like this. They need to control their created economies. They're just making it look fancier than a company buying back their own shares.

Somehow they got companies to donate games to them for this sale, or so it says. So not only is it fancier, they are buying them back for no cost to themselves.

[Darkmere]

So is it a good idea to put up all my excess cards for sale right now at a price a few cents higher than the current sales are happening at, and figure the prices will rise until I get my listed price? Or should I wait until the prices go up more and sell them when I see how high they will get?

It's been my experience that card sale prices spike during the first day or two of a sale event. The Christmas sale is coming in a few days, so I'm waiting until then to see how the market shakes. Granted, i haven't been following this current gem insanity, so it's a small gamble on my part. You can, however, start checking what games you own that have cards attached and just leave the games running in the background to stock up on cards while you work on other projects and get ahead that way.

[umiman]

Use the steam idler thing. It's what I did.

[bQt31]

I have tons of games with remaining cards drops.. But is that steam idler safe to use? I guess you mean this thing http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/NMXTu/idle-master-get-your-steam-trading-cards-the-easy-way

[Darkmere]

I've never had a problem just letting the game run in the background. I'm wary of 3rd party software by default, especially when I have a decent-sized steam library that they'd potentially ban me from if they decided my account was up to no good.

Seems unlikely but it's a risk I don't have to take, so...

[umiman]

I have tons of games with remaining cards drops.. But is that steam idler safe to use? I guess you mean this thing http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/NMXTu/idle-master-get-your-steam-trading-cards-the-easy-way

I'm sure it has its assortment of warnings but that's what I used. The only problem I had with it was setting it up as you need to manipulate a few oddball things. Also people start messaging you and asking you why you've been playing games for 50 hours straight.

Use at your own discretion. Steam achievement manager has been around for freaking ever and nobody has ever been punished for that one. It uses the same principle. If you're risk averse, manually install and idle games yourself.

[Spehss _]

How much are booster packs going for on the marketplace? I only have ~1300 gems, takes 1000 to turn into a pack at the moment. It's either pack into a sack of 1000 for a measly ~0.75 or turn into a booster pack for possibly more.

[Toaster]

How many games do you have unplayed that you need a program to idle them for cards for you?  Took me like three days.

[Felius]

On the auctions: Three things to consider:

First, nearly all games seem to have quite a lot of copies to be auctioned, so the top bid will probably get lower after a couple dozen copies go out, so there might be a decent chance to get at least some.

Second, on a few select games, it might be worth your money to go for gems, even considering the price it will eventually drop to when on sale.

Third: If you want to try your hand at the auctions, you'll probably be better served by selling your cards and buying gem packs than converting the cards into gems directly. Even with the steam cut, you are still coming in front by doing so.