It’s Steam sale season, or I’d like to call it, cash deficiency season. Now is the time for you to grab games on multi-national, digital distribution site Steam for dirt-cheap prices. Be it for yourself or for friends, now is a great time buy games. Except for one game. Valve’s own Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has most definitely been given a great price cut of 50%, but you will not be able to purchase the game for your friends. As explained by a Valve employee on the CS: GO subreddit:
“CS:GO will not be giftable during the sale. Our goal with sales is to grow the community and historically, during sales, the new users that stick around are mainly the ones that purchase copies for themselves.”
Valve talks about the decision in a community growth sense, but there may well be other reasons. It is usually during these sales that third party key sellers will start turning a profit by purchasing keys for these games then selling them on the various grey market outlets at a later date.
In any case, there you have it, if you’re thinking of buying the game for a friends, best hold off until after the sale. If you’d rather get the game for a friend for cheap, send them a Steam gift card so they can purchase it for themselves! Enjoy the sale folks.