Right now, Steam has a contest going on where one lucky person will win every video game on Steam. There are ways to get entries in every day for “free”. There are also ways to get extra entries by completing objectives in various purchasable games. Each piece of “coal” is an entry into the contest. Each Steam account can get more chances (and more coal). Steam also allows gamers to take coal, trade it, and then craft prizes with it…specifically, get free games.

Over at HumbleBundle.com, there are a bunch of games for really cheap. You can pay whatever you want. And they issue Steam keys for the games. Before today, you could be an ultra lame cheapskate and buy the bundle for one cent…and get Steam keys.

You probably see where this is going.

Some video gamers decided it would be “fun” to attempt to get tons of Steam coal by abusing this system. Unfortunately for them, Santa keeps a naughty and nice list and they are now squarely on the naughty list. These people set up a script and paid one cent for hundreds and hundreds of Humble Bundles. Then, they generated a bunch of Steam redemption codes and plugged them into new Steam accounts. Suddenly, they have tons of entries into the Steam contest for mere dollars, tons of coal, and tons of prizes (from a limited prize pool).

In addition to getting caught, PayPal transaction fees are 30 cents plus 2.9% of the transaction (usually). And, by buying so many copies at one cent, the average price on HumbleBundle.com has dropped significantly (approximately 25 cents according to one article). So, this little fiasco actually cost HumbleBundle money and will hurt them for a while longer. Fortunately, doing things like this is also against the Steam Subscriber Agreement and will hopefully result in permanent bans from Steam for their regular user accounts too (i.e. total loss of access to their entire digital collection). A suitable punishment for cheating and violating the Steam Terms of Service agreement. So, if you were directly involved in this stunt, here’s a big thumbs down from the gaming community. And a big shame on you too.

I also learned about a new website offering a near-clone of the Humble Bundle: indiegala.com. They only generate Steam keys but they generate one key per game, making the one cent thing even more tempting a target for video gamers without a conscience.

For the record, while I’m definitely a “cheapskate”, I still pay what I consider a reasonable amount for the games I want to own – and I’m patient for good deals. I also try to offset PayPal’s fees accordingly and I don’t cheat online systems. I’m okay with “cheating” in single player games – hey, game developers put in that infinite ammo code in single-player for a reason…. But even I understand and respect that an equal playing field is needed in the online world for everyone to have fun.

Here’s the original announcement for the change: $1 Min. Price For Getting Steam Keys. I originally heard about this via word of mouth.

Today marks the start of a new round of the Steam treasure hunt. More deals are to be had and they have brought back the freebies. The deals are actually pretty good today – probably to make up for the last round being so horribly designed:

• Sneak Peek – Download and watch a [bunch of specific] trailer[s] (free)
• Tunnel Vision – Become a Nosalis Hunter in Metro 2033 ($9.99)
• Cause and Effect – Create a Destruction Frenzy in Just Cause 2 ($7.49)
• Beat It – Set a leaderboard score of at least 3,770,488 for ‘Survival Best Score’ in Beat Hazard ($2.50)

Beat Hazard was available as part of one of the Indie packs a while ago for about $1, so this is a little more expensive but $2.50 for a video game is still nice and cheap. Everyone is going to be downloading those trailers, so I’m ready for Steam’s download service to be painfully slow. Hooray for intentional bandwidth sucking!

For the seriously hardcore video game players who love to get Steam achievements, Steam has a treasure hunt going on right now until December 20th. Complete any ten objectives and then log in on December 20th and be entered in to win 100 games of your choice. There will also be 20 winners every other day who get the top 5 items on your wishlist who complete at least one objective! (Yay!) There are also Team Fortress 2 hats available to win…if you are into that sort of thing.

The first four objectives are:

• Self Portrait – Set up an avatar (free)
• Got Tanked? – Become a Desert Fox in R.U.S.E. ($33.49)
• Up the Ante – Unlock The Iron Curtain in Poker Night at the Inventory ($2.99)
• More Cowbell – Set a leaderboard score of at least 1,124,400 in easy mode for the ‘Paul Hartnoll’ level in Chime ($1.99)

So, let’s assume that within each 48 hour period, there is one free item. There are seven 48-hour periods. So, during three of the periods, in order to have a chance at the grand prize, something that costs money will have to be played. It looks like this event is also being bundled with deals.

The correct approach to the treasure hunt is probably to buy games at great prices, have fun playing them, and then possibly win other stuff too. If you buy the game to “win” the treasure hunt, you bought the game for the wrong reason.

Although, it might be tempting to do them all because it says, “Each objective you complete gains you another entry in to this drawing. Unlock all 4 for the best chance to win!”