Valve is giving away free gifts - sometimes discounts off games, othertimes they are giving full games away. I think the gifts you receive are random. The gifts are tradeable - which means Valve allows us to send the gift to another Steam user's account.
Anyhow, I received two free games as gifts.

One of the gifts Valve gave me was Portal 2. I, amusingly enough, just bought the game last month and beat it... I don't exactly care for a second copy!
But the game is very very much worth what I paid for it, so if you haven't played it, you should trade me for it.

What I have:
- Defense Grid: The Awakening[s] ($4.99)[/s] [color="#ff0000"](Traded for Frozen Synapse)
[s] -[/s] [s]Portal 2 ($14.99)[/s] [color="#ff0000"](Traded for Trine 2)
- 2 coal
- 50% off of Portal 2
- 25% off of Serious Sam 3

Games I'm interested in:
[s] - Trine 2 ($14.99) [/s][color="#FF0000"](Aquired)
- Dragon Age: Origins (Ultimate Edition) ($14.99)
- RUSE ($20.09)
[s] - Frozen Synapse ($7.49)[/s][color="#ff0000"] (Aquired)
- Geneforge Saga ($9.99)
[s] - Avadon: The Black Fortress ($5)[/s] [color="#ff0000"](Acquired for 3 coal)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Or Anything from my wishlist ([size="1"]Note: cheaper games are lower down the list)

I'll accept anything of roughly equal value. For example, if you have a trade-able copy of Avadon: The Black Fortress, and a copy of Frozen Synapse (total value $12.50), I'll be happy to give Portal 2 (value $15). Alternatively, if you give me Dragon Age: Origins ($15), or RUSE ($20), or Trine 2 ($15), I'll be happy to give both Portal 2 ($15) and Defense Grid: Awakening ($5)

Note: You cannot trade your already-played steam games. You can either: A) Buy me a gift, and send it to me in exchange for one of my gifts (please confirm the trade with me before purchasing, so I can check whether I want the trade or not) or B) If Valve sent you a gift, or if you earned one through their 'challenges', you can send that to me as long as you haven't already activated it yourself.

If you haven't already, log into Steam and receive your first gift. View that gift to automatically complete the first 'challenge' and receive a second gift.

What do you guys have available to trade? I'm open to hear alternative trade offers.

I want portal 2 can i trade you borderlands?

I'd be open to that if you also toss in a copy of Greed Corp (only $2.50 on Steam - make sure you hit 'Buy as gift' when you check out).

Greed Corp ([color="#008000"]$2.50) and Borderlands ([color="#008000"]$9.99) for Portal 2 ([color="#008000"]$14.99).

Or, if your copy of Borderlands is the GOTY edition ([color="#008000"]$14.99), I'd totally accept that.

If interested, go to my Steam page, hit 'Add to your friends list' and then 'Send message to'. We can then initiate a secure trade, and you can see the game before you choose to accept.

Awesome, I received Trine 2 and Frozen Synapse in exchange for Portal 2 and Defense Grid.

My inventory is now empty (except for a piece of coal), but as more 'gifts' are handed out by Valve, I'll be back in a few days with more junk to trade if anyone else is interested. In the mean time... I have some cooperatively side-scrolling magic wielding to do. Oh, and some programming. That too.

A bit off topic, but I was wondering.

Did you say that you get gifts even if you don't play through their challenges (which I currently don't have the time to do) ? I logged in and only found two promotions (a -50% on Valve games and a -30% on some other game). These don't really qualify as gifts, since they are available as a general seasonal promotion anyway.

Am I missing something ?

Well, as I mentioned, the first two gifts are basically free without having to do any challenge. (Log in, get a gift, first challenge: look at the gift we already gave you, and we'll give you another). So I basically just grabbed those two gifts, and for fun, did two additional challenges (and only got 'coal' for it). Today they added another "easy win" gift: just join their Holiday 2011 Sale steam group (and then exit it again if you like), and you'll get a third gift.

However, the gifts they give are random. Many people just got coupons, but others got complete games (Ranging in value from $5 to $40). I happened to get two actual games (Portal 2 and Defense Grid), and I've been working the very hectic Steam forums to trade for games I actually care about, which I finally did.

Valve's idea is to get people to buy games to be able to accomplish challenges to possibly receive other games, or something like that. I just did the one or two challenges that were available in games I already happened to own. Both rewarded me, as mentioned, with coal... but users are even bartering coal (which has some value) amongst themselves, so I traded two of my coal as part of the Defense Grid -> Frozen Synapse deal.

If you log in, find out you got junk (coal or coupons), no loss to you. But it's worth logging in, incase you get something of value. Since 8 new challenges get posted every day (and you can go back and do the challenges from previous days) it's worth checking again in a few days and skimming the challenges to see if there are a few 'easy grab' gifts (It took 5 minutes to do the challenge in Dungeons of Dredmor, which I already owned).

Wow, that's awesome! Usually I feel like I'm entering contests with thousands of other people and I probably won't win anything, but you win no matter what with this! I won portal 2 and a 50 percent off coupon for back to the future.

I got free HL2 and -33% on Valve games if anyone is interested...

- RUSE ($20.09)
[s] [/s]

This was in one of the holiday sales earlier this month for less than 10 bucks.



Otherwise I got Deus Ex GOTY edition if anyone wants to trade for it. Otherwise I'm putting it on steam gifts.

I got a piece of coal and 33% off.

How shitty