Actually, it does have one major, massive advantage:

'What if a gift I received in a trade was purchased with a stolen credit card?

In the event of this type of fraud the trade will be reversed and the offending account, not the receiving account, will be locked.'

Edit:
For the sake of clarifying, the relevant part for 'gifting':

'Redeeming Fraudulent Gifts

Never accept a gift from an unknown user. Any accounts tied to a redeemed gift from a fraudulent source may be suspended.'

The Steam OpenID system provides a lot of advantages. First off, security. We're able to associate a user with a Steam account. Using this, we can verify their account has a certain value, and at the moment we check all users have at least $50+ worth of games associated with their account. It's a simple way to prevent users from registering more than once. Also, knowing the games in their library allows us to prevent users from entering to win gifts they already own, and entering for DLC, where they don't own the appropriate base game. We're also able to read in avatars, wishlist information to recommend gifts (http://www.steamgifts.com/wishlist), and more.

Thanks

Yup, you're completely at the mercy of which ever Valve staff member looks at your account. Some might just remove the game but it's likely that they'll just disable the whole account as "they can't be sure whether you were or were not 'in on it' in the first place".

Nope. Valve will want to keep "trading" completely and utterly within their own walls. They won't affiliate with a third party site.

Right now, we've had over 4,000 gifts sent between users, and zero issues regarding accounts being suspending. However, I do understand it's a concern, and if you prefer to use the trading system, that's always an option on both the sending and receiving end. The new trading system states no restrictions on regions, and as you said, only offending accounts sending gifts with a stolen credit card will be suspended, and not those receiving. Also, if there's one understanding company out there, it's Valve. If anyone ever runs into an issue, I'd be more than happy to get in touch with them to assist where possible.

It's really nice to see such nice customer support. Starting from providing us with an invite code through explanations and answering all the questions to offering help in case of any problems. Thank you again!

Same here, I've spent too much money on Steam to play with my account's credibility. If I want to gift someone something or receive gifts, Steam as a platform is sufficient.

Hey Fifeldor, what aspect in particular are you concerned about?

Scammers mostly.

I'm not saying you endorse them or anything, I can accept you're credible and lawful, but you can not guarantee us that they will not arrive by the hundreds once word of your site goes out, and they manage to find even more ways to hack an account. I have a friend who lost his Steam account (80+ games) because someone hacked him and Valve just disabled it after he contacted them and they pretty much told him that terms and conditions apply.

I have not spent on Steam as much money as others have around here, but it's still money that came from somewhere, and I take care of my Steam account like my bank account.

However cool of you to start an account here, give away an invite code and respond to everyone, it certainly shows you care for your (potential) customers. If you don't mind me asking though, what do you make out of all of this?

Signed up and created a giveaway for Lara Croft: Guardian of Light, exclusive for goggers.

You can enter here, if you are interested:
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/7zucl/lara-croft-and-the-guardian-of-light

Edit:
About security concerns - Steamgifts uses the Steam OpenID platform. I was asked to enter both my password and (since I'm logging in from my IPad) also had to confirm with a seperate security code sent to my email (which I didn't have to provide to Steamgifts before after the authentication). I can confirm that this is as safe as any service that uses Steam OpenID.

Edit 2:
Many thanks to Steamgifts for the open invite and being here to answer questions. Much appreciated! :)

Why? How would that benefit them?
Actually, the FAQ mentions that they're working on 'other game developers to incorporate both Trading and Inventories'.
They already grant third parties plenty of interactivity with Steam (Steam OpenID and API), so how and why would the trading system differ here?


Give it some time. Wait till the first few users get pissed at the service you offer because they didn't win something, they feel cheated, or whatever weird reason. With publicity and real massive traffic comes the hoard of 'not so nice' users, that would vent off through distributing the pain.
Now my Steam account isn't worth much, but somebody with several hundred games worth thousands of dollar would certainly be very frustrated over getting it suspended (forever).


While I like and enjoy Steam, a lot of users on this forum have described a slightly... different experience in the past ;)


You are really very nice and I both admire and encourage what you're doing. But realistically, if you can not get an official reply concerning your whole service despite the 'massive amount of traffic' you're generating on the Steam identification system, I have serious doubt that you could be of significant assistance on getting an account re-enabled against the official service agreement of Steam.

I would love to join. I just don't have the value in games to do so.

Ubivis quoted the respective FAQ entry earlier in the thread ;)

Fujek, lots of good points, and I completely agree, I can only speak from my personal experiences at this time. Keep in mind, users can also run private giveaways, so if you want to randomly select a winner between GOG members, or a few dozen friends, you're able to do so. That way you can gift to a friend, and use the Steam trading service to avoid any grey areas. The site is still being developed, so once we get a few more things sorted out, and everything on track, I'll try to get an official statement from Valve.