One of the things you can do at this year's Steam Summer Sale is earn points that can be used to obtain digital items such as anime stickers, backgrounds, and avatars. At first, the system looks similar to the system used in previous sales, such as the night market of the most recent Chinese New Year sale, but it is actually much more extensive and permanent.

Steam's new point store will not be limited to the Summer Sale, but will run throughout the year and will offer 100 points per dollar spent (depending on the exchange rate) on all purchases, including games, DLC, applications, soundtracks, and even hardware. adjusted, so you only get 73 points for every dollar spent). Seasonal awards are also available, with the "Summer Golden Profile" set currently available, but most are either game-specific items like the arachnotron animated stickers from "Doom Eternal" or more general items like chat effects and profile backgrounds. items.

Points can also be used for "community awards" such as reviews or user-generated content: if you like something, you can say it was exceptionally helpful, a hot take, funny, or whatever. Of course, winning an award can earn you several rewards. Patron badges for awarding user-generated content, Contributor badges for doing the same for user reviews, and Steam Points for the award recipient.

Steam Points will not expire, but the amount earned from purchases will be deducted when refunding. valve also stated that the trading card system will not be affected by this change: items like emoticons and backgrounds will remain accessible through the trading card system They will remain accessible through the trading card system, but can now also be obtained directly with points.

For more information on the new permanent Steam points system, click here; the Steam Summer Sale is underway now and will run through July 9