Steam Holiday Auction in a gem of a jam, temporarily closed [update]
Update [1.45PM ET]: Valve's updated the Holiday Auction page, announcing the auction will return "shortly." The event will be reset and Gems will return to inventories. The note reads:
We apologize for the interruption. The Yeti has been contained. We had an issue with Gems that means we need to reset and start again.
All Gems created by you will be returned to your inventory
All Gem purchases from the Community Market will be reimbursed
All Auction bids have been canceled and the Auction will be reset
Trades involving Gems are being investigated on a case-by-case basis
Original Story: Steam launched its "Holiday Auction" overnight, promising that 100 copies of nearly 2,000 games would go up for grabs. However, things got off to a rocky start, and Valve "temporarily closed" the event mere hours after it begun, amid suspected exploits.
Valve's official line is "there have been some issues with Gems," these being the currency users put forward to bid on each round of auctions. You create Gems by "recycling" Steam community items like Steam trading cards, backgrounds and so on. Gems can also be used to create trading card booster packs. The auctions run across December 15-18, with the highest bidder in each round winning that game while all other bids carry over to the next round.
We've approached Valve for further word on why the auction was closed, but multiple Reddit threads outline a duplication glitch that screwed up the economy. Going by user reports, the bug allowed various opportunists to earn huge amounts of Gems, which in turn drove down the price of Gems to minuscule amounts.
"Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed," reads a notice on Valve's FAQ page. "The elves are working frantically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they're done."
In terms of a timeline, the auction began at 7PM ET yesterday and temporarily closed around six hours later. At the time of writing, some six hours after that, the event remains suspended.
[Image: Valve]
