You can't gift CS:GO during the Steam Sale

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Valve appears to be trying to clamp down on alt-accounts.

The Steam Summer Sale is on! Lots of good deals to be had, including the famous team-based FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is currently half-price—that's $7.50/£6. There's a catch, though, and it's kind of a strange one: If you buy it during the Summer Sale, you can't gift it to someone else. 

The restriction came to light on Reddit, when a CS:GO redditor said he was unable to buy the game as a gift and asked if anyone else had experienced the same thing. A Valve rep quickly stepped in to confirm that everyone would experience the same thing. 

“CS:GO will not be giftable during the sale,” the rep said. “Our goal with sales is to grow the community and historically, during sales, the new users that stick around are mainly the ones that purchase copies for themselves.” 

That sounds to me like a nice way of saying that Valve wants to crack down on alt-accounts, which is understandable and even admirable, since it's effectively prioritize that over sales of the game. It's a bit surprising that there's no up-front warning of the game's current ungiftability, though; it's not like people are losing money on it, but a heads-up would go a long way toward avoiding unhappy surprises.   

(And if you do actually want to gift it to someone? Just PayPal 'em the money—or wait until the sale's over.)

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Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.