Just want to say thanks to NoName for hosting and organizing this event. What a good guy.

Well reading the Zero post i feel like i should say something about my situation.

I've participated in this event on this site previously and I was spoiled by my Secret Santa and I likewise spoilt my tiny tim. I think this was last year, it was really a good event and i wanted to be apart of it this year as well. I signed up this year in good spirit with no intentions to dissapoint anyone or be a cheap asshole :( .

However I was honestly thrown with a curve bull this year. My internet literally stopped working a few days before Christmas, and it took the company responsible about 2 weeks to fix. Once i realised i was not going to make the deadline i notified noname immediately who then notified my tiny tim to hold tight.

Eventually the internet issue was resolved, this was around new years and just a bit after the deadline noname had set (which was pretty lenient). I immediately went to Steam and had a look at my tiny tims wishlist. I noticed it was not updated and i really wanted to get decent gifts. I then contacted my tiny tim directly (Ultrashrooms) and asked him to update his wishlist which he did.

Once the wishlist was updated i went to steam and tried gifting my first game to Ultra. I noticed a funny message before i finalised the purchase saying "Notice: Gift purchases for Rocket League can only be added to the gift recipient's library if they are in South Africa." I tried a few other games before trying Rocket League and had got the same message. It soon became clear this impacted every game i tried to gift.

I did some googling and i found this post http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-restricts-steam-gifting-and-trading-between-regions/

Which basically means that if you live in a country with a fairly weak currency you cant gift to other regions. I happen to live in one of those countries. Im pretty sure nobody knew about this or perhaps thought how it would impact out Secret Santa event. I certainly had no clue when signing up as we managed to do this last year without any issues.

After that i chatted to noname, and ultra and tried to come up with a solution. We tried to get around the region issue within steam but that didnt work. I then tried paypal, which also didnt work. At this point i literally just wanted to be able to give Ultra something whether it was money or a gift card it didnt matter.

We finally resolved this issue like a few minutes ago using this site http://www.steamcarddelivery.com/ which allows you to purchase steam gift cards and then they email you the card in PDF format.

Took us a while to get there but we finally did it!

A big apology from me to Ultra, Noname and all those who participated in the event. And even more so to those who kept up their end of the bargain. Reading Zero's post and a few other reactions i feel really bad, which prompted me to explain my situation. I'd fully understand if im excluded from the event next year.

Also we might need to exclude people who live in some of the countries who cant gift to other countries by default in any case. So i guess we atleast learnt something this year!

Thanks for listening guys and thanks for your patience Ultra and Noname :) Also thanks to my secret santa for being on time!

err... Merry Christmas all!

That was a huge concern I had too, with my Tim, due to the diference in regions. All went smooth but, I wonder if it would be the same if I was the one receiving. Did your Santa had any problem gifting to you? Regardless, Steam dropped the ball big time and I hope they backtrack on this. I can understand the business sense behind it, but the biggest advantage of PC is being open. This gift restriction feels like Valve taking advantage of their monopoly.

BTW Are those steam gift cards of actual games or wallet cash? I'm actually interested in that method since it seems  you found a cool loophole.

I think its something Steam must do though, especially now that regions have region specific prices. Games cost a bit less here in South Africa now that Steam has moved over to our native currency. Previously we were paying USD which means we would pay the same price as anyone else in the world. Now that we have our own prices set, people who have ties across countries can ask their relatives or friends to gift them games from other countries and send them the reduced amount of money. That way someone from the US can pay less for games if purchased in other countries. Its either this or countries like ours pay astronomically high prices for games. This is only really an issue when our currency is doing badly though. So its not so much Steam taking advantage, but rather them finding a middle ground between fair region specific prices and also preventing users from taking advantage of currency differences.

Yes my Santa had no issues gifting to me. My Santa was from the US. It's only when its the other way around that it doesnt work out.

I think it's Wallet Cash. The site will email you a screenshot of an actual physical Steam Gift Card. Worked quite well :)

A possible solution might be for Steam to allow people to purchase in USD and the US value of the game and then allow gifting all over the world.

This way gamers will have the option of worldwide gifting but pay a slight premium.

I'll definitely have to put my thinking cap on for future years. But thanks Shinobi for going the extra mile!

Is there anyone who has NOT yet received a gift? Please let me know!