Never liked gift cards. Money you can only use in one place, and you don't even save any money when buying it.
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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You can walk down to a local Walmart and slap a $20 on the counter, walking away with funds even if you have no car and no credit card.
Hard for a teenager to get steam games without this.
I was not aware that could be a problem (had a debit card £ as a teen when online buying/downloading games started).
even if you have a debit card, in much of the world unless it’s a visa/mastercard it’s not going to be accepted in many places online
my debit card (in canada) uses interac. it’s accepted basically everywhere in physical stores, but online it’s pretty much useless if you don’t also have paypal (which is also not accepted everywhere a credit card would be)
That sucks. Hopefully something can change that :/
I'm hoping GNU Taler takes off.
I'll concede your point, though there are generic pre-paid cards that are not linked to a specific store.
Those have fees, though. Back when I didn't have a bank account, it was already over $5 per card, so I assume it's much higher 15 years later.
We see today how bad it is to rely so much on visa and paypal for steam payments when they can control what they want and what they don't want to see being sold on steam. I think gift cards could be an interesting alternative but idk.
IMO we need regulation. Banks and payment processors should not be allowed to refuse service to any legal activity.
That concerns are also really inconsistent. They don't seem to have a problem with cigarettes and alcohol, and are quite prepared to authorise payments to strip clubs.
But they have a problem with porn games. How does that track?
I'm with you but I also can see them useful to a degree. Children often want to get games from steam/nintendo store/EGS vbucks/etc and parents really do not want to enter their credit/debit card data everywhere under the anxiety of child abusing that card. Gift cards solve this problem.
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I always get them at Sam’s Club, they’re around 5% off the face value there. Can’t remember the exact price but was somewhere around $18.92 for a $20 card. Not a huge discount but will definitely miss it.
A coffee shop used to offer a $10 gift card for every $40 gift card you bought (or something like that) around Christmas. It was meant to get people to buy them as gifts but we knew we were going to go there throughout the year anyway so we loaded up for ourselves.
Same but with haircuts. My mom used to get 4 for $40 cards around the holidays. She was very astute when it came to finding actually good deals.
I'm not the biggest fan of them either, but there are lots of ways to get them for an amount greater than you paid.
Also there is something to think about with gift cards I asked a friend why they always got me them as gifts and found what they said interesting. For them they wanted to get me a game, a Lego Set, or something similar. The gift cards let my friend give a gift while I get to choose which specific thing I get.
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Bad thing in my opinion.
I used them to menage my funds to not to overspend.
Need to connect card to account, leaks happen.
More info to steam, you could use steam even without giving any personal details just by buying physical gift cards.
I had given them few times as gift.
Relatives would give them as gifts to me as well.
I am sad about this.
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Like others have said, I only have debit cards, as does the large majority in my country. Credit cards are only ever useful while traveling. And I'm not going to gift my private info to data brokers like paypal just because I want video games. Meaning I'm literally looking at the end of an era, because I don't know of any other way to purchase games on steam anymore.
Steam takes debit in certain regions. And a debit card, from the point of view of what private information is managed, is identical to a credit card. Many debit cards now even allow international use.
Sadly I'm not in one of those regions. Here are my available options:
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I remember saving up for those and then spending the money in Steam sales. Shame for all the kids who want to buy games that can't use their parents credit card.
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Gonna buy up all the local stock and re-sell it for profit
Tap for spoiler
/s
Scalping gift cards. Now that is a million dollar idea! (in debt)
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Well, no more Steam gift cards as birthday presents from my employer, I guess. The colleagues will have to come up with something else. How annoying.
They can still do digital steam gift cards
This really sucks. I give and receive Steam cards as gifts frequently and I know many people that only use steam because they can use cash to buy them. Most of these people will just pirate games now I imagine.
I hate gift cards but work gives them out for our birthdays each year. I always request games related gift cards. To hear that Steam are no longer selling them is disappointing considering that it's my main gaming platform.
That sucks, they were the best for shady deals. Buy em with cash, and treat it like cash.
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