Steam now lets anyone buy you a game — no account required
Steam gifting just got a lot easier for the people in your life who don't own a Steam account. Valve has overhauled how games and gift cards can be purchased and delivered, making it possible for anyone — a parent, a partner, a grandparent — to buy a game without signing up first. The changes also expose a regional pricing gap that some users are already taking advantage of.
Guest checkout, for everything
Guest checkout arrived on Steam in 2024, but it was limited to Valve hardware and gift cards. Now, per PC Gamer, it covers the entire game catalog. A buyer with no Steam account can complete a purchase and send the game directly to a recipient's email address. The recipient then clicks a link, logs into their account, and redeems it. Unclaimed gifts are automatically refunded after 30 days.
Two restrictions apply to email delivery: the sender and recipient must be in the same country, and no scheduled future delivery is available — the gift sends immediately.
Steam's email gifting flow — recipients get a link and have 30 days to claim before the purchase is refunded.
Wishlists, actually useful now
Shared wishlists have been quietly improved. You no longer need to be Steam friends with someone to buy them a gift from their wishlist — a shared link is enough. That link can also be filtered by category (horror games only, controller-compatible titles only, and so on), and recipient details auto-fill at checkout. Guest checkout works here too, so a non-Steam user can buy directly from someone's wishlist link.
Cross-region gifting has also changed. Previously, Steam blocked gifts if the price difference between regions exceeded roughly 15%. Now, according to SteamGifts community reports, that cap is gone. Steam calculates the recipient's regional price at checkout and the gifter pays accordingly — useful if you want to send a game to a friend in a more expensive market.
Wishlist sharing now supports filtered links and direct purchase without a Steam friendship.
The loophole
That cross-region change has a side effect. Because gifters pay the recipient's regional price, some users are gifting games to themselves using accounts registered in cheaper regions — effectively bypassing the standard price they'd pay at direct checkout. Beebom has documented the community discussion around this. Valve has not commented on whether any fraud safeguards are in place.
For ordinary buyers — the ones who just want to send a game to a friend or get something on someone's birthday list — the update is a genuine improvement. The account barrier was always the biggest friction point for non-gamer gift buyers, and it's now gone.