Right, because that needed to be said.

Why? Serious question.

You have to just play your own games to get cards, nothing else. If you don't like trading cards you can sell 'em really easily in a matter of seconds. Do it with all your games when you play 'em and you get a free summer sale game.

Is there a card game like MTG to use these cards? Whats the purpose of them?

http://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/

Simply another flavor of achievements or gamerscore; some tiny, digital emblems to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

do we have a rough estimate of when the steam summer sale is going to happen? i have the next few weeks off of work, would love to have a time sink

A lot of people were speculating today, as Valve is apt to release things on Thursdays. However, next Thursday seems more likely with some places on holiday.

Really though, any time from this point on. Anticipaaaaation....

Probably next Thursday or the one after, seems to always start then. Since they've been focussing on the trading card lameness, maybe later this year.

2010: Thursday, June 24th
2011: Thursday, June 30th
2012: Thursday, July 12th

ic... seems really dumb then, but I guess some of you guys get jazzed over achievements and such things.

no, we do over free manies tho

How much money do you expect to make selling these cards?

enough to get a free game on sale during the summer sale, for no effort

I mean I generally like achievements in games I play but I give 0 ****s about Steam trading cards.

Dozens and dozens of cents.

"First you get the cards, then you get the cents, then you get a $.50 piece of DLC."

- Tony Montana Einstein

Huh?

I have 13 cards just for playing my normal games. Make that an average of 0.30 per card and I get a free 4€ game. For playing my games. Who cares about collecting them, just sell em.

Let a foil drop and I get a 10€ game.

What was the point of that blank trading card we got for participating in the beta? It's just a small blue empty box.

Here's a good site for sale prices among different websites.
http://www.cheapshark.com/

how do u sell them?

whats a foil?

select a card in the inventory, press "sell", the little green box.

a foil is a rare card that that shines. People pay a ton for them.

it's a chat emoticon. try to sell it maybe. pretty worthless

That's really helpful.

Do you play steam games 15 hours of the day?

4-5 cards drop per game, roughly 2 hours of play gets you all of your drops. So no, he likely played 4-6 hours

oh pointless stats, how I love you!

90% of the people who bought skyrim have completed the first quest, 84% have reached level 5 on a character >.<

wow thats pretty low. Skyrim never been really really cheap either. lol @ free money

You don't actually have to play the games to get cards. You get them from simply idling. So you load up a game that drops cards before you go to sleep, and you wake up and you'll have all your card drops in your inventory. It really doesn't take much effort. I pretty much treat them like a rebate for owning certain games.

I got in the beta on the first day, and the next day just an invite was selling for upwards of 2$. Individual cards were all selling for over 1$. I'm actually kicking myself for not selling everything I could when prices were at their highest. I've sold foil cards, booster packs, and any card that was selling over 1$.

I'm just worried Steam is going to do something to actually make me want cards. For instance how they're going to tie-in with the Summer Sale. They could do something like everyone who crafts a set during the Summer Sale gets a chance to win a free game, and entered in a raffle for 10 games on your wishlist. I don't want to wake up and be like ZOMG GOTTA COLLECT CARDS.

Damn, Endless Space is on sale ( 66% without the expansion ), but it seems like such a fish move to buy it now, pre summer sale.

there will probably be a way better deal in a few weeks. maybe even with the expansion...