Steam: All your coal are belong to us

The rather awesome Steam gaming platform has a festive competition running at the moment - perform certain tasks in a selection of games drawn each day (or sign up to a few non gaming activities like join a forum, or link your Steam and Facebook accounts) and receive a free random gift. I have to admit - I'm not doing very well so far.

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That gift could be a redeemable coupon for a free game, a discount or...a lump of coal. All is not lost should you be handed a lump of coal - collect seven, and you can craft it into another randomly selected discount or free game.

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This is, of course, where it all goes horribly wrong.

1) Gamers are exploiting the various "Indie Bundle" packs that go on sale periodically. This particular gaming bundle is a "pay what you want" affair, typically stuffed full of great games and additional offers should you pay a little extra (we still need to have that talk, Windows users). The latest Humble Indie Bundle went live not so long ago, and in a mad dash to create as much coal as possible to increase the chances of free games in Steam gamers were paying the base amount for Indie Bundles, redeemable against Steam accounts.

From Platform Nation: "For just 1 penny you can nab yourself a Steam redeemable key, and make your account valid for entry in the Epic Giveaway and the freebie prizes. That means you can create 100 accounts for just $1"

Whoops. They must have really gone to town on that one, given that the mass purchasing caused the price of the bundle to drop by more than 25 cents.

Greedy gamers have also been targeting the "IndieGala Bundle" which gives a separate Steam account for each game - effectively five duplicate accounts for the lowest potential price of a penny. Once you've got your hands on all those wonderful discount coupons and free games, you can potentially gift them to your "main" account and sit upon a throne of murkily acquired titles.

2) With shades of Xbox achievement tampering, people are distributing save files / text files to unlock Steam game achievements needed to win coal / coupons. Here's an example of someone loading up a file not belonging to them, nabbing the required achievement in Binding of Isaac and getting their hands on a free game. That's kind of dreadful, and by "kind of" I mean "completely".

3) Gamers are firing up a Steam achievements modding tool, to ensure they nab as much coal as possible.

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Here's someone who clearly went on an "unlock all the things" rampage. As you can imagine, these antics are not proving popular with non cheating gamers.

Coal farming isn't going unpunished, and Valve are starting to clamp down on anyone seen to be farming and / or exploiting. You may well be seeing many more examples like the below on forums posted up by vaguely annoyed gamers who want their accounts reactivated:

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If Valve catch you being naughty this festive season, they won't even leave you with coal. Top that, Santa...

Christopher Boyd