Valve halts Steam Holiday Auction due to exploit worry

The Steam Holiday Auction has been suspended just hours after it began.

The scheme allowed Steam users to trade digital items such as trading cards for Steam Gems, which in turn can be used to bid on games. However, as noted by Reddit some users quickly acquired a huge number of gems though unknown means.

Signs point to a duplication glitch of sorts. Users who had already obtained Gems at one stage saw them vanish from their inventories, although many saw them reappear less than an hour later.

All of which led to Steam temporarily putting the plans on freeze.

Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed,” a message on the auction page now reads. The elves are working frantically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they’re done.”

It has also been confirmed that Steam’s Christmas sale will kick off on December 18th and run until January 2nd.