Steam now lets anyone gift games without an account

Ever wanted to buy a Steam game for someone without creating an account first? Valve has finally made that possible. The company has expanded Steam’s gifting system with guest checkout, email delivery, and smarter cross-region purchases.

The changes remove several long-standing limitations. They also make buying games for friends much more straightforward.

Guest checkout and email gifting land on Steam

Valve first introduced guest checkout for digital gift cards and Steam hardware in 2024. That option now extends to every game available on the Steam Store. Anyone can purchase a game as a gift without signing into Steam or creating an account.

Image credit: Valve

Steam also lets buyers send games and digital gift cards directly to an email address. The recipient must sign in or create a Steam account before claiming the gift. If the gift isn’t accepted within 30 days, Valve automatically refunds the purchase.

Email gifting still has one important limitation. Both the sender and recipient must live in the same country, preventing users from bypassing Steam’s regional pricing.

Cross-region gifting gets a welcome upgrade

Valve has also expanded cross-region game gifting through Steam Friends. Instead of using the buyer’s pricing, Steam now calculates the cost using the recipient’s local regional price during checkout. Wishlist management has received attention as well.

Users can now create custom wishlist categories, share filtered wishlist links, control notifications by category, and receive alerts when game demos become available.

That’s not all; shared wishlist links can be opened by people without Steam accounts. They can then purchase a listed game instantly through the new guest checkout system.

This is a welcome change, especially because Valve plans to retire its physical gift cards by the end of the year.

In other gaming news, it’s estimated that Steam Machine sales could reach as many as 15,000 units per week, while Steam Deck sales may have fallen by as much as 82%.