The Steam Points Shop has been around for quite a while now, offering players a way to customize their Steam experience using items earned from games they bought. It can be a lot of fun to give your Steam profile some personality by showing off items from your favorite library games.
For every game you own, it will be featured on the Steam Points Shop as items for either your profile or chat options. Although I haven’t been paying much attention to the Steam Profile editor, what I can tell you is how to create a stunning profile that will make you look like one of the pros, minus the endless grind for achievements.
If you’ve been closely following the Steam sales event, then you probably have obtained hundreds of titles in your Steam library. By now, you’d be racking up a ton of points to spend on rewards at the Points Shop. This means whenever you buy another game, DLC pack, soundtrack, or hardware build, you’ll see a higher balance where every dollar counts as a hundred points.
Customizing Your Steam Profile
The Steam profile keeps track of your recent activity, such as the games you’ve been playing. It portrays your gaming persona and tells other players when you are available for a multiplayer or Co-Op invite.
For the most part, it lets you check your level and stats as a game hoarder by displaying your badges, games owned, inventory items, screenshots, and friends to other players.
To get started on editing your Steam profile, first go to “View my profile” then click on “Edit Profile” which should take you to the Steam Points Shop.
In this area, you can change your avatar or choose a different background for your mini-profile. Moreover, Steam allows you to pick an avatar from any game you own and put a fancy frame around it.
Select Profile Background to adjust the size of your Steam background and browse for new images. You can also choose a color scheme for your profile page in the Theme tab. And it’s easy to acquire more badges as long as you actively engage with the Steam community.
You have full control over who gets to see your profile by making your game details and friends’ list private under Privacy Settings.
Earn Points by Buying Games
In this article, I’ll be showing you what kind of cool stuff is available on the Steam Points Shop. You can check out the latest featured items or look through everything you own on the front page. But in my opinion, it’s better to filter them by game so you won’t miss all those cute and funny animations.
Community awards are another thing offered on Steam. Interested in supporting user-generated content or donating to hardworking indie developers? Now you can, thanks to the reward system. Whenever you give badges to talented contributors–for their helpful reviews, workshop mods, and screenshots, they will receive a generous tip of 100+ points in return.
The best part is, you get to keep everything you buy, as long as you have your account. Ready to personalize your Steam profile and become an active participant of the Steam community?
Items from Games
This area displays all the available items from games you own. You may scroll through them to see what’s in store–to pick up a new emoticon or browse for high-definition backgrounds to add to your collections. Emoticons are a dollar a piece but profile backgrounds will cost 500 points each.
Moreover, there are animated stickers to showcase on your profile if you feel like decorating it or using them in group discussions. The only downside is that items cannot be sold or traded in so you’re kind of forced to get those games just to unlock their points shop rewards.
Animated Stickers
From here, you can view all kinds of animated stickers like that one pesky, untitled goose or those cubes having a beat saber contest. Most of them show characters making strange faces or reacting to another object. If you have leftover coins to spare, this would be a great place to spend it.
And no matter where the conversation is going, you always have ample chances to respond with animated stickers and express how you truly feel. So the next time you enter the chatroom, remember to replace your bland emoticons with some goofy, animated stickers featuring some beloved characters.
Dynamic Backgrounds
Possibly my favorite of the bunch: Steam’s profile backgrounds. These stunning images are a pleasant sight to behold for anyone that stumbles upon your profile. You’re sure to find something you love here. You might even end up browsing for hours, curious about what they have available for individual titles.
Sadly, there are only a handful of interactive backgrounds to preview inside the animated profile section. Watching the chess pieces jump out at the screen was pretty cool.–I even bought the deep sea flowers one for my mini-profile because of how beautiful it was. Speaking of, you get way more options with still profiles just from the games you own.
Chat Emoticons
Chat emoticons resemble animated stickers, except they are flatter and smaller in size. These icons are easy to collect just by playing games. I myself have emoticons from shared games like Tabletop RPG, Metal Gear Solid V, and Slime Rancher. They are nice to have for sending messages and only cost 100 points. However, you must own the games before you’re allowed to use them.
Change Up Your Avatar
If you want animated avatars and frames that are practically on fire, check out the “Avatar” page. Here you’ll get access to a couple of animated avatars for only a few thousand points each. It’s not actually displaying all your avatars; you have to select them from your profile page.
Of course, you can’t deny that a blue Aghanim frame is hard to resist. The good news is, most games come with their own avatars to unlock, assuming you already bought the game. Moving on, we have the Points Badge, which has the badge rewards ranging from level 1 to 20, similar to a leveling system.
Earn Community Badges and Awards
Last on the list are community awards, handed out to the most diligent item collectors on the Steam platform. Use your points to boost user-generated content or give contributors recognition for their hard work. This applies to helpful reviews, guides, screenshots, or fan-made mods.
Best of all, Steam points don’t ever expire so you can count on your balance to be there when you get back from binging a game. To learn more about how to earn badges for being a committed patron or contributor, you can look through the community awards page to get started.
This FAQ page will tell you how the Steam Points Shop works from the Summer Road Trip badge to the new trading cards crafting system. If you’re wondering about what happens when you refund a game, it should be answered here.
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