Valve has updated Steam to let people without a Steam account buy individual games as gifts, removing the need to first purchase a digital gift card of the correct value. Previously, anyone without an account who wanted to buy a friend or relative a game had to buy a Steam gift card and let the recipient make their own purchase, which was cumbersome, especially when the buyer and recipient were in different regions with different pricing. The change makes gifting more direct and should be particularly useful for non-gaming friends or family members who want to buy someone a specific title.

To gift a game, a non-Steam user can either follow a link to the recipient's wishlist or enter the recipient's account email address, though the recipient must already be on the buyer's Steam friends list and gifts cannot be scheduled for later delivery. Cross-region gifting now automatically calculates the correct local price, removing the need for third-party tools like SteamDB. The update also brings wishlist improvements, including the ability to create categories so only certain games are shared, green tags marking wishlisted games with demos available, and notifications when a wishlisted game releases a demo.