Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike D
I've seen the badges and cards on Steam, but I have no idea what this even means. "Many gamers are badge/achievement gamers"
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The badges/cards are an odd feature.
Basically, a game can have a card set with it, consisting of a half dozen or more unique cards. As you first play a game with cards available, cards will drop to your account at a rate of about one per hour, up to half or one more than half of the total number of cards in the set.
Once all your drops have come for a particular game, you're eligible for a random chance to have another few cards drop to your account at some point in the future. You can also trade for missing cards in a set, or buy them on the marketplace. Most of them are about a dime or so each, but there are also rare foil cards that can be worth more.
Once you get all the cards in a set, you can craft a badge for that particular game. The badge gives you some random things: 100 Steam experience points, sometimes some in-game items for other games, a discount coupon, a background for your profile, and some emoticon you can use in chat. As you gain experience, you advance in Steam levels. Steam levels give you mostly useless features, like the ability to customize your profile more at Level 10, or have more friends on your Steam account.
Badges also have levels, so you can have a few levels of badges for a particular game.
I got caught up in it for about a day or so, then couldn't figure out why I cared about it. About the only think I'll do is pick up the extra cards for games I finish and like, as a way to mark a game complete. If you don't care at all about the cards, you can sell them on the marketplace and use that money on your Steam account to buy games.
There are gamers who enjoy them quite a bit. Maybe it appeals to their collection impulses.