Steam's Summer Sale debuts a new permanent Steam feature: the Points Shop

Valve has added a sort of loyalty program to its digital game storefront by ushering in Steam’s new Points Shop alongside this year’s Steam Summer Sale.

It’s similar to past spend-to-unlock-rewards events that have launched alongside previous Steam Sales, but this time around the Points Shop and the digital knick-knacks it sells are both here to say. For devs, this looks to have the added bonus of allowing them to create game-themed backgrounds or emoticons that players can exchange their points for as well. 

“Now you can redeem your Steam Points for emoticons and profile backgrounds associated with the games you own,” reads a Steam explainer.

”The Steam Points program builds upon the existing Steam Trading Cards features and makes them accessible to more players. In addition to collecting and crafting cards, the Points program now offers another, more direct, way to acquire these emoticons and backgrounds.”

In addition to acting as a rewards store, the new Points system also opens up the ability to buy awards for particularly interesting, informative, or funny user review or to any other sort of user-made content on Steam like mods in the Steam Workshop, guides, screenshots, or videos. 

It’s worth noting as well that points can’t just be purchased outright; according to Valve, Steam users will receive 100 points for each $1 spent in Steam on games, DLC, hardware, soundtracks, applications, and in-game items, and users on the receiving end of an award also walk away with some additional points for their trouble.