up vote 2 down vote. The author was referring to the steam holiday gems. They are a new feature (released yesterday) in which a steam user can turn their extra junk cards/backgrounds/emotes into gems.. These gems can be used to buy more cards; or, during the upcoming holiday event only, to bid on games.nstead hunt for the game cheaper on the humble bundle (has winter sales right now) and other sites that sell Steam Keys which sell them for 50-90% cheaper than you can do with gems. For some reason most games got overpriced (at least for the first auction).