Steam Officially Confirms The End Of An Era After 14 Years

Steam has confirmed that it’s pulling one of its longest-standing products from shelves in the near future. Owned and operated by development studio Valve, Steam was launched in 2003, and has since grown to become the biggest PC game distribution platform on the market. There’s something for everyone, from small-scale indies to huge triple-A releases.

The platform has more recently ventured into hardware, with things like the Steam Deck handheld, Valve Index VR headset, and, of course, the upcoming Steam Machine. But there’s a much older physical Steam product you may have completely forgotten about, and it won’t be around much longer.

According to Windows Central, Steam is discontinuing retail sales of physical gift cards sometime soon. Digital gift cards will still be available for purchase directly through Steam. The platform announced this by changing one of its FAQ pages to read, “Can I purchase Steam Gift Cards at retailers? Yes, but only for a limited time.”

You know the ones: when you shop at your local Walgreen’s or Costco, there’s that one giant rack of cards down one of the aisles. Things like Chili’s and Starbucks gift cards rub elbows with things like Game Pass monthly subscriptions and, indeed, $20 or $50 credits on Steam. Those Steam gift cards that are already on the shelves are still available for sale, and will work whenever you choose to use them. But Steam will stop making new ones, and expects all retailers to be out of stock by the end of the year.

Further down the FAQ page, Steam explains the reason for the discontinuation:

“Unfortunately, scammers use gift cards from major brands like Steam to take advantage of all people all over the world… As we have continued to put more and more restrictions in place, scammers have adapted. They continue to have an impact on Steam customers and other unsuspecting individuals. So we’ve made the difficult decision to end the Steam Gift Card program at retail stores.”

Scammers, usually targeting the elderly, will cold call strangers and tell them they owe a debt to the IRS or a similar agency. They’ll demand repayment through gift cards, coercing their marks into purchasing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth in Amazon, Google Play, or indeed Steam gift cards, then reading the codes on the back over the phone.

The scammers may then use the gift cards to purchase items that they can then resell at a profit or return to a store, or to buy games or apps that their organization owns, funneling the money back to them.

Besides that reasoning, though, physical Steam gift cards may not have been the platform’s most popular product; I’ve certainly never bought one, nor known anyone personally who has. If I want to give a friend something nice via Steam, I’ll usually just gift them a game I know they’ll like, or something we can play together.

Steam also recently introduced the Guest Checkout function, which allows you to buy a game on another person’s behalf without a Steam account, that serves much of the same purpose. Still, it’s a little sad to see Steam gift cards go; even if I’ve never used one, they feel like a relic of a bygone era.

Brand

Valve

Original Release Date

September 12, 2003