Valve Is Phasing Out Physical Steam Gift Cards After Years Of Scam Abuse

Physical gift cards for Valve's popular Steam platform are about to go the way of the dodo bird, and you can thank scammers for their years of abuse. In an update to a Steam support document, Valve confirmed it will not be restocking retailers with more Steam gift cards once they run out of their existing inventories, and that it anticipates all existing cards being sold by the of 2026.

In a way, it's the end of an era. Valve began supplying Steam gift cards to retail stores way back in 2012. Since then, it's been combating scammers in a number of ways, such as working with retailers and law enforcement as the need arises, adding prominent scam warnings, limiting availability of cards, limiting redemption to the currency in a user's Steam wallet, and even removing cards from sale when abnormal activity is detected.

Alas, scammers have remained relentless, resulting in Valve tossing up his arms in frustration and essentially saying, 'Screw it, no more physical gift cards'.

"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," Valve explains.

The good news is, digital gift cards are not going anywhere. Valve added the digital option in 2017 and once retailers sell out of physical gift cards, the digital route will be the only one available. That adds a wrinkle to holidays like Christmas where you might be inclined to stick a Steam gift card in a stocking, but hey, we suppose that's what printers are for.

In the meantime, you may want to stock up now if you prefer physical over digital. We took a look around and physical Steam gift cards are indeed getting harder to find online, though not impossible. For example, Best Buy still lists a couple of options:

• Steam $30 Gift Card: Best Buy
• Steam $20 Gift Card: Best Buy