The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20230313133649/https://steamsucks.org/

Content Creator Exploitation

Creators made only 25% on a purchase of their workshop item, Valve made 75% for doing nothing. The creators share was later cut to 12.5%. Valve also promised to share a percentage from Steam marketplace trading, but this was never delivered.

Encouragement of Gambling

Loot boxes are gambling and they lead to the development of further gambling problems as children age. Valve was one of the first large companies to use loot boxes as a revenue model, now almost all their games utilize it.

Steams Cut

Valve takes an enormous cut of Steam sales that most developers feel is undeserved.

Unpaid Labor

Valve exploits the free labor of translators, dangling the opportunity of a job in front of volunteers and fires employees who speak out.

Security Response

Security breaches in Steam and Valve games regularly receive a poor response. Exploits are only patched after they go public and users are only notified of breaches from external sources.

Games

2011 Breach

2015 Breach

Consumer Rights

It wasn’t until Australia and the EU took Valve to court that they were forced to provide refunds on Steam games. Valve fought vehemently against this.

Anti Competitive Behavior

Valve participates in geo-blocking and contractually requires that developers do not sell their games for less on other stores.

Commodified Mods

After profiting from workshop items created by the community, Valve sought to replicate this revenue source with mods. Thankfully the community was wiser this time than the last.

Left 4 DOA

Left 4 Dead was released with Valve promising full ongoing support with countless new features and content to be added. Less than one year later Valve released Left 4 Dead 2 and the original Left 4 Dead was shelved.