Why Valve never give away free games to users? 👎

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Claire 🖤

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:32am

Why Valve never give away free games to users? 👎

Epic is currently giving away Hogwarts Legacy for FREE to users.

List of next FREE games has leaked, which includes Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit: Become Human, Mortal Kombat 11 and others.

Why does Valve NEVER give any free good/AAA games to users?

They have more money than Epic, right? Why are they so stingy and greedy?

Valve is so stingy that they even removed the free sale cards forever. (Each card cost only cents.)

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Showing 1-15 of 125 comments

space

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:32am

cause valve doesn't need to bribe out publishers to put their games on their store

Claire 🖤

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:40am

Originally posted by space:
cause valve doesn't need to bribe out publishers to put their games on their store

And?? That doesn't answer my question.

BloodShed

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:46am

Originally posted by Seath:
Epic is currently giving away Hogwarts Legacy for FREE to users.

List of next FREE games has leaked, which includes Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit: Become Human, Mortal Kombat 11 and others.

Why does Valve NEVER give any free good/AAA games to users?

They have more money than Epic, right? Why are they so stingy and greedy?

Valve is so stingy that they even removed the free sale cards forever. (Each card cost only cents.)

Only the developer/publisher of a game can decide when to give it away for free.

space

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:47am

Originally posted by Seath:
And?? That doesn't answer my question.

it does

KrakenGreywolf

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:50am

Originally posted by space:
cause valve doesn't need to bribe out publishers to put their games on their store

This. And sometimes publishers on Steam DO give away their games for free (Black Desert is-or was-recently doing a free promotion. Just Ignore Them might still be doing one as well). Not long before those, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 was. There are usually free giveaways on Steam from publishers weekly, Steam just doesn’t advertise them, and they’re usually not AAA titles. Some are VERY niche-titles almost no one has heard of. I did, however, manage to snag Metro 2033 Redux on Steam for free earlier this year.

Last edited by KrakenGreywolf; Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:50am

BloodShed

Dec 14, 2025 @ 1:51am

Originally posted by KrakenGreywolf:
Originally posted by space:
cause valve doesn't need to bribe out publishers to put their games on their store

This. And sometimes publishers on Steam DO give away their games for free (Black Desert is-or was-recently doing a free promotion. Just Ignore Them might still be doing one as well. Not long before those, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 was. There are usually free giveaways on Steam from publishers weekly, Steam just doesn’t advertise them, and they’re usually not AAA titles. Some are VERY niche-titles almost no one has heard of. I did, however, manage to snag Metro 2033 Redux on Steam for free earlier this year.

The Black Desert promotion expires in 4 days
https://steamdb.info/upcoming/free/

Dk-Arthas

Dec 14, 2025 @ 2:44am

I wonder if you realise how much money the devs maked giving that for free, epic pays that publishers a prety healthy price to be alowed to be given for free, and in youre memory, when was valve ok with spending money witchout geting anything in return?

Mad Scientist

Dec 14, 2025 @ 5:08am

I've gotten AAA games on Steam before. It was a developer/publisher giveaway, not done by valve via bribery like epic tends to do.

Considering epic spends billions on a store that doesn't make profit, doing business as usual will only make its end inevitable without focusing on profit instead of redirecting income to a still-failed still-profitless store.

Hikari Light

Dec 14, 2025 @ 5:28am

Epic is desperate to pull in customers, so they pay tons of money to devsof those games to be able to give away those games for free to bribe people to come to the EGS.

Though this tends to backfire as many users just grab the free games and don't actually buy anything.

The EGS has made no profit since it's launch 7 years ago.

Epic has only been able to keep the EGS running thanks to Unreal Engine income and Fortnite micro transactions.

Last edited by Hikari Light; Dec 14, 2025 @ 5:30am

Ben Lubar

Dec 14, 2025 @ 6:00am

Originally posted by Hikari Light:
The EGS has made no profit since it's launch 7 years ago.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-2020-year-in-review

I keep thinking about how in 2020 they gave away more free games than the store made in dollars even before costs.

#10

GeForce 2 GTS

Dec 14, 2025 @ 6:50am

Originally posted by Seath:
Epic is currently giving away Hogwarts Legacy for FREE to users.

List of next FREE games has leaked, which includes Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit: Become Human, Mortal Kombat 11 and others.

Why does Valve NEVER give any free good/AAA games to users?

They have more money than Epic, right? Why are they so stingy and greedy?

Valve is so stingy that they even removed the free sale cards forever. (Each card cost only cents.)

Short answer is Valve isn't compelled to copy every strategy other business might do.

Steam was very successful without offering free games. Epic offering free games hasn't caused them to eat Steam's lunch. So why would Valve copy that "winning" strategy that hasn't changed anything in the last seven years?

I mean, you even dismiss Epic despite all the free games. But then are critical of Valve for not copying Epic..

It's not like you can make a serious "goodwill" argument either, since 7 years of free games isn't enough goodwill to make Epic's store competitive.

Last edited by GeForce 2 GTS; Dec 14, 2025 @ 6:50am

#11

SpeedFreak1972

Dec 14, 2025 @ 6:50am

because Epic wants more people on their store STEAM doesn't really need that ... I mean If epic was the largest you really think they still would offer free games?

#12

Kargor

Dec 14, 2025 @ 7:19am

Also, Valve has given away some of their games; they just don't have a lot of games to start with.

[***] command> show-license 400 You have 1 licenses related to 400 ("Portal"): package 4314 ("Portal - Complimentary (Opt In)") (NoCost) purchased 2010-05-13 13:12:26 (Complimentary) Game 400 ("Portal") [***] command> show-license 70 You have 1 licenses related to 70 ("Half-Life"): package 172289 ("Half-Life Uncensored") (NoCost) purchased 2017-05-05 21:38:15 (Complimentary) ... [***] command> show-license 220 You have 1 licenses related to 220 ("Half-Life 2"): package 1187615 ("Half-Life 2 Limited Free Promotional Package - Nov 2024") (NoCost) purchased 2024-11-16 11:23:27 (Complimentary) ...

As for giving away games from other publishers, they have no need to. Publishers can and wlll do it by themselves occasionally, but don't expect many top-notch games. Like, most recently:

[***] command> show-license 561770 You have 1 licenses related to 561770 ("Just Ignore Them"): package 1484935 ("Just Ignore Them Limited Free Promotional Package - Dec 2025") (NoCost) purchased 2025-12-12 23:52:33 (Complimentary) Game 561770 ("Just Ignore Them")

Last edited by Kargor; Dec 14, 2025 @ 7:22am

#13

Mountain Months

Dec 14, 2025 @ 7:31am

if they just gave away free games like everyone else then gabe newell wouldn't be able to afford another 500 million dollar superyacht for his superyacht fleet. please be understanding

#14