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Contents8
  1. Consumer-impact summary
  2. Positives
  3. Contributions to open-source (2018 - Present)
  4. Incidents
  5. Steam users do not own their games (2024)
  6. PC version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive replaced by Counter-Strike 2 (2023)
  7. Lawsuits
  8. References


Valve
Basic information
Founded 1996
Legal Structure Private
Industry Video game retail, Video game development, Video game hardware
Also known as
Official website https://valvesoftware.com/

Valve Corporation (also known as Valve Software) is a software distribution company, most known for being the owner of the distribution service Steam. Valve additionally develops tools frequently used by various professional and amateur creators, such as Source Filmmaker and the Source Engines, as well as manufacturing hardware items such as the Steam Deck. It was founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.

Consumer-impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the company's conduct regarding (if applicable):

  • User freedom
  • User privacy
  • Business model
  • Market control

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.

Business model

Valve's primary source of revenue is the sale of both its own and third party games on the Steam platform. Valve also manufactures and sells gaming hardware systems. These products include: the Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Steam Frame which all run SteamOS, Valve's Linux-based operating system, out of the box.[1]

Positives

Contributions to open-source (2018 - Present)

Valve has made several noteworthy open-source contributions to advance software interoperability, which have improved gaming on Linux and macOS, and running x86 software on ARM processors.[2][3]

Wine compatibility layer

On 21 August 2018, Valve released the first version of the Proton compatibility layer,[4] which was developed in partnership with CodeWeavers.[5] Proton is the fork of the Wine[4] compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to run on POSIX-compliant operating systems.[6] Proton's primary focus is to improve performance and compatibility of Windows games running on Linux operating systems.[7] It works by translating Windows specific DirectX API calls to Vulkan.[citation needed]

As an effect of developing Proton, Valve and CodeWeavers have upstreamed a lot of upgrades and fixes to Wine.[2]

FEX emulation layer

On 12 November 2025, Valve announced the Steam Frame, an ARM based VR headset which will be running SteamOS.[8] In order to to be compatible with most Windows x86 games, Valve will be using the FEX-Emu emulation layer alongside Proton.[8] In an anniversary blog post, the FEX lead dev stated:

I want to thank the people from Valve for being here from the start and allowing me to kickstart this project. They trusted me with the responsibility of designing and frameworking the project in a way that it can work long-term; not only for their use cases but also keeping it an open project that anyone can adapt for their own use cases.[3]

FEX works by emulating x86 specific instructions to ARM64.[9]

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Valve category.

Steam users do not own their games (2024)

In October 2024, Valve added a note to Steam's payment checkout screen which states:

A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam. For full terms and conditions, please see the Steam Subscriber Agreement.

This is attributed to a law passed in California which requires storefronts to clearly state whether a consumer is purchasing a license for digital media.[10]

The licenses are tied to the Steam account, so if the consumer loses access to the account they will lose all the licenses with it.[11] Steam forbids consumers from transferring their licenses to other accounts, even if the accounts are owned by the same person that purchased the license. Steam forbids consumers from allowing other people to use their Steam account, even if passed down via a will.[12]

This is in contrast to Steam's main competitor GOG, which states on its payment checkout screen:

A purchase of a digital product on GOG grants you its Offline Installers, which cannot be taken away from you.[11]

Some games downloaded through Steam can be played without the Steam client running.[13]

PC version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive replaced by Counter-Strike 2 (2023)

Counter-Strike 2, previously available as a 'Limited Test' since March 22nd 2023[14], released on September 27th 2023, replacing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam[15]. This removed access to Global Offensive for those who had purchased it, every mainline PC Counter-Strike game before Global Offensive (Counter-Strike[16], Counter-Strike: Condition Zero[17] and Counter-Strike: Source[18]) can still be purchased and played on Steam through a separate library entry so this was an unprecedented move from Valve.

A legacy version of Global Offensive called 'CS:GO Legacy' was released on October 10th 2023[19] after backlash from the Counter-Strike community towards the Counter-Strike 2 launch and Global Offensive replacement. This version can only be accessed while Counter-Strike 2 is installed[20]. Valve committed to supporting this version of the game until January 1st 2024[19] but in that support window ignored bug reports from the community such as Counter-Strike 2 servers appearing in the community server browser with no way to distinguish these servers from Global Offensive servers unless the server specified what game it was targeting in it's name. CS:GO Legacy received only one update[21] during its support window and this update didn't contain any public update notes so it is unclear what this may have fixed.

After the support window for CS:GO Legacy ended, numerous problems started occurring with the game. Global Offensive servers stopped appearing in the CS:GO Legacy community server browser[22] which meant that only external third party server browsers could be used to find Global Offensive servers and these servers have to be added manually unlike Steam's server browser which finds and queries new servers automatically. As a point of comparison, the mainline PC Counter-Strike games released before Global Offensive (Counter-Strike, Condition Zero and Source) still have a functional server browser without needing third party intervention.

It also became impossible to use multiple weapons (M4A1-S, USP-S, CZ75-Auto, MP5-SD, R8 Revolver) in regular gameplay on vanilla servers without plugins as the loadout system used to switch between weapons and equip weapon skins was discontinued on CS:GO Legacy.[23] There was an unofficial method of re-enabling the loadout system so these weapons could be equipped and used in game but this method was patched in the May 8th 2025 Counter-Strike 2 update.[24] Although patched for its intended purpose, some CS:GO Legacy community servers still require this method for players to join their servers.[24]

Lawsuits

Dispute Title Year started and ended

(if concluded)

Background Information Aftermath Related Articles
ACCC v. Valve Corporation[25] 2014–2016 During this lawsuit, Valve was found by the Australian Federal Court to have refused to offer refunds for faulty or broken products. Users now have the ability to easily refund games they purchased, so long as they follow the refund policy.
UFC Que Choisir v. Valve Corporation[26] 2015–2019

(still disputed)

UFC Que Choisir sued Valve on the grounds that users deserved to resell their digital licenses. Users in France had the right to resell their digital Steam library, overturned in October 2024.
McLeod v. Valve Corp.[27] 2016 MacLeod started the first antitrust case against Valve Corp. over the sale of their games. Absorbed into another legal dispute; continues to be dismissed within Seattle courts.
Wolfire Games v. Valve Corp.[28] 2021–2022 The first notable antitrust case against Valve's unfair market manipulation of their games. Absorbed into another dispute/now a class action lawsuit.[29]
Sean Colvin (and various others) v. Valve Corporation, CD Projekt S.A., CD Projekt, Inc., Ubisoft Entertainment S.A., Ubisoft, Inc., Ubisoft L.A., Inc., kChamp Games, Inc., Rust, LLC, and Devolver Digital, Inc.[30] 2021 - Unfinished Five individuals in California sued Valve (among various other publishers) over participating in anti-competitive behavior with the Steam platform, most notably over the sale of games for lesser prices on other platforms. Not concluded because of indefinite postponement by Valve.
Bucher Law PLCC v. Valve Corp.[31][32] C.A. 2021 - Unfinished A companion to previous lawsuits against Valve over their anti-competitive monopoly, this time covering consumers over their purchase of games on Steam. Not concluded, slowly being arbitrated.

References

  1. ↑ "Steam Hardware". Steam.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Larabel, Michael (2019-03-27). "A Lot Of Valve's Proton Work Is Landing Back In Upstream Wine". Phoronix. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Houdek, Ryan (2025-11-28). "FEX seven year anniversary!". FEX-Emu. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dawe, Liam (2018-08-21). "Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved 2026-03-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ Schmid, Jana (2022-02-25). "CODEWEAVERS' PROTON SOFTWARE SAUCE POWERS STEAM DECK". CodeWeavers. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ↑ "Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and macOS". WineHQ. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ↑ "GitHub - ValveSoftware/Proton: Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components". Github. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Burke, Steve; Lathan, Patrick; Makhnovets, Vitalii; Phetdara, Tim; Thang, Jimmy (2025-11-14). "Valve Steam Machine, Desktop SteamOS, Steam Frame VR, & Controller | ft. Engineering Discussion". Gamers Nexus. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ↑ "FEX-Emu – A fast linux usermode x86 and x86-64 emulator". FEX-Emu. Retrieved 2026-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ↑ Shakir, Umar (11 Oct 2024). "Steam now says the 'game' you're buying is really just a license". The Verge. Archived from the original on 14 Dec 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chalk, Andy (11 Oct 2024). "Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 17 Nov 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  12. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2024-05-26). "You can't take it with you, but you can't leave it for someone else either: Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 14 Nov 2025. Retrieved 2025-08-16.
  13. ↑ "List of DRM-free games". Fandom. Archived from the original on 21 Nov 2025. Retrieved 2026-01-22.
  14. ↑ Jones, Ali (2023-03-22). "Here's how to access the Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test | GamesRadar+". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on 14 Dec 2025.
  15. ↑ Bailey, Dustin (2023-09-27). "After 11 years of CS:GO, Counter-Strike 2 has officially replaced the biggest game on Steam | GamesRadar+". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on 23 Dec 2025.
  16. ↑ "Counter-Strike on Steam". Steam. Archived from the original on 30 Dec 2025.
  17. ↑ "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero on Steam". Steam. Archived from the original on 28 Dec 2025.
  18. ↑ "Counter-Strike: Source on Steam". Steam. Archived from the original on 17 Dec 2025.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Legacy CS:GO Version". 2023-10-10. Archived from the original on 2023-10-10.
  20. ↑ Wilde, Tyler (2023-10-13). "How to play CS:GO now that Counter-Strike 2 is out | PC Gamer". PCGamer. Archived from the original on 11 Dec 2025.
  21. ↑ "Counter-Strike 2 History · Change #20663547 · SteamDB". SteamDB. 2023-10-13. Archived from the original on 20 Oct 2025.
  22. ↑ "CS:GO Legacy servers being rejected from Steam / CS:GO Legacy server browser listings · Issue #4047 · ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux". GitHub. 2025-05-08. Archived from the original on 14 May 2025.
  23. ↑
    Pop-up message after attempting to open the Inventory on the main menu of CS:GO Legacy, screenshot taken 23rd October 2025.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Csgo_Legacy_2023 – BaseQ WiQi". BaseQ. Archived from the original on 5 Jan 2026. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  25. ↑ "Federal Court finds Valve made misleading representations about consumer guarantees". ACCC. 29 Mar 2016. Archived from the original on 13 Oct 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  26. ↑ "Tough Times Ahead for Digital Video Game Resellers: French Supreme Court Ruling in UFC Que Choisir v. Valve". Fox Mandal. 4 Dec 2024. Archived from the original on 4 Dec 2024. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  27. ↑ "McLeod v. Valve Corp". Casetext. 2016-10-04. Archived from the original on 2025-01-26. Retrieved 2026-01-22.
  28. ↑ "Wolfire Games LLC v. Valve Corp". Casetext. 2022-05-06. Archived from the original on 2025-02-02. Retrieved 2026-01-22.
  29. ↑ Chalk, Andy (28 Nov 2024). "The antitrust lawsuit against Steam is now a class action, and that could have big repercussions for Valve". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 18 Nov 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  30. ↑ Gardner, Eriq (28 Jan 2021). "Popular Gaming Platform Accused of Abusing Market Power Through Contracts". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 14 Nov 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  31. ↑ "Bucher Law Steam Lawsuit". LawGud. Archived from the original on 8 Jul 2025. Retrieved 7 Apr 2025.
  32. ↑ "Valve antitrust litigation" (PDF). Bucher Law Firm. 2023-03-23. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2025-07-08. Retrieved 2026-01-22.
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