Steam & conspiracy theorist Alex Jones

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Alex Jones is profiting from his new game on Steam — while refusing to pay the Sandy Hook families he defamed

The digital distribution platform also has policies against hate speech

Written by Noah Dowe

Published

Following his trial for defamation of the families of the children and school staff killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is using Valve Corp.’s Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for PC games, to sell an Infowars-themed video game. Jones claims to have earned hundreds of thousands in revenue from the video game, yet he has refused to pay the Sandy Hook families.

Alex Jones: NWO Wars also mirrors and cartoonishly repackages the conspiracy theorist’s regularly violent, hateful rhetoric despite the platform’s policies against hate speech.

  • While refusing to pay $1.5 billion for defaming Sandy Hook families, Alex Jones claims to have earned hundreds of thousands in revenue from the video game on Steam

    • In 2022, Jones was ordered by courts in Connecticut and Texas to pay nearly $1.5 billion for defaming the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. Jones spent years using his Infowars show to argue the shooting was “staged” and “a giant hoax,” suggesting parents lied about seeing their dead children, and mocking the victims’ families on air. Even after the lawsuits were filed, Jones continued to suggest the massacre was a “synthetic” event. [Reuters, 12/2/22; Media Matters, 10/1/21, 11/29/16, 10/1/21]
    • Jones begged his audience to raise “hundreds of thousands of dollars” so he could keep the families, whom he has called “pawns,” in “court for years” with appeals. Jones and his lawyers have appealed to avoid paying judgements in both states, calling them “a substantial miscarriage of justice.” [Media Matters, 10/12/22, 8/2/22; The Associated Press, 10/22/22; Reuters, 11/22/22]
    • Despite the rulings, Jones has avoided accountability, vowing to use bankruptcy to avoid paying the families and allegedly hiding assets through “fraudulent transfers.” While Jones has continued to spend thousands on housekeeping, a Texas lake house, and what he calls “nice vacations,” the Sandy Hook plaintiffs, at the time of writing, have yet to receive a single cent — including the daughter of the school’s murdered principal, who says she has been unable to afford life-saving cancer treatment while waiting on Jones’ appeals. [Media Matters, 10/13/22; The Hill, 8/26/22; The Associated Press, 9/14/23; ABC, 11/16/23]
    • Jones confirmed on his show that he earns a third of the game’s sales revenue. On his show, Jones said, “A third of this goes to Steam. … Another third goes to the developers, we get a third.” Jones also claimed that the game “already brought in a few hundred thousand dollars.” [The Verge, 11/30/18; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/4/24]

  • Jones' video game reflects his violent rhetoric and hateful conspiracy theories

    • In late 2023, right-wing figure Andrew Meyer partnered with Jones to publish Alex Jones: NWO Wars, a short video game in which “you play as Alex Jones and save the world from the evil globalist plot to turn everyone into bug-eating pod-dwelling libtards!” The game was initially released on an independent site before being approved by Steam, leading Jones to claim that “it just shows how mainstream the truth’s gotten that Steam allowed this on the platform.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/5/24, 1/5/24; Steam, 1/3/24]
    • The game reflects Jones’ regularly violent rhetoric on Infowars, requiring players to kill monstrous villains who appear to portray so-called “globalists” like Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and others. On his show, Jones has continually glorified political violence, calling for the executions of Gates, Fauci, and Pfizer executives; warning listeners that “a gang of racist, foaming-at-the-mouth Black people” are coming for them and they should “kill every person you need to”; and arguing that “violence must be resorted to if we fail” to “take our country back.” [YouTube, 11/17/23, 11/17/23, 11/17/23, 11/17/23, 11/17/23; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 5/11/21, 10/12/22, 2/5/23, 3/24/23] 
    • Jones voices an animated version of himself as the game’s main character, shouting that “they’re turning the friggin’ frogs gay” and “this is as fake as big Mike being a woman” — apparent references to real anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories he has used his show to spread. Jones, who has accused the LGBTQ community of “recruiting” children as part of a “pedophile mafia” and called Michelle Obama a man, claimed in 2015 that “gay” frogs were evidence of a “chemical warfare operation … to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children.” [Kotaku, 1/5/23; The Independent, 8/25/17; NBC, 8/7/18]
    • The game’s first level appears to repackage these conspiracy theories, requiring players to take on “Dr Fooker” and his “plan to turn everyone into a gay frog by injecting you with an MRNA LGBTQ tadpole technology vaccine.” In an interview on The Alex Jones Show promoting the game, Meyer and Jones presented it as an alternative to other games and modern media, with Jones claiming “the new Superman, they’re all gay, which means they all want to have sex with your kids.” Implicit in the game's commentary are Jones’ conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine – including claims that “it’s a soft-kill weapon that sucks you dry.” [YouTube, 11/17/23; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 12/7/23, 4/14/21]
    • A now-removed trailer on the game’s Steam page featured depictions of New York Attorney General Letitia James, Judge Arthur Engoron, and others as Nazi officials. This video initially ran as an advertisement on Infowars, where Jones has attacked James as a “George Soros creature” and Engoron as “a kook … a Marxist-Leninst monster” over their involvement in prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. [Twitter/X, 1/4/24; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 11/17/23, 12/17/23, 11/10/23] 
    • Jones celebrated Steam’s decision to publish his game as “so exciting” because it “educates people” and “funds the Infowar.” Jones also claimed that “God’s hand” was involved in Steam approving the game on the same date that documents concerning Jeffrey Epstein were publicly released. [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/5/24]
    • After Jones asked Meyer in “what games does Fauci get killed” during an interview on Infowars, Meyer offered an apparently farcical argument that “it's definitely not Klaus Schwab that you're killing with a machine gun as Alex Jones.” In another episode, Jones admitted that the game intentionally depicts real-life figures, hyping appearances by “Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton flying a broom.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 12/7/23, 1/4/24]

  • Valve has also profited from the game, despite having a policy against hate speech

    • Valve typically receives 30% of revenue from games sold on Steam, and Jones confirmed on his show that “a third of this goes to Steam.” [The Verge, 11/30/18; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/4/24]
    • The Steamworks Distribution Program has a list of rules and guidelines which prohibit “speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.” The rules also prohibit “libelous or defamatory statements.” [Steamworks, accessed 1/16/24]