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.
It takes more work to find out who is purchasing the books, particularly if the publisher includes straw-purchases as part of its marketing strategy and therefore has an incentive to report their number inaccurately.
He’s got enough money to simply do it himself (or outsource the process to professionals). Sort of a priming-the-pump method to marketing. Its very possible that the vig Steam gets from your straw purchases is less than the cost of paying them upfront to advertise your game. Also possible he’s doing both, in which case Steam has a strong economic incentive not to discourage this behavior.