"I have a guardian angel Steam dev": One brave PC gamer is trading Steam cards for pennies to earn enough cash for a Steam Deck, and $200 in with 20,000 cards left, it's going shockingly well

Update: Streamer and hopeful Steam Deck owner Ringler has now amassed $650 in Steam trading card donations. "I'd feel dirty if I kept all the extra money for myself," they tell us. "I decided that I'm gonna use the excess to buy more Steam Decks and donate them to a children's hospital."

Original Story:
Twitch streamer Ringler recently had the inspired idea to buy a Steam Deck using only the money earned by selling virtually worthless Steam trading cards, and, by God, I think he'll actually do it.

"I'm choosing to believe I have a guardian angel Steam dev looking out for me," Ringler offers hopefully on Twitter.

Peddling Steam cards – which you rack up by playing games – feels like it shares the same lineage as other brave, but thankless types of work: our Copper Age ancestors gathering ferns to eat along the Mediterranean, or hardy coal miners getting coated in dust to keep their houses warm. Yeah, buying a Steam Deck is just like mining coal, or something.

Funding a purchase through virtual trading cards typically valued around a few cents, maybe two quarters at most, isn't as bad as it seems. Other PC players told Ringler on Twitter that they managed to successfully buy Steam Decks through unconventional means, like hucking CS:GO cases, skins, and, indeed, "Steam Trading cards, TF2 crates, and raw aura."

That doesn't mean, however, that Ringler's road to the $400 Steam Deck is paved with gold; it's actually littered with the skeletal remains of Dota 2 trading cards.

"I have to kiss them all goodbye before I push them into the meat grinder," Ringler says on Twitter, sharing a screenshot showing several Team Fortress 2 cards valued at $0.04.

Steam users, moved by Ringler's proletarian cause, came to his aid, providing him with tens of thousands of trading cards and counting. In their most recent update, Ringler says they've now amassed "$219.80, but still 20,000 cards to sell, and donos are still coming in."

"There’s a guy in a Valve office somewhere freaking out because graphs are reaching peaks he’s never seen before. He’s hitting a bunch of keys to stop it, but nothing he’s doing is working," Ringler muses.

"I feel as if I’m an avatar for the people," he continues on Twitter. "The support is overwhelming. These aren’t just cards to me anymore, they’re dreams. Gamer dreams. We’re gonna change the world. I can feel it."

Earn your own trading cards by playing the 25 best Steam games for 2025.