'Every year they got f***ing chocolates that we didn't': Valve gives a box of sweets to Steam's biggest breadwinners every year, and Peak's devs finally got one after years of jealously watching their Slay the Spire office mates enjoy GabeN confections

What's the best part of making $800,000 in videogame sales on Steam in a single year? You might think it'd be the money, but not so. It's actually the free chocolate you get from Valve for making all that money on its digital sales platform.

As Gamesradar noted in its report on this, there's a video on YouTube where games marketing consultant Chris Zukowski talks about Valve's coveted "chocolate tier": a special class of studios that, once they get up to around $800,000 in annual revenue, receive a box of fancy chocolates as a gift from Valve at the end of the year.

That Gamesradar article mentions an interview Game File (readers may encounter a paywall) conducted with Peak developer Aggro Crab. Co-founder Nick Kaman confirmed Aggro Crab has been itching to join the chocolate-chowing inner circle since it released Another Crab's Treasure, its most successful game before Peak.

The team didn't receive a gift from Valve in 2024 despite pulling in the right amount of cash from that game, which stung; when Kaman emailed Valve about it, he got an apology. The team's unrest was compounded by the fact that Aggro Crab shares a building with Mega Crit, the Slay the Spire developer—as you might expect, that team has gotten chocolate year after year.

Kaman expressed his unrest succinctly in the interview: "Every year they got fucking chocolates that we didn't."Of course, Peak smashed the sales charts in 2025 and Aggro Crab finally got their candy after all. As it turns out, victory tastes sweet and has a caramel center.