I think this is a bit of an uncharitable comparison though. NFTs and crypto are explicitly supposed to have real-world value and uses that are more or less com

I think this is a bit of an uncharitable comparison though. NFTs and crypto are explicitly supposed to have real-world value and uses that are more or less completely divorced from their use in these games. If you delete the game, the items themselves still have the majority of their purpose. Whereas for the things on the p2p marketplace, their value is entirely predicated on the game they exist within. Given Steam is a games platform, I think it is pretty straightforward for them to want to keep non-game-related stuff away. Even if it's just from a pragmatic point of view: as weird as it is, lawyers and accountants at this point are very familiar with how to handle users trading in-game things. Pulling in things that exist sufficiently in real life to be in danger of being considered a security is absolutely a big departure from what Valve is used to supporting on its platform.