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PayPalNew York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against Valve (Steam) for what they say is illegally promoting gambling.
The official press release notes that Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 are in the firing line for "enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value". Going on to say how it resembles a slot machine with a spinning wheel, and that the items can be sold online for money and that Valve "has made billions of dollars luring its users, many of whom are teenagers or younger, to engage in gambling in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on".
Pictured - Counter-Strike 2
More from the press release: "Illegal gambling can be harmful and lead to serious addiction problems, especially for our young people," said Attorney General James. "Valve has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults alike illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes. These features are addictive, harmful, and illegal, and my office is suing to stop Valve’s illegal conduct and protect New Yorkers."
Making their case against Valve, the press release notes how players can use Valve's own Steam Community Market and also connect up a Steam account to third-party marketplaces to be sold for cash. They even claim the "OAG’s investigation found that Valve facilitates and even assists these third-party marketplaces in their operations".
James also goes on to do what politicians always end up doing, by attempting to link Valve's games to real-life violence by saying "Valve’s promotion of games that glorify violence and guns helps fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence, particularly among young gamers who can become numbed to grave violence before their brains are fully developed".
Valve are also currently engaged in a lawsuit in the UK which was recently given the go-ahead, although the two focus on completely different things.
I've reached out to Valve for a comment.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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But I agree that the market is bad idea and the things shouldn't be even allowed to be sold to somebody else as that really promotes gambling. I knew few people that already are gambling with lootboxes in hope that they will drop something with a big price on Steam Marketplace.
On the other hand I would love to see an ability to sold old games from library on market. That makes much more sense to me.
I wouldn't put it past them to use their wealth to create legal headaches for Valve. With what they have pulled in the past this is relatively mild.
Quoting: Serg86On top of that Bill Gates supposedly sold his shares in Microsoft...Just transferred to foundation or some equity and investment management agency/company. Look who biggest shareholder MSFT, then look up who have biggest stake in those shareholder... and so on, peel the onion.
Kimyrielle a day ago
Quoting: KimyrielleWhile I do agree that lootboxes need to be banhammered out of the gaming industry, I am curious of why they picked Valve of all companies to target first. And not, you know, the studios actually famous for predatory business practices, such as EA or Ubisoft.Because you have to start somewhere and AFAIk Valve:s loot box market is probably larger than EAs and Ubisofts combined.
And finally we see a real lawsuit against Valve where they are IMHO actually in the wrong.
Quoting: KimyrielleWhile I do agree that lootboxes need to be banhammered out of the gaming industry, I am curious of why they picked Valve of all companies to target first. And not, you know, the studios actually famous for predatory business practices, such as EA or Ubisoft.It's not the lootboxes, it's the market place. Valve created a system where the contents of loot boxes can be turned back into money. This is why they are banned in The Netherlands and this is why they are the absolute worst in the gaming world. I'm not familiar with a lot of lootbox games, so there might be others, but probably where they can go after them easily.
it is important to note that Valve’s promotion of games that glorify violence and guns helps fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence, particularly among young gamers who can become numbed to grave violence before their brains are fully developed.Quoting this [tired trope from the early 2000](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/video-game-health/201907/blame-game-violent-video-games-do-not-cause-violence)'s is bizarre and ill considered.
Sure, go after loot boxes, they're rotten to the core, mostly. Although as someone has already pointed out, it would be nice to see some consistency - also get rid of Magic the Gathering packs, Pokemon packs, Pannini packs, or anything else that's marketed to kids that is a lottery.
Mohandevir 23 hours ago
Hey! Dear Leticia James, I'm killing demons with gore all over the place with big guns and rockets, in Doom Dark Ages, atm!!! 😆
Now the american gun problem, i don't live there so i don't know, but i think the problem is not video games or movies, but the culuture itself. Banning things doesn't really help imo, it needs to change from cultural level i think... but what do i know.
Lets just play games where you pick flowers only i guess...
Caldathras 2 hours ago
Quoting: WorMzyI hardly think Valve's lootboxes are to blame for the US' unhealthy obsession with guns, but I'd agree that they encourage gambling. In the same way that e.g. Pokemon card booster packs do, at least.
Quoting: scaineSure, go after loot boxes, they're rotten to the core, mostly. Although as someone has already pointed out, it would be nice to see some consistency - also get rid of Magic the Gathering packs, Pokemon packs, Pannini packs, or anything else that's marketed to kids that is a lottery.
This is what I find so absurd about this lawsuit. Back in the earlier nineties, I was working at a comic book shop when the collector card craze started to heat up (which attracted the speculators). Both adults and kids where buying up packs of sports cards and other collector cards, hoping to get one of the deliberately-made-rare cards in that randomly purchased pack of cards. Often times, if they did get lucky, they would immediately offer to sell it to the store they bought the pack from. It was no different than the lootbox phenomenon -- with the stores selling the card packs and serving as the marketplace to sell the rare ones.
No effort was made by any level of government to control this on moral grounds. I find New York State's stance on lootboxes to be hypocritical.
Keep in mind that this was before the early days of the World Wide Web revolutionizing the Internet. Magic the Gathering entered into this market at the height of the card speculation craze. In a small city with a population of just under a million, we had nearly 100 collector card retailers. When the speculation bubble crashed, it crashed hard. Businesses went under. The speculators then moved on to collecting toys. And so it goes ...
Don't get me wrong, I kind of hope that the lawsuit does shutdown the lootboxes. I wasn't all that impressed with these early analog equivalents either. They left a swath of destruction behind them when they inevitably broke.
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