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New York sues Valve for allowing kids to gamble in video games

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In a statement by New York Attorney General aims to take action against valve over titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2. For the apparent virtual slot machines found in these games.

New York Attorney General Letitia James takes aim at valve over digital gambling with the following statement via blusky and X.

"Valve, a video game developer, has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes. These features are addictive and harmful.That's why I'm suing to stop Valve’s unlawful conduct and protect New Yorkers."



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Good, gambling for real money / micro transactions / pReMiUm currency or other nonsense shouldn't be allowed in games aimed at younger audiences.

If they want people to gamble their cash away they can do so in adult only games, I'm sure the adults won't mind not having to deal with kids in their favorite gacha games anymore.
 
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i don't really look into this stuff on steam so correct me if im wrong, arent these games like, rated M, only for adults like CSGO and stuff, and arent lootboxes just, heres a funny wheel spinning that gives you an item that can be sold to others, by that logic pokemon cards should be considered gambling too because you buy them and you don't know what you're getting and if you get something rare you can resell it, i hate microtransation shit in any game and i wish it didn't exist, im just confused about it so if anyone can answer me i'll be grateful!
 
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Not trying to defend Valve and CSGO crates here, but how exactly is this any different from purchasing TCG booster packs?

There you're essentially also gambling for a rare card pull and then selling that for money -- exactly like with the CSGO skins.
 
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Ondrashek06 said:
Not trying to defend Valve and CSGO crates here, but how exactly is this any different from purchasing TCG booster packs?

There you're essentially also gambling for a rare card pull and then selling that for money -- exactly like with the CSGO skins.
Click to expand...
Kids tend to play with those cards, it's adults that treat it as a gambling substitute first and foremost.
But also the cards are at least physical in nature, its not a digital item that turns to thin air the moment the game stops being accessible.
 
RAHelllord said:
Good, gambling for real money / micro transactions / pReMiUm currency or other nonsense shouldn't be allowed in games aimed at younger audiences.
Click to expand...
FYI all Counter-Strike games are rated M 17+, if that's the dividing line you want to use. Personally I don't play the game so I don't care if the system is changed/removed, but I also don't see it making much difference in the grand scheme of things with sports betting and "prediction market" apps being so prevalent now.
 
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BlueFox gui said:
by that logic pokemon cards should be considered gambling too because you buy them and you don't know what you're getting and if you get something rare you can resell it
Click to expand...
Any TCG, really. Have you seen the prices for some of the rarer Magic: The Gathering cards? They get crazy, especially since WotC doesn't like to reprint cards often, if ever, meaning that once all of a certain card are in the trade market, no more of that card will show up. You could easily end up spending USD $100-300 or even $500-700+ to build a tournament-viable deck if you're not lucky with card packs.

Nobody's going to target it for lawsuits, though, because it's owned by Wizards of the Coast - an American company - who has more than enough money from MtG and D&D sales and through Hasbro (and are more than morally corrupt enough) to more or less bully anyone that even attempts to sue into dropping the lawsuit. (They have the Pinkerton Agency in their pocket. That should say enough.)
 
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Xzi said:
FYI all Counter-Strike games are rated M 17+, if that's the dividing line you want to use. Personally I don't play the game so I don't care if the system is changed/removed, but I also don't see it making much difference in the grand scheme of things with sports betting and "prediction market" apps being so prevalent now.
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Anyone remember Jack Thompson?
Constantly suing (before being disbarred over it) GTAs Rockstar Games, a game for adults only, for children playing them?
If the law did not stop children from playing them, why should the law now punish the people for making games for adults?
it was all a bit silly and his shennanigans got him disbarred.
 
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As someone that has dumped over 2k hours the skin economy in the game is wild and prob needs to be in a case study. Even valve themselves didn't think it would be worth anything back in 2013 but look were we are.

If anyone wants a simple run down of CS weapon skin economy

1. Back in 2013 valve introduced weapon skins into CSGO. These skins are mainly made by the community and put in the cases based on popularity.
2. Cases are given out as a reward for playing the game or can be bought or traded via steam's community market system.

3 Cases cost money to open ($2.49 USD) and follow your standard gacha/lootbox mechanics. You get a random weapon skin from that case's contents with the typical rarity stuff. Knives and gloves being the rarest and the high quality skins on the rarer side. Valve and the community members split the revenue here. (CS2 also added a rental system where by choosing to rent a case you get every non knife or glove in the case for a week)

4. Once you acquire a skin its yours forever and your free to trade it to other steam accounts or sell for steam wallet credit on the steam market where valve take a 3% cut. Or use in trade ups for a higher tier skin basically a pity system. . As such the community themselves dictate the price of skins on the market same concept as trading cards.

Its actually forbidden in steam's TOS to exchange skins for real currency and if caught doing this Valve will ban your steam account from trading but steam's moderation is incredibly lax and you'd have to be an idiot to get caught.

5. Due to the fact that its against TOS to exchange skins for real currency but you can freely trade between steam accounts, 3rd party websites have popped up to sell skins, You trade your stuff to a bot or another player you get paid real money. As this happens off Steam Valve sees no money from this.

6. This has also lead to actual gambling websites popping up where the currency is CS skins. This is also heavily against steam's TOS. Valve has DMCA'd or taken legal action against these sites before but are not super proactive about it. Its also a hydra problem you kill off 1 another 3 pop up. The only way to kill this off for good is to disable player to player trading but this would piss the entire community off.

This will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere in court. Considering if you win that's grounds to sue every gacha game on the market and a few other AAA publishers,
 
K3Nv4 said:
In a statement by New York Attorney General aims to take action against valve over titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2. For the apparent virtual slot machines found in these games.

New York Attorney General Letitia James takes aim at valve over digital gambling with the following statement via blusky and X.

"Valve, a video game developer, has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes. These features are addictive and harmful.That's why I'm suing to stop Valve’s unlawful conduct and protect New Yorkers."



Source
Click to expand...

WHY SPECIFICALLY VALVE?!?!? WHAT ABOUT OTHER GAMES?!?!?
 
baseball cards and basically the majority of toy manufacturers should be sued as well. beanie babies and tons of things existed for years just for collecting/gambling.

i dont like microtransactions and all the bullshit they put into games but if they are actually trying to use the law to protect things with an equal hammer there are so many things that are doing same exact thing.
 
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It's just kinda not gambling tho? (Like yeah it can be harmful and I'm happy to see some sort of restriction on stuff like this but the way the case is being presented doesn't really align with that, not to mention it's 'to protect children and adults' but many of if not all of those games are M). The way they are posing it to how it actually is doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
K3Nv4 said:
In a statement by New York Attorney General aims to take action against valve over titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2. For the apparent virtual slot machines found in these games.

New York Attorney General Letitia James takes aim at valve over digital gambling with the following statement via blusky and X.

"Valve, a video game developer, has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes. These features are addictive and harmful.That's why I'm suing to stop Valve’s unlawful conduct and protect New Yorkers."



Source
Click to expand...

yo they should definitely do that
 
I don't know if this is actually illegal because there aren't real money prizes. If lootboxes are illegal, then aren't arcades that let you trade in tickets for prizes just as illegal? Nobody seems to go after those.

They could argue that because you can sell items on the Steam marketplace, it constitutes real money gambling, but whether that is actually the case according to law is still untested in courts to my knowledge.

I am however glad that they're taking a stance against lootboxes, but I just think that legislation might have to change for things to actually improve. This could be an important step towards that though.
 
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