Valve has moved to dismiss the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against the company, which claims loot boxes in its games such as Counter-Strike 2 promote illegal gambling and threaten to addict children.
This is one of the few times I’d agree that Valve is the bad guy. I think other companies are also wrong for this. I think they all should be part of this lawsuit and I think legislation needs to have more repercussions for loot box BS.
They are brining up the good argument that this would essentially make baseball and pokemon cards gambling and illegal as well, I’m not a lawyer but with the way the law is written and from my understanding of it valve has a very good chance of getting this dismissed or wining in court. It would suddenly make many other things illegal if they loose.
In its motion to dismiss, Valve continued to heavily criticize the lawsuit. “Can parents purchase packs of baseball cards for their children?” it said. “Can families go to Chuck E. Cheese to play games of chance and exchange winning tickets for prizes? Can a child reach into a cereal box and grab a surprise toy? All these actions and more could lead to chargeable crimes under NYAG’s interpretation of gambling.”
Nah. I actually thought the same at first. I literally asked when this was first announced in the news if it wasn’t basically the same as Pokemon cards.
The problem is this. The company producing the Pokemon cards isn’t I hope actively providing a service to trade or resell them for monetary value based on rarity. Secondary markets exist for that but a first party Pokemon company market doesn’t exist for that.
This is where valve fucked up. They allow you to get a rare drop by chance, trade it for points, and use those points to buy something with real world value. It’s a lot more like pachinko than it is Pokemon cards or baseball cards.
In a casino you buy chips. Those chips can then be traded back to the casino for cash. When you bet on things at the casino you bet chips with the understanding that those chips are work a real world amount of money.
That is what makes gambling illegal in a lot of places. The ability to convert the gambled assets directly into spendable currency.
Pachinko does it a little different. You pay to play and when you win you get little trinkets. The pachinko parlor doesn’t let you trade them for cash or anything else. But you can go next door to a place that will buy those little trinkets for actual cash. Valve shouldn’t let you trade the points for anything with a fixed actual monetary value. Which is likely what they will do going forward if this lawsuit is successful.
All you need is to talk to some younger gamers to see how bad CS cases can be. My younger sibling (24 now) was surrounded by case gambling growing up and I personally know some kids highschool aged that are keeping the trend going.
Valvd does a lot of good things for gaming but this is really not one of them.
The fact that California decided to sue Valve for Counterstrike and not sue EA for FIFA is just blatant targeted harassment. Valve’s right for pointing out that any precedent set here would make Pokemon cards and Baseball cards illegal, both of which are actually advertised directly to kids.
I don’t think that’s how the law is written though. You can only get steam wallet funds for your skins, steam wallet funds explicitly have no cash value. The transaction at that point is done. A video game also has “real world value” you could just as easily say well I get steam wallet funds and than sell gifted games to other people. I don’t think your argument tracks with the law or steams user agreement.
only on a secondary market in which those companies don’t participate. it’s a paper thin line which keeps trading card game booster packs from beeing gambling in a legal sense
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Yup, just a nice stark reminder that gaming corporations all suck to some degree.
Corporations, really.
This is one of the few times I’d agree that Valve is the bad guy. I think other companies are also wrong for this. I think they all should be part of this lawsuit and I think legislation needs to have more repercussions for loot box BS.
They are brining up the good argument that this would essentially make baseball and pokemon cards gambling and illegal as well, I’m not a lawyer but with the way the law is written and from my understanding of it valve has a very good chance of getting this dismissed or wining in court. It would suddenly make many other things illegal if they loose.
In its motion to dismiss, Valve continued to heavily criticize the lawsuit. “Can parents purchase packs of baseball cards for their children?” it said. “Can families go to Chuck E. Cheese to play games of chance and exchange winning tickets for prizes? Can a child reach into a cereal box and grab a surprise toy? All these actions and more could lead to chargeable crimes under NYAG’s interpretation of gambling.”
Nah. I actually thought the same at first. I literally asked when this was first announced in the news if it wasn’t basically the same as Pokemon cards.
The problem is this. The company producing the Pokemon cards isn’t I hope actively providing a service to trade or resell them for monetary value based on rarity. Secondary markets exist for that but a first party Pokemon company market doesn’t exist for that.
This is where valve fucked up. They allow you to get a rare drop by chance, trade it for points, and use those points to buy something with real world value. It’s a lot more like pachinko than it is Pokemon cards or baseball cards.
In a casino you buy chips. Those chips can then be traded back to the casino for cash. When you bet on things at the casino you bet chips with the understanding that those chips are work a real world amount of money.
That is what makes gambling illegal in a lot of places. The ability to convert the gambled assets directly into spendable currency.
Pachinko does it a little different. You pay to play and when you win you get little trinkets. The pachinko parlor doesn’t let you trade them for cash or anything else. But you can go next door to a place that will buy those little trinkets for actual cash. Valve shouldn’t let you trade the points for anything with a fixed actual monetary value. Which is likely what they will do going forward if this lawsuit is successful.
All you need is to talk to some younger gamers to see how bad CS cases can be. My younger sibling (24 now) was surrounded by case gambling growing up and I personally know some kids highschool aged that are keeping the trend going.
Valvd does a lot of good things for gaming but this is really not one of them.
Finally, something I can criticise Valve for
The fact that California decided to sue Valve for Counterstrike and not sue EA for FIFA is just blatant targeted harassment. Valve’s right for pointing out that any precedent set here would make Pokemon cards and Baseball cards illegal, both of which are actually advertised directly to kids.
valve has a way to transfer money in your steam wallet into something with real world value: hardware.
you can not trade pokemon cards with nintendo for game cartridges or money, that is the whole distinction, no secondary market required.
I don’t think that’s how the law is written though. You can only get steam wallet funds for your skins, steam wallet funds explicitly have no cash value. The transaction at that point is done. A video game also has “real world value” you could just as easily say well I get steam wallet funds and than sell gifted games to other people. I don’t think your argument tracks with the law or steams user agreement.
it’s the only difference i see to other loot boxes or trading card games.
Dont the cards have value?
only on a secondary market in which those companies don’t participate. it’s a paper thin line which keeps trading card game booster packs from beeing gambling in a legal sense
So if they did not have any hardware available it would have been fine?
Maybe Steam should change the policy that store credits cannot be used to buy hardware
thats my understanding of it and if valve loses this, they’ll introduce gabe bucks to buy boxes and keys with and nothing meaningful will change.
Come on Valve. Abolish the loot box. Set an example.
But then Gabe could only afford 3 mega yachts instead of 6.
enjoy these nuts
It’d be nice to have all those boxes I picked up to be free.
Children yearn for the mines-ass argument
I bet they’d enjoy surprises they didn’t have to pay for even more.
yeah valve is pretty indefensible here…
People get addicted to drugs, alcohol, and gambling too; that doesn’t make it good for them.
I sure love me a surprise loot box when someone I know thoughtfully purchases what’s inside and gifts it to me.
People enjoy good surprises
But guys, Gaben cares. He made some features in steam launcher just for me!