TheRetroArcade
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The state of New York sued Valve in February over allegations of illegal gambling.
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Two weeks after the state of New York sued Valve for "letting children and adults illegally gamble," Valve has fired back with a defense of its practices, saying it doesn't believe the containers in its games constitute gambling under the state's laws and expressing disappointment that the attorney general's office would opt to pursue the case despite Valve's efforts "to educate them about our virtual items and mystery boxes."
The New York attorney general's office reached out about its concerns in early 2023, Valve said in its lengthy rebuttal, at which point the company told the AG that loot boxes "are widely used, not just in videogames but in the tangible world as well," comparing them to things like baseball cards, "which generations have grown up opening," as well as Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Labubu. It also points out that because all of the items in Valve's loot boxes are purely cosmetic, players aren't actually incentivized to open them: "there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money."
Valve says that while it doesn't believe its loot boxes constitute a form of gambling under NY law, it made the AG's office aware of its efforts over the years to crack down on the forms of gambling that have taken place outside of Steam using Valve's in-game items, something it very specifically noted is "in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement."
"We also shared with them our efforts to combat fraud and theft of users’ items and our extraordinary measures to stop gambling sites from taking advantage of Steam accounts and Valve game items," Valve wrote. "Valve does not cooperate with gambling sites. To date we've locked over one million Steam accounts that were being misused by third parties in connection with gambling, fraud, and theft.
"We’ve also shipped features (like trade reversal and trade cooldown) to discourage gambling sites’ ability to operate and protect Steam users from fraud. And we forbid any gambling-related business to participate in or sponsor tournaments for our games."
It's a very broad defense of Steam that goes beyond New York's specific allegations about illegal gambling enabled by loot boxes. Saying it's locked over one million accounts for "gambling, fraud, and theft" casts a very wide net: Does that number include hack...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
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Two weeks after the state of New York sued Valve for "letting children and adults illegally gamble," Valve has fired back with a defense of its practices, saying it doesn't believe the containers in its games constitute gambling under the state's laws and expressing disappointment that the attorney general's office would opt to pursue the case despite Valve's efforts "to educate them about our virtual items and mystery boxes."
The New York attorney general's office reached out about its concerns in early 2023, Valve said in its lengthy rebuttal, at which point the company told the AG that loot boxes "are widely used, not just in videogames but in the tangible world as well," comparing them to things like baseball cards, "which generations have grown up opening," as well as Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Labubu. It also points out that because all of the items in Valve's loot boxes are purely cosmetic, players aren't actually incentivized to open them: "there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money."
Valve says that while it doesn't believe its loot boxes constitute a form of gambling under NY law, it made the AG's office aware of its efforts over the years to crack down on the forms of gambling that have taken place outside of Steam using Valve's in-game items, something it very specifically noted is "in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement."
"We also shared with them our efforts to combat fraud and theft of users’ items and our extraordinary measures to stop gambling sites from taking advantage of Steam accounts and Valve game items," Valve wrote. "Valve does not cooperate with gambling sites. To date we've locked over one million Steam accounts that were being misused by third parties in connection with gambling, fraud, and theft.
"We’ve also shipped features (like trade reversal and trade cooldown) to discourage gambling sites’ ability to operate and protect Steam users from fraud. And we forbid any gambling-related business to participate in or sponsor tournaments for our games."
It's a very broad defense of Steam that goes beyond New York's specific allegations about illegal gambling enabled by loot boxes. Saying it's locked over one million accounts for "gambling, fraud, and theft" casts a very wide net: Does that number include hack...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?