TheRetroArcade
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The consumer lawsuit comes just over a week after a similar suit filed by the state of New York.
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Less than two weeks after New York state sued Valve for "letting children and adults illegally gamble" with loot boxes, a second, consumer class-action lawsuit has been filed making essentially the same allegation: That loot boxes in Valve games, like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 are "carefully engineered to extract money from consumers, including children, through deceptive, casino-style psychological tactics."
"We believe Valve deliberately engineered its gambling platform and profited enormously from it," Steve Berman, founder and managing partner at law firm Hagens Berman, said in a press release. "Consumers played these games for entertainment, unaware that Valve had allegedly already stacked the odds against them. We intend to hold Valve accountable and put money back in the pockets of consumers."
The system is well known to anyone who's played a Valve multiplayer game: Earn a locked loot box by playing, pay $2.50 for a key, unlock it, get a digital doohickey that's sometimes worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars but far more often is worth just a few pennies. Is that gambling? If these cases go to court, we'll find out.
The full complaint points out that the unlocking process is even designed to look like a slot machine: "Images of possible items scroll across the screen, spinning fast at first, then slowing to a stop on the player's 'prize.' Players buy and open loot boxes for the same reason people play slot machines—the hope of a valuable payout."
Loot boxes, the complaint continues, are not "incidental features" of Valve's games, but rather "a deliberate, carefully engineered revenue model." So too is the Steam Community Market, and Steam itself, which the suit claims is "deliberately designed" to enable the sale of digital items on third-party marketplaces through "trade URLs," despite Valve's terms of service prohibiting off-platform sales.
And while the debate over whether loot boxes constitute a form of gambling continues to rage, the suit claims Valve's system does indeed qualify under Washington law, which defines gambling as "as “staking or risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the person’s control or influence.”
"Valve’s loot boxes satis...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
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Less than two weeks after New York state sued Valve for "letting children and adults illegally gamble" with loot boxes, a second, consumer class-action lawsuit has been filed making essentially the same allegation: That loot boxes in Valve games, like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 are "carefully engineered to extract money from consumers, including children, through deceptive, casino-style psychological tactics."
"We believe Valve deliberately engineered its gambling platform and profited enormously from it," Steve Berman, founder and managing partner at law firm Hagens Berman, said in a press release. "Consumers played these games for entertainment, unaware that Valve had allegedly already stacked the odds against them. We intend to hold Valve accountable and put money back in the pockets of consumers."
The system is well known to anyone who's played a Valve multiplayer game: Earn a locked loot box by playing, pay $2.50 for a key, unlock it, get a digital doohickey that's sometimes worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars but far more often is worth just a few pennies. Is that gambling? If these cases go to court, we'll find out.
The full complaint points out that the unlocking process is even designed to look like a slot machine: "Images of possible items scroll across the screen, spinning fast at first, then slowing to a stop on the player's 'prize.' Players buy and open loot boxes for the same reason people play slot machines—the hope of a valuable payout."
Loot boxes, the complaint continues, are not "incidental features" of Valve's games, but rather "a deliberate, carefully engineered revenue model." So too is the Steam Community Market, and Steam itself, which the suit claims is "deliberately designed" to enable the sale of digital items on third-party marketplaces through "trade URLs," despite Valve's terms of service prohibiting off-platform sales.
And while the debate over whether loot boxes constitute a form of gambling continues to rage, the suit claims Valve's system does indeed qualify under Washington law, which defines gambling as "as “staking or risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the person’s control or influence.”
"Valve’s loot boxes satis...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?