Steam Support :: About the New York Attorney General lawsuit against Valve
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Official statement from Valve.

We shared with the NYAG that these types of boxes in our games are widely used, not just in video games but in the tangible world as well, where generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive.

You’re right! We should stop that too!

  • deliriousdreams@fedia.io
    2·
    13 days ago

    Yeah I was missing the key detail that you need to pay to open the loot boxes which gives them a base monetary value as the starting point and does essentially equate to pay for the contents inside. That combined with them also running a market for trades and sales of the item is very synonymous with the pachinko machine setup and I do agree that this is gambling.

    Thank you for taking the time to explain. I haven’t played any of Valve’s games that have loot boxes so I didn’t understand how it was different from loot boxes in Destiny or Battlefield.

    • Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      Oh yeah, I completely forgot to mention that part because for some reason I thought everyone knew you can’t open Valve lootboxes without paying for it. That’s a very important distinction to make because if you could open them for free there’s an argument that because you’re not putting money in it’s not legally gambling.

      • deliriousdreams@fedia.io
        1·
        13 days ago

        Yeah. a lot of people don’t mention it and I had no frame of reference but I kept seeing comments that sort of alluded to that. I tried to Google it but with the current news cycle that information is buried and I couldn’t find a source. And of course I don’t play those games so I just didn’t know.

        Still, thanks again.