The lawsuit aims to “stop Valve from promoting gambling features in its games, disgorge all ill-gotten gains, and pay fines for violating New York\u2019s laws.”
Gotta love how they just randomly threw in that long-disproved little tidbit about violent videogames making kids into psychopaths. Way to discredit your whole stance.
Way to discredit your whole stance.
People can be right about one thing and wrong about another at the same time. Do you have to be right about everything ever for one of your opinions to count?
If I’m gonna be sticking them together like this, yes.
By your own rules, you’ve invalidated your existence.
Nah
Sure, but doesn’t help when you go out of your way to say something stupid.
Nothing discredits a health lifestyle advice more than being followed by a rant about vaccinees. Same here.
Yeah, I agree the whole “video games cause violence” thing is incredibly stupid.
I don’t think having a dumb opinion about something discredits your other opinions though. They should each be taken on their own merits.
You’ll have a hard time convincing someone to change their mind if you just write them off because one of their opinions is dumb.
I didn’t write them off, just said they wanted to reinforce their position with something dumb, which has the opposite effect.
This is not a quote of something they said some other time about other topic, this was on the and breath.
To be clear, fuck loot boxes, hope they are banned. That’s why it’s bad to shot yourself in the foot appearing either uninformed or actively lying.
Sorry, I meant you as in people in general, not you specifically.
They are related opinions. If I read some diet and exercise advice that includes how to remove the negative energy from my crystals then I’m not going to waste time seeing if the other advice is valid.
You do if you’re building a lawsuit based on those opinions…
The downvotes, the shameful, wrong downvotes.
Guess everyone who did so is wrong about everything.
God I love downvoting people who complain about downvotes. I don’t even know why. It’s just incredibly funny to me for some reason.
It’s the same thing as stabbing a guy who says “what are you gonna do, stab me?”
Yeah. That is really fucking funny. You right.
I love blocking people who are gleeful about being shitty. I know exactly why.
You could have just chosen to not say dumb shit if you didn’t want people to downvote you. But here we are.
Dumb shit like not checking the usernames so you’d know the post in question was not mine? Hmm.
Also that comment was 100% reasonable. Nobody has come up with a sensible criticism of it.
Also that comment was 100% reasonable. Nobody has come up with a sensible criticism of it.
See, no one has to check the username. The dumb shit was inside the post all along.
The downvotes are because this is an attack and steam and their rapid fan boys will do the needful to defend their favorite billionaire.
Yep. As ever, all that matters are vibes. “Valve bad” = WRONG VIBES! Attacking someone who says “Valve bad” = GOOD VIBES! UPVOTE! Criticising the attack = BAD VIBES! DOWNVOTE!
Doesn’t matter whether it’s bollocks.
Criticising the attack = BAD VIBES! DOWNVOTE!
And that’s not exactly what you’re doing in response to someone criticising the attack on Valve?
No, there are defences of Valve that are perfectly reasonable.
You know what’s super funny about this? Your hatred for Valve is so god damned strong that your deep-fried head-circuitry can’t process that something might not be about that. So, I’ll spell it out in very simple terms.
Stopping gambling in video games = Good
Enabling people who can and have tried to censor and destroy the industry in the past = bad
My hatred for valve? Where the fuck does that come from? I couldn’t care less about them.
Their billionaire owner on the other hand, can go on the burn pile with the rest of them. How he made the billions doesn’t matter. I don’t make exceptions when it comes to eat the rich.
edit: I responded to the wrong person, my bad
On the one hand, good. Valve needs to be held responsible for this.
On the other hand, steam has the best parental controls of any platform I’ve ever seen. You can just not let your kid play those games. Parents should take responsibility for their kids. Games already have ratings and warnings and such.
On the third hand, I forsee this as being yet another means of forcing ID checks and face scanning into the platform. I don’t trust our government not to fuck this up in the worst way possible right now.
ID checks are a solution used when there are different rules for both adults and children. I don’t see how that would apply here, since the rules in NY appear to be the same in this case.
How is this valves problem? Shouldn’t the NY state government be banning shit like this? This is a policy thing
Well they are suing Valve, so obviously the NY Attorney General’s opinion is that it is already banned according existing policy.
I’ll admit I have marginally more trust in steam for ages verification than a lot of the other options.
As a parent of a small child, I’m very impressed with the options available via steam. Just the fact I can let them play games from my personal library surprised me. I don’t need to buy them a copy.
The gambling thing is definitely something that needs addressing. It’s one of the few black marks I have against valve.
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This similar thing happened in Belgium and the Netherlands nearly a decade ago.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49674333
While the court case was ongoing, the real world effect was that games with certain lootbox features could not be released in the Dutch or Belgian market without restricting its sale to adults. In practice this just meant that game publishers either disabled the feature in the Netherlands and Belgium, or didn’t release the game at all.
To my knowledge lootbox mechanics in games are still banned in Belgium
https://www.scl.org/12540-loot-boxes-are-not-gambling-under-dutch-law/
However, in the Netherlands, lootboxes were eventually found to not be gambling. The courts went along with EA’s argument that while lootboxes are a game of chance, the game around them is a game of skill. And therefor videogames with lootboxes should not be considered gambling under Dutch law.
Since the US has a similar requirement for something to be considered gambling (that is how people argued in favour of pinball machines at the time), I would suspect that companies that make money on lootboxes will defend themselves against this lawsuit with a similar argument.
Well here in the netherlands I couldn’t download the mobile pokemon trading card game. And I can’t bet points on twitch either when someone does a prediction. So there are still sometimes restrictions.
I live in Belgium and the law is there, but it seems pretty much ignored. At the time there were some games that were changed (battlefront II 2, overwatch, FIFA, etc…) But it seems like everything after just ignores the law. CS2 still had lootboxes, genshin impact, rocket league, apex legends, league, etc…
They changed the loot boxes in e.g. dota2 to always show what’s in them, the argument being that you’re no longer gambling then since you see what you buy. This of course conveniently ignores the fact that the gambling aspect just moved to the lootbox you buy after the one you see
With digital drivers licenses starting to roll out now, it doesn’t have to require a scan anymore.
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Finally a lawsuit against valve I can support.
The lawsuit also claims that CS2 and other FPSs are causing kids to become violent
Finally a lawsuit against valve I can support 99% of.
If this will be fixed i have nothing against Valve. This lootbox gamble situation is really the only bad thing I can think of that steam does. For the rest Valve feels pro-consumer.
Moderation on their platform and in any of their self-published titles is basically non-existent, to name an issue that’s imo more important than the item gambling.
Good
country finally starts cracking down on gambling
oh no wait nevermind they just want to sue a videogame company
They’re not wrong, it is gambling.
I quit playing games with loot boxes. Having said that my experience and valve with loot boxes were they were cosmetic only. I may be wrong about that.
Cosmetic or not, they are still mechanically the same as a slot machine.
Not mechanically the same at all. The reason they can skirt by and have not been considered ‘gambling’ is largely due to the fact that you always win something, even if the player to player market dictates that item as worthless.
A slot machine literally just takes your money and you are left with nothing but having pushed a button for the pretty lights and fun noises.
A slot machine literally just takes your money and you are left with nothing but having pushed a button for the pretty lights and fun noises.
What do you think video game cosmetics are if not pretty lights and fun noises?
I mean, fair, but it’s a digital item that you get to keep.
It may be problematic but I see it as less problematic than non-cosmetic items like Magic card packs
Not same lol, trust me, not even close…
Maybe not to you, but you don’t speak for all of humanity.
And you do. God damn people are stupid comparing tramadol to heroine
I never claimed to speak for all of humanity.
Them being cosmetics doesn’t change anything. People want cosmetics, they made a gambling system to get them, easy-as.
They are only cosmetic, but absolutely still gambling. That said, the design and use of the market and operations did mean it was far easier to avoid and far cheaper. For example, you could get basically a full loadout of skins, without ever opening a lootbox, for far less. Doesn’t change the fact that the lootboxes in CS (and everything else) need to be regulated though.
It’s content you unlock by gambling with real money. Doesn’t matter what the content is.
Finally someone standing upto Valve for the right reasons.
A good few years ago now, I watched as my two cousins, Steam voucher in hand (and he didn’t even have a gaming PC btw), faffed about with one of those sites promoted by shady Youtubers.
Codes went in. Buttons were pressed. Glances were exchanged.
“Now what?” asked the younger one who’s Steam voucher it was.
“Oh nothing,” said the older one. “You lost.”
I think it was only teenage emoism that stopped him bursting into tears right there.
He’s an accountant now, so I assume he learned an important lesson about gambling that day.
He’s an accountant now, so I assume he learned an important lesson about gambling that day.
Or it fully broke his spirit…
Why not both?
I’ve never been a gambler because I’ve only ever lost. I’d say I’m down ~$30 in the last 30 years.
I’m not really a gambler either. I’ve been to the casino a few times in my 20s with friends, but either for one of their birthdays or they were celebrating something. I only ever brought like $50 to drink with and another $50 to play with, knowing full well the most enjoyment of that hundo I was getting was the beers.
I did however win exactly once. Turned my last $10 of the 50 into $900. And that was also the last time I ever gambled.
I did once have someone give me a roll of quarters and I walked out with $70. I figured the only reason I won was because it wasn’t my money.
I mean, that’s pretty sweet!
It’s like me and lotto tickets. If I buy one, I lose every time. If someone buys me one I win either a free play or the value of the ticket…then lose on the free play
Gambling is pointless.
I enjoy low stakes gambling. I’ll walk into a casino with $20-40 bucks for gambling, buy a few drinks, and see what I can get. If I win enough to break even and pay for the drinks, I came out on top. I’ll throw 5 bucks down on a parlay during Football season once a month or so. Outside of that, I couldn’t imagine the stress of higher stakes. I do it for fun and maybe turning 5 bucks into 30.
Not for the House. It’s sort of their bread and butter.
KELSHI LITERALLY HAS SUPER BOWL ADS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN GOOD SIR.
People never cease to amaze me.
I’m assuming you mean Kalshi? Polymarket too, of course.
Games are all rigged, btw. But the spill-over has been eyebrow raising.
please would anyone think of Gabe‘s yachts?
For some reason, even though I have been using Steam for a long time, I am not privy to the “lootboxes” they talk about. And my account was never parented. I feel like I would actively need to look for what they are talking about.
disgorge all ill-gotten gains
Why is this the only lawsuit where I see this phrase?
Why do other companies go away with a few million $ in fine?-> Now I want to know how much Valve has “ill-gotten” out of this thing.
I definitely prefer GoG and being able to play all my games with the internet off and don’t consider Steam as some angel. But from what I see, the very fact that so many Gaming companies are trying to destroy Valve, tells me that Valve is giving value that these others don’t want given to the customer.
So, using what laws to sue a group of companies for the malicious use of court to attempt to reduce the overall quality of product options available to the consumers?
The lootboxes are a Counterstrike thing. They’re like Labubus except with digital guns and knives.
Ok, so I looked into it further and looks like they also take a tax on every trade, meaning they are actually profiting off of people’s auctions after they run their slot machines.
Seems to be quite a bit of ill-gotten gains to be found here.
Gabe might have to pass on a few of his future yachts.
Didn’t read the story, but how are loot boxes different than trading card game booster packs? I don’t like the consumerist nature of both, but just curious.
First of all: Trading cards are also abusive as fuck. What those Magic and Pokémon people are doing is not ok.
But loot boxes can be even worse: You can built them so that they will give you not a fair chance to get an item, but some companies are doing this the more evil way. Imagine that you need some specific item to get your full set, which will give you some buff. And the company knows that you are missing only that item. And it knows that you are willing to spend money, because you have just bought a loot box. So they will manipulate your odds so that you will not get the item you want. You’ll get several other “near misses”, but they also do know how many loot boxes other players opened before giving up. That is some additional evil that printed Magic cards in Walmart can’t do to you
While this is true of the most predatory loot box systems, no valve game has cosmetics that directly impact gameplay. They are decorative.
They aren’t. I’m sure if it went to court that lawyers would find a way to convince a jury otherwise, but we all know that’s bullshit. Booster packs are gambling.
They aren’t different. Both are a form of gambling. Same with blind boxes.
Loot boxes have been illegal in my country for quite some years now.
For CS I can’t buy any keys and open the boxes but I can buy the weapons on the market.
Can you sell, or only buy?
Because trading is still a form of gambling.
Also, curious what country you’re from.
Where in the world trading is a form of gambling?
Some people buy with the intent to sell later and turn a profit, like stock trading, is what I meant.
Trading is completelly different thing. There is risk of loosing money when selling or buying at the wrong time, but the product is still allways there and you have the opportunity to appraise the price of what ever you are trading.
In gambling there is promise of payout, but you have no way of knowing what you are getting.
I can sell and buy. I’m from a country in the EU.
And yeah, I can still “play the markets”. And I can also trade with those shady gambling services.
The EU! That’s surprising that there’s that limitation. Do you know why that restriction is there? Is Valve the one imposing that restriction, your country, the EU? Or maybe you aren’t old enough and there’s protections? I’m curious.
It’s my country that chose to do it yes. And no, I’m old enough. Any sort of gambling requires the provider to have a gambling license (and it must be 18+).
The lootboxes don’t even need to provide something that can be sold for real money. As long as there is randomization it’s gambling. Most games block such lootboxes from being sold in my country because it’s the easiest for them. In Guild Wars 2 I can’t even buy a lootbox that only contains untradeable armor dyes because it’s randomized.
Probably for the better? Not sure though.
In gw2, I’m assuming you mean that you can’t gain black lion keys?
But you can buy gems?
I like how if you can pay money and get something useful, it’s shitty for the company to do and pay2win.
But if you can pay money and it only be skins, it’s shitty for the company and purely for addiction.
But then if they can have value, now it’s really gambling and trading?
Yet we can pay money to play games which get us nothing and that’s fine.
The legal system still can’t figure out digital goods, it seems. Not a criticism, just an observation. If it were easy, it would be solved and everyone would be happy.
Maybe we should just listen to gamers. If it feels shitty, it is, and if it doesn’t feel shitty, it isn’t. But then also, we know that people in the throes of addiction don’t always know they are.
But also, why do we even ban gambling? To protect people from that which is an obvious abuse and manipulation of their senses to seal their money? Fair trade being allowed.
So then why does the definition of gambling have anything to do with randomization? Would it be better or worse if there was no randomization? To me, that seems irrelevant.
Ugh I’m getting too deep in this and society is starting to unravel. I’m starting to think about stuff like different geographic social contracts for how to medically research and agree on scientific findings, and how those do or don’t eventually define law. Like your country may accept certain expectations of law structure and how close it’s defined to the findings of whatever medical conventions you have, such as how addiction is formed and the level of social contract in result or even awareness of said findings. And also that much of games in general is randomized…
Hmmmmm. I wish there was a good answer for this stuff.
In gw2, I’m assuming you mean that you can’t gain black lion keys?
But you can buy gems?
You can gain them from map completion but you can’t buy them using gems. Gems can be bought for IRL money though and used for anything that isn’t randomized.
But also, why do we even ban gambling? To protect people from that which is an obvious abuse and manipulation of their senses to seal their money? Fair trade being allowed.
As I said, in my country it’s not illegal or banned. I have gambled on local gambling websites before. It requires a business to have a gambling license here, which isn’t something game companies seem to want. (I guess this would also set a precedent for other countries to tackle this sort of gambling.)
So then why does the definition of gambling have anything to do with randomization? Would it be better or worse if there was no randomization? To me, that seems irrelevant.
You can’t gamble if there is only a single outcome.
Hmmmmm. I wish there was a good answer for this stuff.
Maybe ban any sort of IRL money purchases of anything that has randomization and borders on gambling. I guess if it gets banned in the EU and US the rest will probably follow.
It would also have to have some sort of repeatability. If you only get one lootbox per account, even if it’s random, I wouldn’t consider it gambling.
It brings me back to valve adding skins in. They probably wanted it to be random so people wouldn’t just buy a handful of great looking skins but not the more normal ones. Honestly, if lootboxes were free and timegated and you only got one per day… Then the skin makers wouldn’t get any money. Unless Valve hired them, which they probably don’t want to do. But then also the game benefits from having high quality skins and they should just hire them… but then fans can’t really get involved in skinmaking.
So give free crates at a slow rate, but sell cheaper keys with count and rate limits. But kids shouldn’t be gambling.
Soo… The free crates are random, the paid keys are more expensive and let you manually select from a set like in gw2 mount select license.
That way, you can tie royalties to the set but give more to the skin that’s chosen. And, since the money isn’t spent on randomization, it isn’t shitty gambling.
Eh? Yeah? What do you think about that? See any flaws?
