It absolutely shouldn’t go away. My problem isn’t that Valve is being targeted, but that only Valve is being targeted. It should extend to all of the big players using gambling and addictive conditioning in video games starting with EA and Microslop/Activision, and then all of the gacha games from the east. Targeting Valve and nobody else is extremely suspicious, especially in the wake of the victory over the Rothchilds.

I don’t care if they exist, but you’d have to make it an 18 an over type of deal. I don’t really care how adults choose to blow their money, gambling included. You want to verify you’re over 18 so you can get loot boxes, you do you.

The TF2 loot crates were the worst, but you could get around them for crafting except for visuals. What’s crazy to me is that people are getting mad over visuals in loot boxes and that the gambling is largely over that. I don’t think you can put all the shit leading up to that to one company, yet bureaucrats persistently try to do it to avoid acknowledging their own dismal efforts to get their feet wet in implementing some basic legislation on the matter.

Before it used to be Asian MMOs that basically targeted people with addictive personalities with paid for RNG boosts that gave actual in-game advantages (and they will still exist, because they are not loot boxes, just dice rolls), now people are getting this invested over skins and 3D models. We need to address the core of the problem, because the same people falling for this bullshit are also the ones who fall for populist reactionary political bullshit pushing scammers onto our governments. Education and our social nets are clearly failing, and going after one of the better companies that’s guilty of this is not going to do anything when the problem is literally coming from the highest tiers of government as they rush to get their friends and family invested in predatory ventures. It’s sort of like living in Nazi Germany and thinking the most important thing to complain about is whether businesses forced to be sold are really getting their money’s worth instead of being forced to sell to whomever can buy them up the soonest.

I’m not a big fan of Valve’s use of loot boxes. But I’m also not happy about the proposed solution of “Just collect blood samples from all users”.

It also might not be exactly what NY is asking for, even if that’s how Valve would like to frame it. The actual ask might be to just stop profiting from gambling.

You drew a really strong link between what EA did and what Valve does, and that gives me the idea that you build your stance on that. EA lootboxes gave you nothing of monetary value, whereas that’s objectively untrue with valve.

You can say that the items are virtual so they’re not really valuable, but you can say the same thing about baseball cards in a sense; they provide no tangible value, only monetary value from sentiment, which is either real and applies to virtual items equally, or it isn’t in which collectable cards are in the same camp as weapon skins.

EA’s lootboxes gave items that could not be transferred, that’s also different from csgo boxes.

EA’s lootboxes locked core gameplay content behind them, and went so far as to reduce the playtime of people without them because the contents of the boxes were so overpowered making them a must have. I don’t recall ever having a noticeably worse experience playing CS because I didn’t have a skin, and I’m not already $60 in on the game y’know?

I agree that kids should not be able to buy cases unsupervised, and parents should be aware that this exists. But I also think that about pokemon and baseball and MTG cards as well, for the exact same reason.

I know I’ve done a lot of writing, so to summarize I’m not convinced by your logic. I believe CS cases are much closer to opening a pack of cards than you’re giving them credit for, and I think they’re an entirely different product than EA’s infamous lootboxes for a number of reasons.

Oh, it’s gambling because I’m addicted

The targeted court cases are to argue that the previously passed legislation already covers these particular facts.

If the legislature passes a law that says “making false statements to another in order to obtain something of value is fraud,” you can expect litigation about the actual contours of what is or isn’t fraud.

Same with legislation against driving at an unsafe speed, causing a nuisance to your neighbors, discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, etc. Court cases decide the edge cases.

If the legislature passes a law banning gambling outside of licensed institutions, and banning gambling for minors, you can expect litigation about what actually is or isn’t gambling.

Targeted court cases are how you get the ball rolling. You can’t just go after everyone all at once. You gotta start somewhere.

The NY AG doesn’t generally bring criminal suits. And “was a rapist in FL and a private island” may not be enough to give anyone standing to empanel a grand jury and indict.

If you live in NY and then take a vacation in Texas during which you open carry a AR15 and then “self defense” somebody at the Alamo who called you a Yankee, there wouldn’t be much NY could do if the local DA accepted your defense.

I’d highly recommend you check out People Make Games’ videos on Counter-Strike gambling, which include testimonials from child gambling addicts. And if you still need more convincing, there’s also some videos by Coffeezilla.

But I’d also like to see more companies held accountable for this than just Valve.

Biggest argument: it’s bad to get children addicted to gambling.

Secondary argument: if you buy a game, you shouldn’t have to gamble to get the game’s content.

I agree in theory with these kinds of rules, but I don’t trust legislators to do it properly.

For an example, I remember back in my rs2 days, RWT (real world trading) was relatively common and things like loot dropped from certain monsters was randomized, you might have to kill it 100 times to get that one drop or pay $5 or whatever to get it now.

Where would a legistlator fall on that? Is that gambling? Does RNG and the ability to transfer goods on a game then become illegal just by way of interpretation?

They hate billionaires except when it involves their treats

Fuck valve for loot boxes but also fuck you twice as much.

Valve is the only market place and game company that isn’t as fucking consumers at every step of the way.

They have ONE problem. Instead of ALL the problems like everyone else.

Fuck you Valve is the most pro consumer company there is. Go suck off zuckerberg and Tim cook you bootlicker.

I don’t really partake, so I’m always hesitant to have a really firm line in the sand, but we’ve seen a ton of harm come from the constant access to gambling that we’ve got now via sports betting that we didn’t have before deregulation in the wake of Draft Kings, so I’m inclined to lean toward it only being in designated locations. The problem here is similar in that you can access it everywhere and definitely exacerbated by not even doing the bare minimum amount of countermeasures against underage gambling, because they want to pretend that it isn’t gambling.

Make it so that gambling leads to a higher age rating for the game, and then let parents manage that the same way they would violence or language in a game. I think (hope) this would lead to a huge drop in lootboxes, rather than changes to ratings, but either way works for me.