[NEWS]NewYork Suing Valve for for promoting "illegal gambling" Inside their game

[libert19]

First, what do you guys think about lootboxes inside a game? Do you think it's gambling or not?

I used to play this mobile game called call of duty mobile, and it had lootboxes and as well as lucky draws. I always considered it gambling; lucky draws were bit better, at least you knew you'll be getting what you want after certain spins.

Well, unlike here at least one can sell items in CS, so that's a big plus.

Link to the article: https://www.xda-developers.com/new-york-is-suing-valve-calling-its-lootbox-systems-quintessential-gambling/

Ah XDA been years since I opened that site. Man, I miss being fanatic about mobile stuff.

[Wakate]

If kids don't get the prizes they want, they will curious and will buy other chances. That makes them addicted to it and they can do anything chasing it.

From offline and online games, kids are susceptible becoming addicted to the games. If this case succeed, there will be another games that almost similar with the Valve so it should needs responsibility from parents to monitor their kids.

We have been seeing different cases where kids are involving themselves in gambling without the awareness of their parents which is something no one can stop because they have full access to the internet which is not regulated.
There are so many areas the government need to work on not accusing innocent casinos for allowing children to use their platforms to gamble when there is no exact manner this can be done to prevent their actions.

[Zadicar]

If kids don't get the prizes they want, they will curious and will buy other chances. That makes them addicted to it and they can do anything chasing it.

From offline and online games, kids are susceptible becoming addicted to the games. If this case succeed, there will be another games that almost similar with the Valve so it should needs responsibility from parents to monitor their kids.

We have been seeing different cases where kids are involving themselves in gambling without the awareness of their parents which is something no one can stop because they have full access to the internet which is not regulated.
There are so many areas the government need to work on not accusing innocent casinos for allowing children to use their platforms to gamble when there is no exact manner this can be done to prevent their actions.

Its not something that could really be totally solved out or would be isolated on which considering that even if gambling sites are having those KYC and minors arent  allowed but still there are those who do able to bypass. How much more into something such as this lootboxes on games on which parents wont really be wary about and having these lootboxes could really eventually gambling in the real essence. This is why no matter on how it would really be monitored out but still there are now ways that can be completely eradicate or would be able to avoid our kids on dealing something which is in related to gambling but of course it would be that still relevant or important as a parent on having that proper guidance into our kids and somewhat having those periodic checks or once in a while on what your kids been dealing on with atleast.

[asriloni]

Just a bit of an update regarding this thread

So, as expected, Valve bid to dismiss the lawsuit New York filed against them. Basically, Valve is arguing that the mystery boxes they have are like the mystery collectable packs(for any curious, he is referring to the Pokémon card mystery packs/baseball card mystery packs), and no legislature or court has deemed opening mystery packs as illegal gambling. They said a lot more, but this is basically the gist of their argument as to why the mystery boxes in their game are not gambling.

If you want to read the full article, here's the link.
https://www.courthousenews.com/valve-moves-to-dismiss-counter-strike-gambling-lawsuit-in-new-york/

I don't think Valve's argument was right. They're comparing their lootboxes with blindboxes when they can easily manipulate % for each item in the lootboxes. The better they do disable the lootboxes feature in the NY like what they did in Netherland and Belgium.

They have stop to claim not to be an online casino while the fact they're also online casino with their lootboxes.

[junder]

The lawsuit filed against Valve is a consequence or risk that the company must accept because, fundamentally, it made a mistake by promoting illegal casinos or illegal gambling and the term “illegal” clearly implies that this is something prohibited.
What I’m worried about is that children who enjoy playing games might be exposed to or even try games with gambling elements, even if gambling is legal in their country, since they are still minors.

[Johnlomape]

The lawsuit filed against Valve is a consequence or risk that the company must accept because, fundamentally, it made a mistake by promoting illegal casinos or illegal gambling and the term “illegal” clearly implies that this is something prohibited.
What I’m worried about is that children who enjoy playing games might be exposed to or even try games with gambling elements, even if gambling is legal in their country, since they are still minors.

This is one of the ways the government is using to generate money and I feel like they can be cautioned instead of fining them to pay huge amounts of money as sanction for their illegal gambling services to people that are not supposed to be gambling.
Casinos like this should tightened their terms against rebellion from gamblers that may be using their service without consent when it's open as a term restricting gamblers from such countries. If Vave had tightened their terms, this would have not happened.

[Orpichukwu]

Then almost every in app purchase that is not guaranteed to give out the rewards such as skins or avatars will fall under the gambling too? I don't think this lawsuit will withdtand and they are taking this to extreme level while the actual level gambling is happening on very social level.

Until someone makes them abolish that belief about loot boxes, this type of argument will keep on going, and this is part of the things that add to the gaming experience. I don’t know how they are describing it as gambling in the first place; instead of focusing on tackling gambling addiction and providing help to solve addicts' problems, they are chasing minor issues.

[Hispo]

What could realistically happen if Valve lost this lawsuit against the USA state of New York, by the way?
Are they going to prohibit people from that state to get access to counter strike and other similar games which have lootboxes mechanics?
Will valve completely get rid of the Lootbox mechanic and make all their skins obtainable by simply paying for them directly, as it it happened with other games like Overwatch?
If the do that, there will be a lot of people who could lose a lot of money since their skins could get directly purchased and it would not involve any form of gambling-like mechanics...

If I was holding expensive skins, I would be nervous about the outcome and the defense Valve will have to build in order not to get  get into account.

[iv4n]

First, what do you guys think about lootboxes inside a game? Do you think it's gambling or not?

Many crypto casinos have lootboxes. It's basically a spin where we can win a box of some value, and the chances of winning the top prizes are under 1%... even lower. So it's gambling. People, and in this case mostly kids, can spend a lot of money on spinning and maybe getting nothing.

They should remove this feature from games... they are promoting gambling, and kids don't even know what they are doing. It's not fair play! Skilled kids without money will not have interesting items if they don't have money, so in some way it's forcing all kids to play it so they can be in trend.

[davis196]

I don’t consider it as gambling since the rewards is an in-game item which just happened to have a value set by the players who is willing to pay for that item due to its rarity.

This is same when buying pokemon cards booster park which collectors doesn’t know what inside and can sell rare cards in the open market.

If lootboxes categorize already as gambling then all gatcha type game that has real fiat value will fall to that same category.

CS:GO casinos were a trend in the past few years for a reason. If the in-game item has a monetary value, this means that it can be used for gambling. I know that Valve doesn't host any CS:GO casinos or any other gambling platforms, where those skins are being used by gamblers to stake instead of money and to win instead of monetary rewards, but those lootboxes have definitely an element of gambling in them.
You buy a lootbox for X amount of money, and you are hoping to get an in-game item, which costs XXX amount of money out of that lootbox. Isn't that gambling? I'm a huge supporter of the idea, that games like CS:GO should reduce the artificial scarcity of their in-game items and lower their prices.

[Betwrong]

~
For those who don't know, there have been debates for years about lootboxes or Gacha being a form of gambling, there were even petitions years ago demanding that lootboxes and gacha be removed from inside the games, as kids are being exposed and getting addicted to it.~

Kids, no matter they play afterwards or not, definitely shouldn't be exposed to gambling. In my opinion, if gambling is promoted inside a game, this should be FOR ADULTS ONLY. It's that simple. If an adult gambles and then becomes addicted, it's their problem. But if a child starts gambling, it should be the responsibility of those who exposed that child to gambling.

[rohang]

This should have happened long long ago,

They made billion+ with dota and CS chests/treasures since their launches
Also the steam market economy formed from these skins which themselves were used to gamble as well on sites like dota2lounge,vpgame etc

For some EU countries they have made it better by showing the skin before opening but RoW its still the same

[YellowSwap]

There are tons of games with loot boxes, it adds more to the excitement of the game, this is very normal, if NewYork can sue because of loot boxes they should do the same with Axie infinite and other play to earn games because they all have lootboxes.

The only different with console games is no money involves but I can remember very well that Call of duty multiplayer has something similar too where you can claim lootboxes with better weapons using some coins called CC and whatever you find in the boxes is yours.

I don't know why they are making a big deal out of this like it's some kind of crime.

[TypoTonic]

Just a bit of an update regarding this thread

So, as expected, Valve bid to dismiss the lawsuit New York filed against them. Basically, Valve is arguing that the mystery boxes they have are like the mystery collectable packs(for any curious, he is referring to the Pokémon card mystery packs/baseball card mystery packs), and no legislature or court has deemed opening mystery packs as illegal gambling. They said a lot more, but this is basically the gist of their argument as to why the mystery boxes in their game are not gambling.

CS2 is free to play, and loot boxes has been their primary source of revenue. I think the main issue here is that the rare items are selling for absurd prices in their community-driven marketplace. This is what happens when players dictate the price, and there are people willing to buy regardless. So now instead of just getting an in-game item, players are basically "gambling" with the loot boxes, hoping to get something that they could sell and make money off of.

[acroman08]

What could realistically happen if Valve lost this lawsuit against the USA state of New York, by the way?
Are they going to prohibit people from that state to get access to counter strike and other similar games which have lootboxes mechanics?
Will valve completely get rid of the Lootbox mechanic and make all their skins obtainable by simply paying for them directly, as it it happened with other games like Overwatch?
If the do that, there will be a lot of people who could lose a lot of money since their skins could get directly purchased and it would not involve any form of gambling-like mechanics...

If I was holding expensive skins, I would be nervous about the outcome and the defense Valve will have to build in order not to get  get into account.

This is just my assumption, but if Valve lost the lawsuit, they could be forced to remove the lootboxes or at least the gambling element(the game of chance) the lootboxes have. And yeah, they could be forced to just make the skin obtainable by simply paying for it directly in order to remove the "gambling element", which is what New York wants to happen in their lawsuit. As for the people who got the skin through lootboxes, yeah, the price of the skins would probably drop drastically, and it would probably drop below the purchasing price in the game.

[Wakate]

~
For those who don't know, there have been debates for years about lootboxes or Gacha being a form of gambling, there were even petitions years ago demanding that lootboxes and gacha be removed from inside the games, as kids are being exposed and getting addicted to it.~

Kids, no matter they play afterwards or not, definitely shouldn't be exposed to gambling. In my opinion, if gambling is promoted inside a game, this should be FOR ADULTS ONLY. It's that simple. If an adult gambles and then becomes addicted, it's their problem. But if a child starts gambling, it should be the responsibility of those who exposed that child to gambling.

Do you know that it can be very hard for gambling to be limited to kids because their activities are not mostly controlled by their parents or guidians due to their unlimited access to the internet. There is no way a casino can know if a gambler is an adult or a child that is not supposed to gamble. The regulation of gambling should start from home to the outside world.

[Nwada001]

Kids, no matter they play afterwards or not, definitely shouldn't be exposed to gambling. In my opinion, if gambling is promoted inside a game, this should be FOR ADULTS ONLY. It's that simple. If an adult gambles and then becomes addicted, it's their problem. But if a child starts gambling, it should be the responsibility of those who exposed that child to gambling.

And since kids love to play video games, if any of those games somehow promote gambling, there should be an age limit and restrictions on who is allowed to download the game. That way it might limit who can access it, even when it can’t be 100% effective. No matter the pattern used, some kids can still find their way around to access games limited to them.

[Filicius]

I've long been of the opinion that lootboxes share many typical characteristics of gambling, and the fact that you can now trade items for real money in many games is the missing feature to be completely sure of it. I suppose you've heard that a lot of people are already planning to live off the profits they make from selling in-game products or services when they release GTA VI.

The boundaries between classic video games and other types of businesses are increasingly blurring, and the authorities are taking note and acting accordingly.

[jaberwock]

Games are getting attacked everywhere, and even social media. UK banned social media to kids for example, and you have to realize, while it is not JUST kids that use social media, they are a big number. Plus, it is not just kids that play games neither, but it's a big number.

So when you consider all of these, we are going to end up with a lot of trouble for the long term and it is not going to be very profitable for the people neither. I think it's clear that we are going to see things change, and it is not going to be easy, we are seeing too many things changing at the moment but the se "bans" are a new wave and very bad for the market.

[allthebitandbobs]

Unfortunately it is true that banning has become something a lot more common these days. In every country, all around the world, governments are banning stuff and making things more and more illegal. Freedom is being pressured a lot, and things are changing badly. Just last night on twitter I saw some cops show up and told someone not to tweet about something and threatened basically a person who tweeted about some MP (political position) and the dude asked if tweeting was illegal, and cops said no, but be careful because it can be, what he tweeted was not, but you can't just tweet anything you want.

So basically, tweets are our thoughts, and not even speech, literally thoughts and now they are offering possibility of jail for thoughts. In a world like that, lootboxes being banned is not even shocking. We need to get our freedom back, or governments will take it away from us forever.