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

[Hispo]

~snip

Yes, I’ve seen cases of parents in despair because their children maxed out their credit cards, spending over $2,000 in a single month on in-game purchases. I realize the scale of the problem that it represents. I just think gambling is a different story and shouldn't be compared to that.

It’s the parents’ fault. First of all, why allow your child to play a video game if you can’t take care of them? Secondly, if you’re allowing them to play the game, why are your credit card details accessible to them?

It’s the parents’ responsibility to take care of their child and monitor their actions. As for loot boxes, they’re common in almost every game. They’re basically optional purchases where you spend money on skins, cosmetics, or other ingame items. This happens in many games that allow players to buy or trade cosmetic items.

Valve is simply more popular, which is probably why it has attracted more attention. I would say the New York government is overreacting.

That is sadly a common story nowadays, with parents being too busy to give attention to their own children and also with so many options, games and applications which care used to keep children and teens distracted all the time.

Also, it is worth mentioning, in the case of counter Strike, I am not even sure it is supposed to be a game which can be played by a child, as it is a first person shooter where police agents shoot terrorists... It may be a double irresponsibility by those parenta to even allow their children close to Counter Strike in the first place.

I am eager to see what the justice of New York has got to say about this case.

[batang_bitcoin]

Even before New York sued Valve. I think that they've already made a change on how the teams, players or any user of their platform and plays their games not to be used for any gambling related endorsement. That's why deals with Valve sponsored tournaments won't be allowing team sponsorships that are vulgar to their names. But of course these managements are wise enough to just give a shortened name of the casinos that they represent but that's still in lieu of the rules that Valve has made that there should be no major sponsorships from a casino on team names.

[qwertyup23]

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.

It is actually gambling if you look it on a bigger and wider angle.

You can receive loot boxes and crates in-game but in order to open them, you have to purchase the "key" on Steam for $2.49 each. Now these loot boxes contain rarity of guns that differ on the percentage of getting them. Obviously, the rarer the gun, the harder it is you would be able to get them.

Just to add also, you can trade these in-game items and crates for money online. There are also numerous betting websites involving these guns that you can get from crates and other websites that directly purchase these guns for real-life currency.

Now, let's have a checklist to determine if it does contain some elements of gambling:

• Contains loot boxes that can only be opened by real-life currency? CHECK;
• Opening boxes gives you a random rarity of skin which ranges from common to extremely rare? CHECK;
• Element of risk is present? CHECK; and
• Skins can be traded to real-life currency? CHECK

I think it's quite obvious that there is indeed gambling inside some games made by Valve. It's a difficult pill to swallow and it will depend on the prosecution on how they would establish these elements to make out a case of illegal gambling.

[knowngunman]

Why are we suddenly hearing many news about countries suing casinos? Is this a sign that they are getting stricter when it comes to regulation, or are regulators just making ridiculous judgments because they are not updated with their knowledge?

Just like in the Philippines, there was a shooting incident involving minors and one senator is calling the developers of GoreBox to attend the hearing.

For me, this is an example of ignorance from the regulators.

What do you expect from these people? When you have legislators that are more interested in fulfilling personal goals more than community goals, they'll engage in frivolous bills instead of impactful bills.

For several times, our legislators have frame gambling as a youth crisis that causes financial, social and mental damages. Nobody is arguing. We know the implications and dangers of gambling but there are other several pressing and challenging issues that need attention more than gambling drama.

They obviously have nothing to offer hence they create drama to divert attention.

[bakasabo]

Gaming industry should be put under monitor because it looks like a wild-west or place where almost no laws work. Game developers steal other developers ideas and create their own games. When you buy a digital game, it turns that you dont own the product but only rent it (then why its price is the same or close to physical copy of the game). Lots of game include loot-box mechanics which is an obvious gambling. I dont know how much people have lost already in total while trying to get better and unique game skin by opening those loot-boxes.