They should sue Epic Games because Fortnite greatly popularized loot boxes and Microtransactions. Also other games which are the real culprit such as Overwatch, League of Legends, and more. Though granted Valve did make CSGO which was one of the first big games to popularize buying and selling video game skins. But of course lots of other games do it much worse like Gatcha games and mobile games.
Can start with the OG loot boxes of Magic the Gathering amd Pokemon? So much gambling & its targeted at children.
The fun part is that a lot of trading cards have their roots in the early movements for cigarettes. Same idea for the most part, except it was typical for pinups instead of monsters or magic. You bought tobacco to get the cards, so tobacco became popular amongst kids. If you wanted to collect em all, you would buy more boxes of cigarettes, so imo it's even more of a parallel than just calling out TCGs
The fact that the idea swapped to hooking kids on gambling is honestly a no brainer, especially since the cards were the things helping sell the cigs anyhow.
Lotta billionaire sucking in this thread. Just because you like his platform doesn't make GabeN a good person.
Everyone say it: There's no such thing as an ethical billionaire.
I am honestly a little bit in shock how people are willing to do volunteer PR for Valve.
They are an American technology, they can't escape the culture of corruption and criminality that dominates their region.
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.
Reminder: this was Epstein's idea.
Okay, but who do you want the NY DA's office to go after? Jamie Dimon? Bill Gates? Steve Bannon? Half of Activision/Blizzard?
Valve was the obvious choice.
All of them.
Finally someone standing upto Valve for the right reasons.
Finally a lawsuit against valve I can support.
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.
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.
country finally starts cracking down on gambling
oh no wait nevermind they just want to sue a videogame company
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.
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.
They're not wrong, it is gambling.
Good
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.
Is anyone else wondering if this is going to turn into another attempt to try to force face scans and id uploads?
Ideally the rule would be to just flat out not allow loot boxes, but I feel the government is going to try to use this opportunity to justify age verification requirements instead.
Interesting how this just happens after Valve wins against the Rothschilds in court, despite the lootboxes being available for the past 10 or so years in Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2.
If this stops loot boxes in general I'm all for it... can we also ban the sale of suprise toys also then because its the same thing as this...
Fuck we can go maximum carnage and stop the sale of card packs like pokemon and mtg and everything else as those are loot crates also
This wouldn't "stop loot boxes" though. They aren't bringing in EA, Activision, Epic, or any other big company pushing loot boxes.
It feels like they are trying to specifically target Valve until they go public and get controlled by the same BS financiers that run the rest of "the market".
My tinfoil hat is getting a lot of use lately. :(
Valve wins against the Rothschilds
Okay, tap the breaks. Can you field a link on that one?
lootboxes being available for the past 10 or so years in Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2.
In a lot more games than that. EA, Ubisoft, and Activision/Blizzard have been dolling out lootboxes for at least as long. So targeting Valve exclusively definitely raises some eyebrows.
But I'm curious to know what this has to do with "the Rothschilds" and not an actual financial, business, or government entity.
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.
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