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'm not a lawyer, and even having perused the official filing, it's still legalese that I can't swear I fully understand. There are two possibilities of what NY state actually wants:

1. just stop selling loot boxes
2. you can sell loot boxes, but only if you've verified that your customers are of legal gambling age

And I don't know for sure which is true. Of course it's in Valve's best interests to represent this to their customers as the government trying to violate your freedoms, because it gets the public on their side. Remember the Epic case against Apple, where Epic knowingly broke a contract with Apple allowing in-game purchases to cut Apple out, then they had a trailer parodying the 1984 Apple ad to garner public support with "Free Fortnite" ready to go.

These are two different things. You don't need to let valve sell loot boxes to stop new York from implementing mass surveillance.

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.

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.

stop it in physical games as well

I think the connection to physical cards is pretty weak really - the crucial difference being that if you want to get some physical cards, you go out and buy them (or stay in and buy them I guess). You start with nothing except some cash, and you end up with some random cards, which may or may not be valuable.

Loot boxes in F2P games are not like that - you play a free game, have fun and then end up with this "loot box" without having done anything to ask for it. It's just there in your inventory, and it stays there until you fork over some cash and see what's inside.

It's way more of a temptation than physical cards that you won't encounter until you buy them.

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?

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.

Gachapon machines. They're extremely huge in Japan, hooked me young since they were always in the entrances/exits of grocery stores here in the usa.

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.

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.