Valve is being sued by the state of New York for the use of loot boxes in its games, which the New York Attorney General has said are gambling.
The complaint, which was filed earlier today in Manhattan, accuses Valve of violating the gambling laws and regulations in New York, specifically identifying loot boxes as a form of gambling, as players have to buy keys with real money to then get a chance to win in game items.
As resported by Reuters, the documents refer to these systems as “quintessential gambling,” and Valve obviously has no gambling licence that would allow them to run any gambling in the state. The suit also refers to the fact that a lack of age restrictions also opens this potential gambling up to children.
Attorney General Letitia James is potentially looking to find Valve more than three times the gains it has received from lootboxes, which given the scale of the skin economy in Counter-Strike alone, could be in the billions.
Valve is yet to comment publicly on the issue, but given the firm’s long running lack of public communication that is not unexpected.
While Valve has faced regulatory issues over skins and gambling accusations in the past, most notably from the Washington State Gambling Commission in 2016 that ordered the company to shut down sites that were using CS skins for betting, this is perhaps the one that could finally signal some major changes for how the publisher operates.
In Counter-Strike 2 Valve has been slowly moving away from the case and key loot box system, testing out new features that somewhat remove the random chance for an item after you have already put down real money. There has been speculation with many players and fans that Valve will eventually remove the current loot box system, and with this legal case now focusing on that issue, you would think that Valve would want to make that happen sooner rather than later.
Of course all of this could have major ramifications on the Counter-Strike skins market, which has been up and down for months now. Late last year Valve introduced a new system where players could trade in lower quality skins to earn some of the rarest in the game, which then in turn crashed the high value skins market in Counter-Strike 2. Since then volatility has continued, and any further changes to the lootbox systems could further increase that.
