Citing the alleged promotion of gambling toward minors, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Valve. The lawsuit claims that this is in direct contradiction to the state’s regulations on the matter, and the end goal, should the court rule in James’ favor, is to put an end to these practices and require fees to be paid in reparation.
The landmark lawsuit, should it prove successful, would be another tidal wave in a long-running gaming practice that has faced significant setbacks over the many years since loot boxes first became a popular money-making tool among US-based publishers. James takes aim at such popular Valve titles as Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, and the filing, unsurprisingly, does not mince words.
“Serious Harm, Especially For Young People”
“Illegal gambling can be harmful and lead to serious addiction problems, especially for our young people,” reads the lawsuit’s associated press release. Further down, it notes that “the value of Counter-Strike’s skins rose significantly in recent years, attracting speculators and investors who viewed these virtual items as potentially lucrative digital assets.”
And it’s no exaggeration, to be sure. We’ve seen a single weapon command a $1,000,000 real-world price tag on Counter-Strike 2’s marketplace. We’ve watched as the game has straight-up crashed over valuation. And that’s just Counter-Strike. Valve’s really gone full hog, some might argue, with other games that happen to have “2” in their titles. Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 are the attorney general’s other big targets.
“Valve’s loot box model can be especially harmful to children. Attorney General James asserts that young users with limited funds can be enticed to start gambling through loot boxes in the hopes of obtaining a virtual item that they believe will enhance their status in the games’ virtual worlds. Research has shown that children who are introduced to gambling are four times more likely to develop a gambling problem later in life than those who are not. In addition, although this case is about illegal gambling, it is important to note that Valve’s promotion of games that glorify violence and guns helps fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence, particularly among young gamers who can become numbed to grave violence before their brains are fully developed.”
Suffice it to say, there’s a lot to parse in all of this. Letitia James posits that Valve has made billions of bucks committing actions which, per the allegations, do not comply with New York law. The effort, as the press release emphasizes, comes from a claimed place of protecting children. In an era in which Roblox, which commands a greater share of play hours than Steam, PlayStation, and Fortnite (!) combined, is being sued from across the United States and beyond, there’s been quite a bit of talk over the protection of children.
Whether this qualifies as something equally severe is in the eye of the beholder, but Letitia James is certainly steadfast that it is. “While users are provided with a default set of guns and knives at the outset of CounterStrike [sic],” the official filing document reads, “they can apply skins to their weapons as symbols of status and affluence.” You can read the full filing here, but grab a snack before you do. It’s 52 pages long.
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