No one is forcing you to charge for that type of mechanic. What a stupid defense. It's gambling. It's advertised to children.
It doesn't matter how much you like valve for other reasons. They are in the wrong here.
this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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In general, they hold that criminalising loot boxes as a form of gambling "will have an impermissible chilling effect on protected videogame design", creating a risk of liability for people who stream about lootboxes together with people who sell analogous products, like the aforesaid packets of baseball cards.
I'm failing to see the problem here. Baseball cards, randomized "blind boxes" and packs are all gambling aimed at kids. If we "chill" that sort of speech (and commercial speech has long received less protection) that's a good thing.
But but but... Money!
I didn't understand it when this lawsuit first popped up either.
But the fact is, Valve run a loot box mechanic and a storefront where the items in loot boxes can be traded and purchased with store front currency. That might not be problematic except that you can use that shop currency to buy actual real world products like the steam deck and controller. So there's an avenue to monetary gain here that is first party and that's the problem.
I like Valve generally as a company but this does in fact appear to be illegal.
Valve's argument isn't in defense of free speech, it's in defense of Gabe's next yacht.
a reminder that no corporation is your friend, and even valve will do scummy things if that's where the profit is.
I am glad, that the comment section here isn't filled with Valve fanboys, like it's usually when Valve is criticized.
That always pisses me off. How hard is it to realize there are actually no good billionaires?
you mean maybe they'd do a proper TF2 update or actually make games again instead of constantly phoning it the fuck in?