Since 2023, Valve says it has worked with the AGs to explain how its virtual items and mystery boxes work. It argues that players โdonโt have to open mystery boxes to play Valve gamesโ and that most donโt โbecause the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic.โ Valve plans to fight Jamesโ claims in court, but claims it would comply if the stateโs legislature passes regulations related to loot boxes.
When the lawsuit was filed, James issued a press release saying โValve has made billions of dollars luring its users, many of whom are teenagers or younger, to engage in gambling in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on,โ citing in-game mechanics that resemble a slot machine and can award items worth as much as $1 million.
The company, however, says it has โserious concernsโ about the changes the lawsuit is pushing for Valve to make, such as making boxes and the digital items inside non-transferable. โWe think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumersโit gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokemon or baseball card,โ Valve writes. โTransferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that.โ
Other proposals it objects to include collecting additional information to determine if a user in New York is using a virtual private network (VPN) to disguise their location and to perform age verification, despite existing payment methods offering built-in age checks. โThe type of commitments the NYAG demanded from Valve went far beyond what existing New York law requires and even beyond New York itself,โ Valve writes. โIt may have been easier and cheaper for Valve to make a deal with the NYAG, but we believed the type of deal that would satisfy the NYAG would have been bad for users and other game developers, and impacted our ability to innovate in game design.โ
About The Author
