New York City Suing Valve For “Illegally Promoting Gambling” To Children Through Loot Boxes

The city of New York is suing Valve for loot boxes, referring to it as gambling.

They said this in a press release:

New York Attorney General Letitia James today sued Valve Corporation (Valve), a video game developer, for illegally promoting gambling through video games popular with children and teenagers.

An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that Valve’s video games, including Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, enable gambling by enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value.

The press release also explains that they believe Valve made billions of dollars through this practice, and that they lured gamers, knowing many are teenagers or younger.

The industry already went through an entire cycle over loot boxes, and went back again. The consensus among fans is that the way Valve implemented loot boxes was more fair and acceptable compared to other game studios.

But Attorney James is only the latest to take legal action vs. Valve over this issue. One such lawsuit in was dismissed in US federal court in 2022, but Valve lost another case in Austria in 2023.