Yeah I'm getting pretty tired of the "everyone must pay the price to protect kids"

Why are kids able to access adult sites without ID? Everyone must prove they're an adult online to read books with adult themes. Why are kids able to use installed applications that could have some forbidden social features? Everyone must prove their age to their operating system to use an electronic device. Why are kids able to access alcohol at their homes? Adults should have to keep their legally purchased alcohol at government approved holding facilities, where they may take a drink after proving their age. Why are kids allowed to stay out after curfew? Everyone must wear a shirt with their name, address, and birthdate printed after 11pm on week nights.

This is a new trend in law and we need to stop getting tricked into allowing it. It is the parent's responsibility to be aware of what their child is doing and either allow or prevent it. I don't want parents spying on their kids and think there's an element of trust for sure, but I'd much rather have the parents spying on kids than the government and their contractors spying on EVERYONE. It's ridiculous and infringes on rights established through rigid SCOTUS precedent including Stanley V. Georgia, and NAACP V. Alabama.

We're a bunch of pansies now that lick the boot with ID verifications online in red states and OS-level requirements in the blue ones. The internet and all of its offspring are not meant for children's unsupervised use, but it isn't the public's responsibility to bear the burden.

Just call Nintendo and tell them this will fuck the Pokémon cards. You'll get the most rabid lawyers in the world at your side

Don’t forget about the NYSE! If that ain’t gambling, then I guess I don’t know what is.

I love Valve, but I don't think this one is going away and I don't think it SHOULD go away. F2P games with RNG loot boxes are a scourge and I don't play games that have them for that very reason.

Valve needs to win this. Or at least stop this part:

The NYAG also proposed to gather additional information (beyond what we normally collect in the course of processing payments) about each game user on the off-chance someone in New York was anonymizing their location to appear outside of New York, such as by using a VPN. This would have involved implementing invasive technologies for every user worldwide. Similarly, the NYAG demanded that Valve collect more personal data about our users to do additional age verification—even though most payment methods used by New York Steam users already have age verification built-in. Valve knows our users care about the security of their personal information, and we believe it’s in our and their interest to only collect the information necessary to operate the business and comply with law.

Loot boxes are overall bad for users and should be regulated. But not by getting valve to collect personal information on everyone in the world.

As much as I like Valve, I really hate their virtual items trade market and the lootboxes in some of their games. I hate if EA does that, so I hate if Valve does that. And comparing them to real cards falls flat, because virtual cards are not real cards. Valve does not want give up the trade market, because they get money for doing nothing with each transaction.

This topic is the biggest flaw and problem I have with Valve, otherwise I am a Valve lover and fanboy.

I’m not a big fan of Valve’s use of loot boxes. But I’m also not happy about the proposed solution of “Just collect blood samples from all users”. That doesn’t protect kids, and risks harm and increased surveillance to many other users. It also means companies in similar situations to Valve are forced to safeguard data they didn’t want to be involved with.

I don’t buy that Valve is fully at fault on the concept of targeting children. I don’t see how parents are held at gunpoint to attach credit card data to Steam accounts, or to check the “remember my info” box. Valve has also attempted to add adequate parental account controls. The main reason I oppose Valve on loot boxes is those shouldn’t be used on anyone. I’d like the NYAG to equalize pressure on sports betting sites.

You’re right! We should stop that too!

Then it needs to be done through legislation, not targeted court cases.

oh yes please delete all the analogue gambling for children too. make it something everyone has to follow

I think it's possible that loot boxes (and real-world equivalents like trading cards) don't violate existing anti-child-gambling laws, but if so, that's a flaw in those laws that needs to be fixed rather than an indication that they're totally fine and should be allowed to exist in their current form. They cost money and give an unpredictable reward where different options have different perceived value, so they're quite clearly gambling to anyone who defines it based on its characteristics rather than an individual territory's specific legalese.

Yeah I don't really think so, GabeN. Loot boxes should go the way of the dinosaurs.

Gotta wonder why the NY AG is so interested in prosecuting Steam and so blase about pursuing anyone in the Epstein Files.

They didn't even mention the little toy vending machines where you put in a quarter and get a random toy or sticker. Those are what I always equated lootboxes to. You always get something; but it's almost never what you'd like to get.

How Valve sounds right now: "It's totally cool to rip off kids with blind box stuff and get them addicted to gambling mechanics!"

I'm with you OP, we need to stop it in physical games as well. Just because Magic the Gathering does is and Labubu does it doesn't make it okay. It actually just creates artificial scarcity and pushes children and the families providing them the money to gamble ever harder to get the rare drops, on the off chance that those are valuable.

Even Beanie Babies never stooped that low.

I guess G*mers love loot boxes now.

Fuck Valve for the profiteering off child gambling.

And fuck the G*mers that keep giving Valve a free pass because they've been a monopoly longer then they've been alive.