Valve has a Gambling Problem

[Charriu]

I just watched this video about Valve and found it worth sharing especially because we have some parents here too:




Basically there exists a growing casino business around Valve's CS:GO skins, which is open to minors and Valve like other companies isn't doing anything against that.

[Jowy]

I know a bit about this. Valve was one of the early adopters of the lootbox mechanics and item trading with their game Team Fortress 2. You'd pay real money to open these chests that would have random items in them, and these items would have varying odds of showing up. The very rare items would be worth the most money. For example an item with a drop rate of 1% and with chests taking 2 euros to open, you would in average have to spend 200 euros to get one of those items. These items could be traded openly to other players. So you can see how it is already gambling even before you consider what happened with CS:GO. In CS:GO some of these famous influencers would set up their own casino sites around items that they already own, with their own odds and payouts. They would play on the sites themselves and stream it, with odds heavily rigged in favour of themselves, to make it look more appealing to the viewers. We've gone from gambling to scamming. Regardless, the lootbox mechanics are very profitable to the companies that own the games, so lootboxes heavily spread and became a standard in the industry, even for games where you cannot trade items. More aware players have tried to petition governments to take action on these, and some have succeeded. There is a country in Europe where lootboxes are banned, might have been the Netherlands but I'm not sure. In Japan you are required to show the full odds for every item you can get. As I see it, there are a couple big issues: 1) Most people are really bad at understanding odds 2) Some people will develop real addictive tendencies to gambling that can ruin their whole lives 3) Many of these games are aimed at underaged people. It is a predatory practice, although so are things like modern advertisements. Insert capitalism rant here. Finally, I want to note that a recent boom has been cryptocurrency gambling. These sites rarely have anything in place to stop children from using the sites. One of the ways they advertise is through top streamers on Twitch and YouTube, paying them literally hundreds of millions to gamble on their site on stream. Many children kinda see these streamers as their "friends" and will trust them when the streamers tell them they can win it big too.

Ideally you would not allow your kids to do any kind of gambling or to watch gambling streams on Twitch or YouTube. Even if you limit their money use, gambling can have an effect on their brain.

[Tarkeel]

Dan Olson (Foldable Human) had a good video on Fortnite's version of this some time ago.

[Charriu]

There is a country in Europe where lootboxes are banned, might have been the Netherlands but I'm not sure.

You almost nailed it. It's Belgium.

[Boro]

To be fair netherlands still restricts the types of lootboxes allowed, and if the winnings can be traded away, then it has market value, which is a form of gambling requiring a license that can't(?) be given to gaming companies (or streamers).

[Brian Shanahan]

I know a bit about this. Valve was one of the early adopters of the lootbox mechanics and item trading with their game Team Fortress 2. You'd pay real money to open these chests that would have random items in them, and these items would have varying odds of showing up. The very rare items would be worth the most money. For example an item with a drop rate of 1% and with chests taking 2 euros to open, you would in average have to spend 200 euros to get one of those items. These items could be traded openly to other players. So you can see how it is already gambling even before you consider what happened with CS:GO. In CS:GO some of these famous influencers would set up their own casino sites around items that they already own, with their own odds and payouts. They would play on the sites themselves and stream it, with odds heavily rigged in favour of themselves, to make it look more appealing to the viewers. We've gone from gambling to scamming. Regardless, the lootbox mechanics are very profitable to the companies that own the games, so lootboxes heavily spread and became a standard in the industry, even for games where you cannot trade items. More aware players have tried to petition governments to take action on these, and some have succeeded. There is a country in Europe where lootboxes are banned, might have been the Netherlands but I'm not sure. In Japan you are required to show the full odds for every item you can get. As I see it, there are a couple big issues: 1) Most people are really bad at understanding odds 2) Some people will develop real addictive tendencies to gambling that can ruin their whole lives 3) Many of these games are aimed at underaged people. It is a predatory practice, although so are things like modern advertisements. Insert capitalism rant here. Finally, I want to note that a recent boom has been cryptocurrency gambling. These sites rarely have anything in place to stop children from using the sites. One of the ways they advertise is through top streamers on Twitch and YouTube, paying them literally hundreds of millions to gamble on their site on stream. Many children kinda see these streamers as their "friends" and will trust them when the streamers tell them they can win it big too.

Ideally you would not allow your kids to do any kind of gambling or to watch gambling streams on Twitch or YouTube. Even if you limit their money use, gambling can have an effect on their brain.

Most people aren't very numerate, and the two most problematic areas are probability and percentages.

On the whole lootbox problem in general, Belgium's and Netherland's bans are the least that should be done on them. A total ban (at least on money trading of items) is probably appropriate, given the demographics of those who play the types of games.

[Boro]

of all the things to come out of two bots necroing a thread...

[MJW (ya that one)]

Ban the spambots!

[Tarkeel]

Age restrictions sounds like a great solution until you start to delve into it and realize that it infers strict ID control: In order to check someone's age, you need to know who is currently using the product. You can (and should!) get around using direct identifiers to using a pseudonym of sorts, but it needs to be re-authenticated pretty often so as to stop parents or older friends from letting kids use their ID.

(Then there's the whole issue of the US not having a strong identifier at all)

[Ramkhamhaeng]

EDIT THE LINKS TO THE GAMBLING SITES AND BANN THE 3 ROBOT ACCOUNTS.