Valve put out a rare public statement on Steam on March 11 after the New York Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against the company over loot boxes in ‘Counter-Strike 2’, ‘Dota 2’, and ‘Team Fortress 2’. The lawsuit was filed on February 25 by Letitia James’ office and argues that the mystery box systems in these games operate as illegal gambling under New York state law.
Valve rejected the claim and compared its mystery boxes to real-world collectibles like Pokemon cards, baseball cards, Magic: The Gathering packs, and even Labubu figures. The company also pointed out that none of the loot box items affect gameplay and that every game named in the suit is fully playable without ever opening one.
The NYAG Compared Valve’s Mystery Boxes To Slot Machines
The whole argument from the state of New York comes down to the fact that players pay money for a random item without knowing what they are going to get. The NYAG compared that to how a slot machine works.
Most of what a player pulls from a loot box is worth almost nothing, but some items end up going for thousands of dollars on the Steam Community Market and on third-party trading sites. The state says the fact that these items can be bought and sold for real money means they carry financial value and that the entire system meets New York’s legal definition of gambling.
Valve said it was disappointed by the decision to sue because the company had been cooperating with the NYAG’s office since early 2023 to walk them through how the system actually works. However, the Attorney General went ahead with the filing anyway. This is one of four lawsuits that have been filed against Valve recently and the company had not said anything publicly about any of them until this Steam post.
Related: New York Sues Valve Over Alleged Illegal Gambling And Predatory Loot Box Mechanics
The company said that letting players transfer digital items between each other is good for consumers and compared it to how someone would sell or trade a physical Pokémon card or a baseball card. It is also worth remembering that Valve recently won a separate lawsuit, so the company does have some legal momentum heading into this case.
Valve Is Dealing With Four Lawsuits Right Now
The New York case is not the only legal problem Valve has right now. The company is facing four lawsuits total that were all filed recently, and there is also a separate loot box case going on in Washington. Valve has stayed quiet about most of them, and the March 11 Steam post about the NYAG lawsuit was the first time the company actually spoke up on any of these cases.
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Other parts of the world have already taken action on this. Belgium and the Netherlands both restricted or completely banned certain loot box systems a while back. As of now, the United States does not have a federal position on loot boxes, but if the New York case goes against Valve, it could set a precedent for how these systems are treated going forward.
Furthermore, companies like Epic Games and Activision Blizzard run similar systems in their own games, so whatever happens here is going to matter for a lot more than just Valve.
