Valve responds to NY lawsuit over loot boxes in CS2, Dota 2

The New York attorney general’s complaint states, “Nearly every user who buys a key and opens a loot box receives a virtual item that is commonplace and worth only pennies — far less than what they spent to open the loot box.” It argues that people open loot boxes for the same reason they gamble at casinos: “the potential of winning a large prize.”

Valve, on the other hand, argues that its loot boxes are similar to tangible products like blind-boxed toys and packs of trading cards. “Generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive,” Valve says. The company also shares its “concerns” with the way the NYAG wants to alter its games, namely that the NYAG wants the contents of loot boxes to not be transferable.

“They appear to assume digital mystery boxes and items in our games are different from tangible items like baseball card packs,” Valve says. “We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers—it 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 Pokémon or baseball card.”

Valve also details ways it has worked to crack down on fraud and theft, as well as strategies to “shut down accounts found to be using Valve game items on gambling sites.” Valve takes a not-so-subtle shot at the NYAG toward the end of its statement, saying, “We will of course comply if the New York legislature passes laws governing mystery boxes—something it has not done despite considering the issue a few times.”

This is only the beginning of the legal battle Valve is preparing to fight in court. The company will also have to contend with a class-action lawsuit in Washington that was recently filed. Valve has not publicly responded to the lawsuit filed in Washington.