Only Valve? I can name a few more companies.

Maybe this is what we need in a way. So many governments are jumping down valves throat specifically that they might actually cause valve to go bankrupt, deleting all of our multiple thousands of dollar libraries, and then (hopefully) causing riots. Which will (hopefully) cause the laws to be changed forcing these companies to SELL GAMES not fucking licenses for the temporary use of a game...

Idk. I don't want Valve to fail. I think that'd overall make things worse for gamers. I just want them to stop operating a casino.

I seem to remember a company that thought this sort of thing gave users “a sense of pride and accomplishment”

next thing they'll be saying is that loot boxes were in the epstein Files.

If they called them prediction boxes would it be ok then? Seems to work great for kalshi and other prediction market platforms.

I wonder if you get the crate and key for free, it would be considered gambling?

I'm not sure where I stand there. Steam is a great platform, but for purely capitalistic reasons. The only reason they aren't as bad as other platforms is because they're privately-owned and take the long view because they don't have to worry about the day-to-day fluctuations on stock value.

Gabe isn't your friend. He's a billionaire yacht-collector who makes the vast majority of his money by taking a massive cut from other company's products because of their virtual monopoly that exists because they launched an online marketplace in 2004.

Agreed, Steam is the only website I can buy video games from(GOG, i dont like their usage of GenAI and the current people behind it,and they dont have giftcards ),Epic games, subpar features and the company behind it),i appreciate Valve's contributions to Linux,and i like their philosophy of no cutscenes and extensive playtesting.
Though I cannot defend them for: Loot boxes,Tf2 neglect.

You technically can

I see

Let’s be a bit fair, your local store selling a physical copy is also taking a cut of the other companies profits. The 30% valve charges would be just the same as GameStop/other store would be marking up the game from wholesale prices. (I still would rather have physical copies, but valve charging a percentage on each sale has always been a bs argument against them)

Maybe since they own Steam, they'd cascade the ruling to games sold on their platform.

30% makes sense for a physical store with high overhead, inventory, staffing, and other expenses.

Valve could take a 5% cut and still make a ton more than a retail store for the same product.

The store isn’t also making games.

Like how Apple gets to take 30% of Spotify subscriptions and they operate a competing music service. That’s where it becomes wrong.

Of course, Valve doesn’t make games either now, so maybe it’s a moot point.

Open steam settings > Downloads, click the dropdown at the top. That whole dropdown menu? That's what their cut pays for. Rack space, network capacity, and storage, to deliver ALL games on steam efficiently, across the planet. That ain't cheap. And that's only part of what it pays for.

You know what it costs to run a retail store? And even in 2025 GameStop had 10 times as many retail store locations as Valve had employees.

And it's not like retail has no tech infrastructure expenses.

Grocery stores in my experience take on average 30-50% of the cut of anything they sell.
From working at one and managing orders/invoices.

If Valve fails, we'll have so many great alternatives, though!

• Epic Games Store, with it's... uh... better fee structure that benefits the publishers.
• EA's Origin, with direct access to the exact same Origin website but instead presented through an Electron app.
• Ubisoft Connect, with the latest access to Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games and related reskins sold under different IP.
• Battle.net, with the feature to run partially-downloaded games and stream missing assets in on demand.
• GOG, with real installers for its games that you can hoard to a hard drive sitting in your closet. (No sarcism. This one isn't terrible)
• The Microsoft Store, with its incredible ability to revoke your license for the Notepad.exe program that comes installed with Windows.

Who needs a forum, mod portal, user reviews, or Linux support anyways?

I am often in the comments of threads like this trying to explain how things people don't fully understand are in fact complicated.

Nope.

Not here.

Sue Valve over this, I hope they lose.

Yeah I dunno if currently existing law is or isn't sufficient to actually render a guilty verdict here...

... but I hope it is.

Lootboxes are bullshit, Valve does a lot of good, but this ain't that.

Stole mom's credit card to buy CS2 gun skins?

Yeah, if you wanna make the argument that a credit card is sufficient to screen if somebody is an adult or not, might be a good idea to, you know, not allow kids to gamble with mom's credit card.

Full NY AG press release:

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-sues-game-developer-promoting-illegal-gambling-through

The actual lawsuit filing:

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/new-york-v-valve-corporation-complaint-2026.pdf

If you get the key for free, which you can, but is by far not the most common way most keys are acquired, then probably it would not constitute gambling, as the player isn't putting any money in.

This... is how it originally worked, I think, for a time, when TF2 first came out.

You could get keys from either randomly playing the game and finishing or spending time in a round, or via achievements, iirc.

But yeah, then the keys could also be bought for money, and the whole trading market and steam wallet were introduced, and since then, probably 99% of keys for any game with em are bought, not acquired via in game activity.

Battle.net, with the feature to run partially- downloaded games and stream missing assets in on demand.

This just brought back a wonderful memory of playing original Overwatch and my hard drive failing in the middle of a match. Out of nowhere character models were being replaced with floating blue orbs and sounds were missing, but I could still finish the match with what was loaded into RAM!

They unironically were.

Epstein is on record talking with Bobby Kotick about pushing microtransactions on kids, like, over a decade ago.

https://www.aftribune.com/entertainment/epstein-files-expose-how-jeffrey-epstein-pushed-microtransactions-in-video-games/

To my knowledge, no former or current Valve employee was involved in any such discussions with Epstein...

... but yeah.

Lootboxes absolutely are in the Epstein files, he was all for 'indoctrinating kids into a digital economy.'

You may be too young to have experienced the before times, but MTX used to not exist, not be a thing.

You'd go to a store and buy an expansion pack to a game, whole bunch of new content and often new game mechanics, for maybe 1/2 to 1/3 the pricd of the original game.

Or, later, you'd just buy that online.

No digital fake currencies, no paying for a single game item, no battle passes.

EDIT:

But like really, pause, and think about this.

Epstein was involved with m00t, 4chan, getting the /pol/ board set up.

Esptein was advising top game industry execs on pushing MTX.

QAnon? A giant psyop/misdirect. All the weird pizza terms and shit that people fixated on? Yeah those were the terms the Epstein class was using, in their emails.

There's fucking photos of Epstein in rooms full of servers and computers that are literally labelled CIA.

... the entire digital environment of primarily the US but of course also the entire world...

... was substantially shaped and molded and created by a ring of wealthy people who all share the common attribute of loving to exploit children.

We live in a society built by groomers and rapists, operating in the shadows, gaslighting everyone that this is all normal.

Its way, waay bigger than just the specific, actually trafficked or murdered victims.

They built a digital reality that revolves around exploiting children too.

The actual lawsuit mentions only ten of millions of dollars in sales that Valve has made from lootbox keys and steam market transaction fees... for all the citizens of New York... for over a decade of running the lootbox system.

Not hundreds of millions, not billions.

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/new-york-v-valve-corporation-complaint-2026.pdf

Page 3, point 13.

Valve is estimated to have yearly revenues of around $20 billion dollars a year, est net worth of about $10 billion.

This is a rough guess napkin math that may be wrong, but untill this lawsuit proceedes, we don't have numbers about how much money Valve makes specifically from lootboxes, because they're a private company and don't have to disclose that.

If its only tens of millions of dollars, for a decade, from everyone in New York...

Even if Valve had to shit-can all lootboxes going forward, pay fines and restitution, I think they'd survive fairly ok.

I'm not just referring to this one lawsuit, the EU also sued them for quite a bit.

Of course, Valve doesn’t make games either now, so maybe it’s a moot point.

Deadlock would like a word

Clearly gambling so good luck NY.

A .world user who is simultaneously against corporate regulations and for protecting pedophiles. Note my lack of shock.

Do they not know how to read where you come from?

Ok, now sue the Stock Exchange.

Like... The state of New York? Is suing the Bellevue, WA gaming company Valve?

Scratches head

...In 2026?

NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) - New York's attorney general sued Valve

First sentence of the article. The state of New York is suing valve.

Valve has customers in New York so they are allowed to do so, I imagine.

Idk are laws even real anymore?

HECK YEAH

I hope Valve loses.

Laws have never been real. It's just magic paper that society has to collectively agree to believe in for them to work. But they do not apply to the powerful. So it's just a tool of slavery.

It varies depending on the product, the profit margin on soda for example is often over 100%, other products such as milk would be negative (loss leaders), but in general, most non-junk food groceries usually have a single digit profit margin

Isn't there gambling everywhere now? (Roblox, sport betting on the Internet, millions of phone apps, blind box subscriptions, Pokemon) Why does it matter with Valve? I'm not supporting crappy loot boxes or gambling, just didn't really get the lawsuit.

Relative to the money being spent on games it is incredibly cheap.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

So because it's everywhere it's good?

These arguments just maintain the status quo. Yeah its everywhere and it's almost normalized but it's not in anyway a good thing. There should be laws against gambling and especially when you target children.

RS has a similar thing, but recently they have gotten rid of most of thier lootbox(keys) MTX, and decided to nerf the game as well as a vendetta.

Pokemon cards is basically lootboxes i think pokemon is more horrendous on that front than the other TGCs, because they refuse to change the pullrates to negate scalpers.

Maybe I didn't articulate very clearly...

It seems an odd time to attack Valve when there are more egregious companies doing much worse of this sort of thing AND worse things happening in the world.

An extreme analogy would be like when Nazi Germany was rising to power and you sued the Jewish public transportation and train industry for false advertising of their fares.

Does that make sense to you? It's a bit complex, so I can understand if maybe that's a bit tough to fully comprehend.

I mean, sure. But I think you might be underestimating the infrastructure costs. They aren't just using a few 10GB switches. They also aren't just using a single data center to store and deliver games. Then, you have to consider all of the redundancies involved, the contractors, the data center contracts, etc. Even if they don't have their own DCs, AWS or Azure at this level is $$$$$$.

Storing, transferring, and hosting at this scale is not cheap by any means. It makes GameStop's tech infrastructure look like peanuts in comparison.

I remember those days. Console games would release and that was it. The sequel(or expansion) might fix a thing or two. Multiplayer meant hanging out with friends. Computer game lobbies had custom game servers. If you wanted to wear a funny hat you would play on the funny hat server.

I don't really care for many multiplayer games so the MTX bug didn't have much of a chance to bite me. I did play TF2 when it started until it started to have items. All the fun evaporated. The hats weren't so funny when every server was the funny hat server.

I have a friend who has spent a lot of money on loot boxes since day one. There's no stopping the guy. When I was still around the neighborhood we grew up in we'd hang out often enough. I remember at least one night he was glued to his phone opening counterstrike boxes/crates while the rest of the crew was hanging out. I think he got a cool knife out of the hours spent on it. Maybe he sold that knife for the loot box money. I have no idea to be honest. It was a lot of crates for a game I've never played in a currency I don't understand. The MTX bug could raise great grandchildren off of a whale like him. It was weird seeing him under the spell of it all. Counterstrike was playing him that day.

He's not "one lootbox away from living on the street" but I found it concerning the amount of money going up in smoke like that. He is just one of many people who do it. It's gambling but the prize is a digital carnival item you might be able to sell on their marketplace. I'm glad I don't get it.

Does that make sense to you? It's a bit complex, so I can understand if maybe that's a bit tough to fully comprehend.

Are you attempting to be condescending when you couldn't figure out whether it was New York city or New York state bringing the suit? How embarrassing for you.

Anyway, what valve is doing is supporting a nascent gambling scene involving 3rd party resales of loot box stuff, and the loot boxes themselves are basically gambling. Its not something that should be normalized. They are profiting off this and there are children involved. Normally I don't think "save the children" arguments have much weight to them but this is a solved problem: we regulate gambling industries.

Please understand: I use steam. I think its awesome. I'm hyped to play my steam games on Linux. But steam is in the wrong here imo.

And yes, there are bigger evils in the world, but this is still a worthwhile case. [Sentence redacted, privacy]. This shit is gambling and it needs regulation.

Ha! All the points to you!!

Meanwhile people are probably betting on if Valve will lose or win this battle.

Hang on a sec I'm just putting some money on "Will NYC sue the stock exhange"... /s

...it's gotten so out of hand.

That's the sad thing about trading card games. I think they're neat, and like how the rules and strategy work, but the defining business model of "rarities" and blind packs making it a wallet war seem almost built in to the game itself.

I guess the alternative is simply to have collectible sets with known cards in them maybe? I guess like how miniature warfare games use point-buy systems so you have to weigh which units you want instead of just fielding a ton of the most expensive / powerful ones.

On one hand: I just want my Steam Frame so I can put a real, actual computer on my face and escape into it and dev on it, dammit. I bet the gambling allows them to take risks like that.

... On the other hand... illegalizing loot boxes might directly put us on the path to Half-Life 3 or even Left 4 Dead 3? And it's morally upstanding so...

It's actually a bummer that if they lose it'll probably just make them cut access to loot boxes SPECIFICALLY in NYC IP address ranges and nothing else.

Well, if you read the lawsuit, NY is seeking:

1. Well of course, the court to determine Valves lootbox + key paradigm is illegal

2. Pay a fine to the state

3. Resitution to all NY residents

So, even if it did only apply to NY... you would at least be due to have all your key purchases refunded, as welp as the amount that Valve shaves off of every item transaction in the marketplace.

I am also not so sure that Valve actually makes like, the bulk of their money off of keys and marketplace fees. We don't know, because those numbers are not public, though more will likely come out as a result of this case doing discovery...

But based off of the estimates and info that is out there, my guess would be that key+marketplace txn fees is roughly between 5% and 10% of their yearly revenue.

My guess would be that the vast majority of their money comes from the generally 30% cut they take from 3rd party game sales.

So... I would think the primary problem with getting a Steam Frame is still the... RAM price crisis caused by AI, and more generally, the fact that we're doing the Second Great Depression.