Valve says it will fight the loot box lawsuit in New York

Since 2023, Valve says it has worked with AGs to explain how virtual items and mystery boxes work. He argues that players “don’t have to open mystery chests to play Valve games” and that most don’t “because the items in the chests are purely cosmetic.” Valve plans to fight James’ claims in court, but claims it will abide by it if the state legislature passes regulations regarding loot boxes.

When the lawsuit was filed, James issued a press release saying “Valve has made billions of dollars by luring its users, many of whom are teens or younger, to engage in gambling in hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in,” citing the game’s mechanics, which resemble a slot machine and can award items worth up to $1 million.

However, the company says it has “serious concerns” about the changes the lawsuit requires Valve to make, such as making the boxes and the digital items inside them non-transferable. “We believe the portability of a digital game item is a good thing for consumers, as it gives the user the ability to sell or trade in an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokemon or baseball card,” Valve wrote. “Portability is a right that we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do so.”

Other proposals object to including collecting additional information to determine whether a user in New York is using a virtual private network (VPN) to hide their location and perform age verification, even though existing payment methods offer built-in age checks. “The kind of obligations that the NYAG demanded of Valve went far beyond what existing New York law required and even beyond New York itself,” Valve writes. “It might have been easier and cheaper for Valve to make a deal with NYAG, but we thought the kind of deal that would satisfy NYAG would be bad for users and other game developers, and would impact our ability to innovate in game design.”