No one is forcing you to charge for that type of mechanic. What a stupid defense. It's gambling. It's advertised to children.

It doesn't matter how much you like valve for other reasons. They are in the wrong here.

I am glad, that the comment section here isn't filled with Valve fanboys, like it's usually when Valve is criticized.

In general, they hold that criminalising loot boxes as a form of gambling "will have an impermissible chilling effect on protected videogame design", creating a risk of liability for people who stream about lootboxes together with people who sell analogous products, like the aforesaid packets of baseball cards.

I'm failing to see the problem here. Baseball cards, randomized "blind boxes" and packs are all gambling aimed at kids. If we "chill" that sort of speech (and commercial speech has long received less protection) that's a good thing.

Valve's argument isn't in defense of free speech, it's in defense of Gabe's next yacht.

a reminder that no corporation is your friend, and even valve will do scummy things if that's where the profit is.

I agree it's gambling, but where is the line? Is killing a boss in World of Warcraft not gambling? You also have various chances of getting random rare items, which you can then sell for real money on third party sites.

Where is the line between random outcomes being part of the game, and it being gambling? CS:GO is really obvious, but what if they didn't have the box opening thing, you just got the random skin directly after winning a match, without having to explicitly open the "loot box"? Would it still be gambling then? Feels like it should since the end result is the same, but then every game with loot has gambling. I genuinely don't know.