Just check how much money GTA online has made for Rockstar every year. It’s an 11 year old game that makes half a BILLION dollars yearly.

No wonder they’re not in a hurry to get GTA 6 out. It MUST be better than GTA online both for gameplay and microtransactions as well as have the tech for live service

When they were asked to implement age verification in Germany, they simply pulled anything off their platform in the country that would require it instead. Mind you Germany has a system that makes age verification anonymous so if privacy concerns you, you could just implement it. (Almost no platform does because they want your data though.)

Valve doesn’t want to touch age verification with a 10 yard stick and that tells me it is probably the way to go here. Because once they have it, the path for more regulations is clear.

Not going to happen since Valve doesn’t want to manage a database of IDs. It’s why sex games with real life actors aren’t allowed on Steam since that would require Steam to have IDs and consent contracts of all the actors stored on their side.

And Gaben is a hardcore libertarian, probably despises government IDs.

It is a solution for underage gambling, but adult gambling is also a problem

That’s not a solution at all. First of all, depending country, you will need a gambling license. This is a PITA as gambling laws will differ per country. In my country gambling is heavily regulated and you would need to check ID and keep track of how much a person gambles. You have a duty of care and if you notice a person’s gambling habits are becoming problematic you have to refuse them.

Pokemon doesn't have direct control of the mechanical system by which pokemon cards are traded. They also don't get a percentage cut whenever a pokemon card is bought/sold on their storefront, and they don't take pokemon cards as payment for games, software, and computer hardware. Valve facilitates, profits from, controls, and could ultimately shut down, these online casino spaces. They actively choose not to, and participate in using loopholes (see the xray scanner). Ideally, yes, the government fixes this. Realistically, any solution that isn't going to take years, and be easily bypassed with a VPN, or just having your company be based in a "sanctuary" country, is going to lie with Valve. Either self enforced or forced by the US govt, they have the means to kill gambling easily because they control the accounts involved, the systems used to trade said items, and the virtual currency players earn. Even something as simple as adding age verification would help. They don't have to stop, just accept responsibility for having an in game slot machine that spits out items that have real world value, and follow laws and measures to protect minors.

So yes. i hold Valve, a massively profitable company directly facilitating and profiting from its illegal gambling industry to the point where the casinos openly sponsor pro teams to a higher standard than the company that prints pokemon cards, which can be bought and sold and gambled with like any physical good in a physical game of chance.

It's not his place to provide a solution: he is a journalist exposing a problem. Do you have such expectations for all journalists talking about any topic?

When articles get shared about any other company using micro/macrotransactions, predatory tactics or gambling-related schemes, people's consensus is unanimous, but when Valve is involved, suddenly people have double standards.

Valve is fairly tame for their direct involvement with lootboxes and is competiting directly against companies that use them far more agressively [...] Ubisoft and EA have already been attempting to dislodge Steam for years, and its not because they think they can be more moral than Steam.

Valve could shut down the entire gambling market today and nothing would change to their market position. Steam is not the number one marketplace because of the skin market. They are leaving it as is because it nets them money. I don't know how can you call Steam "fairly tame" when they are literally allowing multimillion dollar casinos to exist and operate without impunity. They sent a C&D to casinos and then washed their hands of the problem, because ultimately they don't really care about shutting them down.

They could ban accounts linked to the casinos, but they don't, because they profit from them. They could have some sort of account-level check to make sure that minors don't spend their steam gift cards on CS skins (which, by the way, Coffezilla proposes at the end of the video) , but they'd rather use the gambling loophole of "akshually, it's not gambling as defined by law". Then they lie through their teeth by saying that they "don't have any data" supporting the claim that the gambling aspect of the game has profited them by leading to more interest in their games, which is bullshit.

PC players, and Lemmy users in particular, have a huge double standard for Valve.

He did say govt should be involved, and I'd agree generally. Gambling and gambling lite like lootboxes need regulation to die, but Valve is also a massive company running the biggest game storefront in the world, and they don't need the money from the lootboxes and cuts from selling and trading. They aren't in direct competition with most game creators, they compete with other storefronts, and it isn't even close. They could fix this relatively easily and it would barely make a dent in their finances.

They could also leave the lootboxes and gambling up, and just implement an age verification system, one that locks you out of trading until the account is verified 18 or older, and add other tools like locking yourself out of trading or opening boxes similar to how casinos allow you to blacklist yourself for your own good.

In terms of a relatively quick, relatively painless, realistic fix, with a decent timeframe, valve makes the most sense, and they can fix this extremely easily compared to getting every government in the world to agree, implement, and enforce regulations. Ideally, yes, governments fix it. Realistically, kids are getting addicted to gambling and having their lives ruined right now, and valve has the power to stop it. I think it's fair to ask, and expect a real answer, yes or no.

Its the problem with corporate worship. People cant admit that their team might be bad, and by extension..their worship might be wrong, so they just get angry and hostile.

Especially when you point out that a lot of what they praise about Valve, was forced reactions to actual consumer protection lawsuits, or the threat of a possibility of one.