CS:GO players in Belgium and the Netherlands can no longer open cases - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.pcgamer.com/csgo-players-in-belgium-and-the-netherlands-can-no-longer-open-loot-cases/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0 The latest update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive brings both good news and bad news for players in the Netherlands. Steam trading and Steam Market functionality, which were disabled last month, have been re-enabled, but players in the country, as well as Belgium, are no longer able to open containers—which is to say, loot boxes. Market and item trading were switched off after the Netherlands Gaming Authority ruled that some videogame loot boxes—it didn't reveal which—were in violation of the country's gambling laws and therefore had to be changed, with a deadline set for June 20. Valve said at the time that it didn't "understand or agree with" the ruling, and had contacted the Gambling Authority for clarification; in the meantime, "our only practical alternative is to disable trading and Steam," it explained. Belgium issued a similar ruling on loot boxes shortly after the Netherlands and specifically named CS:GO, along with Overwatch and FIFA 18, as being in contravention of the law, but did not set a deadline for compliance. Re-enabling the CS:GO market, but disabling cases, means that players in the Netherlands will be able to buy and sell items directly, but not partake in the randomized luck-of-the-draw of lootboxes. That probably won't make CS:GO fans who like to play the ponies very happy, but it's presumably enough to keep Valve out of legal trouble, and it's better than the across-the-board shutdown that Valve went with originally.

Really hope that it spreads as much as possible, developers who include lootboxes in their game can go fuck themselves.

Valve said at the time that it didn't "understand or agree with" the ruling, and had contacted the Gambling Authority for clarification; How stupid do you have to be to not understand this

Valve said at the time that it didn't "understand or agree with" the ruling, and had contacted the Gambling Authority for clarification; in the meantime, "our only practical alternative is to disable trading and Steam," it explained. "guys this law thing doesn't let us have csgo lootboxes in Netherlands" "I knew this day would come. Pack up your stuff, Steam is no more."

Hopefully this will be a wake up call for Valve to change their bullshit income model.

Artifact's model is the next generation of greed. Game isn't free, how you obtain card packs will likely not be free, and you can't trade cards with Steam trading, just the Community Market so Valve gets dat market cut every time. And I believe cards will rotate as well.

Man I'd love for it to spread to all of europe

What's completely bullshit about all of this is Gabe Newell claims this is because TF2 proved that the free to play model isn't good for the longterm health of the economy. Except that the main problem with TF2 being F2P is that idlebots farmed so much metal that it made it impossible to trade up for items without spending real money. The actual value of hats, stranges, and so on was unaffected, and Valve's bottom line wasn't harmed at all - in fact, it's likely it drove profits up, as more people were forced to buy keys.

If this ban becomes widespread, Valve will have to look into another avenue of income They might have to *gasp* make games or something

hl3

They do, it's just not in their interests. man fuck valve.

F2P game economies work with oversight combatting things like idle bots, which Valve isn't apt to do. The most they really interact with the economies besides community made content drops is a new experiment like collector's grade items or music kits. Maybe they got turned off from oversight after the Cheater's Lament fiasco

Even I remember the ruling is, as long as your lootboxes give content that has a monetary value, it's illegal Might be a little off though. but since the marketplace exists for this, that's where the line is drawn

If thats the case, just disable steam marketplace for that country?

Well, they did And they also removed trading in the article btw They reverted this for removing lootboxes only

One could only hope

HL3, but the game is sold in physical crates and only one in five creates actually have the game in them. You also need to buy a key to unlock the crate.

this pisses me off, because some people defend Valve's practices and dismiss the people who want games on basis like "you're a bunch of fanboys with lunatic dreams!" and shit of the sort, while in reality, Valve became lazy af after figuring out you could whore out people of their money for skins. It's just so damn obvious, and I don't get how anyone can defend this.

"This is unethical." "But it makes us a lot of money, how can it possibly be unethical?"

This is from 2015, but look how stingy Valve is. 93% of key money goes to Valve and the remaining 7% is split between the contributors. A CSGO mapper said Valve was very compensatory though so I guess it varies by game. https://twitter.com/joewintergreen/status/651879114169696256

I don't think the question is "does Valve make games?" but rather "can Valve finish a game and if so, what kind of game does it need to be?" Artifact gives us one example, but we don't know what other possibilities there are, if any exist at all.

This is great, but is it only CS:GO? What about the other games with loot boxes? I don't even play CS:GO anymore so I don't really care unless it's for all games

Heh sure as hell wouldn't have thought 10 years ago that Valve would become as much of a shitstain as EA. At least EA maintains their god damn platform.

crucify me however you want and if you so wish, but we didn't need Artifact. At all. And no I'm not asking for the nuclear physics monster in the room. Just saying we didn't need yet another card game.

The only thing they are doing is disable the items and the market on the countries they absolutely can't run them, its not something that should be praised. This is actually true, their support was very helpful the few times I had to contact them for an Origin related problem. Valve has the money and influence to have an equal or better support team, but they simply don't care.

I wonder if valve actually knows that their reputation is dipping. Most likely they do, but don't care.

The thing that'll always stick by me is the times I got my accounts hacked. Steam took about a week, week and a half to get back. Origin took me maybe 30 minutes. And even that might be overshooting it a little.

Steam has always had some pretty slow customer support, though I remember them saying they would take steps to rectify it. Lately my tickets have gotten some pretty fast responses rather than before, like you said, in 2015 my account got hacked and it took a week and then some to get it back. Was a pain in the ass.

good, that just means more cases for me to open dutch bags.

As of an update late last night the restrictions also apply to TF2.