Washington State Gambling Commission: Valve, Stop Skin Gambling - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51158822][URL]https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6088-UDXM-7214[/URL][/QUOTE] THAT is the steam marketplace. Where you sell skins for - wait for it - store credit, and not money. It is no way transferable back out of steam (directly). TRADING - which is what is happening here - incurs no fee as it'd be hard to tax a 3 cent skin, or a steam game coupon, etc. Edit: to add to this, trading is not possible with this so-called API. The WSGC has no idea what they're talking about, the trading is facilitated by third party bots developed, implemented, and hosted by a gambling website. Valve holds to power to remove these accounts, but, well. This is valve were talking about.

[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51158822][url]https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6088-UDXM-7214[/url][/QUOTE] gambling != buying and selling nor does it go through the same channels

[QUOTE=fruxodaily;51158028]Snip-O[/QUOTE] That's easy! They've been making money and they haven't been paying taxes on it. Most states and countries have a considerable amount of tax on this market. They may even order them to backpay if they try and collect on it.

[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51158822][url]https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6088-UDXM-7214[/url][/QUOTE] This relates to third party gambling sites how? You understand the way the steam wallet works, Valve gets all the money you put into the wallet immediately (giving out money when you buy a game say from Activision or Devolver or whatever) and what the person selling the item on the marketplace gets are virtual tokens represented by monetary values, not actual money?

[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;51158222]Maybe if they're made to stop with the microtransaction crap then they'll get back to making more games, eh?[/QUOTE] I'm not even sure Valve remembers how to make games anymore. They'd probably just maintain Steam and sit on their asses instead.

Honestly, it would be kind of fun if they cracked down on this. I've always disliked the whole steam trading stuff.

[QUOTE=lavacano;51159081]I'm not even sure Valve remembers how to make games anymore. They'd probably just maintain Steam and sit on their asses instead.[/QUOTE] Lets not get into this shit for the 50th time please.

[QUOTE]If it does not comply, the WSGC letter said, Valve could risk the seizure and forfeiture of property used to conduct illegal activities, forfeiture of its corporate charter, as well as criminal charges. [/QUOTE] This part gets me. Was there any investigation at all? Valve isn't the one who runs the gambling systems, nor do they actually get any money for it. It's like suing the goverment for hosting illegal gambling rings because people bet on cockfights with state issued currency. This doesn't make any sense at all

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;51158088]These CSGO skins were a mistake to begin with, along with the tf2 hats.[/QUOTE] Creating a virtual market for those games was necessary to keep them alive. CS:GO was in a huge downward spiral before the arms deal update. TF2 wouldn't have lasted 6 more years without the mann-conomy update, even with the F2P update.

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;51159178]This part gets me. Was there any investigation at all? Valve isn't the one who runs the gambling systems, nor do they actually get any money for it. It's like suing the goverment for hosting illegal gambling rings because people bet on cockfights with state issued currency. This doesn't make any sense at all[/QUOTE] Who's running the system if not Valve? Did it not occur to you that Valve sells keys for opening crates? That's the gambling part. You may get something worth the money, or you may not. Most of the time you won't, so Valve earns big money on it.

[QUOTE=paul simon;51159254]Who's running the system if not Valve? Did it not occur to you that Valve sells keys for opening crates? That's the gambling part. You may get something worth the money, or you may not. Most of the time you won't, so Valve earns big money on it.[/QUOTE] This is not what the article is about.

Once again children ruin everyone's fun.

[QUOTE=geel9;51159267]This is not what the article is about.[/QUOTE] Whoops, missed the part with "third-party websites"

[QUOTE=paul simon;51159254]Who's running the system if not Valve? Did it not occur to you that Valve sells keys for opening crates? That's the gambling part. You may get something worth the money, or you may not. Most of the time you won't, so Valve earns big money on it.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=paul simon;51159279]Whoops, missed the part with "third-party websites"[/QUOTE] Even then, its essentially the same thing as one of those gumball machine that spits out those little toys when you put the quarter in.

[QUOTE=Doozle;51158032]Gambling isn't something children should get into. It's addictive and potentially destructive.[/QUOTE] As a person who got sucked in by TF2's Mannconomy, I can say to NEVER get into gambling of ANY type. I lost over $800 on hats and keys because I didn't realize just how cutthroat and evil the average trader can be, or when to stop. Scams left and right, people lowballing CONSTANTLY, some people announcing that they'll only buy hats with as much as a 75% discount known as a "quicksale." It's bad shit, don't do it. I started with the prospects of making some money for games and at first, I made some profit here and there. Then as I progressed further, I kept getting fucked, HARD. In two weeks, I was in the negative by $800. I was only doing it for the rush that was making what I thought was a great deal and the eventual sale for a profit that never happened. I realized how much I had lost before I had lost big time, so I think I learned a valuable life lesson at only 17. That gambling of any type is fucking dangerous and deceptive, and is designed to take advantage of impulsive people like myself.

If this leads to Valve removing crates and cases I'd be celebrating for weeks.

[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;51158222]Maybe if they're made to stop with the microtransaction crap then they'll get back to making more games, eh?[/QUOTE] I'd pay to see that. Valve has needed a kick in the ass for a long time. Seriously, Jim Sterling [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng_SbSdUkc8&t=8m47s]put the whole thing best.[/url] Valve has been treading a finer and finer line in recent years. They've been staying [i]just enough[/i] away from these kinds of scams (which they implicitly benefit from) and using Steam Wallet cash as pachinko balls to make sure they're not doing anything [i]technically[/i] illegal, on top of the sleazebaggery of only letting players license rather than actually [i]own[/i] anything and the whole racket that is the very concept of crates, and God knows they've gotten away with so much for so long due to all the fanboys quick to defend Papa Gaben and every decision Valve makes, but legislation is gonna catch up to them. This is all gonna come crashing down and they [b]will[/b] have had it coming.

The ultimate issue is that while gambling in casino's you have laws and regulations, casino's are designed to win but they can't win 100% of the time and they also have guidelines to follow. With online gambling, up until recently with some states getting involved, none of the regulation was there nor was it truly enforceable with many places having overseas servers to funnel money away and a lot of times these websites are a billion times worse than physical casinos. If you think this isn't fair, just remember the US government slapping fantasy football betting leagues. Gambling is addiction gamified, its designed from the ground up to lure people in to waste money on something that [B]could be[/B] worth something but you're most likely going to lose money. Crates, and more, there is no value and before anyone says, 'but bu bu but the trade market' goes right into your steam wallet which you then purchase licenses for the digital games you download. If you read the actual fine print, you own none of the games you have in your steam account, you own the licenses to play those games. So in fact there is not 'added value' it is all taken value, with negative assets that can be taken at any time. Its gambling in the worst way, its entirely designed to take value away from you, and give it to the company with no real control. Now we have websites taking that value away from Valve and giving it to just as, or worse, traders in third party APIs. This is why I didn't celebrate when Valve started shutting down the gambling sites. From a business stand point, they were losing money and value from these smaller, faster, cheaper more loosely run gambling companies. The entire decision was to save face on the PR side and regain the value of the crate system.

How is trading gambling? So long as valve continue to crack down on actual gambling sites I don't see the problem with trading? Store credit != real money.

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;51158088]These CSGO skins were a mistake to begin with, along with the tf2 hats.[/QUOTE] csgo skins is the best thing they've added to csgo besides ranked since they literally saved the game

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;51159460]If this leads to Valve removing crates and cases I'd be celebrating for weeks.[/QUOTE] Crates are so goddamn awful it's unreal. It doesn't cost $2.49 to make a virtual key. It doesn't cost $0.01 to make one. The ones that use multiple types of keys are EVEN WORSE. KF2 is one such offender. Even better is the market restriction on keys that also applies to the items you get from the crates/cases. I opened a few KF2 USBs and got some skins worth $5-10, and by the time I can even sell them off to recoup the cost of the keys, they'll be as valuable as dirt.

[QUOTE=Blueplastic;51159779]csgo skins is the best thing they've added to csgo besides ranked since they literally saved the game[/QUOTE] Only to turn one half of it into gambling central.

[QUOTE=Exploders;51159866]Only to turn one half of it into gambling central.[/QUOTE] And I couldn't care less about it, it doesn't affect me in any way Also it's not like skins' existence is to blame for that in the first place since they can exist without gambling just fine In other words, the issue is that you can gamble with those skins, not that they're part of the game

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;51158088]These CSGO skins were a mistake to begin with, along with the tf2 hats.[/QUOTE] Very profiting mistake

[QUOTE=AaronM202;51159282]Even then, its essentially the same thing as one of those gumball machine that spits out those little toys when you put the quarter in.[/QUOTE] I've never seen a gumball machine that spits out $1000 toys.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;51160409]I've never seen a gumball machine that spits out $1000 toys.[/QUOTE] No, but the principle is the same, which is my point.

A lot of people act like Valve has done no harm, but they've created the economy where virtual items are worth thousands, sure they don't opperate the casinos in this metaphor, but they produce the chips, given the players methods to pay for more of them with their winnings, and have a credit method where if you try and cash out through less shady methods, you can only spend it in their store. Fuck Valve, fuck their lack of actual game development, fuck the 'Freemium' content of crates & paid cosmetics in paid games.

[QUOTE=Dwarfy77;51163368]A lot of people act like Valve has done no harm, but they've created the economy where virtual items are worth thousands, sure they don't opperate the casinos in this metaphor, but they produce the chips, given the players methods to pay for more of them with their winnings, and have a credit method where if you try and cash out through less shady methods, you can only spend it in their store. Fuck Valve, fuck their lack of actual game development, fuck the 'Freemium' content of crates & paid cosmetics in paid games.[/QUOTE] You don't just "Create a digital economy with items worth tens of thousands". There needs to be a market of interested people for that to happen. You can't force it. I get that it's fun to hate on corporations and shit but people were stupid. People decided that's what they wanted because people are stupid, and people have a right to be stupid. Valves not been handling this super great, but ultimately, I have trouble blaming them when they have an audience of people clamoring to be fucking stupid From a business stand point, it's pretty hard to ignore people willing to give you free money, and none of you can deny that for a fucking second.

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;51158088]These CSGO skins were a mistake to begin with, along with the tf2 hats.[/QUOTE] mistake for whom? Valve even hired an economist (Unheard of in video game developing companies sans paradox) to check out how to it would work and max out the way to get profits from it. Remember that wacko greek guy who stepped as the head of the ministry of economy? Well, that guy. Böhmermann even made a song about him

[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;51163429]Valve even hired an economist (Unheard of in video game developing companies sans paradox) to check out how to it would work and max out the way to get profits from it. Remember that wacko greek guy who stepped as the head of the ministry of economy? Well, that guy. Böhmermann even made a song about him[/QUOTE] Yeah, and that raised [i]massive[/i] goddamn red flags for me when it happened. Especially reading his blog posts, they basically amounted to, "Wow, in all my years of real-world finance, I've never seen a goldmine like this! These gamer idiots will spend thousands of dollars' worth of real money on in-game items we can create unlimited copies of with no effort or cost! I'll never have to work again!" I still remember this one time a Valve employee added an Unusual Bill's Hat with circling hearts to his wife's Steam inventory as a gift and people immediately tried to shark it from her. I even saw a few of them unapologetically admitting to it on SPUF, with one guy in particular from a third-world country going, "Dude, the value of that hat could feed my entire family for a month." All that value was conjured out of thin air with a few keypresses and an admin password by some nerd in Washington as a gift for his wife. That's the kind of power Valve is playing with. And people [i]let[/i] them have it through years of rushing to their defense because of this belief that Valve is "on our side." It's like if God came down from Heaven to get into commodity trading on Wall Street. He can materialize the damn goods out of thin air and make a fortune. That's what Valve is doing on a virtual level, but still for real money. People are paying boatloads for a few flipped bits in a hard drive on Valve's servers. Nothing special about that hard drive. Nothing special about the bits flipped. If you downloaded their database data, you could flip those bits yourself on the copy on your own drive even though you'll get nothing for it. That's how trivial it all is. That doesn't ring alarm bells for you? That flipping those few bits on the right hard drive is worth so much? We gave Valve absolute control over an entire economy. There have been [i]wars[/i] for the kind of power that gamers let Valve just walk up and grab. This is a goddamn crash waiting to happen and Valve's profitiing handsomely off of skirting that line in lieu of doing any actual work as a game developer. There is absolutely nothing physical backing all this pretend value up and people are paying [i]real[/i] money for it. They are [b]actually[/b] playing god with finance.