The game is rated as 'Mature 17+', and Steam has an age confirmation page before accessing the store page of the game. Are you expecting Valve to add ages verification based on ID like the new UK law to block all the kids?
I thought we had parents for you know, parenting. It shouldn't fall into a company to manage what a kid is doing when the product is not for kids.
It's not that simple. The real problem is that Valve allows items to be sold in markets outside of Valve's control which allows third party gambling websites to operate. And you guessed right, they basically don't care about your age. Valve of course knows this but won't do anything, because they make profits off all transactions happening in third party markets. Plus the whole professional CS tournament scene is sponsored by these predatory casinos. Coffeezilla did an in-depth piece on this: https://youtu.be/q58dLWjRTBE
Should 17-year-olds be gambling? They're still in high school, the high-tech excuse of blaming the parents while pocketing billions of dollars is odious and convincing a jury to slap these companies with tobacco industry levels of damage remains feasible.
Ideally kids wouldn't be participating in real world transactions at all, and I'd love to see the numbers of how many were actually kids who directly went to gamble I stead of being pushed into it by streamers which is where I see it constantly.
> Now, thanks to a recent update from Valve, the latter is in a downward spiral, having lost 25% of its value — or $1.75 billion — overnight
The fact that they made this change to make these items far easier to simply earn should say a lot about the ethos of the company though.
The thing is Valve is clearly aware of the fact that it’s getting kids addicted to gambling. They have the data. It’s extremely ubiquitous. This has been an ongoing issue for a while and Valve has rightly been criticized for willfully getting kids addicted.
Yes the parents have a responsibility to look after their kids. But that doesn’t give Valve a free pass, particularly when they used dark patterns to appeal to children.
When you say easier to simply earn, I understand it as you think they do this to benefit their playerbase / users.
Yes, it says that they want a bigger cut of the sales when those items are sold.
Not sad this hits the trading sites as that will also likely mean fewer will get scammed as they will stay in valves market, but saying valve is doing this for the users is crap, they do it for the profits, and maybe to stay under the radar of additional lawsuits regarding gambling laws around the world.
> The fact that they made this change to make these items far easier to simply earn should say a lot about the ethos of the company though.
Them letting it happen for literal decades while being highly aware of what they're doing says more about the ethos than this, in the grand scheme, tiny move.
Don't get me wrong, me as a person who does not participate in any kind of this gray-area gambling has basically a lot of net positives from Steam and Valve. But this doesn't make them a pro-consumer company.
They're still greedy capitalists, and it shows in many different perspectives. They may be "better" to consumers than the average, but still.
funflame|4 months ago
I thought we had parents for you know, parenting. It shouldn't fall into a company to manage what a kid is doing when the product is not for kids.
bertylicious|4 months ago
retsibsi|4 months ago
You know this is meaningless.
> Are you expecting Valve to add ages verification based on ID like the new UK law to block all the kids?
An alternative would be not to run a gambling business. If that's too much to ask, then yeah, they probably should be required to exclude children.
> I thought we had parents for you know, parenting. It shouldn't fall into a company to manage what a kid is doing when the product is not for kids.
This implies that casinos (and liquor stores, and tobacconists, and so on) should be allowed to serve children.
paradoxyl|4 months ago
Spacemolte|4 months ago
I'm willing to bet a lot of the young people struggling with gambing addictions started with loot boxes like the ones valve make a ton of money on.
bilekas|4 months ago
> Now, thanks to a recent update from Valve, the latter is in a downward spiral, having lost 25% of its value — or $1.75 billion — overnight
The fact that they made this change to make these items far easier to simply earn should say a lot about the ethos of the company though.
computerex|4 months ago
Yes the parents have a responsibility to look after their kids. But that doesn’t give Valve a free pass, particularly when they used dark patterns to appeal to children.
Spacemolte|4 months ago
Yes, it says that they want a bigger cut of the sales when those items are sold. Not sad this hits the trading sites as that will also likely mean fewer will get scammed as they will stay in valves market, but saying valve is doing this for the users is crap, they do it for the profits, and maybe to stay under the radar of additional lawsuits regarding gambling laws around the world.
wobfan|4 months ago
Them letting it happen for literal decades while being highly aware of what they're doing says more about the ethos than this, in the grand scheme, tiny move. Don't get me wrong, me as a person who does not participate in any kind of this gray-area gambling has basically a lot of net positives from Steam and Valve. But this doesn't make them a pro-consumer company.
They're still greedy capitalists, and it shows in many different perspectives. They may be "better" to consumers than the average, but still.