Entertainment for kids

The US federal court dismissed a 2016 lawsuit against Steam over illegal gambling in the online shooter CS:GO.

Plaintiffs accused Valve and the Steam platform of facilitating unregulated gambling through the sale of virtual weapons and character skins from the shooter.

Forbes journalists wrote that “virtual weapons are turning teenage gamers into serious gamblers.” Gambling in CS:GO referred to loot boxes – bundles of virtual items that are purchased with real money.

Items in loot boxes drop at random, but some of them can be sold on the Steam marketplace for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Valve was accused of the fact that some underage CS:GO users paid for loot box purchases with their parents’ bank cards, and thus teenagers could develop a gambling addiction.

Valve’s lawyers argued that loot boxes are not legally considered gambling in the US. In addition, Judge James L. Robart explained that the parents failed to prove deception by Valve because they “never visited Valve or Steam’s website, never used Steam, never played CS:GO and never saw or read Valve’s rules.”

Earlier Valve said it was fighting sites that offered gambling with CS:GO skins, and back in 2016 the company reported shutting down several dozen such sites.