Overview
- New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Valve in Manhattan state court, alleging paid loot boxes and trading on Steam violate state gambling laws.
- Valve’s public statement compares its mystery boxes to baseball and Pokémon card packs and says players who skip purchases face no competitive disadvantage.
- Valve says it has locked more than one million Steam accounts tied to gambling, fraud, or theft and introduced trade cooldowns and reversal features to limit abuse.
- The company opposes proposed restrictions it says would remove users’ ability to transfer digital items and contends investigators want it to collect more user data, including on VPN use.
- A separate federal class action in Washington focuses on Counter-Strike 2 cases opened with roughly $2.49 keys, citing slot machine–style presentations, reported monthly revenue of over $74 million, and rare skins that have reportedly sold for seven figures.