yes, and a suit like this was long overdue.
with that said, the case will most likely be morphed to tackle the gambling sites directly; i sincerely doubt this plaintiff has much ground against valve themselves.
the suit currently reads like it was filed by a poorly informed ambulance chaser.

I don't understand how this is valves fault, if people want to gamble using on third party sites valves games and their items it shouldn't hold valve accountable just because some people are under 18( or 21 I don't know the age you can gamble). I also don't get why being underage is a problem for gambling in general, i feel like the teenagers betting on those websites know what they are doing and it shouldn't be a problem.

edit: i just mean that i am a minor and if i want to bet some skins on my favorite team to win at a major or something i don't understand how thats such a big deal, i know i can lose.

Why would valve be accountable for third partied using their api lmao.

Also, csgo is pegi 18 so all of this is null and void anyway?

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they say valve is profiting and supporting these websites so unless they have serious juice beyond the websites using skins for gambling valve should be fine.

It would be good if this gets beyond the initial stages and some of the issues around game items and their real world value gets thrashed out in court. Most games companies take the stance that they have no individual value or worth and they're part of a service, not actual property. This has been coming for a while.

x

They can buy more items and trade them or buy games instead of betting and it's the same thing.

Couldn't a point be made about how much these items are worth in real world money, there's a lot of evidence to back up that it would be actual property.

• The dude in denmark being arrested for scamming someone.
  
• Being purchasable for real money in the market.
  
• None of the items actually being freely purchasable from release.
  
• Multiple people being able to make a living/businesses off said items, csgolounge, opskins etc.

Obviously there's loads more cases but to me it would be obvious that skins are more than just a part of the service, also Valve allowing bots for these companies kinda shows that they do support such a thing.

valve won't lose this anyway, it's valve

edit: valve doesn't support gambling sites anyway, do they?

I'm no lawyer but since the intention was more along the lines of preventing malicious users, wouldn't that void any claim of supporting them? Especially since valve whitelisted other sites that weren't based on gambling like scrap.tf, and iirc even some regular users who asked for it.

That's why I think it needs to be given proper scrutiny. It would impact Valve being able to delete accounts and delete items - you wouldn't be able to just do that without proper authority if they were property. They'd have to ramp up their service in terms of item security and accountability more because their legal duties would increase. It also involves the strength of the T&Cs, I haven't read them in any detail so I'm taking a bit of a leap but I imagine they refer only to the service and make it clear the context you're participating in.

As you say though nobody thinks of them or behaves with them as anything other than their own property and actual use has a lot of legal force over obscure agreements nobody reads. It's been something that has been around for ages with software in different guises around licenses and unenforceable EULAs.

The player from Connecticut who filed the suit cited a Bloomberg article http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-virtual-guns-counterstrike-gambling/ . I thought it was an interesting article seeing that it talks about how Valve made a joke about the black market when rolling out the update that added skins.

That is a good article, Valve's willingness to allow a smooth transition between cash and items through item sales sites without the restriction of the steam wallet seems to leave them vulnerable when other publishers have avoided this.

that article is some ass wtf it makes it seem as if everyone playing the game is a gambling addict

These gambling sites have always been really shady.
The reason why there's gambling site ads during tournaments is because the leagues have no other choice.
With the rise of gambling sites leagues started noticing that streams have a lot less viewers if there are no bets up for the games. So they had to start making deals.
So leagues advertise these sites now and in return bets are opened for their games. And now the leagues are stuck with them.

"What's that? You don't like our questionably legal methods. Okay we're canceling all bets on games from your league which makes you lose half of your viewers. Come back when you're willing to make us more money."

also g2a and grey market keys are scummy as fuck because apparently a significant portion of them are chargeback'd to the point where g2a shield is a thing ROFL

csgolounge had its own pro team a while back too

also valve is pretty much supporting these companies by whitelisting their trade bots

a game being 18+ generally means under 18s need parental guidance to purchase it, not that it's 'illegal' for anyone under the age of 18 to play it.

wtf is the orbiting Ak lmao

Yes. If this goes through, it will affect gambling sites for all valve games. (Or atleast i presume)

God i hope items become property so i can say i have a net worth

Im suing Valve if NiP wins the next major, they don't deserve.

How is op skins a gambling site? it's just a paypal marketplace.

without opskins you could credibly say that these skins are purely virtual, opskins provides an easy avenue for converting cash into skins and skins into cash. its not saying opskins is a gambling site, but that its one site in a network of sites that essentially allows cash gambling on csgo games.

It's important because it allows anyone to turn items back into cash, so it's part of the idea of items as an alternative currency or trading medium with real value. Valve don't have to allow it, they can block their bots, but they do. The argument takes in several different angles and says the whole picture is questionable. Other publishers stay well clear of this area. Whether the courts will agree we don't know.

This is another discussion I found back in the Saloon.tf slack that went a bit deeper in the legal behind tf/cs/dota item betting

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/470yep/videogameattorney_here_to_answer_questions_about/d09ak98

They shouldn't be suing valve, but the sites that enable kids to illegally gamble. Valve is partially accountable because it supplies the skins to be gambled away, but I don't think that Valve's intent behind skins was for it to turn into this huge gambling debacle?? Dota's market never really took off, even though it attracts much more money and people.

Valve supports the leagues, the leagues' streams advertise the gambling sites.
Valve could just tell the leagues to stop advertising gambling if they want Valve's support for LANs and such to continue.
They're not doing this. This also makes them responsible.

Like I said in #17 it isn't that simple ofcourse. If they stop advertising the gambling the amount of twitch viewers will decrease by a lot. This doesn't mean Valve shouldn't take actions against barely legal gambling sites promoting underage gambling though.

There was another article floating around but I cant find it anymore, but it basically claimed to have proof of Valve supporting companies like csgo diamonds and OP skins.

If this is found to being true could this implicate Valve quite heavily? To me Valve allowing bots from these sites to me is reason enough to show Valve do support these websites.