Valve has been encouraging a gambling mafia - Coffeezilla expose; Valve used legal workarounds to finance a gambling mafia with CSGO skins

[Neodanthril]

Valve got lucky

Valve got extremely lucky that Microsoft decided too completely abandon PC gaming in favor of making the fucking Xbox, because as you point out many times the boiler must explode.

 

[Day of the Cope]

What they're doing is bypassing the law to deliver gambling to an underage audience.

Yes, they "bypass" it through a "loophole" because governments are largely run by fucking boomers who can't attach a .pdf to an email without spilling piping hot gravy all over myself.
It's the same way Japanese pachinko parlors "bypass" the laws. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at the ones who allow the loopholes to exist: the governments that could close those loopholes but don't because they benefit from it.
Also, how are Valve "bypassing" it? Your kid isn't born with a fucking nightmare rectangle in their hand. They don't came out of the womb with a fully functional PC.

 

[Grinrow2]

look all the faggots in his comments on the second video acting like they're so morally righteous that they wouldn't take a gambling sponsorship if offered. Tyler1s opinion on gambling sponsorship is the only true and honest opinion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDhbj5-d4U

 

[Jeff Q. Anime]

fools and their money DESERVE to be parted

 

[888Flux]

Does this mean we'll get Half Life 3

 

[Rockzo]

How else is Lord Gaben supposed to bank roll the development of Half Life 3?

his $250 million dollar new yacht?

 

[Lammy]

his $250 million dollar new yacht?
View attachment 6794895

>Gabe buying yachts now
It's over, isn't it?

 

[Joe Swanson]

Valve has done a tremendous good for both Linux and vr gaming, basically created the iPhone of handheld gaming pcs, and isn't beholden to shareholders that will enshittify their core product which is steam.

They're not perfect by any means but they've done more of a net good to society then bad, and parents should be responsible for the media their kids consume at home

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

This isn't news, this stuff has been known for years; but apparently a large notable YouTuber publicizing it means it suddenly exists now. But as usual with the modern Internet everyone will forget about it within a week and think nothing of it like they did over 8 years ago.

While I'm no Valve apologist, despite what Coffeezilla says it IS largely the governments fault for this situation. It's their fault for not filling the loopholes that allow cases to not be considered gambling and these online gambling casinos to exist / not be properly regulated. Valve could absolutely deal with the casinos given their resources, but they'll just keep coming back as long as the loopholes persist (though they wouldn't anyway as they've become a big part of the CS2 economy). Attack the root cause, not what spawns out of it.

As for the underage gambling, it's the parents' full responsibility to not let them buy a single fucking key; it's so easy to take a glance at what they want to buy and not give them your debit / credit card. This would only be a real issue if CS2 was advertised for kids, but it's not and never has been. I'm so sick of the "Think of the children!" bullshit that keeps getting recycled by these tards.

Ultimately, this whole thing really doesn't matter. Valve allowing but not explicitly pushing for retards to gamble for skins outside of CS2 is peanuts compared to what other shit billion dollar companies get up to (it really says something about Valve when this is the worse thing they do at their net worth).

 

[BradeRunna]

his $250 million dollar new yacht?
View attachment 6794895

Developing Half Life 3 for over a decade is very stressful. Lord Gaben needs a place to relax and fuck some hot bitches.

 

[ReasonablyRetarded]

I don't know man. I still hold the same opinion I did during the first gambling drama in regards to CS;
It's on the governments to regulate, it's on the parents to parent.
Yes, a 13-16 year old wouldn't like constant supervision, but at least banks here have a thing where parents can check on their kids' account and their transactions. It wouldn't be hard to spot almost all their money going to the same place.
Governments should prevent it from getting out of hand, but parents should be the first line watchdog.

Spoiler: Anecdotes about underage CSGO gambling

I myself was an underage gambler. I used CSGO lounge at the time to bet on pro matches after friends introduced me to it. I never got into the roulette and coinflip side of it though.

Simply told my parents. They were aware and took the stance of "Ok, you bought €20 of skins, if you want to gamble, do so, and you'll learn soon enough why it's bad. If you lose it all and we catch you topping up, we're taking control of your bank account.", which was fine by me. I had the attitude of " I have €20, if I lose that, that's it." anyways.

I won't lie, some of my best memories as a 14-16 year old was hopping online with all my friends during a major, placing out bets (we all did) and watching the games live. Hell, sometimes we had teachers in school that were lax enough that if a major was going on, they'd just let us watch it in the classroom since we explained it by equating it to the world cup.
On top of that, due to me almost never doing big bets and just small ones, as well as keeping up with the pro-scene almost full time, by the time the market crashed due to stuff getting shut down, I had turned that €20 into 200something due to bets, with no top off.

Thing is though, while I was lucky that my parents were decent in this aspect & I ended up ok, I know that I was an outlier. Pretty much all my other friends lost control of themselves, often rage-betting and making stupid choices in the heat of the moment. I'll never forget one time they were all doing one of those "jackpot" things and one of them actually managed to land it despite having 5% odds. The guy went from, idk, €5 to 100+. And what did he do? He immediately lost it all on a coinflip.
Not to mention the amount of times they topped off or asked me to front them skins for a bet they "just knew was a good one".
Luckily none of them have any issues now, but all of them lost between 20-200 euros along the time we partook in gambling.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

"Its Gambling!" They protest as they crack open another pack of Magic The Gathering in a vain attempt to pull a half a million dollar card.

I would say people need to parent there kids but actually looking back I doubt that even happened either.

THIS.

There is no difference between lootboxes and card packs, but card games are look at nostalgically so how dare people put an obvious comparison.

I don't get what's the issue with kids being exposed to it. Either let them waste their lunch money on it and realize gambling sucks, or have them steal their dad's credit card and get their shit beaten out of them for it. Both are better alternatives than waiting until the child is an adult and is free to ruin his life.

And without the element of THINK OF THE CHILDREN it's yet another gambling avenue on the web that's already filled with those. Who needs gun skins when gambling cows can waste 1000$ in a minute?

 

[Would]

my life is not dependent on it. It's literally just NFT's or Token trading with Valve handling the back-end, that's it (I trust Valve more than I do any crypto exchange site and paypal). People need to stop crying about it

Side tangent, but people need to realize that's why NFTs died where Valve skins live; They need to be backed by something.
Legal tender is backed by the government; Valve skins are backed by Valve's rep and success; NFTs were backed by nothing but promises of "what could be". It's why sites that tried to give "future" skins aka skins "that aren't in any game but will be one day, I swear!- Just invest now!" died too.

 

[BradeRunna]

"Its Gambling!" They protest as they crack open another pack of Magic The Gathering in a vain attempt to pull a half a million dollar card.

I would say people need to parent there kids but actually looking back I doubt that even happened either.

Don't you mean Tragic the Garnering?

 

[Snorky]

I remember when seeing this kind of shit in like 2016 and thinking it was pretty retarded. Glad to see that it hasn't changed a bit since then. The best way to avoid gambling addictions is to simply not gamble in the first place.

 

[Blitzsneed]

Coffeezilla and his redditor fanbase are self-righteous faggots. Valve and skinfags don't give a fuck, because they're not responsible for babysitting children (who are basically retards) from neglectful parents. And gambling addicts make generally good lolcows.
He goes after pasty e-scammers, who are generally harmless, instead of exposing financial crimes being done by politicians which would concern the general public. But Zilla doesn't do that, because he'd be dead in a matter of days. He's doing it for the money just like the skinfluencers and is not better than any journoscum plaguing modern soyciety.

 

[snowdunes]

Side tangent, but people need to realize that's why NFTs died where Valve skins live; They need to be backed by something.
Legal tender is backed by the government; Valve skins are backed by Valve's rep and success; NFTs were backed by nothing but promises of "what could be". It's why sites that tried to give "future" skins aka skins "that aren't in any game but will be one day, I swear!- Just invest now!" died too.

There is a whole rabbit hole about "where true value" of something originates from (food, metals and housing etc.). As you said, NFT's did not have any "usage", hence useless. Skins are used in a game, hence they got some visual value.

I'm going to say that Valves only "practical solution" would to be ban trading since most back-end shit on the allegedly gambling sites are just in-house tokens with the option to trade skins as "cashout", if valve bans this, gamba sites would probably either go bankrupt or move over to gift cards and other games that allow user trading. Coffeezilla as the massive faggot he is only skimped that part quickly since he pretty is endorsing (indirectly hinting at least...) to ban trading between users in the end of all this, which would ruin the market larp of the game (yes, this pseudo stock market is a game too and I love it). Anyone who endorses anti-trade mechanics to any field and areas in the world are pieces of shit in my opinion.

Also, the KYC stuff is just an endorsement of adding more governmental oversight into everything, and now retards want it in their video games too!? I rather keep a few retards ruining their lives due to bad impulse control (well deserved and good KF content btw) than sacrificing a fun larp hobby where I can be an asshole/retard for fun without having my IRL name linked to it (that's what games are for!). Crypto exchanges are already targeted by this and now "influencers" are going after video games as well... Holy shit I hate these faggots like you wouldn't even believe it!

> Skins can be played with
> Skins can be traded
It's simple as that, sure the lootbox thing can be seen as a problem and be patched up easily with another model. But you can still make skins "rare" by just limiting it (time limits, FOMO and rare free drops etc), hence them keeping their original in-game value without any lootbox mechanics. The lootbox mechanics in the game does NOT translate into third-party sites exploiting gambling, they only use Valves trading system, that's it!

Banning trading bots would be an option, maybe (bad idea IMO due to third-party trading sites). But going after Valve for their trading mechanics and endorsing KYC? This is a slippery slope normies don't understand can turn into something really ugly.

If the government is regulating video games, just imagine how they would regulate things not related to video games.

 

[Administrator Flotsam]

Yes, they "bypass" it through a "loophole" because governments are largely run by fucking boomers who can't attach a .pdf to an email without spilling piping hot gravy all over myself.

So you actually rely on the government to do stuff? If your kid gets groomed and decides to troon out is it the government's fault for not stopping it? The law came into being before any of this was a thing and it will take years to catch up, if ever. Until then, people will have to decide for themselves what's bullshit, which shouldn't be too hard for anyone born after 1990 with an 80+IQ.

It's the same way Japanese pachinko parlors "bypass" the laws. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at the ones who allow the loopholes to exist: the governments that could close those loopholes but don't because they benefit from it.

Sorry, criminals are criminals. I don't need the state to confirm it for me when its spelt out so well already.
The Jap government probably does benefit from the gambling system there. This isn't like that, its just that the law hasn't caught up yet. Sate-supported gambling would still be regulated to an extent (like in Vegas, where I don't think 13 year-olds can gamble).

Also, how are Valve "bypassing" it? Your kid isn't born with a fucking nightmare rectangle in their hand. They don't came out of the womb with a fully functional PC.

Valve is enabling it, the gambling sites are the ones doing the bypassing. Valve is at fault (by omission) for letting their closed-source API be used for this.

 

[The Ugly One]

cs:go was dead before they added lootboxes,

Should have let it die instead of turning it into a glorified gacha game. St Gaben the Fat's accomplishments 20 years ago don't make lootboxes less cancerous.

Anyone who endorses anti-trade mechanics to any field and areas in the world are pieces of shit in my opinion.

If only the RMAH would come back to Diablo, said nobody.

But going after Valve for their trading mechanics and endorsing KYC? This is a slippery slope normies don't understand can turn into something really ugly.

When you provide a facility for moving money, which is what the trading sites do, that's when KYC/AML becomes relevant. Merely providing a tradeable digital good doesn't clear the bar. Different story if Valve is knowingly collaborating with organized crime.

 

[JamFlowMan]

CSGO skins seem to be one of those things someone chooses to relitigate every few years with no resolution. Like every 2 years people spend a month debating if streamers like Hassan follow fair use but when the dust settles everything remains status quo.