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Valve - About the New York Attorney General lawsuit against Valve (help.steampowered.com)

submitted 3 days ago by cm0002@lemmy.cafe to c/steam@programming.dev

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[–] entwine@programming.dev 9 points 3 days ago

Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that

Valve takes a cut of every 'transfer' between users involving money, and they don't allow transferability of games, the main thing people would want to transfer. If you're going to pretend like you're trying to help consumers by giving them control over their digital content, don't just do it for the type of content that makes you money.

With that said, I'm definitely on Valve's side with this. Age verification and anti-VPN spyware is all bullshit. Too bad I'm not a NY resident.

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

“disappointed to see the NYAG make that claim after working to educate them”.

Isn’t that just lobbying?

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago

Well, yeah.
That's the main legally sound way to affect legislative decisions.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago

Lootboxes are gambling though, even if those exist IRL and are not required for playing.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This article does well at dispersing the rhetoric of "Valve brought gambling to the gaming scene".
Gambling and gatcha have been there for quite a while. Valve just spread it all over the world, before the Japanese gatcha companies could capture other markets and Valve made it much more convenient for people to lose their money on it.

Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away

That's the real BS here.
This is the same language other "normal" companies use, to continue their evils. Guess the Valve PR people graduated from the same school.
If Valve wanted to let people transfer their NFTs, they would let them do so over other platforms. But they really just want the transaction fee profits. While that part may bring them NYAG points, it's not getting "me" points.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I agree with you except for the part where trading in-Steam NFTs on external platforms would help. I have a hunch it would only open people for more scamming and losing money, but I'm not certain if it will. Maybe a better way would've been to forbid selling those for real money at all, but that would hurt Valve's profit so it will not happen

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago

in-Steam NFTs on external platforms would help

I am not saying "it would help" anyone that is getting scammed.
All I am saying is that if Valve is talking about consumer rights, it's not actually giving them that.

Banks try to help prevent you from getting scammed (at least here they do), but you still hold the final say if you really want to pay the scammer. You can just withdraw cash and hand it over to them. That is what the right to transfer means.

I am not at all talking about Valve's supposed duty to protect people from being scammed, because my point is that them giving the user the "right to transfer" means that Valve should not even be in a position to stop a scam from happening. In that case, all they would be able to do is suggest guidelines to users one how to prevent themselves from getting scammed and it is the users' decision whether they care to read it or not.