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New York sues Valve for 'letting children and adults illegally gamble' with loot boxes
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Didn't read the story, but how are loot boxes different than trading card game booster packs? I don't like the consumerist nature of both, but just curious.
First of all: Trading cards are also abusive as fuck. What those Magic and Pokémon people are doing is not ok.
But loot boxes can be even worse: You can built them so that they will give you not a fair chance to get an item, but some companies are doing this the more evil way. Imagine that you need some specific item to get your full set, which will give you some buff. And the company knows that you are missing only that item. And it knows that you are willing to spend money, because you have just bought a loot box. So they will manipulate your odds so that you will not get the item you want. You'll get several other "near misses", but they also do know how many loot boxes other players opened before giving up. That is some additional evil that printed Magic cards in Walmart can't do to you
While this is true of the most predatory loot box systems, no valve game has cosmetics that directly impact gameplay. They are decorative.
They aren't. I'm sure if it went to court that lawyers would find a way to convince a jury otherwise, but we all know that's bullshit. Booster packs are gambling.
They aren't different. Both are a form of gambling. Same with blind boxes.