Video game publisher, developer, and distributor Valve has issued a statement to Steam users refuting a violation of New York gambling laws, following its receipt of a lawsuit on behalf of the New York Attorney General (NYAG).
The statement, published by the creators of Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, and Steam, on the Steam Support website, and emailed to some users, denied the allegations by the NYAG, stating that the company had spent time since 2023 working with the office to educate them on virtual items.
Image Credit: Valve
Valve was subject to a lawsuit by the NYAG filed in February 2026. The filing pointed to loot boxes and sought to redefinite what counts as gambling in the state of New York.
In the rebuttal, Valve noted it was exceptional, explaining it doesn’t usually talk to its users about litigation. The company stated that it believed that the loot boxes it uses in games such as Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 are similar to real-world analogs such as Magic the Gathering packs or recent blind-box craze, Labubu.
The company also pointed out that players are not required to open loot boxes to play or enjoy their games, and that there is no disadvantage to those who don’t use loot boxes. Instead it likened the lawsuit’s allegations to an attack on the transferability of digital products. In the statement, Valve explained:
“[The NYAG] appear to assume digital mystery boxes and items in our games are different from tangible items like baseball card packs (which contain random cards), and to take issue with the fact that users have the ability to transfer the items they receive through Steam Trading or user-to-user sales on the Community Market.”
Valve also addressed the claims within the lawsuit that it promoted gun violence through its games.
“…We feel the need to address comments made by the NYAG about games, real world violence, and children. Those extraneous comments are a distraction and a mischaracterization we’ve all heard before. Numerous studies throughout the years have concluded there is no link between media (movies, TV, books, comics, music, and games) and real world violence. Indeed, many studies highlight the beneficial impact of games to users.”
Perhaps most damningly, Valve explained that the lawsuit suggested gathering additional personal information about users and purchasers of loot boxes:
“The NYAG also proposed to gather additional information (beyond what we normally collect in the course of processing payments) about each game user on the off-chance someone in New York was anonymizing their location to appear outside of New York, such as by using a VPN. This would have involved implementing invasive technologies for every user worldwide.”
Overall, the response is a serious and telling rebuttal of what is just one of four lawsuits Valve has faced over the past few months. In March alone, Valve has faced a similar lawsuit to the NYAG filing from the Washington State federal court.
In the UK, music rights company PRS have also sued Valve in March for reportedly ‘never obtaining a licence for the use of its rights managed by PRS.’ Valve as a distributor, not a publisher for games such as EA Sports FC and Grand Theft Auto, apparently requires licences to sell these games. It’s worth noting, developers and publishers of these titles will already have acquired licences, and traditionally, distributors and store fronts are not required to hold a licence to sell games.
Read Also: Will Half-Life 3 be announced before 2027? Here’s why prediction markets say yes
Featured Image Credit: Valve
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