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Valve shutting down gambling sites, sending notes to stop using Open API.

This kind of thing should've never been able to happen in the first place. As others already said, while this is a good move, it's ultimately Valve covering their asses because of the uproar.
 
This is great, but I'm not congratulating Valve or anything. It took a lawsuit and a YouTube controversy for them to do anything about it. This was a long time coming that should have been taken care of in the first place.
 
Moral Panic said:
????

ED35591BC2C674146F5FC480F84944AD7B389070
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Doesn't Japan have those arcades where you spend money and win tokens that can be cashed in for dumb trinkets, but conveniently next door you can sell the tokens for cash? How legally gray is that? Since you can essentially do the same thing with steam wallet funds.
 
Squishy3 said:
Steam Wallet is not determined as real world currency. You can use it to buy things that would otherwise be bought with real money, but you can't take the money out of Steam and deposit it into a bank account.
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That seems like a mighty thin line imo. If steam became a supermarket would it still be non-real currency? What if they started renting out homes? You can trade items for money which you then use to buy other unrelated things. That seems like a very real currency to me.
 
Nice, quick reaction.

I bet there's a lot of other legitimate sites like Lounge that are pissed as hell at Tmartn now lol.
 
Cels said:
the assistance valve provided the gambling sites, if any, was probably technical support with the API
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I've been trying to find some instances where they have done anything. The most I've seen speculated is that they allowed site bots to be whitelisted to get around verification.
 
foltzie1 said:
Send the C&D letter, but why not go ahead and just revoke their access to the API?
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My guess would be that the want to give sites time to comply with the request in a way that doesn't fuck over their users who currently have items in a bet. The "further pursue the matter as necessary" wording indicates to me that full on revocation is in the cards.
 
Lol at anyone saying "good on them" or whatever. They only did this because of the PR pressure, they got caught and their hand was forced. I even doubt they're going to follow through on this, sounds more like empty appeasement to me.
 
QFNS said:
This is a smart business decision by Valve. They can see the tidal wave of regulatory lawsuits coming and are cutting and running as fast as possible. Gambling is highly regulated in the US espeically to minors (where it is VERY illegal), so running afoul of those laws even tangentially or to be seen as aiding or abetting those who do is a BAD thing.

It's just my opinion, but I also thing the clock is ticking for a lot of the "gatcha" style random distribtuion slot machines in mobile gaming, which is where some of these gambling sites seemed to get their ideas. Sooner or later a zealous lawmaker will get wind of how these slot machines actually work and then the entire ecosystem that relies on them will be put in jeopardy by the acts of a very greedy few. Hopefully developers and marketers shape up and don't grab so hard for the easy money that they bring down the law on the entire mobile market.

Don't get me wrong, I doubt the "gatcha" style mobile is true gambling in the same way these Steam sites are, but it isn't that far off. All it would take is one lawmaker super into Puzzle and Dragons (or whatever) to get burned hard and then regulations might capsize a bunch of the mobile market.
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That isn't really how the legislative process works. Not only that, but as soon as legislators start looking into regulating mobile gaming, the big devs and publishers will start heavy lobbying efforts to prevent any sort of regulation, if they haven't already.
 
BernardoOne said:
The only thing the API does is allow you to login with your steam account and see your inventory. Even without the API you can still ping the users inventories with other methods anyways.


But it will still be just as automated, just slightly less convenient for people to register to the sites, nothing more than that. Gambling was a thing before the OpenID even got introduced.
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collige said:
The automation of the trading is not being done through the API though. It happens with CS:GO because people aren't making CS:GO trades, they're making Steam trades with CS:GO items. Steam uses a web based interface for all of its interactions which means that making an automated Steam account works just the same as making an automated Facebook, Youtube, etc account. It doesn't happen with other games because their trading systems are done inside of game clients which has an extremely limited and opaque interface.
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Ikuu said:
It doesn't really make it less automated at all, rather than login through Steam you'll make an account on the gambling site and then they could link this account to your Steam account through a bot.
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Everything EXCEPT for the actual trade of the goods is automated.
OpenID has been a part of the api for 3 and a half years, the Arms Deal update was more recent than that, so don't give me 'oh it's been happening since before the openID stuff was added' - crates and keys literally weren't in the game until 6 months AFTER OpenID was available to use.

Inventory crawling and OpenID to verify goods are literally the two most important steps of this process and are 100% automated. The trade is automated too, through valve's pisspoor lack of security in terms of just making throwaway bot accounts (most companies don't find it THAT hard to stop this en masse and ban these obvious bots, instead of letting them thrive).

There is a huge difference between asking a player to manually try to say "Hey I've got Item X" and have the site verify it manually, to then trading manually , THEN gambling. The first two parts being automated by steam and the last part being easily automated by the sites is the entire reason this shitstorm works.


EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying you can't gamble without this shit, you obviously can. You can gamble in completely analog fashion offline if you want too, but the automation is what makes it accessible and easy. It's like an auction house/marketplace as we know them in steam and MMOs compared to say, Diablo 2 trading. NIGHT AND DAY in terms of how much work the end user has to put forth, and therefore how much potential reach it has.
 
Cromwell said:
Lol at anyone saying "good on them" or whatever. They only did this because of the PR pressure, they got caught and their hand was forced.
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Caught with what? I still haven't seen anything that indicates Valve specifically helping gambling sites. The might have turned a blind eye towards them but it is not like inaction is very unlike Valve.
 
tebunker said:
This times 1000, this is them finally saying, if we don't do something we can be considered implicit in illegal gambling. Granted this may not totally cover their asses, but it is a show of good faith.

The issue I have is why the hell they let it go on this long? I mean why did it take some scheme being exposed? Oh I know, Valve made money and benefited from the whole scene so as long as no one got hurt they were cool.
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To be fair I'd followed the betting scene in Dota 2 back when it was just betting items on tournament matches (and your payout determined on how many items you put up, like a bunch of commons wouldn't guarantee as good a payout as putting up one rare) but the idea that some of these sites started doing these bets where it's a pool of skins or one on one or whatever and it's entirely generated by a random number generator. (Or weighted in your favor, if you're sponsored by the site!)


Like at least betting some items on a tournament match it's a more involved process because you can watch said tournament, gauge based on teams' previous performances and make a somewhat informed decision, instead of clicking a button and going "Welp, there go my items." Yeah, it's still betting, and it's a catch-all in this situation, but that nature of betting on tournaments isn't nearly as bad as these stupid entirely RNG bets that the sites started doing. Not to mention Valve isn't responsible for people wanting to cash the items out into real money via the affiliate links on said betting websites.

They'd want the person who wants that item for whatever ridiculous sum to buy it for that ridiculous sum via the Steam community marketplace, not via Paypal on a third party website.
 
Whales said:
what?

as soon as they got hit with that lawsuit they decided to "shut down" those gambling sites

looks like valve sped their ass up because of the law... because you know that without the lawsuit they wouldn't have given a shit.
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"As soon as"? To my knowledge its been 3 weeks since the lawsuit was filed.

Did they do something before today about these gambling sites that I haven't heard about?

Today was the first time I think they've even mentioned the issue. Even from a corporate perspective, it should only take at max a week of having meetings and fact checking to find out that these things are in breach of their API contract.
 
Well I guess that might get Valve off the hook - doesn't really mean much for the gambling sites though especially as they'll just automate what they'll have to do manually now that the API access has gone.

ps3ud0 8)
 
I guess that's as fast as Valve can react when their laissez-faire approach to everything might get them in murky legal waters, or might give them a bad look.
 
Lactose_Intolerant said:
I don't know, but that is what Jasper Ward said, one of the lawyers representing the people suing Valve. Now obviously he has a reason for blaming them.



It helps grow counter-strike?
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They said they do not have a business relationship with them also. These guys creating gambling websites was just a byproduct of Valve releasing the api so people can trade items.

Give people an inch and they will take a mile. They took that mile by finding a loophole to gain money without Valve's consent.

Sadly, Valve is 100% at fault by not shutting this down sooner.
 
Nice that they came to the tough decision that they shouldn't facilitate child gambling.

Next step is cracking down on mobile games advertised to kids that are really dressed-up, glorified slot machines.
 
TheYanger said:
Everything EXCEPT for the actual trade of the goods is automated.
OpenID has been a part of the api for 3 and a half years, the Arms Deal update was more recent than that, so don't give me 'oh it's been happening since before the openID stuff was added' - crates and keys literally weren't in the game until 6 months AFTER OpenID was available to use.

Inventory crawling and OpenID to verify goods are literally the two most important steps of this process and are 100% automated. The trade is automated too, through valve's pisspoor lack of security in terms of just making throwaway bot accounts (most companies don't find it THAT hard to stop this en masse and ban these obvious bots, instead of letting them thrive).

There is a huge difference between asking a player to manually try to say "Hey I've got Item X" and have the site verify it manually, to then trading manually , THEN gambling. The first two parts being automated by steam and the last part being easily automated by the sites is the entire reason this shitstorm works.


EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying you can't gamble without this shit, you obviously can. You can gamble in completely analog fashion offline if you want too, but the automation is what makes it accessible and easy. It's like an auction house/marketplace as we know them in steam and MMOs compared to say, Diablo 2 trading. NIGHT AND DAY in terms of how much work the end user has to put forth, and therefore how much potential reach it has.
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Inventory crawling is entirely possible without OpenID. Significantly harder sure, but it's still a fairly straightforward and solvable one time problem. I'm still not sure what your argument is. That Valve shouldn't have created an API for inventories at all? Having sites like Dota/CSGO Lounge (eSports betting aspects aside) are way better for traders than constant spamming of every available chat channel trying to set up trades.
 
dave is ok said:
Ugh.

This is such a gross mischaracterization of Valve.





They don't make hats anymore, they outsource that work to the community and take a 30% cut.
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They make Immortal hats and add sparklies to community hats.

iirc half the staff is working on VR related stuff
 
Permanently A said:
Doesn't Japan have those arcades where you spend money and win tokens that can be cashed in for dumb trinkets, but conveniently next door you can sell the tokens for cash? How legally gray is that? Since you can essentially do the same thing with steam wallet funds.
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Shhh valves honour must be defended!
 
Dargor said:
It just did.

They are only doing this because it blew up on their face and now there is a lawsuit coming.
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I'm not saying Valve never does anything, just that they take about as long as possible BEFORE doing anything.

I will grant you that this is a surprisingly speedy response by their standards.
 
Pff. Over 5 years to do something about this? Nice try valve. You're perfectly fine raking in the advantages of these companies operating until it hits the news and people see you in the bad light they should.
 
collige said:
Inventory crawling is entirely possible without OpenID. Significantly harder sure, but it's still a fairly straightforward and solvable one time problem. I'm still not sure what your argument is. That Valve shouldn't have created an API for inventories at all?
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That they should try to stop people from using them for shit like this? Nice strawman. It's not like they're shutting these apis off now with this letter, so presumably they could do THE EXACT SAME THING years ago when it started to become a problem. They didn't because they didn't give two fucks about these shitlords exploiting their userbase, because valve made a quick buck off of it all.

Permanently A said:
Doesn't Japan have those arcades where you spend money and win tokens that can be cashed in for dumb trinkets, but conveniently next door you can sell the tokens for cash? How legally gray is that? Since you can essentially do the same thing with steam wallet funds.
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More importantly, would pachinko get away with it in every other country with gambling laws that valve operates in? (answer is no). And you're right that they're the same.
 
If you're someone who believes that Valve 'just discovered' this information and wasn't willfully refusing to act on it because it helped their bottom line* then I've got a bridge to sell you. They know exactly who is using their APIs and for what purposes.

* (obviously they don't profit from the sites directly, but it gets more people playing CS and buying/selling inside their ecosystem) *
 
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